Education
Century-Old Harvard Records Show How Social Connections Help the Elite
A study co-authored by Yale SOM’s Seth Zimmerman, drawing on a trove of archival student records, suggests that membership in exclusive clubs propelled students from the top prep schools to higher incomes, while good grades did little to lift other students into the top-earning tier.
Weakening Unions Can Lead to Gender Gap in Wages
In 2011, legislation in Wisconsin reduced the power of unions to negotiate teachers’ salaries. Within five years, male teachers started earning more than women did.
![Teachers protesting Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's proposal to eliminate collective bargaining for state workers, in 2010. Photo: Mark Hirsch/Getty Images.]()
Leading Hartford Back to School
This week, students in the Hartford Public Schools, one of the largest districts in Connecticut, returned to the classroom for the first time since March. We talked to Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez about the challenges she has faced and the possibility of lasting change.
![Hartford Public Schools Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez (bottom right) and other school leaders talk with a family on their second-floor porch in the district in June 2020. AP Photo/Jessica Hill.]()
Training Girls for the Building Trades, Virtually
Demi Knight Clark, founder of She Built This City, describes how she remade a nonprofit that teaches hands-on buildings skills for a world forced to go virtual.
![An illustration of girls and women learning trades and 3-D printing masks for healthcare workers]()
Equalizing School Spending Boosts Lifelong Income
School finance reforms that equalize spending across rich and poor neighborhoods improve the long-term economic outcomes of disadvantaged children.
![Third-grade students with their teacher in a Washington, D.C., classroom. Photo: Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images.]()
Can Civics Education Repair a Failing Democracy?
Louise Dubé ’88 of the nonprofit iCivics argues that engagement in civic life requires skills that many schools no longer teach.
![Students recite the Preamble to the Constitution during a naturalization ceremony at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., in 2017. Photo: Jeff Reed/National Archives/Flickr]()
The Power Pod: A Conversation on Closing Achievement Gaps with Neil Lewis Jr.
A conversation with Professor Neil Lewis Jr., Assistant Professor of Communications and Psychology at Cornell University.
![Evans Hall]()
Does Performance-Based Pay Improve Teaching?
Yale SOM economist Barbara Biasi studied what actually happened when some school districts in Wisconsin started paying partly based on effectiveness.
![A teacher in a classroom.]()
Three Questions: Prof. Barbara Biasi on Teacher Pay
We asked Barbara Biasi, a labor economist with a focus on education, about this year’s teachers' strikes and the wider implications of how we compensate teachers.
What’s the Value of Higher Education?
Have political and fiscal debates about higher education lost sight of the value of education for individuals and society?
![Entrance gate]()
What Will It Take to Fix Public Education?
Are we making progress toward a better and more equitable education system? Yale Insights talked with former secretary of education John King, now president and CEO of the Education Trust.
![Students in a classroom]()
