By some metrics, things are looking up for the Providence Public School District (PPSD). Students are coming to class more often. Their standardized test scores are rising. And more of them are graduating high school.

These are a few of the accomplishments the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) highlights in a released Friday 鈥� an epilogue to the agency鈥檚 intervention in the capital city鈥檚 public schools, which went under state control in 2019.

鈥淭he measurable progress made under the state intervention is undeniable,鈥� Education Commissioner Ang茅lica Infante-Green wrote in the introduction to the report. 鈥淧PSD has not only stabilized, but it is moving forward with real momentum.鈥�

On the other end of the takeover鈥檚 nearly seven-year timeline is a different report: A prepared by a team of researchers who documented a school system plagued by systemic issues 鈥� problems severe enough that the report garnered national attention when released.

Infante-Green writes in the introduction to her agency鈥檚 new report that its Johns Hopkins predecessor was a 鈥渉eartbreaking鈥� and 鈥渄evastating鈥� document, one that showcased 鈥渄eteriorating buildings, inconsistent curriculum, ineffective central-office practices, and systemic inequities that created barriers to the academic success for the district鈥檚 historically underserved students.鈥�

Some of the most tangible transformation in Providence has been made on that first bullet point: Six new or renovated schools opened during the intervention, compared to only one built in the 15 years prior to the takeover. According to the RIDE report, there are 14 additional school construction or renovation projects still underway or planned. Seven projects are slated for completion in the next two years, while the remainder have no projected completion date yet.

Overall, across all 20 projects finished and unfinished, the state鈥檚 contributions to capital improvement in the district could reach nearly $984.6 million 鈥� an investment buoyed by $665 million in school construction bonds approved by the city鈥檚 voters between 2020 and 2024.

A less flashy but still important quality-of-life improvement made during the takeover: A drinking fountain in all 37 of the district鈥檚 schools. The 鈥渂ubblers,鈥� RIDE鈥檚 report notes invoking a Rhode Island colloquialism, supply clean and filtered water for all schools, addressing the numerous reports of brown and often lead-contaminated water that poured from school taps back in 2019, per the Johns Hopkins report.

What the metrics say

Buildings improved during the takeover, but what was happening inside? RIDE鈥檚 new self-assessment gives a less concrete answer as to how much academics have improved since 2019.

Students鈥� math proficiency rose from 11.9% in 2019 to 16.4% in 2025. English language arts proficiency inched up, from 17.2% to 17.7%. Both numbers translate to more than four out of five Providence students remaining below grade-level expectations.

A four-year graduation rate of 79% in 2024, however, was the highest in district history, the report noted. The statewide rate that year was 84.1%.

Chronic absenteeism, which peaked at 57.1% during the 2021-22 school year, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, fell to 29.3% in 2024-25.

Pre-K capacity also increased during the takeover, from 352 available seats in 2019 to 940 in the 2025-2026 school year. Dual-language enrollment also grew, expanding into high schools and rising from 1,065 to 1,968 seats across grade levels in the district.

In a Monday email, Providence School Board President Ty鈥橰elle Stephens said the report 鈥渄id a strong job highlighting many of the accomplishments achieved during the state intervention,鈥� including 鈥渉istoric investment鈥� in facilities and expanded career and technical education (CTE) and dual language programs and offerings.

鈥淭hese are meaningful accomplishments that represent real progress for Providence students and families, and that progress deserves to be recognized,鈥� Stephens wrote.

Still, the academic data was not entirely celebratory for Stephens, who noted that most Providence students currently fail to meet grade-level expectations. Third-grade English Language Arts proficiency 鈥渞emains below where it was when the takeover began,鈥� he said.

Stephens also pointed out a somewhat deceptive statistic: 14.3% of the city鈥檚 high school juniors met or exceeded expectations on the SAT math exam last year. But that rate fell to 3.8% when excluding scores from Classical High School, which has consistently statewide in national ranking lists.

鈥極rganizational paralysis鈥�

RIDE鈥檚 report is also intended to serve as a blueprint for Providence leaders to build upon now that the district is back under local control.

Some of the sharper instructions from RIDE come near the end of the report, on page 51, which outlines 鈥淩oles and Responsibilities鈥� upon the district鈥檚 return to local control, which formally resumed July 1.

The 2019 Johns Hopkins report 鈥渃alled out overlapping spheres of authority among the mayor, superintendent, school board and union,鈥� RIDE recaps in its new report, adding that this helped inflict an 鈥渙rganizational paralysis鈥� on the district.

鈥淚t is critical that PPSD doesn鈥檛 return to a state of competing authority and organizational paralysis,鈥� the RIDE report reads, and references a declaratory order issued on June 30, the final day of state control.

The order bars Providence from reclaiming unspent money for its general fund, and it also specifies that only the superintendent 鈥� not the School Board 鈥� has the authority to appoint administrators in the district.

The order derived in part from a proposal from Stephens earlier in the year that would have eliminated a labor and employment counsel role at PPSD, and redirected those funds to two staff positions, a director and coordinator, who would report to the School Board.

The order did not give a final legal interpretation of Stephens鈥� proposal, citing 鈥渢he absence of a more complete evidentiary record,鈥� but added that 鈥渨ould appear to usurp the Superintendent鈥檚 express statutory powers.鈥�

鈥嬧�婽he recommendations in RIDE鈥檚 new report cites the declaratory order in its outline of shared authority going forward, but 鈥渋t is important to be clear that they are recommendations,鈥� Stephens wrote.

鈥淭hey are advisory and do not, on their own, carry the force of law,鈥� the school board president added. 鈥淣evertheless, the Board has taken them seriously. We developed a public transition dashboard and have already addressed, or begun addressing, many of them.鈥�

To sustain the district鈥檚 successes, RIDE鈥檚 report states the city must commit long-term funding 鈥� something that remained a big question for state officials when determining whether to relinquish control back to local officials.

Then-Providence-Mayor Jorge Elorza and the City Council the state in a court battle in 2021 over the city鈥檚 alleged underfunding of its schools, which ultimately led to the state securing a in 2024.

鈥淥ne area I would have welcomed more guidance on is the academic path forward,鈥� Stephens noted, adding that 鈥渃lear recommendations around accelerating student achievement and closing persistent opportunity and achievement gaps would be valuable鈥� to both the school board and the district.

Wrote Stephens: 鈥淸I]n the end, our success will not be measured simply by who governs Providence Public Schools, but by something far more important: whether our children are learning, whether they are thriving, and whether every student, in every neighborhood, has a genuine opportunity to reach their fullest potential.鈥�

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Rhode Island Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janine L. Weisman for questions: info@rhodeislandcurrent.com.

Taking a computer class at her Fayetteville, N.C., high school, she handed in a paper with the offending word: .

鈥淸The teacher] called me over, and she was like, 鈥業 don’t want to see you using AI,鈥� 鈥� the 16-year-old rising junior recalled. If she鈥檇 asked, Reaves would have said she didn鈥檛 use AI to write the piece 鈥� that鈥檚 just the way she talks.

鈥淪o it was kind of tense,鈥� said Reaves, 鈥渁nd I was definitely upset because she gave me a zero for that assignment.鈥� 

High school students, steeped for nearly the past four years in generative artificial intelligence, face this reality daily, attending class largely without a set of agreed-upon guidelines. Over the weekend, a small group of students came together to hammer out a few basic principles for the technology, something akin to an AI Bill of Rights.

Sponsored by a group that includes an and a national , 100 students from all 50 states gathered here to debate a first-of-its-kind set of recommendations, to be shared with district leaders nationwide as AI proliferates rapidly in the lives of both students and teachers.

The nonprofit , which brought the group together, didn鈥檛 make the final recommendations immediately available 鈥� they鈥檒l be released in coming weeks. But students told 社区黑料 in interviews they are concerned about a host of problems: cheating, transparency, hallucinations, cognitive offloading, mental health and environmental factors, among others.

Two students from every state debated and ultimately approved the recommendations by a Senate-style roll call vote on Sunday at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, a museum and conference center that features a of the U.S. Senate Chamber where Kennedy served from 1962 until his death in 2009.

Despite the democratic nature of the proceedings, Day of AI refused to grant 社区黑料 access over three days to any of the student debates, save for the closing speeches and final vote. 

The organization also clamped down on the text of the proposal, refusing to release a draft that students spent nearly three days discussing freely.

By the time of Sunday鈥檚 debate and final vote, nearly 100 students sat in replicas of U.S. senators鈥� seats, paging through their copies of the bill as staff members and security personnel closely guarded the proceedings. A reporter who picked up a stray copy of the bill on an upholstered bench had the paper quickly snatched away by a staffer, while another swept the area for more copies, gathering them up and tucking them under an arm.

During the proceedings, a few participants called the proposal flawed or incomplete and even, at times, incoherent 鈥� one student referred to it as 鈥渁 block of Swiss cheese.鈥� But in the end he voted 鈥淵ea.鈥� In all, 83 students approved the measure, with 15 opposed 鈥� two students weren鈥檛 present for the final vote.

鈥業t鈥檚 an easy way out鈥�

In the students鈥� conception, Al literacy instruction should be mandatory as soon as they start using devices in the classroom. The lessons should focus not just on appropriate academic use but on misinformation, plagiarism, bias in Al systems, privacy, environmental impacts and how Al really works.

Ethan Liu, 17, a recent high school graduate from Morgantown, W.Va., said the recommendations are 鈥減retty fair,鈥� especially the section on students. 鈥淲e basically outline that AI, with the proper supervision, is a great tool for brainstorming and studying,鈥� he said. Liu was one of several students who spoke to 社区黑料 during breaks in the deliberations.

Liu recalled asking ChatGPT to create sets of practice problems. 鈥淭hat was one of the best ways that I would use to study for a test.鈥�

But he said using AI to answer test questions or to generate art, for instance, is a bridge too far. The guidelines, Liu said, suggest that AI should be a tool 鈥渢o help kids truly understand the topic without just spoon-feeding them the answer.鈥�

In candid conversations throughout the weekend, students said AI is basically turning their school experience upside down, simultaneously supercharging their ability to learn while threatening to derail many of their classmates 鈥� and sowing mistrust between students and teachers.

鈥淚t’s an easy way out,鈥� said James Baxter, 14, from St. George, Utah. 鈥淧eople like to know hard things, but learning it is a different story for most people.鈥�

While he relies on tools like Google鈥檚 Notebook LM to help him create study guides, Dillian Campbell, 17, a rising senior in Fayetteville, N.C., said that when teachers pass out assignments, he most often sees classmates simply pull out their phones and snap a photo, asking AI to do the rest.

He recalled a math teacher telling students, 鈥淚 don’t care if you use AI, but if you fail your test, that’s on you because you don’t really know the work.鈥�

Jaelyn Jensen, 17, a rising senior in Lee鈥檚 Summit, Mo., noted that early on in discussions, the group concluded that while limiting AI use for young students is crucial, giving middle- and high-schoolers more autonomy with AI makes sense. Teens, she said, need 鈥渢o make their own decisions, to learn from their own mistakes with AI.鈥� But schools must also teach them how to use it responsibly 鈥渁nd let them know that it is something that is going to be in their future.鈥�

Lucia Herrera, 17, a classmate of Jensen鈥檚 from Missouri, said AI has even crept into the speech and debate world, with debaters asking ChatGPT to help them respond to questions about their cases 鈥� this, in a world where critical thinking and original voice are a key to success.

While she can make a case for AI aiding in research, Herrera said, 鈥淚 think it just takes all of the human out of [it].鈥�

Bihmanji Acho, 16, a rising junior from St. Cloud, Minn., said she鈥檚 most troubled by the ways in which she sees AI undermining interpersonal relationships. She recalled attending a recent summit in which adults said they use AI 鈥渁t like two a.m. as a therapist. And I just don’t 鈥︹�� She paused for a moment. 鈥淚t hurts my heart. I feel like it hurts my heart to hear that.鈥�

While 鈥� or is it whilst? 鈥� many might believe that AI offers a crutch for low-skill students, Reaves said we should think again: Many of those who use AI most are 鈥渟uper-smart kids that are, like, just checked out.鈥�

That loss of student agency might be among the most pressing problems AI presents, said Gyimah Whitaker, of the Decatur, Ga., school district. That results in fewer students able to think critically and take risks.

Whitaker, who chaperoned two Georgia students to the event, said her 5,400-student district proudly embraces and the rigorous curriculum. But AI, Whitaker said, undermines the values in both systems, driving students toward completion rather than helping them master difficult tasks.

Luckily, young people are, for now at least, fighting back. She noted that students in her district鈥檚 IB program 鈥渃an be truly offended鈥� if a teacher uses AI to grade their paper. They鈥檝e even proposed a 鈥渢hree-strikes-and-you’re-out鈥� AI rule 鈥� for teachers. 

To be sure, the students urged AI literacy for teachers, and Cynthia Breazeal, who directs MIT鈥檚 RAISE research program, said that鈥檚 no longer optional. 

Actually, the advent of generative AI may require more than just literacy. To truly combat the technology, she said, schools may need to adopt an entirely different pedagogical model, one that encourages students to more deeply engage with material.

She invoked legendary MIT mathematician and computer scientist , who co-developed the Logo programming language in the 1960s and founded what became MIT鈥檚 Media Lab. Papert helped popularize the term 鈥溾�� to describe the productive struggle learning something complex often requires. In his conception, children should be encouraged to build things and embrace difficulty, not shun or outsource it. Upon hearing a teacher describe the difficulties a child encountered programming in Logo once in the 1980s, he concluded, 鈥淚 have no doubt that this kid called the work fun because it was hard rather than in spite of being hard.鈥�

鈥楢 Sputnik moment鈥�?

Chase Johnson, 15, a rising junior in Kenai, Alaska, uses AI 鈥渁 lot鈥� in his personal life. These days, he said, it鈥檚 helping him develop a business to automate processes such as customer service. 

As if to prove it, he鈥檒l pull out his phone to show off no fewer than 10 apps, all of which allow him to explore AI in different ways. 鈥淚 do a lot of research,鈥� he said.

But in his high school, he said, generative artificial intelligence is largely banned because of students using it to cheat.

Some of that responsibility should be borne by teachers, he said: In writing, for instance, instead of assigning essays that are easily outsourced to a bot, teachers should assign research projects that require students to present their findings in front of a class. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 cheat your way out of that,鈥� Johnson said.

Sarah Zahka, a rising junior in Weston, Fla., said she鈥檚 not above using AI when needed. 鈥淚f I’m stuck on a math problem, I’ll ask it, 鈥楬ey AI, help me solve this problem step-by-step.鈥� 鈥�

While she鈥檚 worried about AI causing students to lose foundational skills, sometimes she simply needs help brainstorming. In writing, Zahka said, she might ask an AI bot how to approach a topic, 鈥渂ut then I’ll write ethically on my own. Although I’m going to sound like a teenager writing an essay and I might not get the grade that the cheaters get, ultimately I’ll know what level I’m at.鈥�

Jeff Riley, the former Massachusetts who now leads Day of AI, said he鈥檚 both excited by the technology鈥檚 possibilities 鈥� and a bit terrified. He predicted that AI could 鈥渒ickstart the next revolution in education,鈥� particularly with its ability to help teachers differentiate instruction and personalize learning. 鈥淏ut there’s some bad stuff with it too, right? Bias, voice clones, deep fakes, hallucinations, companions, energy concerns. The list goes on and on and on.鈥�

While deadly serious, he said, those concerns aren鈥檛 activating enough adults 鈥� this should, by all rights, be 鈥溾�� pushing schools and communities forward, but he sees little urgency. He noted that in 2029, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development鈥檚 international PISA exam will for the first time assess . 鈥淚 can almost guarantee you right now: American schoolchildren, 15-year-olds, are going to score 30th in the world on AI literacy 鈥� on a technology that was largely created in this country.鈥�

On the flight back to Atlanta on Sunday night, Whitaker, the Georgia superintendent, recalled that the two students she accompanied told her they鈥檇 split their vote on the recommendations, one approving the plan and one voting No. The one who opposed the measure told her the proposal 鈥渄idn’t meet the mark completely鈥� and needed more work.

鈥淚 think that’s exciting,鈥� Whitaker admitted. 鈥淲hat excites me is that our children are wrestling just like we are 鈥� and that level of inquiry as a superintendent is what you want to see in students every single day.鈥�

For as long as anyone remembers, no childcare center on Kaua驶i has had a single opening for an infant or toddler. Not one.

On this tropical island lush with vegetation, the childcare landscape is desolate. Kaua驶i is the only major Hawaiian island that has gone without center-based infant and toddler care for most of the past 15 years if not more 鈥� the data just doesn鈥檛 go back any further. 

There are spots on the island鈥檚 military base, but those are reserved for military families. There have historically been about 22 licensed home-based childcare centers that could also take infants and toddlers, but they鈥檙e limited to only two children under 18 months; most choose to only have one infant or none at all. That amounts to about 10 to 14 seats for the 700 babies who are born on the island every year. And hiring a nanny on Kaua鈥檌 is a prohibitive cost for many: The going rate is between $35 and $40 an hour. 

On the mainland, if parents are in a childcare desert, they often get around it by driving to the next nearest town or moving neighborhoods to be near family. On Kaua驶i, there鈥檚 nowhere to go without leaving the tiny island behind. So parents have made it work because they had to. Families living intergenerationally relied on each other to help with the care. Grandmas and aunties stepped in to help. Moms took their kids to work with them or they found a job that they could do from home to give them more flexibility. In many cases, moms left the labor force altogether. 

This has gone on so long that it has become an accepted way of life. 

Across Hawai鈥檌, of parents report leaving their jobs due to childcare challenges, according to a 2025 survey by the Chamber of Commerce Hawai鈥檌. On Kaua驶i, 鈥渋t is a very stressful situation, and in most cases it’s going to be the mother that has to to quit her job and stay at home and it puts on an additional burden to the family financially,鈥� said Carol Wear, the executive director of PATCH, Hawai鈥檌鈥檚 childcare resource and referral agency.

The situation came to a head during the pandemic, which decimated the scant childcare options on Kaua鈥檌. Five home-based childcare centers had shuttered by 2023. Families鈥� finances got tighter after the island鈥檚 top industry, tourism, much of 2020. An already unwieldy housing affordability problem . Fewer families could afford to have one parent home not working to care for their child. 

Faced with a need that was growing more desperate, the island鈥檚 first known infant and toddler spots opened up by 2024. The Kaua驶i Montessori Project, a preschool in L墨hu驶e, the county seat, opened 12 infant and toddler spots thanks to some grant funding that came through during the pandemic. Then an Early Head Start center serving the lowest-income children 鈥� 鈥� opened in 2025 with eight infant and toddler spots. Coming soon is a third center, a renovated grocery store space, that the county decided to turn solely into an infant-toddler center in response to the need. It will open with 32 seats for kids ages 6 weeks to 3 years old early next year. 

That brings the count of infant-toddler spots to about 30 currently 鈥� still only enough for about 4 percent of the island鈥檚 infants. For the Head Start center, the kids on that waitlist alone could fill three more centers, said Novelyn Hinazumi, the director of Kaua驶i programs at Child & Family Service, the nonprofit that operates Head Start programs on the island. 

鈥淭his shortage has placed enormous strain on families, contributed to workforce loss and increased community awareness of the need for systemic change,鈥� said Natasha Perry, the county鈥檚 early childhood coordinator. 

For moms, it has put into question whether their families can continue to live on Kaua驶i at all. 

Aakara Wiegand, a single mom of a 2-year-old who has lived in Hawai鈥檌 for 15 years, has to take her daughter with her to work at a rental car company. With her other business running wellness retreats, she can only do about half as many events because she can barely manage it with her toddler. 

The nanny rates are unaffordable, Wiegand said. And even finding a nanny at the last minute is difficult. She had one nanny lined up for an upcoming colonoscopy, but the nanny had to travel, so Wiegand was forced to cancel her appointment. 

It has put severe strain on her life, she said: 鈥淚 have basically stopped doing things.鈥� 

Even more complicated is the fact that her toddler is receiving early intervention services for her speech and social emotional development. The very few options on the island 诲辞苍鈥檛 often cater to children who need additional support, Wiegand said. Last year, she was able to get her daughter a spot at a daycare, but she only lasted there four days. 鈥淪he just couldn’t emotionally fit in that group, but it was the only option available. So that was frustrating at that time,鈥� Wiegand said.

With no family or support on the island, Wiegand is starting to research a move to North Carolina in the next year. Becoming a parent has changed her experience on Kaua鈥檌.

鈥淚t鈥檚 just not a very sustainable environment anymore,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 definitely taken a toll on me.鈥�

Part of how Kaua驶i found itself with such a severe infant and toddler care shortage is a familiar story. In Kaua驶i, like much of the country, infant and toddler spots because no one makes money from them. Per Hawai鈥檌鈥檚 licensing rules, there needs to be one teacher for every four infants in each infant-toddler classroom, which makes staffing expensive. 

But on this island, there鈥檚 also a space problem. 

Hawai鈥檌鈥檚 licensing guidelines require of play or instructional space per child as well as 75 square feet of outdoor space per child, not unlike what most other states require. In most places that鈥檚 not a big constraint, but on an island 33 miles wide with a massive housing shortage, real estate is tight. 

Mandie Gibson, the principal of the Koloa Early School, a preschool on the south part of the island about 10 miles west of L墨hu驶e, said she鈥檚 been trying to add an additional building to run an infant-toddler center for seven or eight years, but on the island, the process is lengthy. Even if it does come together soon, which she expects it may, construction is projected to take six to 10 months. Adjusted for Kaua驶i time 鈥� everything takes longer here, she said 鈥� it鈥檒l likely be closer to a year and a half.

Gibson first sought to add infant and toddler spots as a workforce retention tool for her own staff. But the addition didn鈥檛 come together in time; she lost one full-time teacher last year when his wife had a baby and he had to move into a part-time position elsewhere. 

She鈥檚 seen families on both ends of the spectrum: those with the means to hire nannies to care for their younger children and those who had to move away to find care. 

鈥淗ere, it’s very transient. It’s three to five years for a lot of people. The island spits you up or embraces you,鈥� Gibson said. 

Kaua驶i鈥檚 retention problem also extends to its teachers. If the island wants to continue to add more infant-toddler centers, it鈥檚 going to have to figure out how to recruit and train staff. Under Hawai鈥檌 regulations, infant and toddler teachers depending on their education level need one to two years of experience with that age group to qualify. How do you get experience on an island that has never really had spots to begin with?

Toni Fujimoto, the early childhood education program coordinator at Kaua驶i Community College, has been working on that side of the problem for years, including helping shape recommendations to the state to modernize the childcare licensing requirement. One of her goals is to set up apprenticeship programs for her students in partnership with the island鈥檚 centers. Some students can currently get experience at home-based centers or at centers like Gibson鈥檚, which takes kids as young as 2 and technically counts as infant-toddler experience. But the options are severely limited. 

And it鈥檚 already hard to recruit students to early childhood because the positions are among the lowest paid jobs in the country; some students just choose to work in tourism or other industries instead of pursuing the education needed to work in childcare. Last semester, Fujimoto had only four graduates from the associate鈥檚 degree program. She is now recruiting as early as middle school, sussing out any students who may have interest. 

One of Fujimoto鈥檚 recent graduates, Alysha Palacio, grew up on Kaua驶i with her grandparents caring for her. But she did not have that option when she became pregnant her senior year in high school in 2021. Her fiance is a plumber and couldn鈥檛 bring their daughter with him to work. Her mother is a store manager who works from sun up to sundown with no days off. Her father is a waiter who often works double shifts. Her grandparents passed away. Already, Palacio鈥檚 sister-in-law had to leave the island because of lack of childcare.

Palacio chose to study early childhood education 鈥� hoping, at first, that it would also prepare her for being a mom 鈥� and kept her daughter with her while she did classes on Zoom or went to campus. It took her four years to complete her associate degree. She graduated in May hoping to go work at a preschool but is still waiting to hear back about a job.

Out in the community, she sees the struggle reflected in other moms. At a restaurant recently, she noticed her server鈥檚 young children sitting alone at a back table. 

鈥淎nother waitress comes in and she has her kids, and she puts her kids on this back table, and it clicked in my head that they’re bringing their kids here because they have nobody else to watch them, so their kids are literally going to work with them,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen I see that in public I feel really bad.鈥�

At Kaua驶i Montessori, director Marci Whitman has had to weigh whose pocketbook she would hurt more. She recently lost two teachers because they couldn鈥檛 afford housing on the island; another two nearly became homeless. But to pay them, she had to raise an already high tuition. 

She chose the teachers, who are paid between $20 and $27 an hour. 

Over the past several years, Kaua驶i鈥檚 efforts to add more infant spots have butted up against a growing affordability crisis that is among the most severe in the nation. As much as some parents may want to put their youngest in childcare, few can actually afford it.

Tuition for infant spots at Kaua鈥檌 Montessori is $2,400 a month. On an island where the median household income is about $83,000, that price would swallow about a third of it. So though Whitman may have 12 spots for infants, only three are taken due to the high cost.

Statewide, the average cost of full-time, center-based infant care in Hawai鈥檌 is per year, according to an analysis by Child Care Aware. That鈥檚 second only to Massachusetts among the 47 states for which there is data. 

Businesses on Kaua驶i are as they can. Tamara Lawrence, a mom of three young kids, opened a play space in 2023 to try to offer some respite for stay-at-home parents or those working from home with their kids. But the business struggled to make a profit 鈥� people said the play space was too expensive. 

They recently moved into a new space on the main street in L墨hu驶e and established a nonprofit arm that will help them take in some grant funding to lower costs. After their grand opening next month, they鈥檒l start marketing the Play Hale鈥檚 drop-in childcare option: two hours a day for $25. 

鈥淢y goal is to eventually make it very minimal payment or no payment at all 鈥� that’s what our community wants and needs,鈥� Lawrence said. 

The community also needs something really basic: childcare . Over and over again, the question of came up in more than a dozen conversations The 19th had with parents, providers and childcare experts on Kaua驶i. In a place where, for decades, people have relied on their family and each other for care, growing to trust more formal childcare options is a barrier in itself (for those who have the luxury of choice). Hawai鈥檌 also seriously in its reporting of incidents of serious injuries or abuse at childcare centers. Though the state is required by federal law to report such cases annually, regardless of whether there are any incidents at all, it hasn鈥檛 . 

Lawrence said that, culturally, trust was a big issue, which is why she always advises her staff to create a connection with every patron that comes through their doors. Even remembering someone鈥檚 name can make someone more likely to return.

Nora Gregg, a stay-at-home mom of a teenage daughter and two boys under the age of 2 said the philosophy among most of the moms she knows on the island is that mom should be home with their baby. Some moms put their kids in nature pods, unlicensed childcare options where kids learn outside, or they gather together to share the caregiving. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 actually how women have mothered for many centuries 鈥� that鈥檚 the village,鈥� she said.

鈥淧arents here, they 诲辞苍鈥檛 just give your kids to strangers,鈥� said Gregg, who has lived in Kaua鈥檌 for three years. 鈥淲hen I think back to how I put my daughter on the East Coast in daycare that I didn’t know the person, isn’t that weird?鈥� 

On Kaua驶i and elsewhere in the United States, a country that has now been in , so much of the experience continues to be shaped by what little choice parents even have in the matter. 

Connie, a single mom of a 4-month-old who has lived on Kaua驶i for five years, doesn鈥檛 trust anyone to care for her baby. So she brings her daughter along as she cleans Airbnb鈥檚 across the island. Cleaning is a lucrative job for women here; on any given year, 1.4 million tourists visit an island of 74,000 locals. She can鈥檛 afford to lose the job, which she needs to keep her health insurance. But Connie鈥檚 boss doesn鈥檛 know she brings her daughter to work. The 19th is only using her first name to protect her identity. 

鈥淚鈥檇 be lying if I said it was a walk in the park,鈥� Connie said. 鈥淚 could be just about done with the job, and she gets really really upset or fussy, and sometimes there’s nothing I can do to calm her down until we can get in the car and she falls asleep in her car seat. Or I could be just about done with my job, and my boss is like, 鈥極h, hey, can you go here? Can you go there? Can you do all these extra things?鈥� 鈥�

She doesn鈥檛 feel like she has options. She can鈥檛 afford a nanny. But as her daughter gets older, she is going to have to seriously consider asking her family to move to the island with her to help, she said. 

Until then, she sneaks her daughter鈥檚 bouncer and toys with her to work hoping her boss won鈥檛 find out.

鈥淚 have to take the risk every day.鈥�

was originally reported by Chabeli Carrazana of . .

Listening to him desperately try to understand stories, struggling to sound out words and losing the plot, was a deeply painful experience for us both. I read the whole book out loud to him. After we finished reading together, he lay in his top bunk and stared at a copy of 鈥淒iary of a Wimpy Kid.鈥� I hoped he’d be able to read the words, but I know the truth is that he picks books like that because he can follow the pictures when the letters are too jumbled to make sense of.

This isn鈥檛 the first kid I have seen struggle to read. In fact, I have seen hundreds of them. 

In 2010, I was a special education teacher at North High School in Denver. My first week on the job, I was asked to screen incoming freshmen to place struggling readers in an intervention class. As I sat and listened to each one read, I heard the same pain that I hear at night when I listen to my own son. 

The average child in that incoming ninth grade class was reading at a sixth grade level. There were enough 15-year-olds reading below a third grade level to fill an entire classroom. They were old enough to get a learner鈥檚 permit to drive a car, but they had been failed so acutely by their education that they could not even write their last names. They could not read the words 鈥渜uestion鈥� or 鈥渆quation,鈥� but had to somehow keep up with high school algebra.听

The worst part of this story is that these kids are in the majority. In nearly every state, fewer than half of students are reading on grade level. Nearly 7 out of 10 high school seniors graduate without being considered proficient readers. These are the people who will be reviewing your medical records, building your houses and measuring the dosage on your prescriptions. 

This cannot continue. So what is the solution? 

The , introduced by a bipartisan coalition led by Sens. Bill Cassidy and Maggie Hassan, is a great start to addressing the nation鈥檚 literacy crisis. The legislation is a chance to finally stop pretending this problem will fix itself. If passed, it will help states use proven strategies to teach kids how to read, identify and support struggling students early, and give teachers and families the tools they need to step in before it鈥檚 too late. 

In practice, the Read Act would mean that more children are screened early for literacy challenges, so problems are caught before they turn into years of frustration. It would require schools to notify parents if their child is falling behind and to clearly explain what the screening or assessment showed, what supports the school will provide to get students back on track, and what families can do at home to help. Just as importantly, the Read Act would push states to ensure that teachers are trained in evidence-based reading instruction and that classrooms are using high-quality materials that actually teach kids how to read, so fewer families are left trying to fill the gaps on their own.

The science of reading points to an interdisciplinary body of research that emphasizes a structured way of teaching how letters combine into sounds, how sounds combine into words and how words combine to generate meaning. 

Mississippi鈥檚 rise from 49th in the nation to the top 10 in fourth grade reading started when the state adopted the science of reading. But the state also backed that shift with literacy coaches, early screening and targeted interventions to help struggling students before they fell too far behind. Using the same approach, Louisiana and Alabama are seeing similar gains. But nationwide, progress remains uneven, with some states embracing these evidence-based strategies while others have been .

The future of America’s children and the country’s prosperity rely on a solution to this problem, and the stakes are too high to patchwork it together. Families need a real, national plan to ensure that children do not continue to fall behind. 

Reading is not optional, and families are no longer willing to accept a system where children are promoted year after year without the skills they need. All students deserve a future where they can thrive, and families like mine deserve a future where they aren鈥檛 left reading bedtime stories with a knot in their stomachs. Literacy needs to become a national priority, and that needs to happen now.

Amid an often bleak landscape, Kentucky was recently able to pass with bipartisan support, making significant investments in childcare by improving subsidy reimbursement rates, codifying free childcare for childcare providers, requiring training to better support children with special needs and easing regulations that stand in providers’ way.

The state鈥檚 effort started in 2024 with the launch of the Kentucky Collaborative on Child Care. The project 鈥� a partnership between Convergence Center for Policy Resolution, the Kentucky Chamber Foundation and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Center for Policy and Research 鈥� convened 40 childcare advocates and leaders from across Kentucky to meet regularly in 2024 and 2025 to come up with policy recommendations for the legislature to ensure the state鈥檚 families have access to high-quality childcare.听

Convergence, a national nonprofit that specializes in bringing people together with differing backgrounds and opinions, facilitated the collaborative, which was able to come to consensus on a number of polarizing issues. The nonprofit is 鈥渄esigned for issues where progress has stalled,鈥� noted Mariah Levison, CEO of Convergence. 

That was the case in Kentucky. It was among the many states that came to realize how many challenges plague the sector when the COVID-19 pandemic threw everything into disarray. There was 鈥渁 surge in advocacy around childcare,鈥� particularly in 2022, said Charles Aull, executive director of the Center for Policy and Research at the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. But while there was a lot of energy and activity around the issue, there wasn鈥檛 a shared set of goals. 鈥淭here was an identified problem, we had a whole bunch of people who cared about the problem, but there wasn鈥檛 a whole lot of cohesion among those folks,鈥� Aull said. He added that state lawmakers also understood there was a problem but, because they aren鈥檛 subject matter experts, told the advocates that they weren鈥檛 sure what exactly should be done to solve it. Some had 鈥渋ssue fatigue,鈥� said Mandy Marler, a childcare lobbyist at Baldwin Consulting who participated in the collaborative. 

The group debated a number of childcare solutions over the course of 18 months. Marler came in prepared to fight tooth and nail against any efforts to deregulate childcare, noting that the state already has some of the child-to-staff ratio requirements in the country. 

鈥淚 had been in so many rooms and so many situations where it was, 鈥榃e鈥檒l just cut regulations and it won鈥檛 be a problem or unaffordable anymore,鈥� 鈥� she said. But she found that 鈥渘o one was trying to come for our ratios.鈥� Instead, the conversation was about unwinding the red tape that really did get in providers鈥� way without changing health and safety standards for children, such as allowing microcenters that serve less than 24 children to skip some requirements intended for larger centers like having a playground or cooking meals in-house.

Meanwhile, Gus LaFontaine, another member of the group and co-founder of LaFontaine Early Learning Center 鈥� a childcare program in Richmond, Kentucky 鈥� was nervous about proposals that would have the government mandate specific training for his staff, rather than leaving the choice to owners like him. But he was eventually able to get on board with earmarking a portion of the 15-hour annual training requirement for childcare providers for helping staff better support children with disabilities. The group鈥檚 process required him to 鈥渃hoose wisely the hills you want to die on,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 came full circle on that topic.鈥� 

The strongest disagreement the group had was over bonuses for childcare workers, Levison said. Members couldn鈥檛 come to a compromise on the issue, so it was left out of its recommendations. Instead, they prioritized pushing the state to cover the entire cost of childcare for childcare workers 鈥� something Kentucky started doing in 2022 and has since caught on in other states but had never been codified by legislation. 

鈥淥ne of the things the group agreed on is it鈥檚 so important it should be in statute,鈥� Aull said. 鈥淚t should be permanent and should be funded.鈥� And while such a program doesn鈥檛 offer childcare staff more take-home pay, it saves them a lot of money on the cost of their own children鈥檚 care. 鈥淲e actually did accomplish some wage supplementation without that name on it,鈥� LaFontaine said. 

In the end, the group was able to develop everyone could agree to. That included improving the state鈥檚 existing childcare subsidy program, streamlining burdensome regulations, improving care quality, and addressing the low pay and high turnover among childcare staff. But the collaborative鈥檚 members were clear that the report they eventually produced wasn鈥檛 the end of the process, but rather the beginning. They spent a lot of time meeting with state lawmakers and sharing the results of their work. When they gave the report to lawmakers, the process and wide array of advocates brought a lot of people on board. Marler, who has worked as a lobbyist on childcare for nearly a decade, said of the report, 鈥淚 have never in all my years working on any policy had that kind of endorsement.鈥�

The group鈥檚 recommendations deeply informed , which became law in April. The legislation free childcare for providers, changed state subsidy payments to reflect the true cost of care, required training for caring for children with disabilities and modified the state鈥檚 quality rating system to better take outcomes into account. It also eased the paperwork required for employers to participate in the state鈥檚 Employee Child Care Assistance Partnership, which pools state, employer and employee money to cover the cost of care, and launched a pilot program to create one-room microcenters caring for up to 24 children. 

That it was numbered six is significant, because the House saves its priorities for bills one through ten every year, Aull noted. 鈥淓ven two years ago, if we had brought up the possibility of a House majority making childcare one of its top ten priority bills, you would have been laughed out of the room,鈥� he said. The bill passed 鈥渨ith overwhelming bipartisan support,鈥� Levison noted. 

The group鈥檚 work also informed , which directs the state鈥檚 auditor of public accounts to study statutes, regulations and policies that relate to opening and operating childcare centers with an eye toward streamlining them to make it easier on providers. It passed the legislature unanimously.

Kentucky has made significant progress through the passage of House Bill 6 and HJR50, but moving the legislative packages forward wasn鈥檛 all smooth sailing. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear allowed HB6 to go into law . He also vetoed HJR50, that the auditor of public accounts lacked 鈥渢he programmatic and policy expertise鈥� to carry out the study and that it would require spending taxpayer dollars to hire an outside auditing service, but the legislature overrode his veto, and Aull noted that it did so with bipartisan support. 

The legislature, for its part, blocked an effort that could have had a much larger impact on increasing parents鈥� access to affordable childcare. Last June, Beshear a 鈥淧re-K for All鈥� initiative and convened an advisory committee for the issue. But the legislature , refusing to include funding for it in the state budget, with Republican members citing worries about the cost of such a program and what effects it would have on private childcare providers. Instead, this May Beshear created pilot pre-K programs in two counties as a smaller-scale alternative.

The advocates who pushed for the reforms now enshrined in law aren鈥檛 done, however. 鈥淲e never envisioned this as the final word,鈥� Aull said. Next, the group plans to make sure that the legislation is implemented well. 鈥淎nytime you鈥檙e able to accomplish policy change, [there is an] importance of continued cultivation of that legislation,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou need to continue to work on its implementation phase 鈥� it takes a long time.鈥�

This story was originally published by聽.听聽for their newsletters.

It鈥檚 not quite the 鈥淢ississippi Miracle,鈥� but California鈥檚 reading scores have been inching upwards since the state poured billions into changing the way students learn to read. A shortage of literacy coaches, however, may be preventing students from improving even more.

In 2013, before California  in K-12 schools, the state ranked  for fourth grade reading skills on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation鈥檚 Report Card. Only 27% of students scored 鈥減roficient鈥� or 鈥渁dvanced鈥� on the reading test, given every two years to students across the country.

The following year California released a new English language arts framework that encourages schools to focus on phonics, vocabulary and other nuts-and-bolts methods when teaching children to read. Phonics-based instruction won鈥檛  until next year, but most schools have been gradually adopting the method.

Next came new curriculum materials,  and updates to teacher credential programs. The state also expanded  and implemented new guidelines for English learners.

But perhaps the biggest literacy investment came in 2023 with $500 million in grants set aside for schools to hire literacy coaches and take other steps to boost reading skills. The coaches 鈥� typically, former classroom teachers with extra training in reading 鈥� work directly with teachers to help them effectively teach children to read. Last year the state added $215 million, and the most recent budget includes an  for literacy coaches.

Mississippi, whose reading scores went from 49th in the country in 2013 to 9th in 2024, partially credits the turnaround to literacy coaches and other teacher training tactics. Mississippi鈥檚 reading framework is similar to California鈥檚, but Mississippi invested heavily in training teachers to implement it, while California rolled out its training program over several years.

Reading scores inch up

California鈥檚 reading scores have improved gradually 鈥� but significantly 鈥� since 2013. Last year, California ranked  nationwide, with 13 states scoring higher and the rest scoring the same or lower. This happened at the same time that national scores began falling.

On statewide tests, the number of fourth graders reading at grade level jumped from  in 2014 to  last year. Before the pandemic, the percentage was close to 50%, dropped a few points when schools switched to remote learning, but has been inching back up since then.

Fourth grade is a key benchmark for literacy because by fifth grade, students need reading skills sufficient to understand other subjects such as history and science. Students who aren鈥檛 proficient readers by fourth grade are more likely to lag academically in other subjects.  have found that adults with low literacy skills are more likely to be unemployed, incarcerated or face other challenges.

Sarah Novicoff, a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California, that found that California鈥檚 literacy investments have paid off 鈥� with a caveat.

鈥淭hey鈥檝e absolutely had a positive impact,鈥� Novicoff said. 鈥淏ut we have an opportunity to do an even better job.鈥�

Novicoff found that nearly 60% of school districts used their grant money to hire literacy coaches to work with teachers, reading specialists to work directly with students, or otherwise arranged for teacher training related to literacy.

School districts that made those investments saw significant improvements in reading scores, including among English learners, she found. Results varied by district, but in general students scored 6 points higher on state tests within two years of the investments, she found. She expects the scores to rise further over time.

Some districts struggle to hire literacy coaches

But plenty of school districts hired no literacy coaches. Not because they didn鈥檛 want to, but because there were none to hire. In fact, 42% of districts said they had trouble hiring coaches.

鈥淚鈥檇 love to hire a literacy coach,鈥� said Patricia Gunderson, superintendent of the Lassen County Office of Education. 鈥淚t鈥檚 great the state is offering the money, but we just can鈥檛 do it. We 诲辞苍鈥檛 have the capacity.鈥�

In remote and rural parts of the state, finding literacy coaches has proved to be nearly impossible 鈥� and has hindered improvement, Novicoff found. For example, Lassen County, along the northern Nevada border, can barely find enough credentialed teachers, let alone education professionals with advanced specialty degrees. And even if schools could hire literacy coaches, they couldn鈥檛 find enough substitutes to fill in for teachers undergoing training.

But Lassen has been creative in finding ways to boost literacy. In 2023, for example, it held a weeklong summer training course for teachers, where teachers were paid to learn the new curriculum and the course didn鈥檛 interrupt the school year. Gunderson said it was a big success; state reading test scores jumped more than 7 percentage points, although still lag behind the state average.

In Siskiyou County, along the Oregon border, county superintendent Allan Carver said he welcomes the state鈥檚 investment in literacy coaches, but it鈥檚 created another problem: Teachers are opting to become literacy coaches, possibly because it鈥檚 less stressful or pays a bit more, leaving vacancies in the classroom.

鈥淲e work to solve one issue and further exacerbate the teacher shortage,鈥� Carver said. 鈥淲e have to develop the literacy coach pipeline before we simply allocate funds and expectations for training.鈥�

In Baldwin Park, in the San Gabriel Valley, principal Laura Rodriguez said literacy coaches have been instrumental in turning around her school鈥檚 reading scores. Using state grant money, Tracy Elementary has added a literacy coach who works closely with the school鈥檚 teachers, aides and reading specialist.

The literacy coach, Claudia Barba, holds workshops for teachers and parents, trains the aides, assesses the students, analyzes data, and gives feedback to teachers. She鈥檚 also devised a literacy plan that looks closely at the causes for the low scores and specifically addresses the reasons.

鈥淪he is amazing,鈥� Rodriguez said. 鈥淚鈥檝e seen such a difference since we started this. It has changed our campus.鈥�

Tracy Elementary, a Spanish-English dual immersion school, is mostly low-income. More than 30% of students are English learners. The literacy plan teaches children to read in Spanish first, then English, by focusing on vocabulary and phonics in both languages. By third grade, when the state first tests students鈥� reading skills, students are fairly fluent readers in both languages.

In just two years, after hiring the literacy coach, Tracy鈥檚 reading scores jumped more than 10 percentage points. Even English learners saw their scores significantly increase. Other metrics also improved: Chronic absenteeism dropped from 44% just after the pandemic to 11% last year. Math scores are increasing, too.

鈥淟iteracy is the key to everything. If a child can read, they can access knowledge. They start to enjoy school,鈥� Rodriguez said. 鈥淭hey can get a better education.鈥�

This article was  and was republished under the  license.

It鈥檚 been a difficult year for Mary Moody, owner of the top-rated Silver Bluff Kids Early Learning Center in Haywood County. She said her business has struggled since federal pandemic funds used to keep childcare centers open ran out in 2025.

Moody didn鈥檛 want to cut staff salaries after the federal money ran out, she said in an email, but avoiding wage cuts and paying higher operational costs meant the center had to end contributions to retirement plans and employee health insurance reimbursements 鈥渂ecause the money simply wasn鈥檛 there.鈥�

The center also had to cut back on art and craft supplies and some activities. 

The new state budget tosses a financial life preserver to rural businesses like Moody鈥檚 that provide subsidized childcare, offering them some hope of stability after a long period of hardship.

The budget commits $97 million in federal funds to raise subsidy rates, and it also sets a minimum rate, called a 鈥渞ate floor,鈥� that will end up sending more money to rural childcare providers than they otherwise would have received. Subsidies help low-income families cover childcare costs. 

鈥淭his is what we have been begging for for years,鈥� said Mandy Mills, executive director of the Southwestern Child Development Commission.

Rural providers collect fewer subsidy dollars per child than urban providers. Payments are based on market rate studies, as well as the quality of the childcare center or home and the age of the child. 

Rural providers have argued for years that the rates they鈥檝e been paid fall far below their actual costs. 

Mills鈥� commission administers subsidies for 14 western counties and operates the childcare resource and referral service for 37 counties. The rate floor will make a huge difference in rural western countries, she said. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be a game changer,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e have had programs closing right and left.鈥�

It鈥檚 not just childcare providers who called for a rate floor. Child advocates and businesses did, too.听 called the rate floor a 鈥渂reakthrough鈥� and 鈥渢he single most consequential childcare provision in the budget.鈥�

Establishing a rate floor was also a top recommendation from Gov. Josh Stein鈥檚

Rural centers and home-based childcare operators that had been struggling are in line for significant increases.

A top-rated, five-star center in Randolph County receives a $867 subsidy per month for each infant, said Leanna Martin, director of early childhood education policy and research at NC Child. Starting in October, that same center will see subsidies increase by $500 a month for each infant.

In another example, reimbursements for five-star home-based care for 3- to 5-year-olds in Alleghany County will increase from $407 per month to $900 a month. 

The hope is that childcare options will expand in rural areas, with the increased payments encouraging centers and homes to accept more children. 

鈥淲hen reimbursements were so low, they were losing so much money,鈥� Martin said. 

There鈥檚 a tremendous need for infant care, but costs for providers are higher for babies because childcare centers need one staff member for every five babies. Staff-to-child ratios are higher for older children. 

Centers throughout western North Carolina closed classrooms because they could not hire or keep enough staff, said Mills. When centers needed to cut back, infant care was the first thing to go. 

Moody at Silver Bluff Kids is anxious to restore employee benefits and hire a new teacher. 

鈥淭he subsidy rate floor will, number one, allow us to avoid the big financial burden we have had. It will allow us to reinstate either a health insurance policy or a health insurance reimbursement plan with higher reimbursement rates than we were previously able to contribute to employees鈥� insurance. We will also contribute again to the staff鈥檚 retirement plans,鈥� Moody said. 

The center is fully enrolled with 54 children. Moody couldn鈥檛 afford to hire a new teacher, so she and the assistant director have been filling in. Moody said she spends her nights and weekends doing paperwork. 

鈥淭he rate floor, in my opinion, will allow centers to thrive,鈥� she said. 鈥� I think it will be a game-changer for retaining highly qualified staff and recruiting additional staff. This investment will allow many centers like ours to continue providing the high-quality care we are known for, without the financial stress of trying to figure out how to fit it all into the budget creatively.鈥�

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. NC Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Laura Leslie for questions: info@ncnewsline.com.

Like millions of young athletes nationwide, I have played sports since I was 4 years old. Soccer has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. Sports have taught me to show up, work hard and keep going even when things are not easy. What they didn’t teach me was that brain injuries don’t always show up as physical symptoms.

Today’s concussion conversation focuses heavily on when athletes can return to play. It spends far less time preparing families for what can happen emotionally after a concussion. Parents are taught to watch for headaches and dizziness. Coaches are trained to recognize physical symptoms. Athletes are evaluated before returning to play. But when it comes to mental health, student-athletes are often left to navigate that part of recovery with little awareness and far less support.

For my family, this isn’t an abstract policy debate. My older sister, Alyssa Peterson, died at age 13 during a mental health crisis after experiencing multiple concussions starting in 2017. In the years that followed, I watched my family search for answers as we learned more about the emerging science surrounding concussions and mental health. What we discovered was not certainty about every question, but growing evidence that concussion recovery also requires paying attention to mental health.

That evidence led us to advocate for Alyssa’s Youth Concussion and Mental Health Protection Act () in Colorado, which expanded concussion education to include mental health awareness. The goal was simple: to help ensure coaches and families know what to watch for so young athletes can get support when they need it.

Following speaking at a legislative hearing on Alyssa’s Act, I remember rushing to soccer practice. It felt strange to go from talking with lawmakers about something so personal to worrying about drills and practice like any other day. I looked at my coaches and teammates and wondered if they knew to watch for mental health changes after a concussion. If one of us began struggling emotionally after a head injury, would anyone recognize it?

I watched my mom sit for six hours waiting to testify at a second hearing. I knew I was going to miss soccer practice, which meant I would likely miss playing in my next game. But the effort mattered because families deserve better information about the possible mental health effects of concussions.

Then Alyssa’s Act passed this May. Colorado became the first state to require that mental health be included in concussion education. But the conversation shouldn’t be limited to Colorado.

It’s time we stop treating mental health as an afterthought in concussion recovery. Most families simply don’t know that concussions can also lead to changes in mood, anxiety, depression, irritability and social withdrawal. These changes can easily be dismissed as hormones, stress, or simply being a teenager. But sometimes they deserve much closer attention.

Researchers have been warning about this for years. A published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that, among more than 36,000 adolescents, teens with a history of concussion had more than three times the odds of having a depression diagnosis compared with those without a concussion. A published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that children and adolescents who experience concussions are at increased risk for later mental health difficulties. The on Concussion in Sport emphasizes monitoring athletes for mental health symptoms during recovery.

While researchers debate what repeated heading may mean, we should make sure families understand what to watch for today. Parents should know that changes in mood and behavior can be just as important to recognize as headaches or dizziness. Coaches should understand that athlete well-being includes both physical and mental health. Schools should prepare families for both. Young athletes should know that seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

As a high school athlete, I am grateful that conversations about concussion awareness are growing. My hope is that those conversations continue to expand so that mental health is part of the discussion from the beginning, not something families discover only after they are struggling.

Protecting athletes and supporting sports participation are not competing goals. Better information makes sports safer and stronger. 

What I want adults to understand is simple: Brain health and mental health are not separate conversations. We 诲辞苍鈥檛 have to wait for every scientific question to be answered before acting on what we know. Every family deserves to understand that concussion recovery includes paying attention to mental health. My hope is that more families and student-athletes like me understand that concussion recovery isn鈥檛 only about getting back in the game. 

Colorado became the first state to expand concussion education to include mental health awareness. It shouldn’t be the last. 

My sister can’t benefit from what we know today. The next family can. With the World Cup bringing attention to soccer, I hope we also pay attention to what young athletes need after a concussion: support for their mental health, not just a plan to return to play.

Karega Rausch, president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers since 2020, was selected Wednesday to lead the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation. The Indiana state legislature created that board earlier in the  year, over opposition from the school district, to give charters a greater say in running the city鈥檚 schools.

Rausch, who led the Indianapolis mayor鈥檚 education office from 2007 to 2011, will now guide efforts to increase the share of local taxes going to charter schools, create a joint district-charter bus system and find ways to close and share school buildings. The city now has 50,000 school seats for just 41,000 students, a costly surplus of 9,000 seats.

He鈥檒l take the position this fall in the middle of a campaign to pass a tax increase in the November election that will be split equally between the school district and charter schools. That sharing of taxes was mandated by the state legislature after bitter fights between district and charter supporters.

Rausch, a resident of Indianapolis since 2000, told the IPEC board before the vote that he considers himself a 鈥渂ridge-builder鈥� who will work with both the district and charters. He said the Indianapolis Public Schools has expertise he hopes to tap into.

鈥淚 was not looking for a new opportunity,鈥� Rausch told 社区黑料 after the vote. 鈥淚 love the work and impact we are making at NACSA. This opportunity was very unique and a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to be the founding executive director, allowing me to help make a transformative difference in Indianapolis.鈥� 

IPEC board member Patricia Castaneda said she believes Rausch is 鈥渁nswering the call of community鈥� in leaving his national post for the job.

鈥淚t is not often that someone comes home to their community to do the work that they have so successfully done across not only the state, the city, the state, but also the nation, and that is encouraging to me,鈥� said Castaneda, former chair of a charter school network in the city.

Board member John Hammond said he is happy Rausch wants to 鈥渉elp us lead a very special effort here that is unique in the country.鈥�

鈥淚 think he understands the special circumstance that we’re in as a community鈥� and the balance that needs to be struck as we kind of move into a new era, and understands both sides and all sides of the equation,鈥� Hammond said.

Rausch鈥檚 selection continues a push, driven by Republican state legislators, to shift more control of schools in Indianapolis from the school district to charter schools, which have gained so many students in recent years that Indianapolis is one of nationwide where more than half of students attend charters 

The legislature鈥檚 creation of IPEC, whose members are appointed by the mayor instead of elected like the district school board, moves power away from the school board. 

The tax increase on the November ballot, for example, previously would have been sought by the district just for district schools. Now, only IPEC can ask voters to approve taxes for both the district and charters.

Experts said earlier this year that Indianapolis is rivaling New Orleans, the most charter-friendly city in the country, in its support of charter schools. Charter supporters say the majority of students deserve more say and to close a gap in funding for district schools and charter schools, while critics say IPEC threatens to drain money and resources from district schools. 

Though IPEC members, by law, include members of Indianapolis Public Schools鈥� board, it still leans heavily pro-charter. A majority of its members have worked for or served on boards of charter schools. Its chairman, David Harris is founder of several charter schools and led the Mind Trust, a local advocate of charter schools, until 2018. 

The selection of Rausch continues that pattern.

Rausch, who has a PhD from Indiana University, was director of the city鈥檚 Office of Education Innovation under two Indianapolis mayors from 2007 to 2011. He then was director of Stand for Children, an education advocacy group in the city, before later joining NACSA as vice president of research and evaluation in 2014. 

Long story short, our divisions and the dysfunctional governance are painfully, visibly real. 

As we start the country鈥檚 251st year, we need to restore public confidence in the effectiveness and legitimacy of our whole political system. That starts by showing the country that American public institutions can work, that they can do the jobs that our democratic officials set for them 鈥� and deliver the opportunities and outcomes that the public expects of them.听

We need a firm commitment to public accountability in every possible sense. That means more firmly committing to holding our public systems 鈥� including K鈥�12 education 鈥� accountable to serving public goals. 

Sure, the solution to America鈥檚 flagging social cohesion must be more than new school accountability pilot programs. Of course. That would be like bringing a screwdriver to a hazmat cleanup. Our social tensions are far beyond . 

But the depth and breadth of America鈥檚 problems now are also why school reforms have a role in resolving our troubles. Public education is uniquely central to the most elemental promises of our 250-year-old creed. If America means anything, it means that people who work hard, follow the rules and find solutions to persistent problems get rewarded. Public schools are our most tangible collective commitment to that promised 鈥� however imperfectly 鈥� American Dream. Surely that鈥檚 something we can all agree on. 

Indeed, if Americans are divided now, it鈥檚 at least partly because that basic bargain isn鈥檛 as robust as it once was. A kid who grinds out聽years of K鈥�12 schooling now can鈥檛 count on a . Work hard now, and she still might not be able to cover her health care costs, let alone buy a house where there are good jobs or save up for retirement.听

Young Americans feel the frustration. , the share of young Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track has been three to four times greater than the share of young Americans who think we鈥檙e going in the right direction. What鈥檚 more, just 30% of respondents said that they expect to do better than their parents, financially speaking. also broad pessimism about public schools.

A path forward for schools will require rebuilding public confidence in the public education system鈥檚 ability to deliver upward mobility to students 鈥� to future graduates 鈥� who show up, work hard and follow the rules. 

How? Local, state and federal policymakers need to set compelling, transparent goals for K鈥�12 systems that reflect families鈥� actual priorities for kids and schools. For instance, fashionable as it might be to posit that public education needs to be remade with AI and other ed tech tools, about in schools is growing. Leaders can鈥檛 persuade families that schools are on the right track by ignoring the things families really want.听

And what might those be? While recently took to The New York Times鈥� opinion page to argue against the country鈥檚 accountability focus on math and reading scores under No Child Left Behind, it鈥檚 worth exploring whether Wiener has his finger fully on the public pulse. After all, when the Pew Research Center asked what鈥檚 taking schools in the wrong direction, more parents 鈥� 鈥� said that 鈥渟chools are not spending enough time on core academic subjects.鈥� 

I鈥檝e long suspected that the pandemic reset American families鈥� views on schools and testing. Months of uncertain instruction and learning 鈥� and a drumbeat of media coverage about the pandemic鈥檚 impacts on student learning 鈥� left many families eager for more information about how their children were faring. Without some sort of standardized assessment, it鈥檚 almost impossible to efficiently track how students are doing. This is easier to appreciate after a major disruption like the pandemic 鈥� subjective evaluations or holistic, local rubrics are unlikely to provide useful, comparable data on students鈥� progress. 

We might not want to return to No Child Left Behind, but education leaders should consider whether schools need stronger incentives to get kids on track in core subjects. It鈥檚 not enough to establish public education goals 鈥� policymakers also need to make them matter for schools and educators. Whichever priorities we set for schools, we need to 1) track their progress towards these, and 2) build systems that provide resources and pressure for educators to prioritize that progress. 

To work best, accountability requires clarity about the outcomes we want to see. Effective school accountability systems need goals for student growth and benchmarks for academic achievement in each grade. Data on schools鈥� progress towards those goals should be published in easily accessible formats. Schools that persistently fall short shouldn鈥檛 be punished as they might have been under No Child Left Behind 鈥� instead, they should be given supplemental resources with strict strings attached that lead to meaningful school-level changes that will support better student learning. 

That鈥檚 accountability, and it鈥檚 a key element for building trust in public systems. 

If policymakers want Americans to believe in public institutions, they need to build safeguards like these for showing how these institutions serve the public interest. Notably, the simple, blunt, unlovely, unloved, imperfect No Child Left Behind accountability era coincided with , including for . 

Then, after 鈥� over my warnings, for what it鈥檚 worth 鈥� Congress replaced those priorities with a much looser, lower-accountability system under the Every Student Succeeds Act, . (For the record, I was unimpressed, even back then.)

A quarter millennium鈥檚 a long time, during which the American experiment has substantially evolved more than once. Like the 2026 reflecting pool 鈥� which has been 鈥� our collective project needs much more than a fresh coat of paint. 

To move forward, we need to reduce our suspicions of one another, increase our levels of social trust and reimagine just what it is we鈥檙e trying to be together as a country. That means rebuilding trust in public, democratically accountable systems. Where better to rebuild that faith than in public education?

The views expressed here are Conor P. Williams鈥檚 alone, and do not reflect those of his employer or any other affiliated organizations.

Just Equation’s recent report, “,” notes that while these students make up 15% of the nation鈥檚 public school population, they accounted for only 6% of those enrolled in AP math classes in the 2021-22 school year.听

That exclusion has consequences that go far beyond school, the group contends.

鈥淔rom understanding election systems and social determinants of health to making sure you have the digital skills to be marketable in today’s workforce, quality math education prepares you to fully engage in society,鈥� said Andrea McChristian, Just Equations鈥� national policy director.

Her report notes that while Black adults accounted for 12% of the country鈥檚 overall working population in 2021, they made up just 9% of the nation’s STEM workforce. 

Benjamin Moynihan, executive director of , one of the groups Just Equations recognizes for helping Black students succeed in the subject, said the report should spark greater focus on the topic. 

鈥淐alculated Barriers shows us that our current crisis in mathematics education has been a choice that the nation has made,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e need to make new choices. Let us have a national discussion in which we collectively determine how to make the right decisions this time.鈥�

Just Equations notes Black students are often kept from taking calculus in high school 鈥� still considered a gold standard course by many top-tier colleges 鈥� because they 诲辞苍鈥檛 have access to eighth grade algebra, a course linked to advanced math choices later on.

鈥淲hen students have the opportunity to take Algebra I in middle school, assuming they are sufficiently prepared for it, their success in the course can open doors to strengthened analytical and reasoning skills, advanced math in high school, and college and career pathways,鈥� the report notes

But many schools don’t offer the course at the middle school level. 

Just Equations cites the New York Equity Coalition鈥檚 finding that 27% of New York state schools that serve seventh and eighth graders did not offer Algebra I in the eighth grade during the 2024鈥�25 school year. New York鈥檚 Black and Hispanic students were more likely to be enrolled in these schools than their white and Asian peers, according to the coalition.

Black children also face challenges accessing Algebra II, Just Equations found. Just 80% of schools with high enrollments of Black and Hispanic students offered the course compared to 85% of schools with low enrollment of these students. 

The disparity continued as students aged 鈥� and coursework became more rigorous. In the 2021鈥�22 school year, 62% of schools with high Black and Hispanic enrollment offered advanced mathematics compared to 71% of schools with low Black and Hispanic enrollment, the report notes. 

As of 2019, white high school graduates completed calculus at three times the rate of Black graduates 鈥� and Asian graduates at more than seven times the rate. 

As a result of these and other factors tied to racial discrimination, Black students face added challenges in college: Those in the California State University system, for example, were more likely to start their math sequence with calculus prerequisite courses, rather than with calculus.

鈥淟ong calculus prerequisite sequences may also carry a heavy financial burden for Black students, who are more likely to take on student loans than students from other racial and ethnic groups, and more likely to default on their loans,鈥� the report notes. 

Lya Snell, a director at the at the University of Texas at Austin, another of the groups Just Equations credits for making positive change in this area, said that when Black students are sidelined, the world forsakes more than individual talent. 

鈥淲e lose new ideas, perspectives and solutions that could benefit everyone,鈥� Snell said. 鈥淲e lose potential. Every student deserves the opportunity to see themselves as capable of succeeding in these fields. Investing in and believing in Black learners strengthens innovation, creates a more inclusive workforce and helps ensure that the future of STEM reflects the diversity of the communities it serves.鈥�

Black students鈥� and professionals鈥� ideas have changed industries, improved healthcare, solved complex problems and inspired the next generation, she said, citing , a leader in the development of COVID-19 vaccines; , whose 鈥渃omputational brilliance at NASA led to the success of several early space flights;鈥� and , an influential surgeon who pioneered methods for storing blood plasma. 

Barriers to higher math achievement for Black students were not always the case, the Just Equations report found.

鈥淢any Black students attending segregated schools had the support of Black educators who believed in their brilliance and ability,鈥� the report notes. 鈥淭his same level of support, however, did not extend to Black students鈥� educational experience after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, which led to school desegregation. Following desegregation, about 38,000 Black teachers and administrators across 17 states lost their jobs.鈥�

After integration, Black students in desegregated high schools were often steered away from Algebra I and into non鈥揷ollege track, lower-level courses, including general math and consumer math. 

鈥淎lgebra I thus emerged as one of the first math gatekeepers for Black students following Brown v. Board of Education,鈥� the report found.

Just Equations recommends redesigning high school mathematics to dismantle roadblocks to advanced courses, ending college admissions policies that perpetuate inequity and investing in culturally responsive instruction. 

In addition to The Algebra Project and the Dana Center, McChristian cited as another organization working hard to ensure Black children have access to high-quality math instruction.

鈥淚t’s an all-hands-on-deck effort, both inside the system and outside the system, to change math education and opportunities for Black students,鈥� she said.

Disclosure: The Gates Foundation provides financial support to Just Equations and to 社区黑料.

For decades, he said, Washington politicians gave young people 鈥渘othing but debt,鈥� he said.

鈥淭he government is finally giving money back to our children,鈥� he told the crowd at Wheeler High School in Cobb County, inviting families who have opened accounts to join him on stage with their children.

The event brought together several cabinet members who joined the president in urging families to open Trump Accounts. Before Trump took the stage in the school鈥檚 large gymnasium, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Treasurer Brandon Beach, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Kelly Loeffler, a former Georgia senator who now serves as head of the Small Business Administration, all described the child savings policy as transformational.

McMahon called it 鈥渙ne of the largest generational investments in upward mobility that our country has ever made.鈥�

Under the savings initiative, which went live July 4, the administration will give $1,000 deposits to children born during the president鈥檚 term if their parents open a Trump Account. Over seven million children are already enrolled in the program, Bessent told the crowd.听

The child savings account program was included in last year鈥檚 One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Parents and others can contribute to the tax-deferred account until the child turns 18 and converts it into a traditional individual retirement account. 

Philanthropists Michael and Susan Dell expanded on the government鈥檚 contribution last year when they to provide an extra $250 for 25 million children 10 and under living in ZIP codes with median incomes below $150,000. Other donors have since made contributions, some for specific states. 

Chris Woods, a financial adviser and Cobb district parent, told 社区黑料 that he thinks the policy is a wise move.

鈥淭here are a lot of ways to save for children鈥檚 college and their future,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he difference is you鈥檙e getting funds from the government.鈥�

But Eli Speer, a recent high school graduate and Trump supporter, said the program isn鈥檛 鈥渇iscally conservative.鈥�

鈥淲e have to prioritize shaving down the debt, cutting red tape,鈥� he said.

The agreed, calling Trump Accounts a 鈥済overnment welfare program鈥� that further complicates the tax system and might not be a better investment opportunity than existing options. Others question whether the families who would benefit the most from the program are even aware of it. An showed that higher-earning adults and those who already have at least $5,000 in savings were more likely to know about the program.

Bessent, however, pushed back on criticisms that the policy will favor wealthier families. Of the families who have already opened accounts for their kids, he said 86% earn household incomes of $200,000 or less.

鈥淭rump Accounts are reaching the very people they were designed to serve,鈥� he said. 鈥淧resident Trump is creating assets for the American people, not more debt and broken promises.鈥�

Despite the strong turnout Wednesday, Cobb County is not actually 鈥淭rump country,鈥� as several speakers called it. Trump lost Cobb all three times he ran for president. The district, however, is led by a majority Republican board. 

鈥淭he school board is the last bastion of Republican control that Cobb County has,鈥� said Heather Tolley-Bauer, a co-founder of Watching the Funds-Cobb, a watchdog group that this week about whether district resources were being used to support what was in part a political rally. District staff handled several logistics for the event, organizing refreshments and helping with security.

鈥淚t clearly wasn鈥檛 to advocate for public education, our students or to share all that鈥檚 great about our schools,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t was to serve the Republican Party.鈥�

Several students also gathered in a Kroger parking lot a few miles away to protest the president coming to one of their high schools.

Some of Trump鈥檚 policies haven鈥檛 been popular at the school, where the majority of students are Black and Hispanic. In late January, Wheeler students were among the hundreds across Cobb County schools who walked out to protest immigration enforcement activities nationwide.

鈥淚 诲辞苍鈥檛 love the fact that we are using a public school to promote a partisan political agenda,鈥� said Edward Kim, a Wheeler graduate.

Multiple candidates running for statewide office had a chance to make campaign pitches Wednesday.

State Sen. Brian Strickland, candidate for attorney general, said families are relocating to Georgia to leave blue states that supported former President Biden鈥檚 agenda.

鈥淚n November, we have a big decision to make,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e have to get this right.鈥� 

Trump also told the attendees to vote for Rep. Mike Collins, who didn鈥檛 attend because of votes in Congress. Collins will face Democratic Sen. John Ossoff in November. Ossoff, he said, will 鈥渂ankrupt your families.鈥�

Rick Jackson, GOP candidate for governor also greeted the crowd and joined Trump on the platform. While he touted his expertise as a businessman as the solution to Democrats鈥� 鈥渁ffordability crisis,鈥� he also spoke at length about Trump Accounts.

As someone who grew up in foster care, he applauded first lady Melania Trump鈥檚 initiative, in which states can open accounts for children in foster care.

鈥淭his is more than just an account. It鈥檚 a message,鈥� he said about Trump Accounts. 鈥淵ou are seen, and you are valued.鈥� 

Many attendees said they just wanted a chance to see a sitting president in person. Melissa Moeller, who has two children in Cobb schools, learned about it because her 10^th grader鈥檚 marching band practice was relocated from Wheeler because of the event. 

It didn鈥檛 bother her, however, that the school鈥檚 landscaping was spruced up for the official visit.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e doing that anyway. With the president coming anywhere, I鈥檓 ok with a little pomp and circumstance,鈥� she said. 鈥淲ill it ever happen again? I 诲辞苍鈥檛 know.鈥�

BILOXI, Miss. 鈥� When nine young adults tossed their mortarboards into the air at the Little Biloxi Theatre on June 20, it wasn鈥檛 their first time graduating from high school. After an emotional celebration that honored the transgender and LGBTQ+ students鈥� resilience, it became their first graduation without gender-based dress codes or stipulations on how they present themselves.听

Surrounded by friends, local allies and in some cases, family, each student walked across the stage, shook the hand of LGBTQ+ advocate Jensen Luke Matar, and received a 鈥淧ride! Graduation鈥� certificate. With their names printed under the intersex-inclusive , each student was celebrated for graduating with 鈥渃ourage, authenticity and pride.鈥� 

鈥淲e love and appreciate our students, and we care to uplift and serve them always,鈥� said Matar, director of the nonprofit organization Transgender Resources, Advocacy, Networking and Services Program, or TRANS Program, which was a sponsor of the event. 

Students at the event told Mississippi Today that school policies like Harrison County鈥檚 restricting gender expression are harmful to their mental health and physical safety. The is unique among Gulf Coast counties for requiring students to dress according to their 鈥渂iological sex that is stated in the student鈥檚 cumulative folder and permanent record.鈥� 

In contrast, student handbooks for school districts in , , , , , , and do not include language that restricts students鈥� clothing choices to their sex assigned at birth. 

For 2023 Harrison Central High School graduate Lana Brown, the June celebration was the first time she walked a graduation stage. Three years ago Harrison Central leaders told Brown, a transgender woman, that she could not wear a dress to her graduation ceremony. She chose not to attend, and filed a against the school alleging that the dress code policy, enforced based on gender stereotypes, violated her rights. Although Brown lost the case, she knew at the time that it was a long shot, she told Mississippi Today. Both of her parents were fully supportive, and her dad told her that regardless of the outcome, it was a win to have the incident recorded. 

This year, Brown was the first speaker at Pride Graduation, thrown by several local nonprofit programs. Wearing a formal black dress and in full glam, she addressed her fellow students, who had graduated high school since 2023.

鈥淭hree years ago I was, too, ripped from my graduation,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 was told that I could not walk across the stage unless I dressed like a boy.鈥�

Out of her own experience, Brown said, she learned the importance of self-respect.

鈥淵ou must respect yourself, and you have to not tolerate the disrespect of others,鈥� she said to the graduates. 鈥淚t won’t always be easy, but you have to stand up or you will be knocked down.鈥�

Nearly two months ago, a Facebook post by D鈥橧berville High School to the school鈥檚 policies around gender nonconforming students. School officials, including then-Principal Cheryl Broadus and Harrison County schools Superintendent William Bentz have not responded to repeated requests for comment from Mississippi Today.听

Brown said she doesn鈥檛 know what to say to Harrison County school officials, who in the years after her graduation have doubled down on the dress code. She said they know their policies hurt students.听

鈥淲hat do you say to one who already knows?鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou’re turning a blind eye. You won’t listen to me.鈥�

Advocates question district鈥檚 gender-based dress codes

This was the first year of Pride Graduation, organized by advocates after Harrison County schools students faced gender-norm-based dress codes for senior portraits and the graduation ceremony. Due to the policies, several transgender and gender nonconforming students weren鈥檛 able to participate in graduation activities while affirming their identity. 

A letter from the school district that a parent shared on social media, which Mississippi Today reviewed, outlined that male students had to wear a white button-down shirt and black pants, while female students could wear a dress or black slacks. 

A group of parents and advocates are sharing their concerns about restrictive policies at school board meetings. 

At the June 1 Harrison County school board meeting, the first after high school graduation, Noelle Nolan-Rider shared that in the 1960s, when Mississippi was undergoing forced integration, Black students were omitted from multiple yearbooks. Nolan-Rider was one of at least three people working with the TRANS Program who attended the meeting.

Nolan-Rider shared that the first Black woman to graduate from South Natchez High School was her 10th-grade English teacher. 

鈥淪he is not in the yearbook,鈥� Nolan-Rider said. 鈥淗er name is Patricia West, and it is discrimination when you do that. It was discrimination then. It is discrimination now.鈥�

A school board member who remained off-camera responded to Nolan-Rider, saying students knew they had to adhere to the dress code for their senior portraits, and that in most cases, students get a second chance to take their photo. 

鈥淚 want you to understand they are well aware ahead of time, and there’s a second round,鈥� the board member said. 

A Harrison County parent posted on social media a screenshot of the Harrison County School District鈥檚 guidelines for senior portraits. 

鈥淔emale portraits published in the yearbook will be photographed using the traditional drape. Male portraits published in the yearbook will be photographed using the traditional tuxedo,鈥� the guidelines read. 

Advocates said students told them they were not given a second chance to take their senior portraits. 

The next meeting on June 15, Jonathan Blue, a transgender woman and parent of Harrison County students, attended the meeting. She expressed concerns about D鈥橧berville High School the photo of a transgender student on social media. School board president Steven Ramsey thanked her for presenting the comment and did not further discuss the comment, according to Blue and corroborated by a recording she shared with Mississippi Today. Harrison County School District does not require the board to engage with public comments at the meeting. 

Blue said the board would not allow her to speak at the June 29 meeting. She said she arrived at 5:29 p.m., one minute before the meeting was scheduled to begin, and the employee who had badge access to open the locked door to the meeting waited until it was 5:30 to let her in. The board meeting was underway when she entered, and the sign up sheet had been removed. Because she was not signed up to speak, the board did not allow Blue to give a comment. 

Mississippi Today has reached out to school board members and Bentz, the superintendent, five times since July 10 to verify this sequence of events, and has not gotten a response. 

School boards have wide discretion in how they address public comments, said Jonathan Collins, who researches education policy and teaches political science at Columbia University. While the Harrison County school board鈥檚 policies are not unusual, he said they represent a concerning lack of attention to public opinion. 

鈥淧arliamentary procedure is meant to ensure that there is standardization across meetings,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut it also becomes one of the biggest weapons that school boards can use to keep the public out of the public meeting.鈥�

颁辞濒濒颈苍蝉鈥� shows that when a school board is responsive and engaged in public comments, it deepens public trust in their elected officials. Conversely, a lack of engagement tends to reduce trust. 

At the July 13 school board meeting, Blue arrived 30 minutes in advance and was allowed to address the board. She alleged that the district was in violation of federal Title IX policy, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in education-related activities. 

In this meeting, Blue estimated that over 20 people showed up who supported the school district鈥檚 current dress code policies. Three individuals told the board they didn鈥檛 think there were Title IX violations, and they supported the district鈥檚 language about students needing to dress as their biological sex.

鈥淚 just wanna tell you that I appreciate the work that you are doing,鈥� one speaker said. 鈥淲e ask that you continue to hold the line for us.鈥�

Blue said she has received a slew of negative comments on social media, and some positive ones. Several commenters, including some anonymous accounts, have labelled her as mentally ill and threatened her with racist and homophobic slurs. Blue said other comments threatened her and her family, including direct threats of violence. 

Blue, who attended the meetings alone, said she left after the public comment period due to concerns about her safety. 

鈥業 wanted to see myself happy鈥�

The challenges high school students and graduates along the Gulf Coast face extend beyond school photos and board meetings. At the Pride Graduation, recent high school graduates told Mississippi Today about challenges they encountered after 鈥渃oming out,鈥� or sharing their gender and sexuality identities publicly.

O.K., identified by initials for her safety, is a transgender college student who graduated high school in 2024. As someone who has struggled with depression, speakers鈥� comments about the resilience of the transgender community resonated with her.

鈥淚t takes so much pushing through and remembering that one day it might be better,鈥� she said. 

O.K.鈥檚 parents were not present. She said they鈥檙e good people but not supportive of the LGBTQ+ community, so she鈥檚 sought support elsewhere. Finding the TRANS Program was an important step in that journey, she said. O.K. remembers dressing as a woman for the first time at one of their events. Not only was it accepted, but people cheered her on, she told Mississippi Today.

Now, she鈥檚 grateful she was able to keep going during the days she felt numb. 

鈥淚 wanted to see myself happy,鈥� O.K. said. 鈥淚 never want to see myself let the end of the story be, I died sad.鈥�

T.G., another student at the event who asked to be identified by his initials for fear of retaliation, said supportive events like the ones TRANS Program holds are crucial to let people know they鈥檙e not alone. In the area of central Mississippi where he鈥檚 from, T.G. said there鈥檚 little to no public community for LGBTQ+ people. 

A friend of O.K.鈥檚, T.G. has guarded her when she uses the men鈥檚 bathroom in states that require people to use the bathroom consistent with the gender they were assigned at birth. 

All the students who spoke to Mississippi Today expressed their love for Mississippi, and their feeling that it would always be home. But many are trying to leave as soon as possible because they 诲辞苍鈥檛 feel safe. 

鈥淚’m nine months on (testosterone) now, and I’m still scared to use the bathroom,鈥� said J.W., a transgender student identified by his initials for safety concerns. 鈥淚t’s pretty much 50/50. I get sir鈥檈d a lot, I get ma’am鈥檈d a lot. I get hit on by old people.鈥�

Others, like Brown, know they may not settle in Mississippi, but are trying to make the most of their time here by educating others about the LGBTQ+ community. 

鈥淗ate is taught. They were taught to hate those who aren’t like them,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o we’re gonna teach others to accept, to understand, to learn before we judge or push away.鈥�

This story was produced with support from the Sarah Yelena Haselhorst Fund for Health Journalism.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

Buttigieg described the 24 hours that he was separated from his 4-year-old twins as 鈥�.鈥� CPS had come to his Michigan home after an anonymous caller claimed Buttigieg had confessed violent crimes to a woman he met at a conference 鈥� an allegation authorities later determined was false. Upon CPS鈥檚 request, Buttigieg’s children were sent to their grandparents, and he was barred from being alone with them until they had been through forensic interviews. As day stretched into night, he and his husband had no idea what he was accused of, or whether their family would be allowed to stay together.

Buttigieg described the experience as an abuse of a system meant to protect 鈥渢he most vulnerable children from the most horrible threats.鈥� But rather than protect children, the family regulation system regularly targets and intrudes upon mostly , disproportionately impacting Black, brown, indigenous, and parents. Not because they are more likely to harm their kids than parents who do not belong to these marginalized groups, but because surveillance falls hardest on families who rely on public and government-funded programs and have the least power and resources to defend against CPS intervention.

What set Buttigieg apart was not that his family was treated unjustly, but that he had the money, legal representation and public support that families with fewer resources will never have. 

His experience highlights three devastating components of this system that need to be addressed.

The first is anonymous reporting. The false report levied against Buttigieg reached CPS because most states let anyone trigger an investigation without giving a name. Anonymous tips are by abusive former partners, landlords and neighbors, but they are overwhelmingly unfounded: . Texas and California moved to curb the practice in 2023 and 2024, and at the end of 2025 by requiring callers to give their names while keeping their identities confidential. Every other state should do the same.

Second is a largely invisible practice that separates families. It has many names 鈥� 鈥渒inship diversion,鈥� 鈥渉idden foster care,鈥� 鈥渟afety plans鈥� 鈥� but essentially, caseworkers pressure parents under the implicit or explicit threat that their kids will otherwise be put in foster care with strangers. Because no petition is filed and no judge is involved, to ensure that CPS has sufficient evidence to justify removal or checks that the new home is safe and appropriate. This unregulated practice has and even led to the . The American Civil Liberties Union and its partners have worked with a group of bipartisan congressional champions to introduce legislation to gather better data on how widespread this practice is.

Finally, parents should be given a lawyer the moment an investigation is initiated, not weeks later. In most states, a parent has no right to appointed counsel until the agency files a formal court petition, which can occur long after the most consequential decisions 鈥� including whether a child is removed 鈥� have already been made. In Buttigieg鈥檚 case, a petition was never filed at all. But the harm of separation begins the instant the caseworker knocks at the door. Timely access to counsel helps parents understand and assert their rights and prevents avoidable removals that traumatize families. Congress should pass legislation that incentivizes states to guarantee access to pre-petition representation for parents during child welfare investigations. 

This isn鈥檛 a partisan issue. After Buttigieg went public with his story, Wisconsin Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden on X that the same thing had happened to him and his family. Texas, one of the most populous red states in the nation, was the anonymous reporting and has passed legislation that addresses hidden foster care. Reining in the government鈥檚 power to enter a home and separate children from their parents is an issue that does not belong to one party. 

This should never have happened to Pete Buttigieg, or to , or or to . Banning anonymous reporting, ending hidden foster care and guaranteeing attorneys for parents as soon as CPS knocks on the door are just the start in the fight to curb government overreach and defend the right to family integrity. Lawmakers from across the political spectrum must join the parents and advocates fighting to ensure that no family is ripped apart by an unjust system. 

One. Trillion. Dollars. 

That’s a remarkable milestone. And while it doesn’t tell the whole story 鈥� it represents only revenues, not expenditures 鈥� it speaks to five trends that help explain where K-12 finance stands today.

More money, fewer students 

On an inflation-adjusted basis, schools had 22% more money to spend in 2023-24 than a decade earlier. One-time federal relief funds played a role here, and as a result, federal revenues had the largest jump in percentage terms (up 65%). But schools rely much more heavily on state and local funding, and those revenues also rose by 18% each. Meanwhile, schools about 500,000 fewer students, a decline of 1.1%. 

Put differently, schools are serving fewer students with substantially more money than they did a decade ago.

The national averages mask wide variation across the states 

On average, public schools spent $17,619 per student in the 2023-24 school year. But there was enormous variation, with places like New York and the District of Columbia spending more than $30,000 per student, while states like Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Oklahoma and Mississippi spent closer to $11,000 or $12,000 per child. 

These figures 诲辞苍鈥檛 account for cost-of-living differences, but they reflect real distinctions in how public education looks in various parts of the country. As one example, consider how different staffing levels vary across states. In Vermont, schools one full-time staff member for every 4.3 students. Maine, Connecticut, D.C., New Hampshire and Wyoming all have similar ratios. Meanwhile, the average school in Utah has 11.3 students for every employee. Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Alabama and California are also on this lower end of staffing. This all means students have very different public school experiences depending on where they live. 

States also haven鈥檛 followed the same path over the last decade. In real per-pupil terms, school spending was up in 47 out of 50 states and the District of Columbia, led by increases of 65% in California, 49% in New Mexico and 46% in Hawaii. At the other end, Alaska’s real per-pupil spending fell 13%, Montana’s declined 6% and Wyoming’s fell 1%. 

Where is the money going? Not to teacher salaries 

Education is labor-intensive, and teachers are by far the largest group of workers. But as I鈥檝e written before, higher spending is not making its way into teachers鈥� pockets. According to the NEA Rankings and Estimates , public school teachers earned an average salary of $72,030 in the 2023-24 school year. A decade prior, they $56,610. That鈥檚 a nominal raise of almost $16,000, but in real, inflation-adjusted terms, it represents a decline of about $2,500. In other words, on average, teachers today have less purchasing power than they did a decade ago. 

Why? Because districts employ more workers, who have more expensive benefits 

As I and have written, schools employ more people than they used to. They have more teachers and a lot more instructional aides, principals, assistant principals, guidance counselors and student support staff. In metaphorical terms, schools have gradually split up their pie into smaller and smaller pieces. 

Beyond salaries, each of those employees also needs health insurance and retirement benefits, and those, too, have risen rapidly. In 2023-24, schools spent $197 billion on employee benefits. As another way to look at it, for every $1,000 that a school spent on salaries, it also paid $438 in benefit costs. These trends may help explain why districts with rising personnel costs are not boosting take-home pay for their workers. 

Within states and districts, spending is more progressive than you might expect

The biggest variation in school spending is across state lines (see above), and the wealthier states tend to spend more. But within states and districts, schools serving needier students tend to get more funding. As one research summary , 鈥淏lack and Hispanic students receive $487 and $266 more per pupil than white students, respectively, and [free- and reduced-price lunch] students receive $355 more than non-FRL students.鈥� 

The School Spending and Outcomes Snapshot from the National Comprehensive Center lets users see school-level spending figures for their communities. As one example, I鈥檝e chosen to focus on elementary schools in Atlanta. In the chart below, each bar represents one school, and the schools are color-coded based on the percentage of economically disadvantaged students they serve, with green being higher-income and red being lower-income. The schools are organized left to right by lower to higher spending levels. 

Atlanta illustrates the national pattern. With the exception of several charter schools, higher-poverty elementary schools generally receive more funding per student than lower-poverty schools.

Of course, how much money is spent doesn鈥檛 tell us how the money is spent. At the national level, the researchers found that low-income and Black students have more staff allocated toward their education, but those staff tend to be less experienced, and thus lower-paid. 

It鈥檚 unclear if having more, lower-paid staff is better or worse for students than having fewer, higher-paid teachers, but policymakers need to understand the underlying trends to avoid making expensive errors. For example, when New York state tried to impose a class size cap on New York City, the teachers union that 鈥減riority will be given to schools with higher poverty rates鈥� 鈥� but researchers those schools already had the smallest classes. Meeting the new statewide cap would therefore require shifting resources toward wealthier schools, at a cost of as much as $1.9 billion.

Crossing the trillion-dollar threshold presents an opportunity to ask harder questions than whether schools simply need more money. Enrollment is falling, spending has risen substantially and staffing has expanded, yet teacher pay has stagnated and student outcomes remain uneven. The next decade of school finance will be determined by whether policymakers can resolve these competing challenges.

As Texas schools face at least $600 million in federal funding cuts, multiple mental health programs, particularly those implemented in response to the pandemic and mass shootings, are at risk of losing funding.

School programs focused on chronic absenteeism, mental wellness and crisis services that were created in response to the Uvalde school shooting, as well as social workers and counselors, could all be on the chopping block.

Texas schools rely heavily on federal funding to support mental health programs. Data shows that two federal programs that are of being cut or account for 86% of the school mental health funding for more than 2,500 campuses statewide, according to Mental Health America of Greater Houston.

Bracing also for the impending expiration of COVID-19 relief funding, school districts and advocacy groups this legislative session had pushed for more money through a dedicated funding source for school mental health, but lawmakers did not approve it.

Currently, such funding is combined with school safety in the so-called school safety allotment in the state school funding formula, and school districts tend to prioritize the allotment on school security.

鈥淚 诲辞苍鈥檛 want to get into a situation where I am asking, do I hire a police officer or do I hire a counselor? I want them both,鈥� said Adrian Johnson, superintendent for the Hearne school district.

The funding cuts and lack of progress on getting a statewide dedicated funding stream for mental health comes at a time when . The special legislative session starts July 21, but Gov. Greg Abbott has not assigned school mental health as a directive to lawmakers.

The funding crisis

Created in response to Uvalde, the federal helps fund two grant programs in Texas, the and the . The former implements mental health training and support in 60 high-needs districts and the latter helps 98 public school districts with case management tools that identify struggling students, as well as mental health personnel.

Almost three years later, the Safer Communities Act is losing over $1 billion spread across the country. Funds that were supposed to last until 2027 are expected to dry up by the end of this year.

This cut puts programs like , which deploys evidence-based mental health resources in three Central Texas school districts, at risk. The state homed in on those school districts because of their higher rates of community impacts from the pandemic and high rates of population growth.

The cut to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is just one in a series of proposed changes to federal funding for public education that will impact how mental health is addressed in schools.

According to an analysis from the , the freezing of five other federal programs that support public schools are expected to result in the withholding of approximately $600 million from Texas, more than 16.1% of the state鈥檚 federal K-12 funding. These funds have been used for a variety of services such as English language instruction and literacy, but also after school programs and summer programs focused on mental wellness.

Medicaid and CHIP are also facing cuts in the federal spending bill passed earlier this month, and both provide each year to school districts and local mental health authorities, enabling them to hire and retain mental health providers, offer preventive mental health screenings, and support students with disabilities using specialized services.

Separately, COVID-19 funds are set to expire this year , forcing some smaller schools to lay off staff or find alternative ways to keep the social workers and counselors hired during the pandemic.

The confluence of these cuts come as Texas lawmakers missed opportunities to properly fund school mental health this year.

During the legislative session that ended in June, Texas lawmakers agreed on a robust that adds $8.5 billion to the state鈥檚 public school system. However, most of it has been earmarked for teacher pay; with roughly $250 million being set aside for school support staff and mental health support staff are not necessarily included in the pay raise.

Over 70% of the schools that sustainable funding for school-based mental health staff and professional school counselors was the main barrier to having adequate resources to address student mental health needs, according to a survey of 2,690 schools by the .

鈥淲e are hopeful that this will translate to more dollars for mental health. But without any legislation currently earmarking those dollars, that is not a guarantee,鈥� Rebecca Fowler, the director of public policy and government affairs at Mental Health America of Greater Houston, said about the new school funding.

In 2023, wrote to the Texas Legislature, urging the creation and funding of a separate 鈥渟tudent mental health allotment鈥� because programs were not reaching enough students.

Only 13% of schools used the school safety allotment for mental health supports, according to the

by Rep. , D-Dallas, attempted to secure dedicated mental health funds, but it did not pass this year.

鈥淯ncertainty around different funding streams makes it hard to navigate these conversations about the future of mental health and young people,鈥� said Kate Murphy, director of child protection policy for Texans Care for Children.

Changing conversations

After the devastating school shootings in Uvalde and Santa Fe compelled lawmakers to prioritize mental health, such support has waned in the last few years. Mental health advocates have pointed the blame at the culture war happening in the Capitol, namely that lawmakers have suggested mental health programs in schools are diagnosing children and reinforcing LGBTQ identities without parental consent.

For example, by Sen. , R-Brenham, would have required parental consent for any psychological or psychiatric examination, testing, or treatment conducted on a student by a school employee. The bill had eight senators as sponsors, and although it died in the less conservative Texas House, it demonstrates the shift in the legislative conversation surrounding school mental health.

鈥淚 诲辞苍鈥檛 think there is a uniform understanding of the role of behavioral health in public schools. Who should be providing support? When should support happen?鈥� Seth Winick, director of the , said.

Johnson, the Hearne superintendent, said he understands parents鈥� concerns but says schools are the best place to address mental health issues for Texas families who might not have the income or time to schedule mental health services. Until a better solution is proposed, school mental health needs support, he said.

鈥淲e have students pre-K through 12 sitting in the school system for 180 plus days a year, and we should take advantage of that by not only giving them a strong educational foundation but a strong mental health foundation,鈥� he said.

What does the future hold?

Without federal funding support, school districts will have to get creative in addressing mental wellness within their walls.

Johnson said his school district is focusing on partnerships not only with local mental health authorities and health agencies, but also with other school districts. He said his district shares staff and cut costs by joining in on a special education cooperative with four other districts and can be modeled in other parts of the state.

鈥淲e have 700 kids, a neighboring district might have 600 kids, and another district may have 150; we have to learn to work together to help lower some of the costs during these budget cuts.鈥�

Collaboration is necessary, Johnson said, but even that is at risk under current funding restrictions.

Some schools are unable to expand partnerships with programs like , which directly works with students to provide mental health support and address chronic absenteeism.

鈥淐IS is currently serving two campuses in our district, but we would definitely expand to have CIS serve all of our campuses if we had a state funded allotment that would help the district provide the matching funding that is needed to partner with CIS,鈥� Chris Smith, superintendent of the Brownfield school district, said. 鈥淲e just 诲辞苍鈥檛 have the funding available.鈥�

Rural and smaller schools also face laying off social workers and psychologists hired during the pandemic and eliminating programs to ensure they can retain teachers through raises instead.

鈥淲e are adopting a budget this year that鈥檚 probably going to have a $2 million deficit. We are dedicated to making sure mental health services are available and luckily have been able to sustain through partnerships, but it has been tough times with the economy, and schools are struggling to keep up with costs,鈥� Smith said.

The endless loop of putting mental health on the back burner until tragedy hits is unsustainable, according to education advocates, who say it鈥檚 time for funding dedicated to school mental health.

鈥淚 would like to have funding similar to what they said with police officers. You have to have a police officer on every campus, but that costs money yearly, and they provide. We should be doing the same with social workers and psychologists,鈥� Johnson said.

This first appeared on .

Released this month, the shows the number of students with disabilities spending much of their days in general education classrooms grew by 25% between 2012 and 2024. The largest growth came in the population spending 80% or more of their school days in inclusive settings, in accordance with a federal civil rights law enacted more than 50 years ago.

But the rigorous monitoring and technical assistance provided by the federal Department of Education鈥檚 Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services are at risk amid severe staff cuts, reduced state visits and the office鈥檚 shift to another agency, say lawmakers who requested the report.

鈥淚鈥檓 glad this report was delivered, and was heartened to see a significant increase in the number of students with disabilities being placed in general education classrooms for much of their day,鈥� U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, wrote in an email to 社区黑料. 鈥淏ut this report makes plain that progress is not being made equally in all places 鈥� and that it would be extremely foolish to move oversight over special education programs out of the Department of Education to other agencies that lack the expertise and experience to close those gaps.鈥�

Sens. Kaine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont requested the report as part of a broader examination of where students with disabilities receive their education. In 2025, Kaine was among a group of senators who U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon鈥檚 proposal to shift special education out of the Department of Education as a move that will 鈥渞everse decades of progress in how we support students with disabilities and their families.鈥澛�

On June 16, the move was formalized with . The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment, but in the agreement the agency鈥檚 director, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., described the move as a 鈥減artnership鈥� that will eliminate bureaucracy, save money and 鈥渄eliver more effective support for individuals with disabilities and their families.鈥澛�

Under the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, children with disabilities must be educated alongside their non-disabled peers whenever appropriate. The law aligns with research that shows positive outcomes from inclusive educational practices. A foundational by the National Center on Educational Outcomes found that up to 85% of special education students can meet the same achievement standards as other students if they are given specially designed instruction, access, support and accommodations.

also shows that students with disabilities in inclusive general ed classrooms do better academically and socially, pursue postsecondary education, and are more likely to get a competitive job and live independently.

Disabilities studied in the GAO report include autism, hearing impairment, visual impairments, orthopedic impairments and intellectual impairments among others.

The report shows modest but steady gains in national inclusion rates, but progress was uneven. In 42 states and the District of Columbia the number of students with disabilities spending at least 40% of their time in mainstream classrooms increased, but in North Dakota and Nevada that share of students decreased by about 3%. Inclusion rates also went down in Minnesota, Alabama, Ohio and Georgia over the 12-year period.听

Educators in some states pointed to district staffing shortages to explain why some students with disabilities who require an aide have not joined general education peers. Others noted that a school鈥檚 success largely depends on its leadership.

鈥淸School culture] is the No. 1 issue,鈥� a school official told GAO investigators. 鈥淭he [principal] is the most powerful benefit or hindrance to inclusion. Unfortunately, a lot of principals do not have special education background or depth of knowledge in special ed.鈥�

Advocates worry that moving special education services to HHS will erode a core element of the IDEA.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a very real separation,鈥� said Jennifer Coco, interim executive director of the New York-based Center for Learner Equity. 鈥淲hat will make inclusion happen is setting an expectation that students with disabilities are students first. We start with the presumption that they’re going to be in the general education classrooms being taught by general ed teachers.鈥� 

Until this year, the federal Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services has visited and monitored 10 states a year to ensure that the IDEA is being enforced and to offer support and assistance where it is not. Those state visits are expected to drop to two per year, Coco said, which means less insight into how students are being educated and less support at the state and district levels.

鈥淎ll of the foundational pieces at the federal level that drive the results we see in this report have been dismantled,鈥� she said. The Department of Education鈥檚 staff cuts and decision to move special education services is 鈥減ulling the rug out from underneath all of us in terms of how we’re going to sustain the progress that this report shows us.鈥�

Advocates are also concerned that by housing special education services in HHS 鈥� whose director drew criticism with his that children with autism 鈥渨ill never pay taxes鈥� 鈥� will add stigma for students with disabilities.

鈥淚t matters who’s overseeing special education,鈥� said Lisa Mosko Barros, founder of the California-based advocacy organization Speducational. 鈥淭he tone they set matters.鈥� Kennedy鈥檚 remarks about people with autism indicate a 鈥渕indset that is concerning,鈥� Barros added. 鈥淚t’s like enlisting the support of a hospital to oversee a school district.鈥�

With costs up, many are facing financial hardship at a level even greater than what was seen at the onset of the pandemic. That economic strain is taking a toll on the emotional well-being of children and their caregivers.

That鈥檚 according to that have asked families how they are faring. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 really clear that it鈥檚 a really difficult time to be a parent in America right now,鈥� said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union. 鈥淚 feel like we鈥檙e being squeezed in so many different ways.鈥�

The administration鈥檚 approach to tariffs has forced up the price of many basic goods and services, she noted. The conflict in Iran has caused oil prices to spike. And federal legislation 鈥� namely H.R. 1, known as the 鈥淥ne Big Beautiful Bill鈥� 鈥� has led to the beginning of a pullback of social safety net programs such as SNAP and Medicaid.听

As a result, Americans are dealing with soaring gas prices, increased grocery costs, higher utility bills, and untenable healthcare premiums that have prompted some to 鈥渞oll the dice鈥� and go uninsured, Rodrigues explained. On top of all of those ballooning expenses, parents must also weather the costs of childcare; extracurricular activities for the kids; and food, clothing and medical care for their dependents. 

鈥淎ll of these things compound and create this context of misery that we鈥檙e all feeling pretty acutely this summer,鈥� said Rodrigues, whose organization recently released the results of a of parents of more than 1,500 K-12 public school students. 

Among parents of children in kindergarten through fifth grade, NPU found that about two-thirds of respondents expressed that they think the economic conditions in the country are getting worse, with an overwhelming majority saying that the costs of housing, basic goods, healthcare, childcare and extracurricular activities were each 鈥渟omewhat鈥� or a 鈥渧ery big鈥� problem right now. Three in four parents of kids in grades K-5 said inflation had changed their summer plans. Trips have been canceled or dialed back. Summer activities, such as camp, have had to be reconsidered. 

Magda Zalewska, a mother of three children under age 6 in Romeoville, Illinois, is one of the parents feeling immense financial pressure this year. She wants to sign up her two older children 鈥� ages 4 and 5 鈥� for soccer, but it鈥檚 not something she can afford. Trips to the grocery store and fueling up her car are crushing her right now, she said. She has no money in a savings account in case of emergency; she鈥檚 always hoping her air conditioner doesn鈥檛 go out, that her car keeps running. 

鈥淚鈥檓 already working from sun up to sun down,鈥� said Zalewska, who works as an early intervention therapist. 鈥淚鈥檓 already stretched so thin, and it’s frustrating because you want to give your kids this life but you can鈥檛 keep up with expenses.鈥�

Her compensation, even as it has gone up, never seems to keep pace with inflation, she added.

鈥淓verything is going up in price,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 keep climbing the ladder, climbing the ladder, [but] I鈥檓 always at this paycheck-to-paycheck scenario, no matter how far I advance in my career.鈥�

Zalewska has benefited from financial assistance over the years, from WIC, SNAP and Medicaid, but she said she lost Medicaid coverage recently and has been told she鈥檚 going to lose her SNAP benefits as well. Already, she said, she can鈥檛 remember the last time she ate fresh fruit. When SNAP is gone, she said, 鈥淚t won鈥檛 be produce I鈥檓 not eating, it鈥檚 going to be meals I鈥檓 skipping.鈥� (She focuses on making sure her three children have enough to eat before she feeds herself.)

鈥淗ow am I supposed to pour into their cups when my cup is not filling?鈥� she asked. 鈥淭he support is being taken from our fingertips. It鈥檚 just all gone.鈥�

Zalewska takes some comfort in the knowledge that she鈥檚 not alone. She notices a 鈥渦niform struggle鈥� in the families she works with. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 not financial, it鈥檚 overall stress and mental well-being. Most families are burnt out.鈥�

Her point is reflected in data from Stanford鈥檚 RAPID Survey Project, which has been gathering information monthly from parents and childcare providers for over six years. Indeed, 44% of families with infants and toddlers reported challenges paying for basics such as food and housing in 2025, according to a by the nonprofit Zero to Three, which compiled RAPID data from families with children under age 3. That represents the highest rate in the prior five years of survey data, including in 2020 when 42% of families reported the same difficulties.

By the end of 2025, families鈥� financial hardship seemed to peak, said Samantha Melvin, director of policy research at Zero to Three and author of the report. 

鈥淭heir struggles really grew throughout the course of 2025,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 say discretely that one thing changed, but there is this kind of cascading, consistent onslaught of uncertainty and distress.鈥� 

Families specifically mentioned the heavy burdens of affording food, housing and utilities, she said. Economic pressure often affected emotional and mental well-being, with parents reporting increases in anxiety, depression, stress and loneliness over the course of the year. 

Those stressors affect not just adults, but entire families, Melvin noted. 

鈥淚f you鈥檙e afraid of paying for rent, putting food on the table, it may impact how you鈥檙e interacting with your baby or [how] your baby is perceiving that stress,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t can have long-term consequences and harm for babies to be living in this constant place of uncertainty and deprivation, unstable and inconsistent relationships.鈥�

Often, people will respond to moments of hardship by noting that children are resilient. And they are, Melvin agreed. 

鈥淔amilies and the relationships are what creates that resilience,鈥� she clarified. 鈥淏abies are resilient because of their parents.鈥�

So when parents are taking on extra jobs to cover expenses, waiting in line at a Medicaid or SNAP office to access benefits they are eligible for, or visiting food banks to make sure their kids can eat dinner, that inherently pulls them away from quality time with their children. 鈥淗ow do relationships get formed?鈥� Melvin asked. 鈥淚t鈥檚 with that time.鈥�

This resonates for Zalewska. She鈥檚 been taking on more and more work to help her family鈥檚 finances. She estimates that she works about 65 hours a week. 

鈥淚 barely see my kids,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檓 missing all their milestones.鈥�

Her current circumstances have left her in 鈥渇ight or flight mode,鈥� she said. Her nervous system is 鈥渉aywire.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 exhausted,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 feel it in the bones of my body.鈥�

Clara Busse, a mom in Philadelphia with an infant and a 3-year-old, doesn鈥檛 worry so much about meeting her basic needs, but she and her husband have to make some sacrifices to afford the annual cost of their childcare, which is around $35,000 for her two children, she said. 

鈥淓very friend I have with young children is facing the same challenges,鈥� Busse said. 鈥淲e need policies that make sense for young families. It鈥檚 really basic stuff. People are really frustrated.鈥�

These issues are not likely to improve in the near term, with major cuts to SNAP and Medicaid looming in early 2027. Rodrigues and Melvin both emphasized the need for policies that support families, rather than ones that continue to take programs away and make life with young children less affordable.听

鈥淔amilies are having such a hard time,鈥� Melvin said. 鈥淭hey shouldn鈥檛 have to be working so hard, but the way they keep showing up for their babies 鈥� we need our policymakers and elected officials to be showing up for them.鈥�

Chemical fires, leaks and explosions happen at U.S. industrial facilities 鈥� incidents such as four disasters in greater Los Angeles over Memorial Day weekend, including one involving a chemical tank that and forced and to evacuate, and a the next day in Longview, Washington, that killed 11 men.

Yet the Environmental Protection Agency is to the very program protecting Americans from such , the . The program was in response to the 1984 , in which a pesticide factory owned and operated by the U.S.-based Union Carbide Corp. leaked toxic methyl isocyanate gas, killing thousands.

Children are the most vulnerable to chemical disasters. Their are going through rapid and delicate developmental phases, and their immune systems 鈥� the primary defense against infections, diseases and harmful chemicals 鈥� are physiologically immature. It takes only tiny quantities of a hazardous chemical to cause life-altering and sometimes life-ending harm. Cancers and other ill effects can emerge at any time in the following days, years or even decades, and also in .

It is obvious that the nation鈥檚 barebones and outdated industrial safety systems desperately , and that an expansion of the Risk Management Program’s chemical list is long overdue. The program regulates , and only when they are stored in massive quantities. MMA, the volatile toxic chemical that triggered the evacuations in Southern California, is not even on the list, nor is , a fertilizer chemical that exploded in , in 2013, killing 15 and injuring hundreds. Had that disaster occurred in the daytime, some at nearby schools could have been harmed, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. Ammonium nitrate is the same chemical that burned in a , fertilizer plant in 2022, engulfing communities in toxic smoke and threatening to become one of the worst disasters in U.S. history. The site is adjacent to daycare centers, grade schools and colleges, including Wake Forest University. The country has other facilities that store this same chemical.

A recent analysis found that are located within 10 miles of facilities that use or store large quantities of , or other extremely dangerous substances. One in three children attend school in chemical disaster vulnerability zones, the highest-risk locations based on chemical toxicity, blast potential, topography and other factors.听

Utah, Rhode Island, Texas, Louisiana and Nevada have the largest proportion of . Kids in Houston and Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Memphis; and Wilmington, Delaware face even greater danger, with many schools located in multiple overlapping vulnerability zones. Children at San Jacinto Elementary School in Deer Park, Texas, are in the vulnerability zones of a staggering 41 chemical facilities, and 10 high-risk facilities. New Jersey, Texas, California and Illinois each have vulnerability zones that expose over 500,000 children to chemical risks. 

The Risk Management Program applies to over 11,000 chemical manufacturers, water treatment plants, industrial agriculture facilities, pulp and paper mills, and other facilities that use, store and manufacture immense quantities of toxic and flammable chemicals. It requires them to develop plans to prevent and mitigate chemical disasters. But the Trump administration’s proposal would . For example, it would eliminate the requirement that those using the largest quantities of the highest-risk chemicals with the greatest potential for off-site impacts, and factories that experienced recent chemical disasters, document and sometimes implement safer alternatives. It would also weaken or eliminate third-party audits after disasters, remove mandates for backup power for monitoring equipment used to detect unplanned releases during emergencies, and do away with planning requirements for power loss and the risk of such as hurricanes, flooding and wildfires.

The community members, environmental health and justice organizations, medical professionals and labor groups in our coalition have been petitioning the EPA to stop the rollback, but the agency has not responded. Everything this EPA is doing is shockingly reckless and callous, from of formaldehyde that the government considers , to approving made from “forever” chemicals, to proposing to exempt from the safeguards of the Clean Air Act.

Millions of children live and go to school in the shadows of chemical plants and other industrial facilities. They deserve an EPA that goes the extra mile to protect them, not one that plays Russian roulette with their lives.

Clarification: This story has been updated to include research that found that one in three children attend school in a chemical disaster vulnerability zone.

But now, some offices that handled the hundreds of inquiries that pour in each month 鈥� from parents, reporters and watchdog groups 鈥� have either been eliminated or have no remaining employees, according to a by the agency鈥檚 inspector general.

A FOIA group within the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, for example, had eight employees before President Donald Trump took charge in January 2025. After staff reductions, none remained, the report showed. 

Those cuts have further jammed an already clogged system. A review by 社区黑料 of publicly available shows that out of the more than 4,900 requests the Education Department has received since February 2025, only 3% have been granted in full or in part as of last week. The department doesn鈥檛 carry the largest backlog of requests, according to . But its own annual , released earlier this year, said it was unable to reduce a backlog that makes up over 86% of pending requests.听

Officials blamed their lack of responsiveness on an increase in requests, the department鈥檚 downsizing and the 43-day government shutdown last year. Experts, including a former FOIA official, say the administration鈥檚 push to eliminate the department has especially hampered the public鈥檚 ability to understand the inner workings of the agency.

鈥淭he people who remain at the Department of Education are either not subject matter experts in the relevant issue or they’re massively overworked trying desperately to do the jobs of all of their departed coworkers,鈥� said Jill Siegelbaum, who spent 15 years as the agency鈥檚 senior FOIA attorney.听

With the department offloading key offices to other agencies, hunting down records could become even more difficult, she said. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who will take responsibility for special education, has also .

鈥淣o one is going to have any idea what agency has which responsive records,鈥� said Siegelbaum, now a partner with Sligo Law Group. 鈥淎ll of this adds up to a nightmare for FOIA requesters.鈥�

Those include parents whose children aren鈥檛 receiving the services they鈥檙e entitled to, news outlets covering fast-moving stories in their local schools and student loan borrowers trying to make sense of what they owe after all the changes to in recent years.

The requests frequently become .

In one example, a reporter from the New Bedford Light in Massachusetts asked for civil rights data from the local school district in 2021. The request is still pending, but the reporter has since moved on, according to the outlet鈥檚 executive editor.

In early 2023, Callie Oettinger, a special education advocate in Virginia, requested documents from the Office for Civil Rights related to its oversight of Fairfax County Public Schools during the pandemic. After an OCR investigation, to make up for the services students with disabilities didn鈥檛 receive during school closures. 

Oettinger wanted to ensure OCR was holding the district accountable, but two years later, she hasn鈥檛 received a response. She recently talked to a mom who is still trying to get services for her child as part of that agreement. 

鈥淲e鈥檙e six years past COVID,鈥� she said. 鈥淜ids needed help years ago.鈥� 

In March 2025, 社区黑料 asked for submissions to the department鈥檚 short-lived tip line for examples of diversity, equity and inclusion activity in public schools. The department had to shut down the portal as the result of litigation, but the request is still pending. In all, 社区黑料 has submitted 20 requests since the current administration took office. Seventeen have not been processed and three cases were closed because they were duplicates. A separate request to the Office of Inspector General was fulfilled within four weeks. 

FOIA wasn鈥檛 meant for 鈥渉istorical purposes,鈥� said Jon Maier, senior litigation counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 鈥淚t’s a public disclosure statute that’s designed to get information into the hands of the American public.鈥� 

The left-leaning watchdog group sued seeking records from the Department of Government Efficiency, which oversaw widespread layoffs and cancelled contracts. Requesters can sue if they haven鈥檛 received a response in 20-30 days. The department鈥檚 current wait time for simple requests , but many take much longer.

鈥淭hat these preposterous delays are acceptable goes directly against the purpose of FOIA,鈥� Maier said. The backlog is only likely to grow. 鈥淲hen the government isn’t telling you what it’s doing there will only be more FOIA requests.鈥�

鈥業gnoring FOIA officers鈥�

In addition to tallying the staff cuts, the inspector general鈥檚 office hoped to evaluate the agency鈥檚 ability to process requests. But the department refused to turn over all the information its internal watchdog requested and declined to 鈥減ermit unrestricted access to its staff,鈥� said Catherine Grant, a spokeswoman for that office. 鈥淲e were unable to make definitive determinations in several areas, including major activities,鈥� like FOIA requests.

In the largest share of open cases, roughly 41% of them, a FOIA officer has sent the request to the office that is likely to have the records, but is still waiting, often months later, for a response.

Lauren Harper, an expert on government secrecy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, wasn鈥檛 surprised. 

If the department is 鈥渟tonewalling the inspector general鈥檚 office, it’s an extremely safe bet that they’re absolutely ignoring FOIA officers who are asking for information,鈥� she said. 

The logs also show:

• Since February 2025, 37% of FOIA requests have been closed, but the majority of those were either withdrawn or were invalid requests to begin with. 

• During the current Trump administration鈥檚 first 16 months in office, the department received an average of 295 requests per month. During that same window under President Joe Biden, from February 2021 through May 2022, the department received an average of 185 requests a month. 

• Many requests submitted during the Biden administration and even Trump鈥檚 first term still haven鈥檛 been processed. For fiscal year 2023, 23% are stuck in that 鈥渞equest for docs sent鈥� category. 

鈥楩ind funding elsewhere鈥�

Problems with the federal government鈥檚 FOIA system are longstanding. The law, which turned 60 on July 4, has always been 鈥渦nderfunded,鈥� Siegelbaum said.听

鈥淐ongress doesn’t appropriate funding for FOIA, so you have to find funding elsewhere,鈥� she said. 鈥淪ometimes it has to struggle to get attention, to get the appropriate resources, both in terms of money and staff at the Department of Education.”

Comparing the handling of FOIA requests from one administration to the next isn鈥檛 a simple math problem. Each new team inherits requests that were still pending when the department changed hands. Clearing out the backlog was a priority for Mitchell Zais, former deputy education secretary during Trump鈥檚 first term.

鈥淎s I recall, we were able to hire some temporary staff,鈥� he said in an email. 鈥淎s a consequence, we made significant progress, but not as much as I would have liked.鈥�

In 2024, the conservative Defense of Freedom Institute, where Zais is a board member, analyzed the department鈥檚 FOIA logs, concluding that the response rate was higher during the first three years of Trump鈥檚 first term than during the same period under Biden, 67% to 48%. 

The analysis also showed that during Zais鈥� tenure, the department was quicker to respond to liberal groups it disagreed with, like American Oversight and the Center for American Progress, than the Biden administration was to conservative advocates and think tanks, including Parents Defending Education and the America First Policy Institute.

Zais suggested that while he was there, some requests 鈥渨ere made with an eye toward harassing the department 鈥� rather than generally seeking information that could be legitimately used for any positive purpose.鈥�

But Harper, at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, that whether or liberal groups are flooding the system, the onus is on the government to respond in a more timely manner. The current administration, she said, has been especially hostile toward releasing information, and staff working on FOIA requests have been among the first to go at agencies the administration is 鈥渋nterested in eliminating.鈥�

Last year, the administration put in the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave before shutting down the agency entirely. Trump has the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which for releasing a memo about .

In addition to mass firings at the Education Department, active litigation contributes to the growing backlog of requests, officials said. According to its FOIA report, the agency is facing 57 FOIA-related lawsuits, which have 鈥渘egatively impacted the department鈥檚 ability to keep pace with other requests.鈥� Last week, civil rights groups filed two more FOIA-related lawsuits, one about the department鈥檚 failure to release data on cases and another seeking .

ProPublica in February for failing to release information including civil rights investigations. In April, the to the complaint, acknowledged it received the requests and said its search for records is 鈥渙ngoing.鈥�

鈥楶roactively鈥� posting records

Harper gave the department credit for posting up-to-date FOIA logs, something other agencies haven鈥檛 always done. The department, however, between December 2023 and mid-2025.

Officials reported that they鈥檝e taken actions to improve turnaround times on requests, like training staff across the agency and 鈥減roactively鈥� posting frequently requested records. These include student loan data and a list of involving accusations of antisemitism.

As McMahon moves forward with splitting up the department, spokeswoman Savannah Newhouse said the agency is 鈥渃omplying with all applicable laws and looks forward to restoring excellence in American education through these critical partnerships.鈥�

, agencies that are 鈥渞eorganizing, terminating or transferring offices or functions鈥� have to work with the National Archives and Records Administration and the receiving agency to ensure records 诲辞苍鈥檛 get lost in the process. 

鈥淭his all requires a lot of communication,鈥� Harper said. She emphasized that the National Archives hasn鈥檛 been spared from or . 鈥淩estructuring has not happened on the scale that it’s happening now. It’s truly a perfect storm.鈥�

Nearly every child in Hawai驶i lives in a community that lacks adequate licensed childcare, with access rates falling far behind the national average, according to recent reports from the Center for American Progress.听

Challenges finding affordable childcare have also worsened for some families this year as they face delays with receiving state subsidies reducing the costs of preschool. 

聽measure the percentage of kids in every state who live in childcare deserts 鈥� communities where at least three kids are vying for a single seat in a licensed program. These programs include options like public or private preschools, group childcare homes and Head Start, said Hailey Gibbs, associate director of early childhood policy at the Center for American Progress.听

In 鈥嬧�婬awai驶i, 96% of kids live in these deserts 鈥� more than double the national average. Of these kids, 86% live in communities with no supply of licensed childcare providers at all, according to the Center for American Progress report.听

The data highlights the need for greater investments in childcare programs, including more support for staff, Gibbs said.  mean that some programs that are already in high demand may need to cut back on the number of students they serve, she said. 

鈥淧rovider financial viability is essential to standing up a childcare system that can actually meet demand,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou really need to be able to attract educators into the field.鈥澛�

The study does not include unlicensed sources of care, such as grandparents, neighbors and , which allow kids to learn alongside their family members, said Malia Tsuchiya, early childhood policy and advocacy coordinator at Hawai驶i Children Action鈥檚 Network. 

Even taking these options into account, she said, families need more access to early learning programs. The state has aggressively expanded its public preschool programs in recent years, adding more than 1,800 seats in traditional public and charter schools since 2022. But the capacity of private childcare providers has fallen by roughly 950 seats in the same time period, according to a  from the Department of Human Services and Executive Office on Early Learning. 

Hawai驶i鈥檚 workforce of early educators shrank during the pandemic and never recovered, Tsuchiya said, leading some providers to close some classrooms and reduce their enrollment.听

鈥淲e鈥檙e blessed to have multi-generational families and aunties, uncles, cousins, grandmas that are willing to step in and help supplement childcare,鈥� Tsuchiya said. 鈥淏ut do they have a choice?鈥� 

State Aid On Its Way?

For some families, securing childcare has only become harder to navigate as they face delays with receiving state tuition subsidies. 

Operating under the Department of Human Services, Preschool Open Doors provides tuition subsidies for young children whose families make up to 500% of the federal poverty level. The maximum subsidy ranges from $1,200 to $1,500 a month. 

Typically, the application window opens near the  to give the department time to process families鈥� applications before the payment period begins on July 1. This year, the application opened on , giving the department just over a month before families expected their subsidies to kick in. Parents need to reapply for the subsidy every year. 

The applications opened later than usual because the Department of Human Services needed to update its administrative rules expanding Preschool Open Door鈥檚 age eligibility to 2-year-olds. The department was initially expected to expand the program to 2-year-olds back in January, but it instructed families to  applying at the time to create more time for the rule change. 

As of last week, the program received over 6,100 applications and had processed 1,282. Staff process 10 to 15 applications a day, Joseph Campos II, director of the Hawai驶i Department of Human Services, said in an emailed statement. The department is exploring strategies to reduce the backlog, he said, adding that wait times are longer than usual because of the high number of submissions the department received as soon as applications opened in May.听

But the delayed release date has left families scrambling for answers. 

Parent Christine Russo said she submitted an application for her twin daughters the morning of May 29, hoping an early submission would secure a quick response time from Preschool Open Doors. But more than a month later, she doesn鈥檛 know if her daughters qualify for the program 鈥� and the subsidy she was receiving through June has stopped.听

Last year, Russo鈥檚 daughters qualified for Preschool Open Doors, meaning that she paid only $28 a month for their preschool tuition. But the program year ended on June 30, meaning that Russo is now covering the full costs of tuition for July 鈥� over $2,700 for both girls.听

Russo said she doesn鈥檛 want to pull her daughters out of preschool, since it would mean losing her deposit and two spots that are in high demand. Russo lives in 驶Ewa Beach, a community with a scarce licensed childcare supply, according to the .

Expecting to cover the full costs of preschool this month, Russo is worried what will happen if the tuition payments 诲辞苍鈥檛 kick by August. Earlier this week, she learned her application is being processed, but she鈥檚 still waiting to hear if her daughters qualify for the subsidy.听

鈥淢y anticipation was if they open this late, they鈥檝e got it under control,鈥� Russo said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not looking good at all.鈥� 

The Department of Human Services will retroactively issue tuition subsidies dating back to the date of children鈥檚 preschool enrollment or families鈥� application, whichever came later, Campos said. Families who applied for July benefits and enrolled their children in preschool will receive subsidies for the full month if their application is approved, he said.听

Even with the reassurance of tuition backpay, some families and providers are stuck in limbo. 

At Seagull Schools, which offers early learning programs at six O驶ahu sites, some parents have decided to withdraw their children for the month of July because their tuition benefits haven鈥檛 come through, said Chief Executive Officer Megan McCorriston. Other families who are new to the school are holding off enrolling their children until they know they can qualify for the subsidies, she said. 

It鈥檚 a difficult situation for working parents, she said, and it also puts more stress on providers. Seagull Schools will hold seats for families who are waiting to hear back from Preschool Open Doors, she said, but that means some spots remain unfilled for two to three months at a time. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 sort of a wait and see situation,鈥� she said. 

This story was originally published by . Civil Beat鈥檚 education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy, and 鈥淒ata Dive鈥� is supported in part by the Will J. Reid Foundation.

That being said, a number of these districts face higher labor costs, which offsets at least some of that advantage, according to the research from Brookings.

The findings 鈥渞aise questions about what I see as a predominant narrative that local property tax finance means that poor schools 诲辞苍鈥檛 have as much money and that that is a core, structural cause of inequality, and I just think it鈥檚 not,鈥� said Sarah Reber, a senior fellow in economic studies at Brookings and the report鈥檚 lead author. 

鈥淭hat doesn鈥檛 mean giving poor schools more money wouldn鈥檛 help. It could help,鈥� she added, but 鈥渋f we鈥檙e spending all of our time 鈥� focused on the level and allocation of school funding, we鈥檙e missing other important things.鈥�

To do this work, Reber and her colleagues used data collected by the Census Bureau, which surveys school districts on their spending and enrollment. They then divided districts into five groups, or quintiles, based on poverty rates and racial composition, with the first quintile being the least poor and the fifth being the most and the first quintile having the lowest share of non-white students and the fifth having the most.

They found that spending allocations across these five poverty brackets is U-shaped, with the poorest and wealthiest districts spending the most. Since the early 2000s, the poorest districts have outspent even the wealthiest ones. Part of this U-shape can be explained because states send more money to high-poverty districts, while affluent public schools are more likely to be in wealthier, higher-spending states.

While these findings weren鈥檛 necessarily surprising to Reber, she felt it was important to document because there is such a strongly held conviction in the opposite.

Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the right-leaning think tank American Enterprise Institute, echoed this point and said the Brookings researchers, 鈥渄eserve credit for taking a careful look at the data and trying to illuminate the real situation on the ground because 鈥� many of these conversations can be driven more by narrative than by the stark reality.鈥�

Reber added the caveat that while funding is likely not the prime cause of education inequity, there is still significant causal research that shows when funding is increased it improves outcomes.

鈥淚 definitely don’t want to put myself in the 鈥榤oney doesn’t matter鈥� (group), like we shouldn’t care about that at all,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut I think this idea that people have that obviously the reason that schools that serve poor students are struggling is that they have less money (is) not the case. For one thing they don’t 鈥� they have more money.鈥�

Reber also emphasized the importance of the historical lens of the research. She found that patterns in spending by both poverty and racial compositions remained largely consistent in each end of the five decades the authors examined, though there were some changes in the middle years. Beginning in the 1980s and early 1990s, spending was less targeted to higher-needs students, but that shifted back to earlier patterns after 1995. 

The findings that most surprised her, she said, were around racial composition: She was not anticipating that within states, predominantly non-white districts have had more funding than their counterparts throughout the entire five-decade period studied. That being said, because many of these districts are in urban areas, 鈥渢heir purchasing power is not as different as that (level of funding) would make it seem because they鈥檙e facing higher wages.鈥�

High-poverty and mostly non-white districts were also disproportionately hit by the Great Recession, since 鈥渢he federal aid was both not enough for how long the recession shock lasted 鈥� and wasn’t really targeted,鈥� said Reber.

鈥淥ver the 鈥�90s and 2000s, there had been this increase in state funding that was increasingly targeted to higher-poverty districts,鈥� she added, 鈥渟o that was part of how you’re getting that increased (levels of directed funding) during that period, but then that made them vulnerable to cuts from state funding during the recession.鈥�

A large body of previous research has looked at differences in spending within states, but in Reber鈥檚 work she found, 鈥渢he differences across states swamp all of this within-state difference that gets so much attention.鈥�

In commenting on these large differences between states, Hess, of AEI, argued, 鈥渢he real irony is that so much of the progress we鈥檝e been seeing in the last five or seven years is in relatively low-spending states like Mississippi and Louisiana and Tennessee” while 鈥渕any of the states which spend most expansively have been performing at remarkably low levels. So certainly what matters with money is very much what you do with it.鈥�

In the report, the authors note that their findings might seem to contradict other reports on school funding equity that suggest primarily non-white and high-poverty school districts receive less funding. They point to the widely cited from EdBuild, which found 鈥減redominantly white school districts get $23 billion more than their nonwhite peers.鈥�

To explain these discrepancies with the 2019 report in particular, they point to two main differences in methodology: EdBuild adjusted for regional cost-of-living differences and looked at only state and local revenue, whereas Brookings studied total current spending 鈥� including from federal revenue, which disproportionately benefits largely non-white districts. 

The single biggest allocation of federal funding for K-12 schools is Title I, which this year sent in additional money to schools with high concentrations of low-income students.

Rebecca Sibilia, who was the CEO of EdBuild at the time the report was released, acknowledged the decision to leave out federal funding streams was somewhat 鈥渃ontroversial,鈥� but argued it was the right call given their research question and organization were specifically focused on state funding formulas.

鈥淭he state dictates how much money school districts will receive from the state, and also what the tax policy is for how much you can raise from local taxes,鈥� said Sibilia, who is now the executive director of EdFund, a national education research and advocacy nonprofit. 鈥淎nd so our critical concern was, 鈥楢re these funding formulas working for kids who need the resources most?鈥欌��

Ultimately, the differences 鈥渏ust highlight that there are different ways to accurately measure whether or not kids are getting their fair share,鈥� Sibilia added, emphasizing that Reber鈥檚 differing methodology made sense to determine which districts get the most money overall.

Reber emphasized that her work was not meant to make any argument against poorer districts receiving more money, but rather just to document the phenomenon. She also argued it鈥檚 equally important to be thinking about how schools can be using their money better.

鈥淥bviously, there鈥檚 places that are spending much less and not really getting demonstrably worse outcomes,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 important to try and learn from that and try to figure out what the barriers to being more productive with spending are.鈥�

U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has detained more than 650 children in California under President Donald Trump鈥檚 second term, an EdSource analysis of federal data has found. Most arrests happened in California communities, rather than at the border, and involved minors who resided and attended school in the state.

The number of children detained in the state鈥檚 interior rose 90% during the first year of Trump鈥檚 second term compared to the prior year under the Biden administration, our analysis shows. More than 100 of the children detained under Trump were age 5 or under. 

The rise in child detainments in the state鈥檚 interior began soon after Trump took office in January 2025. Trump won office on a promise to carry out mass deportations, 鈥渋llegal immigrant killers, rapists, and drug dealers from our streets and sending them back where they belong.鈥�

Starting immediately and escalating over the summer of 2025, ICE agents have conducted large-scale operations in neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. Some children have been detained while accompanying parents to routine ICE check-ins. The practices reflect an escalation in enforcement activity that .

The children detained, so far, include a from Los Angeles County who was detained in June 2025 and deported to Guatemala; a who, along with his father, was detained at an immigration hearing that same month and deported to Honduras; and who, in March, was detained without his hearing aids and deported to Colombia along with his mother and younger brother.

Medical professionals and advocates contend that no period of time in detention is safe for children. In 2016, a Department of Homeland Security Advisory Committee 鈥� the practice of detaining children with their parents as they await the outcome of their case 鈥� writing 鈥渄etention is never in the best interest of children.鈥�

鈥淭he kids that are in detention in these facilities, they鈥檙e losing their childhoods every single day that they鈥檙e in there,鈥� said Wendy Cervantes, who oversees research and advocacy of immigrant families at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Law and Social Policy. 

A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to EdSource that this data is 鈥渂eing cherry-picked鈥� to 鈥減eddle a false narrative.鈥� ICE, the spokesperson said, is 鈥渘ot targeting children.鈥�

鈥淚CE does not separate families,鈥� the unidentified DHS spokesperson said. 鈥淧arents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates.鈥� 

What the data shows

EdSource analyzed federal detainment data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley and UCLA capturing federal detainments between October 2022 and March 2026. The analysis found: 

• There were 666 Californian children detained during the Trump administration. Of those, 408 children 鈥� or 61% 鈥� were deported. Under the Biden administration, 8% were ultimately deported.听
• Nationally, children have been held longer in detention under Trump than under Biden. The median length of detention jumped from one day under Biden to eight days under Trump. This does not include 335 children who had not yet been released from detention as of March 11, the last day for which data was available.
• Nationally, the average number of children in detention jumped nearly 10-fold under Trump, due in part to these longer detention stays. Under the last year of the Biden administration, there were, on average, 23 children held in detention each day. During Trump鈥檚 first year of his second term, that figure rose to 219.

The Trump administration is going after 鈥渢he worst of the worst,鈥� including pedophiles and rapists, a DHS spokesperson said. 

鈥淢any of the individuals that are counted as 鈥榥on-criminals鈥� are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more; they just 诲辞苍鈥檛 have a rap sheet in the U.S.,鈥� the DHS spokesperson said. 鈥淔urther, every single one of these individuals committed a crime when they came into this country illegally.鈥�

According to EdSource鈥檚 analysis of ICE鈥檚 data, none of the 666 detained children in California under Trump had any felonies or previous convictions listed. Twelve minors were listed as having pending criminal charges, including three girls between ages 6 and 9. The nature of those pending charges is not disclosed. The ICE data does not include information about any connected family members or their cases.

During his second term, Trump reopened family detention facilities, including the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley and the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center in Texas. In California, 250 detained children were ultimately sent to these family facilities.

A 12-year-old from Los Angeles, identified by the initials G.S., gave describing their experience living inside the South Texas Family Residential Center during a 64-day detainment with their parents and younger sister.

The child said ICE agents detained the family during a routine ICE check-in in Los Angeles. The family lost their apartment and belongings, according to the May 22 declaration. The status of the child and their family is unclear.

鈥淚t makes me feel hopeless to be here for so long, because now it鈥檒l take me and my whole family a long time to get back to normal because of how much money and education we have lost,鈥� the child said in their declaration. 鈥淚f I could change one thing here, it would be to shut down the whole facility.鈥�

Trump vs. Biden

One major difference between the Trump and Biden presidencies has been the number of children who arrived at the border. Of the 5,676 children detained in California between October 2022 and when Trump started his second term, 94% were apprehended at the border.

Biden prioritized placing some of the unaccompanied minors who arrived at the border with sponsors, Cervantes said, and ended the practice of family detention that resumed under Trump. Cervantes said the Biden administration largely followed . 

The 1997 agreement provided rights for immigrant children in U.S. custody and prohibited most detentions from lasting more than 20 days. The declaration from the detained Los Angeles minor is one of several included from children and parents in a lawsuit claiming their rights under the Flores agreement have been violated.

Attorneys representing the Trump administration in this case in June 2025 that conditions at detention centers for children have 鈥渄rastically improved鈥� since the original agreement. Referencing the high number of immigrants at the border, the administration said the Flores Settlement Agreement 鈥渉amstrung the government in addressing this catastrophic illegal migration.鈥�

Apprehension in California

During the first year of Trump鈥檚 second term, adults were detained in California鈥檚 interior at more than four times the rate they were held during the last year of Biden鈥檚 administration, while the rate of child detainments rose by 90%.

California has passed laws and issued guidance with the aim of shielding schools from federal immigration enforcement. For instance, under California law, school officials .

In , parents, teachers and neighbors have formed rapid-response networks to report sightings of ICE agents for students and their families to avoid while commuting to and from school.

The sites of some immigration enforcement operations, such as job sites, may be more likely to target adults than children. However, Cervantes notes that some teens working at restaurants or as lifeguards at pools have been apprehended in ICE raids while they鈥檙e on the job. She also disputes the Trump administration鈥檚 claim that children have not been targets of immigration enforcement. 

Children may not be detained at the same rates that adults are, but medical experts warn that any time spent in detention is too long for their well-being.

Shortly after Trump began his second term, medical professionals to the president and then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warning that 鈥渄etention itself poses a threat to child health.鈥� 

鈥淲e have endless amounts of research and expert testimony on how harmful detention is to children,鈥� said Michelle Bran茅, who was the immigration detention ombudsman under the Biden administration, and now leads the nonprofit Together and Free, which supports asylum-seeking families. 鈥淵ou see kids with extreme depression. You see kids really regressing, kids going back to wetting the bed after they鈥檝e been trained for years.鈥�

Going Deeper

The Deportation Data Project collects U.S. government immigration enforcement datasets obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. EdSource analyzed this data with a focus on how immigration enforcement is affecting children in California.

The participants in the project are academics and attorneys, including co-founders Graeme Blair, a professor of political science at UCLA; David Hausman, a professor of law at UC Berkeley and attorney Amber Quereshi.

This dataset from the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement contains anonymized individual level data. It contains data about arrests, detention stays and detention rates in individual facilities, largely from Oct. 1, 2022, during Biden鈥檚 term until March 11, 2026 during Trump鈥檚 second term. 

A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security said that neither they nor ICE have verified the accuracy, methodology or analysis of the Deportation Data Project and its results. 

Hausman noted that it has posted the original data obtained directly from ICE.

鈥淭hese are ICE鈥檚 own records of who is arrested, detained, and deported,鈥� Hausman wrote in a statement to EdSource. 鈥淲e have posted the data and code underlying the analysis. We welcome any specific feedback.鈥�

This ICE data from the Deportation Data Project does not include the city or state of residence for those individuals who were arrested or detained. This makes it difficult to determine with precision how many Californians are being affected directly by enforcement operations. Additionally, many of the over 700,000 arrests nationally in the data set have blanks where there should be information about the state or area where an apprehension took place.

EdSource鈥檚 analysis relied primarily on a set of more than 1 million detention stays nationally. Every recorded individual stay in the ICE detention system has a list of codes corresponding to detention facilities. Our data analysis counts those who were first detained in a California detention facility as being detained in California.

California is a border state. A hallmark of the Trump administration鈥檚 immigration policy has been a shift from the border to deporting immigrants who are living in the interior of the country. So it was important to determine whether someone had been detained as a part of border enforcement. We used the same methodology as the Deportation Data Project to distinguish between an arrest at the border or one that occurred in the interior. We counted an arrest as happening at the border if it involved U.S. Customs and Border Protection, including Border Patrol or the Coast Guard.

Determining the age of those Californians who were detained was more straightforward. We have the birth year of those who were detained, as well as the date that an individual was booked into a facility. If the difference between those years was less than 18, this analysis counts them as a child. Because we do not know the exact birth dates of each individual, 666 children may be an undercount.

None of the data connects family members to one another.

This story was originally published by . Sign up for their .

EdSource Reporter Zaidee Stavely and Data Journalist Daniel J. Willis contributed to this story.

Millions of Americans start the new calendar year with a pledge to complete Dry January. By giving up alcohol for a month, some hope for a physical or mental reset, while others hope to give up drinking for good. While of participants won鈥檛 make it through the full month, Dry January as a significant contributor to an overall decline in alcohol consumption.听

Screen bans in schools can be education鈥檚 Dry January for technology, though it may well need to be a dry year 鈥� or even longer. This issue continues to take center stage, with the drumbeat for legislation and policies continuing as parents and advocates clamor for change. As of July 2026, , and had K-5 screen-time limits or bans for K-5, and states like and are beginning to study or develop similar policies. Yet transforming technology use inside schools and classrooms is so difficult that an intentional break may be the only way to truly adopt a better approach. 

It鈥檚 irrational and impossible to imagine technology will have no place in the classroom when it plays an outsized role in every adult鈥檚 daily life. But the current tactics for determining technology use in classrooms is also irrational and, in most cases, leads to less learning. Indeed, the noise around educational technology is so loud these days that you might well imagine yourself at a crowded bar. By the time you push your way through booming, confident voices, certain their approach is correct (no tech, the right tech, the same old tech done differently), you can鈥檛 even remember what you wanted to order in the first place. Dry January starts to sound like a welcome respite. 

The tendency in education policy to overcorrect is as constant as it is frustrating. No Child Left Behind may have been an imperfect policy that overemphasized annual test scores, but the overcorrection has left the education sector with feeble federal accountability 鈥� the dull teeth of NCLB replaced by a feather that can hardly be felt. Politically fueled culture war condemned the work to build national standards in the Common Core, with the resulting backlash throwing out baby and bathwater of billions of dollars of high-quality materials, training and assessments.

What if we accept this tendency and use it wisely for once? Bring on the screen bans. If we鈥檙e going to overcorrect 鈥� and we should 鈥� what鈥檚 needed is a sector-wide reconsideration of what happens in classrooms, how teachers use technology and which products truly lead to more learning. Without a clean slate, policymakers and educators will never have that quiet respite in which to consider what they miss, what worked, what makes the most sense for shrinking budgets and what new tools might truly harness AI-powered advancements. Dry January isn鈥檛 supposed to be easy, and neither will giving up the crutch of technology, even temporarily. If there are no screens, there鈥檚 no Peppa Pig during snack time, no YouTube break because students have 鈥渆arned it,鈥� no easy distractions while a teacher works with one student who needs additional attention. 

Technology is woven throughout daily life in ways intentional and unintentional. Schools should use the screen-ban period as a time to thoughtfully consider how best to incorporate technology to build an educational experience that better serves all students. In some grades or classrooms, the answer may be that a minimal technological presence is what鈥檚 best.

It鈥檚 not hard to imagine that kindergarten or first grade students may not benefit from more than an hour or so each week of technology 鈥� 10 minutes a day. That could mean reading aloud to an AI tutor for 10 minutes three days a week and working on math problems generated based on students’ specific skills and weaknesses for the other two. Children who need it could meet with human tutors online for additional sessions, which isn鈥檛 the kind of screen time anyone is worried about. This strategy doesn鈥檛 require schools to maintain a 1:1 child-to-laptop ratio. If you accept that 10 minutes a day is reasonable, a screen-time break with zero minutes sounds much more achievable. Indeed, most participants in Dry January are occasional, recreational drinkers who still may benefit from a reset. 

In the upper elementary grades, fourth- and fifth-graders can build the muscles of reading printed books and writing by hand. For decades, education leaders have bemoaned that teachers to well. Stepping away from it would allow teachers to use analog strategies in which they are trained and may well prefer. While today’s screen bans rarely address grades 6 to 12, these ideas could readily apply as well. English classes could return to printed books and AI-proof in-class writing assignments. Chemistry and biology could focus on traditional hands-on lab work and the acquisition of foundational scientific knowledge, neither of which requires a screen. It would be worth asking teachers and parents of secondary school students how and when technology makes learning better. 

When the ban is eventually lifted, school officials could reintroduce technology slowly, purposefully, with feedback gathered along the way and with clear metrics to determine whether students are reaching desired results. Even if a school ends up at a similar rate of technology usage as before the ban, if done right, everyone will know that the technology used has a purpose and achieves an outcome. 

Dry January is popular for a reason. An external forcing mechanism that allows people to rethink their habits is powerful in a world of endless options, a fire hose of media and influencers, and the double-edged sword of free will. For some, it will open doors to new ideas and possibilities. For others, it will be a badge of honor even if prior behaviors are reestablished. For school leaders, teachers, parents and students, it鈥檚 a healthy framework for refocusing learning while waiting for the pendulum鈥檚 inevitable swing back.

Correction: An earlier version in this story misstated the number of Americans who pledge to participate in Dry January.