Travis Pillow

Travis Pillow is Director of Thought Leadership at Step Up For Students and editor of NextSteps. He lives in Sanford, Fla. with his wife and two children. A former Tallahassee statehouse reporter, he most recently worked at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research organization at Arizona State University, where he studied community-led learning innovation and school systems' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. He can be reached at tpillow (at) sufs.org.

12/04/23 | Travis Pillow

Shielding schools from competition comes with a cost

When educational options expand, there’s usually a big set of beneficiaries that don’t get much attention: Students who remain in district schools. It’s one of the most consistent findings in...

12/03/23 | Travis Pillow

Get Smart Fast, vol. 21

Key Finding: More competition does not appear to improve results if schools are insulated from the impact of losing students, according to a new study that examined the introduction of...

11/26/23 | Travis Pillow

Get Smart Fast, vol. 20

Key Finding #1: A Georgia preschool program improved students’ kindergarten readiness, but the academic benefits appeared to fade, and sometimes even reverse, by late elementary school. Why it matters: This...

11/19/23 | Travis Pillow

Get smart fast, vol. 19

The most common method for identifying students with dyslexia involves tests that detect a “discrepancy” between a student’s IQ and their reading performance. It’s discredited, but still widely used, leaving...

11/13/23 | Travis Pillow

Illinois’s ignominious first could uproot thousands of scholarship students

Barring a Hail Mary this spring, Illinois’s five-year run as a blue-state bastion of educational options will end after the current school year. This is the first defeat of its...

11/12/23 | Travis Pillow

Get Smart Fast, vol. 18

Educators can be trained, certified and spend years on the job without ever encountering what science says about how young people learn. Scientists are trying. The 2014 bestseller “Make It...

11/10/23 | Travis Pillow

What’s going on with homeschooling numbers?

For the past several years, the story of American homeschooling has been a narrative sorely lacking reliable numbers. Last week, The Washington Post filled the void with the first carefully...

11/08/23 | Travis Pillow

Fla. lawmakers unanimously boost special needs scholarship funding

The Florida House and Senate unanimously backed bills designed to make sure any student who wants an education choice scholarship for students with unique abilities can get one. House Bill...

11/05/23 | Travis Pillow

Get Smart Fast, vol. 17

The New Yoker‘s Emma Green digs into the problems with teacher licensure exams and the controversy surrounding the ways they disproportionately block educators of color from entering the profession. It’s...

11/03/23 | Travis Pillow

Better with age? Study shows ‘maturation’ of Florida school choice programs boosts public school results

The longer Florida’s private school scholarship programs operated, the bigger the benefits for students in public schools. That’s the headline finding from a new study published this week in the...

10/29/23 | Travis Pillow

Get smart fast, vol. 16

A new teacher survey published by EdChoice finds growing pessimism with the state of the profession. Less than one in five teachers are likely to promote the profession to others....

10/27/23 | Travis Pillow

The weirdness and diversity of microschools is a feature, not a bug

If there was any doubt about where microschools currently stand in the hype cycle, critics on the left are now being joined by worriers on the right. Daniel Buck of...

10/22/23 | Travis Pillow

Get smart fast, vol. 15

On the rise of “snowplow parenting” in the English-speaking world: Over the previous decade, schools across the UK and the US had already been seeing a steady rise in parent...

10/21/23 | Travis Pillow

Charter schools and unbundling: Now a real possibility in Florida

Last week, hundreds of Florida charter school educators convened in Orlando for the state’s annual charter school conference. One hot topic was HB 1, the new state legislation that made...

10/18/23 | Travis Pillow

At long last, Florida has a statewide charter school commission

Decades of efforts to create a new path for Florida charter schools have finally come to fruition. The state Board to Education voted today to appoint a seven-member state Charter...

10/14/23 | Travis Pillow

Get smart fast, vol. 14

Proposed education R&D efforts often have a fatal flaw: They take the existing system for granted. There has to be a better way. Addressing the near-universal, post-COVID view that K–12...

10/13/23 | Travis Pillow

Texas takes a big swing for education choice

All eyes are on the Texas House of Representatives after the state Senate passed a bill that would make education choice scholarships available to all Lone Star State students. SB...

10/11/23 | Travis Pillow

More than 100,000 new students: Breaking down the historic growth in Florida school choice scholarships

Florida is making school choice history this year, awarding more than 455,000 scholarships to help students access education options of their choice. These big numbers are catching lots of attention,...

10/10/23 | Travis Pillow

Mind the facts about school district enrollment declines

A Jacksonville television station has a story tying enrollment declines in local public schools to the growth of Florida’s newly universal education choice scholarship programs. There’s a problem with this...

10/08/23 | Travis Pillow

Get smart fast, vol. 13

Don’t believe the hype about the declining value of college. Despite the bad vibes around higher education, the fastest-growing occupations that do not require a college degree are mostly low-wage service...