As we begin the new year, I’ve been digging out from an inbox stuffed with missives from advocates sharing their angst at the state of things (you know, “As we contemplate the terrifying possibilities that await us in Trump’s America . . .”). In talking to progressive colleagues and education audiences, I’m struck by their recurring anxiety.

Me? I don’t see it. Instead, I find myself feeling remarkably hopeful about what’s in store for 2025, like the nation may be starting to shake off a long bender.

Now, I’m usually not known for my good cheer. And since trepidation is pervasive in education, people seem surprised by my sanguinity. When I say, “Actually, I’m pretty upbeat about this year,” it prompts a lot of questions. In the spirit of new beginnings, I’ll try to explain. Maybe I’ll even spread a bit of serenity.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get why some people around education would feel down. Student performance is abysmal, chronic absenteeism is through the roof, and higher education is a hot mess. But it mostly seems to be the bigger-picture stuff that’s weighing on people’s minds, and I get that, too. I’m no great fan of Donald Trump, I don’t want RFK Jr. in the cabinet, and I think there are way too many toxic grifters on the very online right. Our politics and media are still deeply polarized (even if most Americans aren’t). Social media is a sewer. People spend too little time interacting in person and too much time on their phones, and that goes double for school-age youth.

And then there’s simmering distrust of media, science, higher education, and . . .

Bear with me. Now we’re onto what’s got me feeling upbeat.

Like I said, there’s simmering distrust of media, science, and higher education. It’s the well-deserved and overdue consequence of having traded professional restraint for performative activism (on behalf of the #Resistance, Covid virtue signaling, or what-have-you). Fortunately, there are hints that the more self-aware members of these fraternities are having second thoughts about politicized invocations of “science” and casual allegations of bigotry and may be feeling freer to question reigning orthodoxies.

More generally, I feel like we’ve dodged a bullet. Two months ago, one of our two major parties was pledging to end the filibuster—and, with the departures of Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, looked like it would have the unified support of its Senate caucus to do so. That would have lit the match on a bonfire of tit-for-tat constitutional arson that could’ve soon blazed out of control. Moreover, after four years of crickets while the president launched illegal schemes or engaged in divisive rhetoric, the legacy media, unions, and public interest groups are now keen on rediscovering the virtues of checks and balances.

Trump’s increasingly multiracial coalition, featuring historically high GOP support among Latino, Asian, and Black voters, has taken the edge off our racialized politics. Broad support for policing, immigration enforcement, parental rights, and school choice is shifting American politics back to a healthy center, after the wild pendulum swings following Trump’s first win and Covid.

In education, it feels like 2024 has seen simple truths slowly come back into vogue: that we’re failing our students, that results matter, that the science of reading is a good thing, that it was lunacy for anyone ever to dismiss the importance of discipline and hard work, and that fashionable campus jargon doesn’t help educators connect with their communities. It’s heartening to see extended school closures authoritatively recognized for the catastrophic failure they were, teen cell phone usage deemed an unhealthy addiction, and a steady trickle of schools and colleges gingerly backing away from progressive fixations like “Latinx” and land-larceny acknowledgments.

DEI statements are in retreat, with leading universities finally acknowledging that mandatory loyalty oaths to “social justice” dogma are a lousy way to foster free inquiry. Meanwhile, an encouraging number of colleges and universities are embracing “institutional neutrality” and exploring ways to foment genuine dialogue and reflection on campus. There’s a growing bipartisan conviction that colleges need to be accountable to students and taxpayers. Many of these trends may have required a lot of pressure from irate donors and wrathful Republican officials but, you know . . . whatever it takes.

The past 15 months have shone a ferocious spotlight on the cultural rot that had infiltrated so many college campuses. In response, university officials have tightened rules around disruption and (more importantly) started to enforce the ones on the books. There’s heightened scrutiny of the ways foreign agents are seeking to use America’s colleges and universities to promote division on behalf of hostile regimes in China or Iran.

And it feels like the fever is breaking around the Orwellian dogmas that have suffused debates around gender, youth, and schooling (yielding such oddities as the insistence that school closures were grounded in “science” but human biology isn’t). Over the past year, I’ve seen a greater willingness to talk frankly about the evidence: whether biological males belong on women’s sports teams, and whether schools need to inform parents when educators think a child suffers from gender dysphoria. The habit of dismissing concerned parents or policymakers as bigots is giving way to more honest discussion of how best to respect the rights and dignity of every individual in a school community.

Whether these shifts are due to political opportunism, hard lessons learned, or just the cyclical back-and-forth of the pendulum, it strikes me that the nation is starting the new year on a healthier, more genuinely tolerant, more sensible note than it has in a while. While this is good for all of us, it’s especially so for those who spend their time in and around schools and colleges. And that’s got me in a cheery mood indeed.

Here’s to wishing you and yours a very happy 2025.

Frederick Hess is an executive editor of Education Next and the author of the blog “Old School with Rick Hess.”