MIT tends to produce a certain type of person. Not only are they technically proficient, but they are also constitutionally skeptical—trained to challenge presumptions, reject consensus for its own sake, and reach conclusions via a method rather than an emotion. Whether or not Thomas Massie is flattered by that description, it helps to explain him. Growing up in an Appalachian community in Vanceburg, Kentucky, where his father operated a beer distributorship, Massie’s aspirations weren’t necessarily focused on Cambridge, Massachusetts. However, he was able to attend MIT, where he graduated with a Master of Science in mechanical engineering in 1996 and…
Author: Kelsey Myers
Kelsey Myers
Kelsey Myers is a Senior Editor at worldomep.org and a dedicated advocate for early childhood education whose work begins — and ends — with a simple belief: that the earliest years of a child's life matter more than almost anything else we can invest in. Based at a local school, Kelsey works daily alongside the children and families whose experiences inform everything she writes. She doesn't observe early education from a distance. She is inside it — in the classrooms, on the playgrounds, in the conversations between teachers and parents that shape how young children understand the world around them. That proximity gives her writing a warmth and specificity that purely policy-driven commentary rarely achieves. Through her writing at worldomep.org, Kelsey brings that same energy to readers — making the case, clearly and consistently, that early childhood education deserves far more attention than it typically receives. Kelsey shares her personal opinions on: https://x.com/Butterflyboule
Read More
If you walk into any good preschool on a Tuesday morning, you’ll see something that is often overlooked. The space is noisy, a little disorganized, and yet somehow well-organized. While kneeling beside a child solving a puzzle, a teacher speaks in a calm, precise tone that is neither hurried nor patronizing. The teacher observes another child watching something outside by the window without becoming distracted. All of this is not an accident. The person in charge of that room most likely has a degree in early childhood education, and most people outside the field are unaware of how difficult the…
A student may spend part of the morning in an archery class and the remainder of the day in a literature course centered around conspiracy theories at a school in Monroe, Washington, which is tucked away along Short Columbia Street. It’s not overstated. For families who are familiar with it, Sky Valley Education Center, or SVEC, operates under a philosophy that most public schools lack the structure and motivation to try: let students design their own education, within reason, and see what happens. It turns out that the school has a 77% student graduation rate, a ninth-place Niche ranking among…
When laws intended to protect people suddenly protect the wrong person, a certain kind of institutional helplessness takes hold. This is essentially what has been happening in Washington County, Tennessee, where a school board member who has been accused of assault continues to attend meetings, sit at the same table, and hold official office. The Washington County Board of Education is in a position that no one in that room on April 2 could have predicted, or perhaps someone ought to have given what is now known about Keith Ervin’s past. The actual event was caught on camera. After she…
Watching an American city in 2026 send almost 200,000 students home because their school buildings can’t withstand a hot May day is somewhat damning. Not in August. May. This week, the Philadelphia School District announced that 57 schools would switch to online instruction due to a heat wave that hit the area with a level of intensity that felt more like a reckoning than the weather. It wasn’t totally unexpected. The district’s Deputy Superintendent of Operations, Oz Hill, wrote to families on Tuesday night in the cool, collected manner that officials typically employ when making announcements that are actually quite…
The contests for state school superintendent continue to be overlooked in the midst of a primary election cycle that is packed with Senate races, governor’s contests, and the usual din of national politics. When you consider it, that’s a peculiar thing. These individuals will decide on curricula, establish testing guidelines, oversee billions of dollars in education funding, and react when educators or parents object. They are not well-known. However, the decisions made by voters in these elections often end up in classrooms for years to come. Lydia Powell emerged victorious in Georgia’s Democratic primary on Tuesday night, garnering more than…
This week at Arnold High School in Panama City Beach, Florida, there was a specific type of Tuesday morning that nobody anticipated. On May 19, at around 11 a.m., rumors circulated throughout the building that a student had allegedly threatened to shoot up the school. In a matter of minutes, police arrived, the lockdown was announced, and dozens of parents started congregating outside on Alf Coleman Road, waiting for something beyond their control while standing in the Florida heat with their phones in hand. Unfortunately, this scene has become commonplace in high schools all over the nation. However, what transpired…
A version of Donovan Mitchell’s story exists in which he plays baseball. At Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, Mitchell is chasing down a pop-up in the infield when he collides with the catcher, breaking his jaw. Mitchell leaves with a broken wrist and, unbeknownst to him, an entirely different future. His baseball career as a sophomore is over. His planned AAU run has been canceled. His route to the NBA was unintentionally opened. The career stat lines and highlight reels tend to overlook this kind of information, but it is important. There are many of these subtle turning points…
Children are the future, which is where most discussions about children and sustainability begin. The planet will pass to them. We have to keep it safe for them. Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson has spent the better part of four decades meticulously and tenaciously outlining why this framing—which sounds generous and progressive—is precisely the wrong way to think about it. In addition to holding a UNESCO Chair in Early Childhood Education and Sustainable Development, Samuelsson is a senior professor at Gothenburg University in Sweden. From 2008 to 2014, he was the World President of OMEP, the World Organization for Early Childhood Education.…
Silicon Valley has perfected a certain kind of hypocrisy into a kind of art. The same engineers and executives who have dedicated their careers to creating products that are specifically made to draw and hold people’s attention—to make the swipe feel good, the notification irresistible, the autoplay seamless—have been discreetly and for years keeping those same products away from their own kids. Steve Jobs forbade his children from using iPads. Up until his kids were teenagers, Bill Gates answered the phone. Tim Cook forbids his nephew from using social media. No one knows what these devices actually do better than…