Who Doesn't Love a Good Parade?

Big lightbulbs, the end of an era, little Dr. P, and, of course, jade plants

Jun 15, 2025

As I drove across the Eastern half of the country last month, I passed close by Edison, New Jersey. Having grown up reading about Thomas Edison’s work in Menlo Park, I decided to take a break from the long drive and check it out. It did not disappoint! There’s not much to it, but the little museum was great, the docents knew their stuff, and it was cool to see the first street to have electric lights! I’ve been told that the Edison facility in Orange, NJ, is even better, but that will have to wait until I pass through again in the fall. This was a fun stop, and how often do you get to see a giant lightbulb?

I’m not going to comment on the DC parade, as the many memes that have already surfaced are funnier than anything I could come up with. OK, one comment: The video of the soldier holding the drone above his head as he walks by the viewing stand is just a perfect encapsulation of the entire thing. If you scripted that in a TV show, people would scoff at how obvious and silly it was. (Yes, I realize why they couldn’t fly drones around the president and most of his cabinet, but c’mon, it’s a very funny visual.)

The “Big, Beautiful Bill” continues to move forward in DC. It has major implications for education policy and advanced education, and I recently submitted written testimony to the relevant Senate Appropriations subcommittee arguing for some tweaks to the education funding (happy to share the document if you’d like to see it).

Prediction: Despite the Senate Republican posturing and the many problems people are finding in the House-passed legislation (e.g., it does include Medicare cuts), it will pass on a party-line vote. I’m becoming convinced that it isn’t a good bill and will do some real damage to the economy, but I disagree with pundits who say it will result in a huge voter backlash in 2026. That’s not how these things work anymore. There may be a backlash due to other factors, but Americans don’t pay close enough attention to legislation and its impact on their lives (plus, these impacts are often felt years later, making it difficult to connect the dots). I mean, remember how 2024 voters remembered all the money Pres. Biden shoveled into red states? Yeah, me neither.

The next issue, for reasons mentioned at the end of this issue, may be a couple of days delayed. That’s right, you’re probably going to get a special “American Semiquincentennial Edition!”

Thanks for reading Everyone Has a Plan - Jonathan Plucker’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my team’s work.

Something Short

Two short pieces to share this week. Scott Peters and I helped update NAGC’s position statement on closing excellence gaps. You can access this and other helpful position papers at https://nagc.org/position-statements.

I also penned this missive, which is a blog post on how we need to be much more assertive in advocating for federal policies that support advanced learning. Between my original submission of this piece and its posting, the Trump Administration proposed killing the Jacob Javits program, the only (very small) federal program that directly supports advanced education. Helping students achieve academic excellence is appealing across the political aisle, yet we once again find ourselves with little policy success at the federal level. IMHO, this is purely an advocacy shortfall. We can do better.

Something a Bit More Involved

Some bittersweet professional news: Back when I was a young, peach-fuzz-faced professor at Indiana University, several students pushed me to create a web site that shared my historical work on the study of human intelligence. Tim Green and John Monson were especially encouraging and helpful as we created the site and packed it full of information.

It quickly became a big group project, with students from across the School pitching in. We started with a map of influences of the major thinkers and eventually added brief bios of the major thinkers, summaries of controversial issues, a collection of relevant syllabi, and video interviews with contemporary scholars. The site heavily influenced my textbook on human intelligence, written with Amber Esping (co-director of content for many years).

We first launched around 1998, and over the years it was visited millions of times, with tens of million of page views. Visitors came from all over the world!

Interestingly, there was a point in my career when, upon meeting someone for the first time, if they knew my work at all it was due to this web site. Which is rather funny now, as most people today have no idea I worked on it.

It has become much harder in recent years to find students who want to work on the site, and the content was getting stale. It truly had become a historical document. So I made the decision last week to archive the site and remove it from the internet. It was not an easy decision, but after over 25 years … it was time.

A few quick stories leap to mind. I remember writing the eminent psychologist John Carroll to ask for his input. He sent back a detailed, 10-page letter full of insights and anecdotes about his work and the study of intelligence. Contrast that to Raymond Cattell, also a famous psychologist, who sent back a two-sentence response: Scholars whose work on intelligence should be included … and those whose work should not!

There were other personal interactions I’ll never forget. Amber interviewed Jack Horn at USC shortly before he died. His family later requested a copy of the video, which they cherished. The daughter of another famous psychologist wrote us a threatening email, saying that the content on her late father’s page was defamatory and ordering us to take it down. My response was that the material in question was provided by (1) her father and (2) two of her siblings (I gently suggested that perhaps her displeasure would be best discussed over Thanksgiving dinner; we never heard back).

My heartfelt appreciation to Tim, John, Amber, Young Chang (technical director for many years), Ming Ma, and the dozens of students and colleagues who contributed to the site over nearly 30 years. I’m especially grateful to the scholars who contributed their thoughts, time, and photos to improve the cite, and the many funders who chipped in over the years to support our efforts.

(Note: The “from Dr. Jonathan Plucker” line feels weird. But the tech director added it when we moved it from university servers to a private hosting site. Apologies for the weirdness!)

Some Things That Intrigued Me

There’s so much going on right now that it’s a little overwhelming. Which is saying something, given how overwhelming the entire year has been to date. You’ve probably read more than enough commentary on the issues of the day, so I’m focusing on three things that have stuck with me.

Techno-Industrial Policy Playbook. This is very wonky, but there is so much good grist for the mill in this collection of white papers. I may feature some of the individual papers in future issues, but it’s worth skimming the titles to see if anything interests you. More of this type of thing, please!

Screed against ranked-choice voting. I’ve recommended this newsletter before, and this is another provocative piece. It’s a light screed, but a screed, nonetheless. Annie Lowrey takes ranked-choice to task in several ways, but she does that thing that drives me crazy in think pieces: Here’s why this innovation won’t work, but I’m not going to propose any solutions to the problem the innovation is trying to address. In this case, if she doesn’t like ranked-choice voting, then what’s her solution to primary elections where the winner gets well under a majority of the votes (presumably promoting extreme positions)? I give her points, though, for noting issues with ranked-choice voting. Still, not a convincing case.

Mark McCourt blog post. I don’t agree with everything in this essay entitled, “We Taught It, They Forgot It, We Moved On,” but it’s thought-provoking and a fun read.

Some Things I Found to be Cool

Best student gift ever? One of my doctoral students, Fangfang Cai, recently gave me this wonderful gift: A little Dr. P! It will soon take the place of all of my profile pics and promotional headshots. Pretty sure the family is already tired of receiving messages of me voicing over a video of Little Dr. P. Like all good dad humor, I find this hysterical and don’t plan to stop doing it anytime soon. If you’d like a personalized text video from Little Dr. P, just let me know. 非常感谢, Fangfang!

Apple TV+ debuts trailer for “Murderbot ...

Murderbot … is awesome. It’s not what you think from the title; check out the trailer and you’ll see what I mean. The short episodes always leave you wanting more. Probably the best new show of the early summer.

Ocean Vuong’s NYT photo essay. His new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, is getting rave reviews, but I still haven’t read On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous so am holding off on the new book. In the meantime, his photo essay for the New York Times is excellent and highly recommended.

Another funny fireworks display! Go back to the last issue and check out the fireworks display I found in a Target in Virginia. Now compare it to the display in a Lowe’s in Connecticut. I find it wonderfully apt that in Target the vibe is, “Please don’t do something stupid!” Yet in Lowe’s the team is all, “When something stupid happens, just put out the fire.”

Jade Plant of the Month

Look at this beautiful “Shrek’s Ear” jade, soaking up the late afternoon, summer sun! This is my most successful specimen of this variety, often called Ogre’s ear jade. They can by persnickety, in my experience. But this one has had lots of TLC and loves its little perch in a southwest-facing window.

I struggle to get this jade variety to keep looking so full as it grows, as these jades tend to stalk out and look like Truffula trees from The Lorax. That’s not what we’re going for here, and the pruning will have to be precise. A good jade challenge!

Recent and Upcoming Events

I was honored to speak at researchED Toronto last weekend. My audience was small but enthusiastic, with several attendees following up afterwards to get additional resources. Toronto is a fun city, and I was able to see one of my good friends, Boyd Hegarty, and his fiancee, Shannon. A fun, productive trip! If you’d like a copy of the slides and the packet of additional resources that I’ve been sharing with attendees, just let me know. Special thanks to Dr. Nidhi Sachdeva, the conference chair who extended the kind invitation to participate. Nidhi also works with Dr. Jim Hewitt on the Science of Learning Substack newsletter, which I highly recommend.

It’s almost time for policy camp! Each summer, the new cohort in the Johns Hopkins Master’s Program in Education Policy meets in DC for a few days of meetings, lots of guest speakers, and activities on Capitol Hill. It’s the major program event each year, and a lot of work goes into it. We have great speakers again this year, and if you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot going on in DC right now. Graduates of the program are always welcome to attend, and a number are planning to be there this year. It will be a lot of fun! Because the event runs the evening of June 28th through midday on July 1st, the next issue of this newsletter will likely be delayed a few days.