Walking Away
What to know: New public school enrollment data reveals a significant year-over-year drop. From 2025 to 2026, the number of students attending Texas public schools decreased by more than 76,000 kids, “the largest non-COVID-19 related drop in more than 40 years.”
The TPPF take: If public schools are teaching fewer students, then administrators should be spending fewer tax dollars.
“Enrollment at public schools is markedly down this year, as parents and students pursue alternative education opportunities. This new reality should prompt trustees and administrators to spend less and adopt smaller budgets,” says TPPF’s James Quintero. “School districts that serve fewer Texans should rightsize their budgets and operations.”
For more on school enrollment, click here.
Rat Boys
What to know: What’s a “rat boy,” and why are they having a cultural moment?
The TPPF take: A “rat boy” is a boy who has angular features, expressive eyes, a certain wiry unpredictability—“rat-like,” as the internet so generously labeled it.
“Like fashion and art, the ‘ideal attractive model’ rotates through cycles of popularity,” says TPPF’s Hannah Bruck. “The result is a culture in which people see not whole individuals, but fragments, pieces of an ideal self, pieces of an ideal partner. Attraction becomes less about discovery and more about recognition: Does this person match the template I have already decided I want?”
For more on Rat Boys, click here.
Training Teachers
What to know: Many states are now exploring alternative ways to recruit teachers.
The TPPF take: States should start with the failed teacher education model.
“It’s time to dismantle one of the most degraded sectors in American higher education: schools of education,” says TPPF’s Kate Bierly. “The colleges responsible for training and certifying the majority of our nation’s teachers have become factories for mediocrity and indoctrination. States have both the authority and obligation to replace these monolithic institutions by promoting better teacher-prep pathways that are already proving their worth across the nation.”
For more on teacher education, click here.