Ben Lebovitz
banner
balebo.bsky.social
Ben Lebovitz
@balebo.bsky.social
Ph.D. Student | University of Wisconsin-Madison 🌈🏫
Education, Policy, and Politics. 🎶🎭🍷🪴
Attending #APPAM2025?
I’m excited to present the first paper from an emerging project documenting the Trump administration’s unlawful erasure of data, information, and resources across federal agencies.

Hope to see you on Saturday morning! 👋
November 14, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.
July 3, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
In case you missed it in the deluge of depravity, the Supreme Court ruled that parents can opt out kids out of lessons on religious grounds. Which will likely lead not only to opt-outs but to a constriction of curriculum, a culture of surveillance, and more teacher shortages in public schools.
It might not seem like a big deal to let parents opt kids out of LGBTQ books. But opt-outs put a HUGE burden on educators to provide advance notice of every book. To avoid that burden, educators may simply avoid LGBTQ books. Effectively eliminating them from schools.

share.google/yIHGIEmml5ZC...
Supreme Court set to rule on if Maryland parents can opt kids out of LGBTQ books in school
The Supreme Court is set to determine whether public schools can legally refuse to give parents the right to pull their children from lessons on LGBTQ topics.
share.google
June 27, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
June 10, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
An extraordinary separate dissent from Justice Jackson accuses the majority of trying to pass off its dirty work under the cover of the shadow docket and explicitly invokes Korematsu, the Japanese internment case. Wow. www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...
April 7, 2025 at 11:06 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
AEFP and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Demolition of IES. www.citizen.org/news/lawsuit...
April 4, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Served as the “chief” election official for my ward / polling place in WI tonight (my fourth election as chief inspector) and got to spend some quality time with city officials as the result of a wild (party-affiliated) election observer.
April 2, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
In a new letter, AERA and other education research leaders call on Congress to protect the nation’s education data, research infrastructure, and knowledge base, by safeguarding the IES and broader Education Department staff, leadership, and mission. www.aera.net/Portals/38/E...
March 26, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Excited to see @ucea-leadership.bsky.social publish this "Executive Action Tracker" of changes impacting the education landscape.

Grateful to have this new resource, hosted by a professional organization (!), addressing current needs in educational policy & leadership.

www.ucea.org/executive_ac...
Executive Action Tracker - University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA)
www.ucea.org
March 21, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
When I wrote my camps book, people sometimes had difficulty understanding how concentration-camp regimes were proud of what they were doing and wanted attention for it, even as they also hoped to keep many aspects secret and terrorize vulnerable classes. Anyway, this is what that looks like.
Leavitt: "We are encouraging illegal immigrants to actively self-deport to maybe save themselves from being in one of these fun videos."
March 17, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
AERA has just learned that all restricted-use NCES data licenses will be cancelled, possibly as early as March 20. We urgently request that all AERA members and others in the research community with restricted-use licenses take these two actions: www.aera.net/Research-Pol...
March 14, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
Not to be dramatic (but somehow not dramatic enough)
March 12, 2025 at 1:19 AM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
Most people are not political scientists using formal definitions. So I am curious when is the moment that people tell themselves "oh, I live under an authoritarian government now." Because what else is this?
www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
March 4, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
The final vote: 51-45, with 4 people absent.

CLOTURE FAILS, A CONGRESSIONAL SPORTS BAN WILL NOT HAPPEN.

Democrats hold firm, not a single dem voted for cloture.

MAJOR victory for everyone who called in today and this week in support of trans people.
March 4, 2025 at 12:04 AM
🤗
So proud of all the service Ben does for our professional associations! Thanks for highlighting some of it! @aeraedresearch.bsky.social @divisionagsc.bsky.social @ucea-leadership.bsky.social @uceagsc.bsky.social @uwmadison.bsky.social @balebo.bsky.social
🌟 GSC Spotlight 🌟

Meet Benjamin Lebovitz (they/he), our Junior Rep for AERA Division A! A doctoral student at UW-Madison, Ben’s research focuses on education policy and LGBTQ+ student & educator identity, wellbeing, and belonging. 🏳️‍🌈📚

Proud to have them on our team!

#AERA #EdPolicy #LGBTQinEd
March 1, 2025 at 10:35 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
📢 Join the UCEA GSC and AERA LSI's Researcher Development Program next month to hear from Dr. Alex Bowers on Exploring Public Open Education Data & Code using FAIR Data Frameworks in Education!
1/3
February 27, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
NEW: Peggy Carr, commissioner of the Nat'l Center on Education Statistics and a two-decade+ veteran at Educ Dept, was abruptly put on leave today. She runs NAEP, the national math and reading tests seen as important marker of educational progress www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Courts rule on Trump administration initiatives including DOGE, DEI
The latest news on President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and the new Congress.
www.washingtonpost.com
February 24, 2025 at 11:11 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
In this op-ed, we - the presidents of SREE and AEFP - joined forces to argue for the importance of evidence on "what works" and how cutting such funding is not "efficient" - it is wasteful. www.brookings.edu/articles/cut...
Cutting research funding would make education less effective and efficient
Presidents of education research associations explain the impacts of recent funding cuts to the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).
www.brookings.edu
February 24, 2025 at 10:23 PM
YEEEESS congratulations!!! 🎉

Can’t wait to visit you in Philly!!
February 20, 2025 at 10:34 PM
I’ve been thinking about everyone’s favorite movie “Don’t Look Up” and have no notes for whoever’s running the current simulation we’re all thriving in.
cnn.com CNN @cnn.com · Feb 19
A recently discovered asteroid, named 2024 YR4, is now the riskiest asteroid ever detected. NASA has calculated that the space rock has a 3.1% chance of hitting Earth in 2032, while the European Space Agency's risk assessment sits at 2.8%.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 has the ‘highest impact probability’ ever recorded, but that’s likely to change | CNN
The chance of asteroid 2024 YR4 colliding with Earth in 2032 is higher. Experts expect the risk percentage to fluctuate before likely dropping to zero. Here’s why.
cnn.it
February 20, 2025 at 10:28 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
This is the current CDC webpage for the most recent YRBS. www.cdc.gov/yrbs/results...

A word of advice: Pay attention to the trends reported in the blue box. This is more important than ever... partly because of what is written in the yellow box!

Support LGBTQ+ youth! 🏳️‍🌈

Support data! 📊
February 15, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
What these nihilistic vandals are doing to dismantle science & medicine—generations of expertise & public service & life improving benefits—is cultural revolution level national self harm. No foreign foe could inflict such brutal damage & senseless suffering on US so fast & effectively & unresisted.
February 15, 2025 at 4:10 AM
Reposted by Ben Lebovitz
they are stealing data from the american people and depriving us of the transparency that we are entitled to by law. none of this is legal and not a single federal employee has any reason to comply.
February 1, 2025 at 12:02 AM