Frederick Douglass鈥� advice is a blueprint for a brighter future for men in America. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer men are volunteering in the lives of young men, and the number of male educators has been dropping consistently over the past 30 years. According to the American Institute for Boys and Men, only 27% of men volunteered in 2023, five points lower than women. At the same time, the share of male teachers has dropped from 30% in 1988 to 23% in 2022. 

According to professor and author Scott Galloway, 鈥淭he single greatest point of failure when a young boy comes off the tracks is when he loses a male role model.鈥� With boys falling behind in schools while struggling with anxiety and depression at home, we are reaping the effects of the lack of male volunteers in our communities and schools. 

April is National Volunteer Month, an opportunity to celebrate the men and women who sacrifice their time to support a worthy cause. And as the world celebrates the 50th Anniversary of National Volunteer Month, we not only recognize the impact volunteers have on others, but we also appreciate the lasting benefit giving one鈥檚 time has on the volunteer. 

Americans increasingly support mandatory national service, with more than two-thirds of Americans backing it for 18-22 year-olds. Surprisingly, that support is even higher among young people ages 18-24, three-quarters of whom back mandatory national service. Parents support requiring their children to serve with such programs as the Big Brothers Big Brothers of America, AmeriCorps, Teacher For America, City Year or the United States Peace Corps. The largest group of parents with children expected to serve (ages 38 to 44) endorse mandatory national service at a rate of 62%. 

Volunteering also benefits the volunteers, especially for men who are reporting to be more lonely and less connected to their communities. The data is clear, volunteering will give men more social connection, positive health outcomes, and better mental health. The irony is that while young boys need male mentors and teachers, programs that offer volunteer opportunities are reporting less and less participation by men. 

In March, I celebrated Peace Corps Week and my time as an education volunteer in South Africa. Peace Corps Week honors how the service opportunity fosters connections and contributes to meaningful change 鈥� in the United States and around the world. Since 1961, over 240,000 American men and women have dedicated over two years of their life to serving in more than 60 developing countries around the world. Today more than 3,000 Peace Corps volunteers are serving: 56% of them are female, while about 44% are male. 

The shortage of men volunteering is not limited to international work; women are outpacing men at home too. Big Brother Big Sisters of America reports that more than 70% of children on their waitlist are boys because of a lack of Big Brothers. Similarly, only 32% of AmeriCorps volunteers, 34% of Teach For America members, and 39% of City Year volunteers are men. 

My time as a Peace Corps volunteer over 25 years ago sparked my career in education. My own experience makes me believe that targeting male volunteers could be the answer to closing the gap of male teachers in America. Nearly 40% of all Peace Corps volunteers are focused on the education sector in their host country, the largest group among all the programs. Men who serve as education volunteers are trained to teach subjects like English as a foreign language , math, science and special education in a foreign country. 

The experience these men gain serving in their host communities is often brought home and applied locally when they return. Nearly two-thirds of volunteers who serve as teachers in the Peace Corps work in the education section in America upon completion of their service. Similarly, more than half of the men and women who complete their City Year service work in education. 

States are already leading. Maryland requires 75 hours of community service for students to qualify for graduation and has just launched a “Young Men and Boys Initiative” to increase mentor recruitment and create pathways for young men. 

Other states have worked to promote volunteering as well, including: 

• California launched a statewide initiative seeking 10,000 men to serve as mentors, tutors and coaches to combat rising suicide rates, social disconnection and declining college attendance among young men.听
• Washington enacted a National Mentoring Month campaign to address the need for male mentors.
• Virginia created a Boys to Men Mentoring Network with local chapters focusing on young men.
• Arizona partnered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America to launch a statewide campaign to recruit male mentors.
• Wisconsin organized events to help recruit Black male mentors for young boys.

Nonprofits and male membership organizations have begun taking the lead as well. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America are partnering with greek letter membership organizations like Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi and Omega Psi Phi to increase the number of African-American male mentors.

In Georgia, the National Parents Union celebrates their NPU Parent Week of Action by encouraging men to volunteer in local schools. Through NPU and Black Male Educators, fathers and father-figures serve as bus monitors and crossing guards. The program has been a tremendous success leading to volunteers even becoming bus drivers. In other instances, these organizations are connecting fathers with opportunities to volunteer in classrooms reading to students. Introducing fathers into their children鈥檚 schools as volunteers could be the first step to them becoming teachers. 

We can do this, we can connect men with volunteer opportunities that give them meaning and purpose. For men who volunteer and find passion in mentoring young men and boys, opportunities to transition into teaching should be easier and less expensive. We need more male teachers; being laser focused on partnering with volunteer programs could be a silver bullet.

When Cara Romero鈥檚 daughter was 11, she became interested in dolls. Romero, who is an enrolled member of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe in Southern California, began to think about doll culture more deeply and what it can convey to the next generation. 

Romero鈥檚 husband grew up collecting G.I. Joes, and her mother-in-law had her own Victorian-style porcelain doll collection. For Romero, though, her daughter鈥檚 doll phase reminded her of the Native American dolls she grew up seeing at truck stops along I-40.

The dolls were often dressed in plastic pony beads and fake buckskin that parroted the Native American Halloween costumes she knew all too well as dehumanizing stereotypes. So Romero, who is a photographer and artist, set out to create a series of photos that broke down these tropes.

Each photograph in the 鈥淔irst American Doll鈥� series features a life-sized doll box that she designed and crafted, where she poses the women with objects that represent their families, traditions and unique stories. 

She wanted her daughter to be proud of her heritage. 鈥淚 come from a community where women are allowed to have a voice, allowed to be really strong,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o [I was] wanting to pass down good self esteem and a strong sense of self and identity,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat’s what we aim to do as moms.鈥�

She started the series with artist and powwow dancer Wakeah Jhane, who is of Kiowa, Comanche and Blackfeet descent. While the Plains Tribes that she is from are the models for stereotypical dolls and costumes, Romero鈥檚 photograph captures her intricate buckskin regalia, which was made by her family. Also on display are her moccasins and a fan.

鈥淵ou can see the stark contrast between what she’s wearing and the Halloween costumes that people portray Plains people as,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 really wanted to kind of own it and be like, 鈥淵ou guys even have this wrong.鈥欌�� 

She has since published nine photographs for the series, the most recent featuring Fawn Douglas, an artist, activist and enrolled member of the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, who is posed with handcrafted baskets and a gourd rattle made by her family. The box is bordered by a Las Vegas playing card motif. 

The current day symbolism and high fashion lighting communicates that these women are also contemporary, Romero said. 鈥淲hen artwork, and specifically photography, is devoid of modern context, it does something psychologically, it perpetuates [this idea] that we’re gone and only living in history.鈥�  

Naming each of the pieces after the models was also meant to humanize Indigenous women in a way that they weren鈥檛 in historical photos. 鈥淎 lot of times in the ethnographic photographs, they didn’t even say their name,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e don’t know who they were.鈥�

Some of the photographs from the series are currently traveling the country as part of Romero鈥檚 first solo museum exhibition, titled: 鈥淧an没p眉n眉w眉gai (Living Light).鈥� They will be on display next at the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona starting in February.

was originally reported by Jessica Kutz of ..

A senior Texas A&M University System official testing a new artificial intelligence tool this fall asked it to find how many courses discuss feminism at one of its regional universities. Each time she asked in a slightly different way, she got a different number.

鈥淓ither the tool is learning from my previous queries,鈥� Texas A&M system鈥檚 chief strategy officer Korry Castillo told colleagues in an email, 鈥渙r we need to fine tune our requests to get the best results.鈥�

It was Sept. 25, and Castillo was trying to deliver on a Chancellor Glenn Hegar and the Board of Regents had already made: to audit courses across all of the system鈥檚 12 universities after conservative outrage over a gender-identity lesson at the flagship campus intensified earlier that month, leading to and . 

Texas A&M officials said the controversy stemmed from the course鈥檚 content not aligning with its description in the university鈥檚 course catalog and framed the audit as a way to ensure students knew what they were signing up for. As other public universities came under similar scrutiny and began preparing to comply with that gives governor-appointed regents more authority over curricula, they, too, announced audits.

Records obtained by The Texas Tribune offer a first look at how Texas universities are experimenting with AI to conduct those reviews. 

At Texas A&M, internal emails show staff are using AI software to search syllabi and course descriptions for words that could raise concerns under new system policies restricting how faculty teach about race and gender. 

At Texas State, memos show administrators are suggesting faculty use an AI writing assistant to revise course descriptions. They urged professors to drop words such as 鈥渃hallenging,鈥� 鈥渄ismantling鈥� and 鈥渄ecolonizing鈥� and to rename courses with titles like 鈥淐ombating Racism in Healthcare鈥� to something university officials consider more neutral like 鈥淩ace and Public Health in America.鈥�

While school officials describe the efforts as an innovative approach that fosters transparency and accountability, AI experts say these systems do not actually analyze or understand course content, instead generating answers that sound right based on patterns in their training data.

That means small changes in how a question is phrased can lead to different results, they said, making the systems unreliable for deciding whether a class matches its official description. They warned that using AI this way could lead to courses being flagged over isolated words and further shift control of teaching away from faculty and toward administrators.

鈥淚鈥檓 not convinced this is about serving students or cleaning up syllabi,鈥� said Chris Gilliard, co-director of the Critical Internet Studies Institute. 鈥淭his looks like a project to control education and remove it from professors and put it into the hands of administrators and legislatures.鈥�

Setting up the tool

During a board of regents meeting last month, Texas A&M System leaders described the new processes they were developing to audit courses as a repeatable enforcement mechanism. 

Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs James Hallmark said the system would use 鈥淎I-assisted tools鈥� to examine course data under 鈥渃onsistent, evidence-based criteria,鈥� which would guide future board action on courses. Regent Sam Torn praised it as 鈥渞eal governance,鈥� saying Texas A&M was 鈥渟tepping up first, setting the model that others will follow.鈥� 

That same day, requiring presidents to sign off on any course that could be seen as advocating for 鈥渞ace and gender ideology鈥� and prohibiting professors from teaching material not on the approved syllabus for a course.

In a statement to the Tribune, Chris Bryan, the system鈥檚 vice chancellor for marketing and communications, said Texas A&M is using OpenAI services through an existing subscription to aid the system鈥檚 course audit and that the tool is still being tested as universities finish sharing their course data. He said 鈥渁ny decisions about appropriateness, alignment with degree programs, or student outcomes will be made by people, not software.鈥�

In records obtained by the Tribune, Castillo, the system鈥檚 chief strategy officer, told colleagues to prepare for about 20 system employees to use the tool to make hundreds of queries each semester. 

The records also show some of the concerns that arose from early tests of the tool.  

When Castillo told colleagues about the varying results she obtained when searching for classes that discuss feminism, deputy chief information officer Mark Schultz cautioned that the tool came with 鈥渁n inherent risk of inaccuracy.鈥�

鈥淪ome of that can be mitigated with training,鈥� he said, 鈥渂ut it probably can鈥檛 be fully eliminated.鈥�

Schultz did not specify what kinds of inaccuracies he meant. When asked if the potential inaccuracies had been resolved, Bryan said, 鈥淲e are testing baseline conversations with the AI tool to validate the accuracy, relevance and repeatability of the prompts.鈥� He said this includes seeing how the tool responds to invalid or misleading prompts and having humans review the results.

Experts said the different answers Castillo received when she rephrased her question reflect how these systems operate. They explained that these kinds of AI tools generate their responses by predicting patterns and generating strings of text.

鈥淭hese systems are fundamentally systems for repeatedly answering the question 鈥榳hat is the likely next word鈥� and that鈥檚 it,鈥� said Emily Bender, a computational linguist at the University of Washington. 鈥淭he sequence of words that comes out looks like the kind of thing you would expect in that context, but it is not based on reason or understanding or looking at information.鈥�

Because of that, small changes to how a question is phrased can produce different results. Experts also said users can nudge the model toward the answer they want. Gilliard said that is because these systems are also prone to what developers call 鈥渟ycophancy,鈥� meaning they try to agree with or please the user. 

鈥淰ery often, a thing that happens when people use this technology is if you chide or correct the machine, it will say, 鈥極h, I鈥檓 sorry鈥� or like 鈥榶ou鈥檙e right,鈥� so you can often goad these systems into getting the answer you desire,鈥� he said.

T. Philip Nichols, a Baylor University professor who studies how technology influences teaching and learning in schools, said keyword searches also provide little insight into how a topic is actually taught. He called the tool 鈥渁 blunt instrument鈥� that isn鈥檛 capable of understanding how certain discussions that the software might flag as unrelated to the course tie into broader class themes. 

鈥淭hose pedagogical choices of an instructor might not be present in a syllabus, so to just feed that into a chatbot and say, 鈥業s this topic mentioned?鈥� tells you nothing about how it鈥檚 talked about or in what way,鈥� Nichols said. 

Castillo鈥檚 description of her experience testing the AI tool was the only time in the records reviewed by the Tribune when Texas A&M administrators discussed specific search terms being used to inspect course content. In another email, Castillo said she would share search terms with staff in person or by phone rather than email. 

System officials did not provide the list of search terms the system plans to use in the audit.

Martin Peterson, a Texas A&M philosophy professor who studies the ethics of technology, said faculty have not been asked to weigh in on the tool, including members of the university鈥檚 AI council. He noted that the council鈥檚 ethics and governance committee is charged with helping set standards for responsible AI use.

While Peterson generally opposes the push to audit the university system鈥檚 courses, he said he is 鈥渁 little more open to the idea that some such tool could perhaps be used.鈥�

鈥淚t is just that we have to do our homework before we start using the tool,鈥� Peterson said.

AI-assisted revisions

At Texas State University, officials ordered faculty to rewrite their syllabi and suggested they use AI to do it.

In October, administrators flagged 280 courses for review and told faculty to revise titles, descriptions and learning outcomes to remove wording the university said was not neutral. Records indicate that dozens of courses set to be offered by the College of Liberal Arts in the Spring 2026 semester were singled out for neutrality concerns. They included courses such as Intro to Diversity, Social Inequality, Freedom in America, Southwest in Film and Chinese-English Translation.

Faculty were given until Dec. 10 to complete the rewrites, with a second-level review scheduled in January and the entire catalog to be evaluated by June. 

Administrators shared with faculty a guide outlining wording they said signaled advocacy. It discouraged learning outcomes that describe students 鈥渕easure or require belief, attitude or activism (e.g., value diversity, embrace activism, commit to change).鈥�

Administrators also provided a prompt for faculty to paste into an AI writing assistant alongside their materials. The prompt instructs the chatbot to 鈥渋dentify any language that signals advocacy, prescriptive conclusions, affective outcomes or ideological commitments鈥� and generate three alternative versions that remove those elements. 

Jayme Blaschke, assistant director of media relations at Texas State, described the internal review as 鈥渢horough鈥� and 鈥渄eliberative,鈥� but would not say whether any classes have already been revised or removed, only that 鈥渕easures are in place to guide students through any adjustments and keep their academic progress on track.鈥� He also declined to explain how courses were initially flagged and who wrote the neutrality expectations.

Faculty say the changes have reshaped how curriculum decisions are made on campus.

Aimee Villarreal, an assistant professor of anthropology and president of Texas State鈥檚 American Association of University Professors chapter, said the process is usually faculty-driven and unfolds over a longer period of time. She believes the structure of this audit allows administrators to more closely monitor how faculty describe their disciplines and steer how that material must be presented.

She said the requirement to revise courses quickly or risk having them removed from the spring schedule has created pressure to comply, which may have pushed some faculty toward using the AI writing assistant.

Villarreal said the process reflects a lack of trust in faculty and their field expertise when deciding what to teach.

鈥淚 love what I do,鈥� Villarreal said, 鈥渁nd it鈥檚 very sad to see the core of what I do being undermined in this way.鈥�

Nichols warned the trend of using AI in this way represents a larger threat. 

鈥淭his is a kind of de-professionalizing of what we do in classrooms, where we鈥檙e narrowing the horizon of what鈥檚 possible,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd I think once we give that up, that鈥檚 like giving up the whole game. That鈥檚 the whole purpose of why universities exist.鈥�

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: Baylor University, Texas A&M University and Texas A&M University System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete .

This first appeared on .

Leadership changed hands in 114 of those districts 鈥� 23% 鈥� within the past year, a jump from 20% the year before, according to data, shared exclusively with 社区黑料, by the  from ILO Group, a consulting firm. The project 鈥� the only current publicly available resource on leadership turnover in the 500 largest districts 鈥� listed about 15% of districts replacing their superintendents prior to the pandemic.

One surprise outcome of that turnover is an increase in female superintendents: Women now represent a third of district chiefs, up from 30% last year. Of the 114 new chiefs, 44 were women.

But even with those gains, it would take another 30 years for women to reach parity with men in district leadership, the authors said.

To Julia Rafal-Baer,  CEO of ILO Group, this year鈥檚 results offer a mixed picture, coming just days after the latest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The results showed declines in reading for 12th grade girls and in science for all 8th graders.

鈥淭here is a continued destabilizing of leaders at a time when we really need to have a coherent agenda that is driving instruction,鈥� said Rafal-Baer, also a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the NAEP program.

Even so, she was pleased with the gains for women.  鈥淚鈥檓 encouraged by the fact that we鈥檙e starting to see some meaningful progress.鈥� 

Superintendent turnover happens for myriad reasons 鈥� from stagnant student performance to disagreements over salary. But it鈥檚 clear that COVID and the cultural debates that followed 鈥� embroiling districts in disputes over mask mandates, 鈥渁nti-racist鈥� curriculum and sexually explicit books 鈥�  transformed the nature of the position. 

鈥淚t’s always been political, but it’s never been so partisan,鈥� said Gustavo Balderas, superintendent of the Beaverton School District in Oregon. Since 2011, he has led five districts in the Pacific Northwest and will leave next year to become of the Puget Sound Educational Service District, a regional agency in Washington.

On top of local concerns, today鈥檚 superintendents have the added weight of responding to threats of funding cuts and policy shifts from Washington, Balderas said. 鈥淚 was just visiting a school 鈥� that had a family deported.鈥�

鈥榃orn out鈥�

Researchers who focus on the superintendency and school board politics echoed Balderas鈥� view. Rebecca Jacobsen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University, said district leaders are 鈥渨orn out.鈥�

鈥淚 think that the toll of the past few years continues to ripple and really push people out,鈥� she said. Several faced personal attacks, including , from angry members of their communities. 鈥淔or many who entered education 15-20 years ago, this is not the landscape that one envisioned.鈥�

The skills superintendents bring to the position sometimes don鈥檛 match the demands of the job, added Rachel White, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and founder of the Superintendent Lab, a source of research and data on district leaders. Most were teachers and principals before moving to the central office and spent years overseeing instruction, finance or teacher development. 

Now they鈥檙e responding to social media, and the 鈥減roliferation of misinformation and disinformation campaigns often rooted in ideology,鈥� White said. 鈥淭his has shifted what superintendents are increasingly spending their time on 鈥� debunking stories being told about what is happening in their schools and classrooms that simply are not true.鈥�

As was the case in 2022, some of the turnover is due to school boards firing superintendents before their contracts expire. Since January, the in Georgia, the district in Tennessee and the district in Florida have fired their chiefs.

Most leaders, however, leave on their , sometimes because they鈥檙e seeking a new challenge.

Mary Elizabeth Davis spent nearly seven years as superintendent of Georgia鈥檚 Henry County Schools, overseeing the suburban-Atlanta district during a period of growth in both and . She eliminated a $12 million deficit and built teams to support instruction, facility planning and operations.

Last year, she started over in Cherokee County, another metro Atlanta district, where she aims to keep board meetings more focused on core academic issues rather than  just building projects and the budget. They still need to keep the public informed about finances, but 鈥渋t is no longer the only thing,鈥� she said. 

Inline photo

In Davis鈥� part of the country, women are still the least likely to be superintendents, the data shows. Twenty-two percent of chiefs in the Southeast are women, while the Northeast has the highest percentage of female district leaders 鈥� 46%, or 17 of the 37 districts on the list. 

This year鈥檚 report also delves into the routes leaders take to the top job. 

In 2018, when ILO began collecting the data, fewer than half of superintendents were internal hires. Last year, the majority, 58%, were hired from within, and about 40% had served as an interim superintendent in their district before the board officially gave them the job. Moving up within the same school district is slightly more common for women than men, 55% compared to 50%. 

Over a 20-year period, Cliff Jones worked his way up from teacher to of the Fulton County Schools in Atlanta. Once he entered the central office, he said he 鈥渢ook notes鈥� during a time of leadership turnover and learned the importance of communication in making relationships work with the board.

鈥淭he more successful superintendents that I saw were trying to be out in front, trying to create proactive communication,鈥� he said.  

Newly hired as the superintendent in Horry County, South Carolina 鈥� with an unusually large 12-member board 鈥� he has work to do. He said he doesn鈥檛 want to just be a 鈥�911 guy,鈥� contacting members when there鈥檚 an emergency. 

鈥楶riorities and values鈥�

Not all candidates spend that much time in a deputy or other cabinet position, which Balderas said is likely one reason why turnover remains high. He calls it 鈥渓eadership compression.鈥�

Among the 500 districts in ILO鈥檚 analysis, 10 male leaders skipped straight from principal to superintendent. They include , named interim superintendent of Texas鈥� Conroe Independent School District in May, and , who took over in February as acting chief of the South Bend Community School Corporation in Indiana.

鈥淧eople are just bypassing roles鈥� instead of serving four to six years in a mid-level role where they might tackle some of the same challenges as the superintendent, Balderas said. Maybe, they鈥檙e 鈥渓ess prepared to understand the political navigation that鈥檚 needed鈥� to stay in the position long enough to make lasting improvements. 

After leading multiple districts, Balderas said it鈥檚 possible to work with a politically divided board. He tried to build connections with members by taking on other responsibilities in the community outside of the education sector, from the local chamber of commerce to the Rotary club.

People active in those groups 鈥渟ee that you care about your community,鈥� he said. That word 鈥済ets back to your board in one way or another.鈥�

Despite division among board members, districts can stay focused on academic improvement, said Davis, who was hired in Cherokee on 4-3 vote. 

鈥淚 think that when you start from that position, you have a lot of work to do to understand the priorities and values of individuals,鈥� she said. She met with each board member, hearing concerns over teachers spending their own money on supplies and a desire for more presentations on student data. 

Having a divided board was familiar for Davis. The Henry County board hired her on a 3-2 vote. During her tenure, public meetings turned into over a mask mandate and a in 2023 that kept students locked out of the internet for nearly a month. 

But she had plenty to celebrate. The majority-Black district saw enough to come off the state鈥檚 list of failing school systems and a 9% increase in students scoring at the proficient level or above in .

鈥淚’ve never seen harmony as a requirement for effectiveness,鈥� Davis said. 

In a 2022 , 15.3% of youth aged 12-to-17 had current diagnoses of anxiety, and 7.5% of the same age group had current depression diagnoses. These numbers are likely a limited snapshot into the true mental health crisis within U.S. youth, as many of their concerns remain undiagnosed due to stigma and/or fear of speaking up.

It may not come as a surprise that women鈥檚 mental health is innately different than men鈥檚. Anxiety, depression and eating disorders are in women. This gender difference begins to grow particularly during the middle school years; by the end of adolescence, young women experience depression as young men do, a trend that persists throughout life.

When young women experience poor mental health, their academic performance, social interactions, self-esteem and well-being can each suffer. As students enter into this cycle, they can subject themselves to a lack of motivation, increased feelings of anxiety and depression, social withdrawal 鈥� and ultimately 鈥� considering dropping out of school altogether.

Middle school students spend nearly two fifths of their waking hours in a classroom setting. What if these classroom hours were spent in an encouraging, safe and single-gender environment to meet students鈥� unique, gender-specific needs?

As founding principal and now executive director of a public, all-girls middle charter school Girls Athletic Leadership School Los Angeles (GALS LA), our gender-specific education allows us to employ tactics such as movement and wellness-driven curriculum, as well as provide unique mental health offerings.

GALS LA curriculum is built to reflect a restorative community. We have one mental health counselor for every 50 students in our 187-student school, whereas the has one counselor for every 385 students. Our counselors facilitate student mediations, and young women are taught how to use their words to calmly address and resolve conflicts.

Students and staff begin each morning with a school-wide morning workout, releasing endorphins which build students鈥� confidence, focus and emotional regulation. Students then recite a daily pledge consisting of positive affirmations to reinforce positive behaviors and redirect negative ones.

Each day, students also attend a class focused on effective coping strategies, healthy communication and general wellness practices. This class integrates social-emotional learning, which allows students to improve interactions with each other, maintain a respectful and supportive culture and provide opportunities for healthy relationships.

Middle school is often a time of fast-paced physical, social and emotional development for all young people. Single-gender environments provide unique settings for students to undergo this development with their peers in a safe and comfortable space with students who share similar experiences.

According to a by the International National Coalition of Girls鈥� Schools, students at all-girls schools (89%) are more likely than their female peers at public, co-ed schools (72%) to feel comfortable, be themselves and focus on their academic studies. The same survey found that those at all-girls schools reported being less likely to be bullied by classmates (86%) than female peers at public, co-ed schools (73%). When young women feel comfortable at school, they tend to thrive.

We can see this mental well-being play out through both our average attendance rate of 96.5% as well as our successful academic model. Our rigorous college prep curriculum outperforms local schools in both math and reading, and GALS LA students exceed California students鈥� reading proficiency rates by 10 percentage points.

Of course, not every school can pivot to a single-gender design. But they can still adopt many successful strategies employed at GALS LA: cellphone bans, morning movement and on-campus mental health providers.

GALS LA students have heavily benefitted from the school鈥檚 long-standing no-phone policy, established at the school鈥檚 2016 founding. No phones are allowed on campus, during off-campus experiences or school bus rides. This frees students from online distractions and social pressures typically associated with social media platforms. Instead, students can use the time without cellphones to regulate their emotions, stay focused during classes and deepen face-to-face friendships.

Schools should also seriously consider the benefits of beginning each school day with movement. Physical activity releases the 鈥渇eel-good鈥� endorphin hormone, improves young people鈥檚 self-esteem and eases anxiety. Just 15 minutes of physical activity before the school day is to lead to youth鈥檚 increased academic performance and elevated class engagement. This school day restructure can lead to incredible mental and academic gains for students.

Additionally, GALS LA students heavily benefit from on-campus mental health providers. When these services are offered at a student鈥檚 place of learning, school leaders offer timely support, contribute to reduced barriers to care and promote early intervention. While these staffing needs often come at a high cost, schools should consider looking into established mental health certification programs through their respective state鈥檚 departments of health.

My school is deeply involved in California鈥檚 , which supports the growing behavioral needs of youth. In tandem with our school鈥檚 holistic curriculum, which employs many behavioral wellness aspects, GALS LA has the highest percentage of CWC staff of any entity in the state of California. Nearly 60% of our school staff members are already certified, which pays incredible dividends to our students and supports the subsidization of school salaries. 

As educators, psychologists and families work to mitigate the youth mental health crisis, many have taken the one-size-fits-all approach. I urge school leaders, legislators and families to consider a single-gender educational approach and the strategies our school has identified as successful alternatives to supporting our students鈥� mental health needs. At GALS LA, we see these approaches work one girl at a time.

Only she wasn鈥檛.

But before the day was over, that innocent mistake reached the ears of Lee鈥檚 supervisor in her West Virginia district. Lee had just taken on the challenge of consolidating two struggling schools serving high-need students, and her boss was less than congratulatory. 

鈥淪he told me there was no way that I could handle those expectations if I had a baby,鈥� Lee remembered. After that encounter, she never considered having another child for fear she would be overlooked for promotions. 鈥淚t is a regret I carry,鈥� she acknowledged.

Sixteen years later, Lee is a deputy superintendent in Beaufort, South Carolina, and jokes with her now-22-year-old son that it鈥檚 his fault he鈥檚 an only child. But her story demonstrates what many women give up to advance in the education sector. In a new , three-fourths of women superintendents and other top female district and state leaders said they make sacrifices that men in the same jobs don鈥檛 have to endure.听

Julia Rafal-Baer, founder and CEO of Women Leading Ed, which conducted the survey, called the results 鈥渁 reality check.鈥�

鈥淎cross the country, women are shaping the future of America鈥檚 schools. They鈥檙e making high-stakes decisions, driving results and shaping the future for tens of millions of students,鈥� she said. But the survey, from leaders in 37 states, shows women are 鈥渟econd-guessed more, scrutinized for their style instead of their strategy, and expected to 鈥榦vercome鈥� being women.鈥�

The results, shared exclusively with 社区黑料, also show that 86% of respondents feel expectations to dress, speak or behave a certain way because they are women in senior leadership positions 鈥� a 4 percentage point increase over last year. 

鈥淣o one will take you seriously with a ponytail. No one will take you seriously if you aren’t wearing a suit,鈥� Candace Standberry-Robertson, executive director of system-wide programming for NOLA Public Schools in New Orleans, wrote. Sometimes casual attire is more appropriate for the tasks that come with her position, she said. 鈥淲ho wants to be all dolled up and sweaty while delivering boxes of instructional materials to schools?鈥�

Others said they鈥檝e faced questions from hiring managers or school board members about balancing work and family life. One superintendent wrote that when interviewing for the top post in a small district, the school board president asked her: 鈥淗ow can you manage being a mom while being a campus leader? We have never hired a lady before.鈥�

And sometimes they don鈥檛, regardless of qualifications.

Over half of respondents said they鈥檝e been passed over for leadership positions that later went to men, and over 70% of the women surveyed reported feeling pressure to earn a doctoral degree in order to be considered for a leadership position. show 45% of superintendents have a doctorate, with women more likely than men to earn the advanced degree.

鈥淔emale superintendent candidates won鈥檛 apply until they know they鈥檙e 110% ready, and male superintendent candidates apply when they鈥檙e like 55% ready,鈥� said David Schuler, executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association. There鈥檚 been progress in districts hiring more women over the past 20 years, but he added, 鈥淲e need more female superintendents, hands down.鈥�

Not a 鈥榞reat look鈥�

Data shows that about in the top 500 districts are women, even though women make up of the teacher workforce 鈥� an imbalance that some leaders say robs young educators of strong role models. 

鈥淭he people actually doing the work are women, and the people telling them what to do are men,鈥� said Julia Drake, an assistant superintendent in the Katonah-Lewisboro School District, north of New York City. 鈥淚 don’t think that’s a great look.鈥�

Before Rafal-Baer founded Women Leading Ed in 2021, Drake attempted to figure out why bias against women was so pervasive in the field. She grew intrigued by the topic as a young principal in New York City. When her assistant principal went on maternity leave, Drake recalled, her male supervisor commented, 鈥淒on’t expect her to come back as productive as she was when she left.鈥�

She focused her on the issue, compiling a sample of over 500 female leaders from 41 states. 

One top finding was that people viewed ambitious women in education as 鈥渂ossy,鈥� but ambitious men as strong-minded. Respondents also felt that staff members were less comfortable being supervised by women. 

鈥淚 think women are very capable, but also very empathetic and can really bring people together,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hat is sometimes seen as weaknesses is actually a leadership asset.鈥� 

Suits, heels, makeup

Examining this year鈥檚 data, Emily Hartnett, executive director of Women Leading Ed, pointed to differences in results by age. Leaders under 50 are more likely to say they delayed having children for the sake of their career. They also feel more pressure to conform to a certain image 鈥� 93% compared with 78% of leaders over 50. 

鈥淚 once had a supervisor encourage me to get my nails done,鈥� one woman wrote.

Several said they are expected to wear suits, heels and makeup, even when male counterparts wore golf shirts and sneakers to work. 

鈥淲hen I first started wearing my natural hair, I was told by a mentor that I should reconsider because where I was interviewing to be a principal may not accept 鈥榯hat much of my ethnicity,鈥� 鈥� one district official said. 鈥淥f course, I wore my new afro to every interview.鈥�

In response to a new question this year, more than half of the superintendent respondents said board members often second-guess their expertise or undercut their decisions.

One particular example sticks with Dana Arreola, who became superintendent of the Bessemer, Alabama, schools in 2023. The district was about to undertake an $8 million capital improvement project, with new roofs, paint and lighting at several schools. In advance of a presentation to the school board, she reviewed the bid process, fully vetted the architects and conducted a deep dive on facility needs.

But that wasn鈥檛 good enough. The members first wanted to hear from a state education official, who happened to be a man. 

鈥淢y male counterpart ultimately did a great job of reaffirming the information I had already presented,鈥� she said. 

A year later, a few board members sent messages to say they initially underestimated her and that her hard work was paying off.  

鈥淚 began to question my own confidence,鈥� Arreola said. 鈥淩eceiving notes from my board members felt incredibly validating.鈥�

Five days after President Donald Trump issued a seeking to limit how schools support gender nonconforming students and teach about racism, New York City鈥檚 educational leaders have yet to issue a systemwide public response, sparking concerns from some parents and educators.

The targeting 鈥渞adical indoctrination鈥� threatens to withhold federal funding from schools that support students in gender transitions or that teach about the prevalence of racism in American life.

Some have questioned whether the order is lawful or enforceable, given the significant power of states and localities to control their own curriculum. Several and have already sent out communications to families and educators pushing back on the order.

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New York鈥檚 state Education Department issued a statement Monday sent to school staffers saying the executive order is 鈥渁ntithetical鈥� to the U.S. Congress鈥� history of protecting vulnerable students through legislation. 鈥淲e denounce the intolerant rhetoric of these orders,鈥� the statement continued. 鈥淥ur children cannot thrive in an environment of chaos; they need steady and stable leadership that we will endeavor to provide.鈥�

But the response in the nation鈥檚 largest district 鈥� long a national leader in efforts to teach about racial inequity and support gender nonconforming students 鈥� has so far been more muted. The city Education Department has not sent any systemwide communication to families or educators, and it hasn鈥檛 issued specific guidance for administrators about the executive order, according to families and school staff.

Brooklyn mom Eliza Hittman, whose fifth-grader identifies as nonbinary, said she鈥檚 in multiple parent chats where there is a 鈥渢remendous amount of agitation鈥� over the lack of communication from administrators.

鈥淭he silence is alarming,鈥� Hittman said.

Asked at two recent parent town halls what the city is doing to protect LGBTQ+ students, New York City schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos reaffirmed that city schools do not tolerate any kind of hate.

鈥淥ur schools are expected to be safe spaces,鈥� she said Monday at a town hall for District 30 in Queens.

Mark Rampersant, the chief of safety and prevention partnerships, added that New York City is one of the only school districts that has hired someone overseeing ways to foster inclusion for LGBTQ students. 鈥淩egardless of what happens on the top, we remain committed to ensuring the physical and well-being of every single one of our students,鈥� he said.

But some parents and educators said the Education Department has not circulated that message widely enough at a time when fear is spreading quickly.

鈥淲hat we need from our city leadership is 鈥� to give clarity and certainty and comfort in this time of chaos,鈥� said Justin Krebs, the parent of a nonbinary child in Brooklyn鈥檚 District 15. 鈥淚nstead, we鈥檙e hearing nothing from city leadership on this front.鈥� He added that the city periodically sends notices to all families and he would 鈥渓ove to get that email鈥� reiterating the city鈥檚 protections for LGBTQ+ students.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Bronwstein didn鈥檛 say whether the agency plans to issue a systemwide statement, but said, 鈥淲e are evaluating the Executive Order to determine if it will have any impact on New York City Public Schools.鈥�

Brownstein said, 鈥渨e remain steadfast in our commitment to fostering a safe, inclusive, and affirming environment where every student can thrive.鈥� She added that the Education Department will ensure 鈥漮ur school environment remains free from harassment, intimidation, and/or bullying, and free from discrimination of any kind.鈥�

When asked whether she was concerned about the potential loss of federal funding, Aviles-Ramos said at a town hall last week, 鈥淲e do not know what lies ahead in terms of federal funding,鈥� which makes up about $2 billion of the Education Department鈥檚 annual budget.

Some parents and teachers want stronger message of support

Jo Macellaro, a Bronx teacher who identifies as nonbinary, said the lack of a clear public statement from the city sends educators 鈥渢he message 鈥� that we don鈥檛 have your back, we鈥檙e not going to protect you.鈥�

Absent that assurance, some teachers may decide they can鈥檛 take the risk of violating the executive order, Macellaro added. The Parent-Teacher Association from P.S. 139, a Brooklyn elementary school, wrote in a Monday letter to Aviles-Ramos that it鈥檚 鈥渄isconcerting that we have not received any sort of statement from you or other city or state leadership about this.鈥�

Some parents suspect the city Education Department鈥檚 response is constrained by Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted last fall on federal corruption charges. Trump mayor, and the U.S Department of Justice is reportedly , who has . Adams has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.

Gavin Healy, a Manhattan parent and member of the Community Education Council in District 2, said he thinks Adams鈥� political situation may be limiting the Education Department鈥檚 ability to respond. 鈥淚 think doing what鈥檚 right for the students is hostage to the mayor鈥檚 legal issues and courting of the Trump administration.鈥�

Existing policies offer strong protection for transgender students

The city Education Department鈥檚 , which , instructs staff to address students by their preferred pronouns at school. It gives schools some discretion not to inform parents when a student is socially transitioning in cases where a family doesn鈥檛 accept their gender identity and allows students to use bathrooms and join sports teams that are consistent with their gender identities.

When Manhattan鈥檚 community education council in District 2 passed a resolution last year urging the city to reconsider its sports policy for transgender students, then-Chancellor David Banks as 鈥渄espicable鈥� and reaffirmed the city鈥檚 policy.

Krebs, the Brooklyn parent of a nonbinary student, said he鈥檚 not worried about his own child鈥檚 school. But in a system this large, without clear instructions from city leadership, some schools and educators might be reluctant to run afoul of the executive order, he said. Krebs drew an analogy to reports that NYU鈥檚 Langone Hospital for some patients following a separate executive order banning the practice for people under age 19.

Some schools may 鈥渟tart complying in advance, the same way NYU Langone has,鈥� he said, 鈥渨hen a school says, 鈥榊ou know what, to be on the safe side, we鈥檙e going to stop calling kids by their pronouns.鈥欌��

Johanna Miller, director of the education policy center at the New York Civil Liberties Union, noted that Trump鈥檚 executive order charges federal agencies with developing an enforcement plan, and it鈥檚 hard to say for sure how the order would be carried out until that happens. The executive order specifically mentions practices like using students鈥� preferred pronouns, referring to students as nonbinary, and allowing them to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identities as ones that may run afoul of the order. It also targets concepts like white privilege and unconscious bias.

But Miller said that state laws preventing bullying and harassment remain on the books.

鈥淚f an educator in New York State reads this executive order from Trump and decides on their own that they鈥檙e not going to comply with New York laws, they would be legally liable in that situation for not complying with the law,鈥� she said.

Taking matters into their own hands

Some parent leaders are trying to push the city to issue a more forceful response.

Faraji Hannah-Jones, a member of the Community Education Council for District 13, told Aviles-Ramos at a town hall last week that he doesn鈥檛 鈥渢hink that this office is ready for the shitstorm that is coming.

鈥淚 want to know, does your office have a backbone on these issues?鈥� he asked.

Aviles-Ramos responded it鈥檚 鈥渧ery sad to hear there鈥檚 a lack of faith in this administration.鈥� She pointed to its work developing new curriculum including Black studies curriculum, for example.

Reached by phone Monday, Hannah-Jones said he鈥檚 been sounding the alarm about Trump鈥檚 education plans for months and has gotten little response from city officials. The Education Department is more 鈥渃oncerned about bringing us in a back room to have a conversation than having one in public,鈥� he added.

Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a parent in East Harlem and former member of the Panel for Educational Policy, an oversight panel for the city Education Department, drafted a mock resolution opposing the executive order that she hopes local Community Education Councils will modify and adopt.

鈥淚t鈥檚 our time to raise our voices,鈥� she said.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at . 

The orders also call for using federal funding to revive an advisory commission Trump created in 2020 to promote patriotic instruction, and for restricting trans and gender-nonconforming students鈥� participation in sports and use of bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

The U.S. Department of Education is to emphasize school choice 鈥� described as universal K-12 scholarship programs 鈥� in making discretionary grants and to issue guidance to states about their use of federal funds. The secretaries of the Defense and Interior departments are to create plans to allow military families and those with children in Bureau of Indian Education schools to use federal funds to send their children to the schools of their choosing. And the Department of Health and Human Services is to issue guidance on how states that receive block grants for child care and other services for families and children can use those funds at private and religious institutions. 

Teachers unions were quick to call the school choice order an effort to illegally funnel federal dollars to private schools. 鈥淧resident Trump is using his Project 2025 playbook to privatize education because he knows vouchers have repeatedly been a failure in Congress,鈥� National Education Association President Becky Pringle said in a statement. 鈥淲hen voters have a say about vouchers, they have been soundly rejected 鈥� time and again 鈥� at the ballot box.鈥�

But Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the center-right American Enterprise Institute, says the main thing the order regarding private school choice does is signal what the Education Department will emphasize when considering grant applications and in telling states how they may use their federal allotments.

鈥淲hat will matter a lot is not the general direction of the EO, but the particulars of how the departments start to put this stuff into practice,鈥� he explains. 鈥淲hat we’ll see is how much they think there’s room to reinterpret the existing rules, and how much this is an effort to offer explicitly different guidance.鈥� 

The executive orders were among in the 10 days since Trump鈥檚 second swearing-in. have created confusion and sparked legal challenges as states and interest groups charge that the president is overstepping his authority to mandate changes to laws and programs.  

On Monday, Trump ordered a freeze on federal spending, only to rescind it two days later after a federal judge ordered a temporary pause on it going into effect. A White House spokeswoman then said the freeze had not been rescinded, only the memo ordering it. An executive order ending birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the Constitution, also was met by a court challenge. Broad confusion about orders for federal employees to return to in-person work and dominated headlines. 

The order 鈥淓nding Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling鈥� calls for withholding funds from schools that teach 鈥済ender ideology鈥� and 鈥渄iscriminatory equity ideology鈥� and for legal action against teachers who 鈥渟exually exploit minors,鈥� 鈥減ractice medicine without a license鈥� or otherwise facilitate the 鈥渟ocial transition鈥� of a student. 

By law, federal officials cannot dictate what is taught in U.S. schools 鈥� a prohibition Republicans have long supported and that stymied Trump鈥檚 efforts in 2020 to mandate the use of a 鈥減atriotic鈥� 1776 curriculum. And while the current U.S. Supreme Court majority appears poised to uphold bans on gender-affirming care for minors, right now transgender and nonbinary students are legally entitled to use the restroom of their choosing.      

Citing the complexity of the federal government鈥檚 relationship to the nation鈥檚 131,000 public schools, education advocates counseled patience. 

鈥淭he education community has developed a habit of going from 1 to 11 on everything Trump does instantaneously,鈥� says Hess. 鈥淕etting more clarity before getting overly excited or overly critical is probably going to make for a more useful debate.鈥�

Regarding the school choice order, he adds, 鈥淚 think most of what’s here is probably sensible and reasonable and wholly consistent with what one would have expected.鈥�

As with many of Trump’s executive orders, it鈥檚 unclear what the practical implications of the new mandates will be. Federal education dollars represent a small proportion 鈥� about 11% in 2021 鈥� of . The lion鈥檚 share is sent to states to help pay for services for children with disabilities and those living in poverty. A host of rules govern how the rest is spent. 

President of the education policy organization 50CAN, Derrell Bradford anticipates that allowing military families to use their federal education funds to enroll their children in the schools of their choice will be well received. Schools operated by the Department of Defense are routinely among the highest-performing in the country, but servicemembers move frequently, and many dislike switching schools.

Bradford also says the order likely will make it easier to access the main federal program for funding new public charter schools and expanding successful ones. The Biden administration, he says, slowed grantmaking.   

It鈥檚 unclear, Bradford and Hess say, whether there are enough private school alternatives to schools run by the Defense Department 鈥� particularly overseas 鈥� and the Interior Department鈥檚 Bureau of Indian Affairs to make vouchers meaningful for those students.   

There are significant differences between Trump鈥檚 capacity to move quickly following his second inauguration and his first, Hess notes. In 2017, private school choice had a passionate champion in then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, but fewer institutional advocates lined up to create and administer vouchers and education savings account programs. The rapid adoption of states’ private school choice programs in recent years has changed that, he says. 

Because Trump鈥檚 first election was a surprise to many, it was hard for the administration to staff its Education Department, Bradford adds: 鈥淭his time, it seems like there is a larger number of people who know how government works and have an idea how to advance their goals.鈥�

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear an appeal from a group of Montgomery County parents challenging a school system policy that does not let them opt their lower elementary school children out of classes that use LGBTQ+ books.

鈥淪he communicates really well, and the kids just loved it so much,鈥� Robinson said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think they totally knew what an engineer was, but they understood that they help build things.鈥�

Such exposure can help schools overcome gender stereotypes that form not long after children start school, according to a from the American Institutes for Research. 

Based on a review of nearly 100 studies from 33 countries, the analysis shows that by age 6, kids already perceive boys to be better than girls at computer science and engineering. Among girls, such beliefs only grow more entrenched over time.

Without efforts to address those perceptions, girls might turn away from 鈥渇ast-growing tech fields like artificial intelligence,鈥� said David Miller, lead author and a senior researcher who started the project five years ago. 

Released Monday, the findings, he added, have 鈥渄ownstream implications for thinking about what high school course electives girls might decide to choose, what majors they might go into and then later, the workforce.鈥�

from Code.org, a nonprofit that advocates for computer science in K-12, shows that girls鈥� participation in computer science drops off as they get older. In the elementary grades, girls comprise about half of those enrolled in a foundational computer science course. But participation falls to 44% in middle school and 33% in high school. Experts see promising increases in women , but Miller recommended even greater efforts to expose young girls to opportunities in computer science and clear up  misconceptions. 

One study cited in the paper found that roughly three-fourths of young children think that engineers work on engines and repair cars. Only a third said that engineers design things. 

Just as kids show an early bias toward boys in specific STEM fields, they also develop stereotypes that favor girls in reading and writing. By age 8, students think girls are more verbally gifted, the study found.

Julie Flapan, who directs the Computer Science Equity Project at the University of California Los Angeles, sees opportunities to encourage boys鈥� literacy development through their passion for gaming. 

鈥淲ith technology, there’s so much storytelling that goes on in creating video games. It’s not just passively sitting behind a screen, but actually has a lot of creativity, collaboration, problem-solving,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen we focus on those elements of computing, it is really engaging for a lot of kids.鈥�

For years, the project has offered training workshops for teachers, and over time, participation among K-5 teachers has increased. About 45% of the teachers who attended workshops last year were elementary teachers.

鈥嬧�嬧�漈eachers play a huge role. School counselors also play a very big role as gatekeepers for who gets put into a computer science class,鈥� Flapan said. Parents often enroll their sons in coding camps or encourage them to join robotics clubs, giving them a leg up over their female peers. 鈥淭eachers will see that these boys are really excelling in computer science and say, 鈥楽ee, they鈥檙e just born to do it.鈥� Then a girl walks in and thinks 鈥榃ell, that doesn’t look like a space for me.鈥� 鈥�

Efforts to increase computer science and engineering opportunities for girls at the elementary level, however, often depend on educators who have extra time and interest in the topic, said Robinson, now a doctoral student at the University of Houston who focuses on gender disparities in . At Sanchez Elementary, the high-poverty school where she taught previously, several girls attended an afterschool robotics program organized by a social worker. But it didn鈥檛 last long.

鈥淚t’s really hard to implement that stuff at the elementary level without a class because so much pressure is pulling you in different directions,鈥� Robinson said.

Some previous studies suggested that in early childhood and the elementary grades, children viewed boys as more math inclined than girls, but Miller’s study showed that children think boys and girls are equally capable of mastering the subject.

The analysis found differences in how children perceive specific science fields. Students thought boys would do better in physics, while females would be stronger in biology. That鈥檚 why Miller thinks researchers should focus on the STEM fields where stereotypes are the strongest, rather than looking broadly at kids鈥� attitudes toward math and science.

鈥淐omputer science, engineering and physics 鈥� should instead take center stage in future research on children鈥檚 gender stereotypes about STEM abilities,鈥� he wrote.

It鈥檚 also important to recognize progress, said Talia Milgrom-Elcott, founder of , a national network focused on building the STEM educator workforce.

In 2019-2021, for example, girls made up at least half of the enrollment in Advanced Placement at over 1,100 schools nationwide 鈥� up from 818 schools the previous year.  The Code.org report also shows that when girls take the AP computer science exam, they earn a score of 3 or higher at rates similar to boys, 61% to 65% respectively.

And over the past decade, women entering STEM fields grew by 31%, compared to 15% for men, according to the . 

鈥淚 want to know that all the deliberate efforts we鈥檙e making are adding up,鈥� she said. 

Months after a federal court held that a 2021 state law regulating how teachers address race, gender, and other topics , New Hampshire鈥檚 Attorney General鈥檚 Office has filed an appeal.

In a filing to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston announced Wednesday, the office argued that the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire was wrong to rule that the state law is unconstitutionally vague.

鈥淭he court applied the vagueness doctrine in a way that improperly second guesses the legitimate policy choices made by the State Legislature in setting curriculum within New Hampshire鈥檚 public schools,鈥� read a press release by the Department of Justice Wednesday.

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The case centers around a law, known to opponents as the 鈥渄ivisive concepts鈥� or 鈥渂anned concepts鈥� law, that restricts teachers and other public employees from certain teaching topics and lays out professional consequences 鈥� including lawsuits and the potential loss of their teaching credentials 鈥� if they are found to have violated the law.

Under the law, teachers and government employees are not allowed to advocate that people of one race, gender, or other characteristic are inherently superior to or advantaged over others; that people of one characteristic are inherently oppressive toward others; that an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment for any characteristic; and that people 鈥渃annot and should not attempt to treat others without regard to鈥� their characteristics. The law, labeled the Right to Freedom from Discrimination in Public Workplaces and Education, allows parents to file lawsuits against school districts if they believe teachers are violating the law, and allows them to file complaints with the New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights.

If a teacher is found by a court or the commission to have violated the law, the State Board of Education can take disciplinary action and potentially rescind their teachers license.

So far since the law鈥檚 passage as part of the 2021 budget, only one complaint has been brought forward, according to the Attorney General鈥檚 Office. But teachers unions and the American Civil Liberties Union say that because the prohibitions in the law are not clear, and because the professional consequences are so severe, the law has had a chilling effect on teachers who feel they cannot have nuanced discussions on race or gender.

After two teachers鈥� unions, the American Federation of Teachers of New Hampshire and National Education Association of New Hampshire, sued the state in conjunction with the ACLU of New Hampshire and LGBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, Judge Paul Barbadoro ruled in May that the law violated teachers鈥� 14th Amendment rights because it was unconstitutionally vague. That vagueness applied to both the way in which teachers might interpret the law and the way in which state officials might choose to punish teachers under the law, he ruled.

鈥溾�� Because the Amendments fail to establish 鈥榤inimal guidelines to govern [their] enforcement,鈥� officials are free to 鈥榩ursue their personal predilections鈥� when applying the law,鈥� Barbadoro wrote.

Barbadoro鈥檚 ruling struck down the law; the state is now seeking to restore it through the appeal.

鈥淭oday鈥檚 decision to appeal this misguided ruling underscores our commitment to upholding the right of duly elected legislators to enact carefully considered policy and clarity in our state laws,鈥� Attorney General John Formella said in a statement Wednesday. 鈥溾�� This case is not just about legal technicalities; it鈥檚 about safeguarding the integrity of our legislative process and ensuring clarity and stability for our educators, students, and communities across New Hampshire.鈥�

Oral arguments in the appeal in Boston are 鈥渆xpected to occur in the coming months,鈥� the press release continued.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com. Follow New Hampshire Bulletin on and .

As movements continue to fight for universal, affordable child care and paid family and medical leave, and for workplace reforms through union organizing and forms of activism, prominent politicians like Republican Vice-Presidential nominee J.D. Vance question women鈥檚 place in the workplace. In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, he vowed to represent the in America. In the past he has critiqued the Democratic Party as being run by 鈥渃hildless cat ladies,鈥� and argued that women should be having children rather than working long hours.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay has covered gender and racial inequality in society throughout her career as a writer, editor, organizer and nonprofit leader. In just a few short years she went from executive editor of the now-defunct blog Feministing to executive editor of Teen Vogue, where she oversaw a massive transformation in its coverage, from just fashion-as-usual, to fashion plus all the political, social and identity questions young people were facing. She resigned from that role in 2022.

Her third book, , takes on the problem of women鈥檚 burnout from juggling both the unpaid work of family life and the demanding paid work in thankless, profit-driven jobs, and defends women鈥檚 right to ambition. The question, she asks, is where should we channel that ambition? Early Learning Nation contributor Haley Swenson sat down with Mukhopadhyay to discuss her journey to understand work and ambition differently in the years since she first 鈥渕ade it.鈥�

Haley Swenson: I鈥檝e read you for such a long time, going back to when I was a college student and you were writing for . And then I remember a few years ago, during the pandemic, everybody was like, wow, look at Teen Vogue. We were seeing articles about socialist feminism and dreamers and DACA and prison and policing and everyone was saying, what’s going on over there? And then I found out you were the executive editor, and I said, aha, that’s part of what’s going on over there. 听

And I remember thinking, 鈥淲ow, she’s really made it!鈥� So maybe we could start there. Tell the readers a little bit about that experience, of 鈥渕aking it,鈥� getting that big management job, and how the reality of that led you to this book.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay: I think I also felt like I had made it. You know, I worked really hard to get to a place where I would even be considered for a position like that. I should have felt this tremendous sense of satisfaction, and I did. I really was proud of the work we were doing, and I was happy to have the job. But there was a deeper part of me saying I worked really hard to get here, and now what? Why am I exhausted? Why do I not have space to take care of myself? And I wasn’t making the kind of money that I felt like I should be making for how much experience I had, and what I was bringing to the table, which kind of made me start to question what all of this was for.

But I didn’t really face that question until the pandemic, when I had this moment that many women had of asking, why do I work all the time? Maybe work isn’t the core organizing value for my life. And there鈥檚 a very earnest battle right now to take rights away from women and to say that women should have never been allowed in the workplace. The pandemic forced me to start reporting out what I felt was a reckoning that women were having with their relationship to ambition. I wanted to come in strong with a counter-argument that we weren鈥檛 wrong for having ambition, but we were set up to fail.

Swenson: Ambition is a theme that keeps coming back throughout the book. Prior to that pandemic moment, when many of us questioned it all, you talk about how in terms of workplace feminism we had 鈥渓ean in鈥� and we had 鈥済irl bossing,鈥� the idea, as you say, that, 鈥渢here’s nothing that a little elbow grease and the right shade of lipstick can’t overcome.鈥� What happened in the pandemic that made those ideas of women鈥檚 ambition seem so antiquated?

Mukhopadhyay: This was most pointed with mothers. I think that a lot of mothers have been told that you can have it all. You can work and have your family. You just need to organize your time and you’ll be fine. And many of them realized how burned out they were, especially when they lost all of the support they needed to be successful in their careers, like child care, home health workers, housekeepers. When that underbelly of workers that keep many middle class and affluent women afloat dissipated, I think a lot of women had to face that their ambitions were fragile, that they were resting on this care economy and this false idea that you can have it all. And I think that’s the biggest thing that started to unravel.

I also saw this with my single women friends, who I think had been told to put everything into their careers, asking, 鈥淲ait, why did I work this hard? Now, none of that matters, because I can’t even go to an office, and I can’t even spend the money I鈥檓 earning in a restaurant. My fancy clothes don’t matter. Having a fancy apartment isn’t important anymore, because we’re struggling for our lives out here.鈥�

I think that forced us as a country and a society to ask, what is success? How much do we actually need? A lot of families took a step back from their professional duties to ask these questions. Maybe we got a taste of a balanced life. We got a taste of what it would be like to not just prioritize work at all costs.

Swenson: Sometimes in the child care and paid leave spaces, we say that because the United States doesn’t have robust social policies, you’re really left to the 鈥渂oss lottery,鈥� where it’s up to your manager whether you can have a balanced life. There鈥檚 also this pressure, which you experienced in management positions, of wanting to do right by your employees, the people who report to you, to be that supportive person, to help them develop, but at the same time you have very little power to protect them when push comes to shove. What鈥檚 your vision of what management could look like?

Mukhopadhyay: I鈥檓 interested in building off of the work of the great feminist theorist Barbara Ehrenreich, to develop her idea of the professional managerial class as this middle layer of management that could become radicalized and stand with other workers. Something promising that we started to see during the pandemic, was white collar workers, or knowledge workers, coming into consciousness about their own labor conditions.

I see an opportunity to think about management less as a climb to the top, and more about people. We should grade managers on that, on how well you build your team and relate to them and support them. And that should be as important as your ability to come up with creative ideas and to execute.

The old model of management isn’t really working right now. Even just for the most basic economic reasons, we really need to start thinking about models that do empower and include larger groups of people to feel purpose-driven.

Swenson: At the end of the book, I was feeling so optimistic. You cite so many examples of workers who aren鈥檛 taking it anymore, and are either forming unions or just saying enough is enough and radically changing their lives to be more about community and less about work.

You offer the idea of instead of channeling our hustle energy鈥攐ur ambition into personal success鈥攖rying to channel that into collective change in the workplace. That seems like a starting point for any of the kinds of changes you want to see, so we are no longer set up to fail. Can you explain how you see us replacing the old feminist dream of having it all with the goal of 鈥渏ust having enough鈥�?

Mukhopadhyay: It really has to be a collective reckoning to say that we’ve had enough of how we’re treated in the workplace. We’re not going to do it anymore. The expectation is that if you have it all, you have to do it all, and I’m not going to do it all. And if you want me to do it all, you’re going to pay me equitably for it. And that may mean making some personal sacrifices. It means that maybe you don’t put yourself up for that promotion. Maybe you don’t, and I鈥檓 talking directly at the camera to myself right now, take that third freelance gig.

Maybe you have to say, I don’t need to keep pushing and pushing, because the more I push, the harder it is for me to actually enjoy what I have and to not make myself sick and stressed out and depressed in the process.

The easy narrative here is to say, well, this is why women should never work. The whole problem with that is whether you’re working outside the house or inside the house, you’re still working. And most women don’t have the choice to be in the house or outside of the house.

I know many women that would love a little more leisure time, but I do not know any woman that’s not out here hustling. This system was designed to make us miserable, to set us up to fail. But [pushing back] is also something that we need to do collectively. You can 鈥渜uiet quit鈥� as an individual, but if the person next to you at work is going to pick up the slack, you’re not creating a collective environment where we’re all saying together, 鈥渢his is what we’re willing to put up with, and this is what we’re not willing to put up with.鈥�

Swenson: Speaking of the moment we’re in right now, politically, has anything changed for you, in terms of your sense of what’s possible, or your optimism about the direction we’re headed in. How is the prospect of a second Trump term affecting your thinking?

Mukhopadhyay: I think that there is such a naked war on women and women’s ambition. J.D. Vance has openly condemned the idea of women in the workplace, women’s independence, . This is part of a working world order and mindset where women are second-class citizens, where their creativity is clamped down on, where their actual human rights are being restricted. And that is very dangerous.

And it鈥檚 not that feminists are against ambition. It鈥檚 not that we’re lazy and it’s not that we don’t believe that women should be ambitious. What we’re saying is it’s too hard and we can’t do it alone. The solution to that cannot be that we don’t try. What are the conditions for us to successfully try? And that’s why I think this moment is very linked to our fight for democracy and for women’s human rights.

It’s not a coincidence to me that we’re having this profound backlash on women in the workplace, that so many mothers were pushed out of the workforce during the pandemic at the same time we saw the overturning of Roe v Wade, and the rise of the, quote, 鈥渢rad wife.鈥�

One of J.D. Vance’s quotes is, 鈥淚f your worldview tells you that it鈥檚 bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you鈥檝e been had.鈥� And that鈥檚 really effective messaging. It isn’t liberating for me to work 90 hours a week, but then neither is forced motherhood.

Swenson: So what is the message you have for women?

Mukhopadhyay: I think a lot of books right now are saying, don’t give up the fight. And I am saying, yes, but pick and choose your battles. You are not alone in what you’re feeling. And I think that one of the problems with neoliberal, lean-in feminism has been that we have put the culpability for women’s progress on the individual woman. You alone cannot change the parental leave policy in your company or in your state. You alone cannot overcome the unequal pay gap. So much ink has been spilled about that moment when you ask for more money, like that’s the core of workplace feminism. 鈥淪peak up in meetings and make sure you ask for more money.鈥� And I would never tell someone not to do those things. I just want us to give ourselves a pat on the back. We’ve done enough. But we alone can’t solve these problems. So what does it look like to use our ambition to build a community of support, around the kinds of lives that we want to live, and the kinds of work we want to do?

鈥淚 accepted it, because I didn’t know any better,鈥� said Tieu, who didn鈥檛 find encouragement from her own Vietnamese family either. 鈥淢y father was like, 鈥極h, I’m so surprised that they selected you to be the principal.鈥� 鈥�

A decade later, Tieu has not only been an assistant principal and principal, she鈥檚 now in charge of student support services for the Houston Independent School District 鈥� the eighth-largest school system in the U.S. But as an Asian woman and a single mother, she still feels pressure to prove herself in a male-dominated field.

鈥淚 spend double the time to make sure that everything I produce is 100% 鈥� nothing less,鈥� she said.

The comment about Tieu鈥檚 height 鈥� and job prospects 鈥� is among the anecdotes district and state leaders shared as part of a first-of-its-kind of women serving in high-level school positions. Conducted by , a 300-member national network, the results show that despite ascending to senior roles in school systems and state departments, the vast majority of female leaders experience bias and think often about quitting. Over 80% of the 110 women who responded, from 27 states, said they feel they have to watch how they dress, speak and act because they are in the spotlight as senior leaders.

鈥淚 have found myself in high-powered meetings where men in leadership roles do not even look at me, but instead address my male colleagues,鈥� said Ang茅lica Infante-Green, Rhode Island education commissioner and a Women Leading Ed board member. 鈥淚n a world where traditional notions of leadership have been predominantly shaped by men, there exists a profound need for diversity in representation.鈥�

The survey, one expert said, comes at a time when districts could benefit from strengths many women bring to the table.

鈥淲omen who come up through this pipeline have often been elementary school principals and that sometimes precludes them from being selected as superintendents,鈥� said Rachel White, a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, assistant professor. She launched , a research center, last summer to improve data collection on school system leaders. It鈥檚 common, she said, for school boards to view high school principals, who are , as more authoritarian or to prefer someone with a background in finance. 鈥淭he type of leadership we need right now around family and student engagement and curriculum and instruction 鈥� elementary school principals really get that right.鈥� 

But many women leaders say they face a double standard. 

鈥淲hen a man in leadership takes time to coach his child鈥檚 sports team, he is applauded,鈥� Infante-Green said. 鈥淚f I choose to attend my daughter鈥檚 dance recital over a meeting, I am judged much differently.鈥�

One leader quoted in the report said she was told to wear a skirt instead of pants to a presentation so she didn鈥檛 鈥渃ome off as intimidating.鈥� , Hispanic and Asian-American women were even more likely to feel pressure related to their behavior 鈥� 55%, compared with 36% for white women. One Black leader鈥檚 colleagues said the way she greeted students with 鈥淲hat鈥檚 up鈥� made them uncomfortable because she was 鈥渟peaking Ebonics.鈥�

Tieu, in Houston, said students are often surprised to see a minority woman, especially an Asian woman, in leadership. 

鈥淚 want to show these young ladies that there’s nothing wrong with having aspirations,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here are going to be moments in time when you have to overcome barriers, but be smart and learn from it.鈥�

The survey results build on the conducted by ILO Group, a women-owned firm focused on education policy and leadership. Nationally, over 20% of the nation鈥檚 500 largest school districts saw turnover at the top, according to the 2023 results. Among women, the rate was slightly higher 鈥� 26%.

The most recent analysis also showed that even with a modest increase in the number appointed to superintendent positions, women still represent less than a third of those leading school districts. Women, however, make up 80% of the teacher workforce and more than half of school principals. 

Julia Rafal-Baer, CEO of Women Leading Ed and ILO, called it a 鈥済lass cliff,鈥� and said when women reach higher ranks, they鈥渘early universally experience bias that impacts their ability to do their job, how they feel about their work and their overall well-being.鈥�

Sixty percent of women leaders said they think about quitting due to stress, and of those, three-quarters said they contemplate leaving on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Loren Widmer, director of student services for the Affton School District, outside St. Louis, left a neighboring system after unsuccessful efforts to advance into administration.

鈥淚 really felt like the only potential way to move ahead in that district was to be part of the good old boys club,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f you didn’t go to school there, play on the football team and come up through the ranks, there was no chance that you would progress.鈥�

That became clear to her in 2017 when she was in line for an assistant principal job. The district offered her a 9 a.m. interview on a Friday, the same morning she was scheduled to have a C-section. She asked for an alternative time 鈥� even a virtual interview at noon the same day of her son鈥檚 birth 鈥� but the official turned her down. The position later went to a man.

鈥楢mong all these men鈥�

The new survey follows a that Rafal-Baer initiated on LinkedIn, asking women leaders to share some of the worst comments they鈥檝e heard along their 鈥減rofessional journey.鈥� Some of the nation鈥檚 top education leaders weighed in.

鈥淎 鈥� colleague said (in front of the others), 鈥榊ou must be really proud to be the only woman among all these men,鈥� and then squeezed my shoulder a little longer than anyone needed,鈥� recalled Carolyne Quintana, a deputy chancellor for the New York City schools.

Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, shared a comment she heard as a new mom. 

鈥淎n older male colleague bitterly complained he wished he鈥檇 gotten a three-month vacation after I got back from a horrible, miserable, painful maternity leave,鈥� she wrote. 

And Daylene Long, CEO of a STEM education company, posted that someone told her, 鈥淏eing competitive is not an attractive trait in a woman.鈥�

鈥榊ou don’t have to choose鈥�

But some leaders also see signs of progress. 

In Affton, Widmer鈥檚 district, half of the top-level staff and four of the five principals are women. She thinks the support women feel contributes to the district鈥檚 stability. 

鈥淵ou don’t have to choose between staying home with your sick kids or leading a department,鈥� Widmer said. 鈥淵ou can do both.鈥�

And in the early months of the pandemic, Infante-Green participated in daily with then-Gov. Gina Raimondo and Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, the former state health director. A mother even sent the commissioner a card with Superwoman on it as a thank you for inspiring her daughter. 

鈥淚n that moment, it dawned on me that our presence together at those news conferences was more than just symbolic; it was a powerful statement of solidarity and resilience,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t sent a positive message that in Rhode Island, leadership knows no gender boundaries.鈥�

Almost half of 13- to 17-year-olds surveyed last fall say they would prefer to learn that the legacy of slavery is still felt today, while 40% say they鈥檇 prefer to be taught that slavery no longer affects Black Americans. Nearly identical shares of parents surveyed by Pew in 2022 expressed the same preferences. 

Eleven percent of teens say topics involving race should not be taught at all, while 8% say racism has not come up in class. Twice as many Black teens as whites and Latinos believe they should learn that slavery鈥檚 impact is still being felt.

Almost two-thirds of teachers say students should learn about slavery鈥檚 legacy, according to the report. A majority (58%) believe their state officials have too much influence over what is taught, while 71% feel teachers don鈥檛 have enough say.

As many parents (31%) would prefer their children learn that gender can be different from sex at birth as want students taught that gender is determined by sex at birth; 37% are opposed to any discussion of gender identity in school. Half of teens say the topic should not be taught, and the remainder are divided on whether students should learn that sex is determined at birth. Fourteen percent say LGBTQ topics have not been mentioned in their classes. 

A majority of Republican teens (56%) don鈥檛 think they should learn about gender identity in school. Among Democratic teens, 42% would prefer to learn that a person鈥檚 gender can differ from their sex assigned at birth, versus 8% of Republicans.

The Pew report is the latest opinion survey to find stronger public support for teaching about race than about LGBTQ people and history. Like the new research, polls conducted by the , Educators for Excellence, and others have found similar sharp partisan divides and wide demographic gaps among adults.

The report provides new context about how people who favor instruction on race and gender identity want the topics framed, as well as about students鈥� comfort levels in classrooms where the discussions take place. Nearly 1,500 teens who are not homeschooled were surveyed.

Teens鈥� responses about what they believe should be taught and whether they鈥檙e uncomfortable when race and LGBTQ topics are raised in class do not indicate what their personal views are, notes Juliana Horowitz, Pew associate director of research. The survey did not probe teens鈥� school environments or ask about their sexual orientation or gender expression. 

Among teens who say the issues have arisen, 38% are comfortable when race comes up in class, versus 21% who are not. Regarding LGBTQ topics, 29% are comfortable while 33% are not. In both categories, the rest of those surveyed reported feeling neutral.

The survey also found racial, ethnic and political divides. One-third of Black teens feel uncomfortable when racism or inequality is raised in class, compared with 19% of white students and 17% of Latinos. Youth who say they lean toward the Democratic Party are more at ease than their Republican peers, with 43% and 33% saying they are somewhat or very comfortable. Almost one fourth of Republican-identified teens express discomfort, versus 18% of Democrats.

The data doesn鈥檛 reveal why students are uncomfortable, says Horowitz: 鈥淲e don’t have information about the school environment that they’re in. For example, we don’t know if this is more the case among Black teens who are in class with mostly teens who are white or who are not Black, or if this is across the board.鈥�

suggests people are most comfortable talking about race with those who share their background, she adds.

While 79% of Black teens would prefer to learn that the legacy of slavery is still felt, as would 68% of Democratic youth, just 41% of white teens and 45% of Latinos do. A majority (60%) of Republican teens would prefer to learn that slavery no longer has an impact on Black people.

Pew also asked adults whether they believe parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about race and LGBTQ issues. More than 80% of white Democrats say parents should not be allowed to remove children from lessons involving race, compared with 65% and 61% of Black and Latino parents. White Democrats also oppose allowing parents to opt out of instruction on LGBTQ topics in larger numbers than other groups, with 60% saying no, versus 42% of Latinos and 34% Blacks. Four in five Republicans say instruction involving LGBTQ people should be optional.

The State Board of Education discussed the implications of several items from the at its meeting earlier this month, including , known as the “Parents’ Bill of Rights.”

SL 2023-106 became law on Aug. 16, after the General Assembly overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the bill. At the time, state Superintendent Catherine Truitt said school districts needed more time to meet requirements of the new law, asking lawmakers to bump the effective date from Sept. 15 to Jan. 1.

The new budget, passed on Sept. 22, granted that extension for much of the law. The budget also clarified that parents will not need to be notified or provide consent when school personnel act in a medical emergency.

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“From the beginning, I鈥檝e supported the Parents鈥� Bill of Rights law, and I want it to be implemented successfully and enacted fully,鈥� Truitt previously . 鈥淚 am very pleased to see that the General Assembly addressed provisions in the conference budget to ensure a smoother process for parents to be fully protected under the Parents鈥� Bill of Rights.”

The law seeks to 鈥渆numerate the rights of parents to direct the upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of their minor children.鈥�

While most Republicans and Democrats agree that the law outlines rights parents already have, Republican bill sponsors said the law safeguards the integral role of parents in their children鈥檚 lives. Opponents, including many educators, have said the law will damage the relationship between educators and students, while also threatening the safety of LGBTQ+ students.

The law bans curriculum on gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality in kindergarten through fourth grade. It also requires schools to notify a parent about their child鈥檚 physical and mental health, including any school health care services they use, changes to their well-being, or requests to change a student鈥檚 pronouns.

The law also allows parents to review all curriculum and establishes remedies and timelines for parental concerns. Under that provision, the law mandates that school governing bodies adopt procedures for parents to notify principals regarding concerns about curriculum. A process to resolve concerns should take place within seven days of the date of notification by the parent.

After 30 days, 鈥渢he public school unit shall provide a statement of the reasons for not resolving the concern.鈥� At that point, parents can also request a 鈥減arental concerning hearing鈥� with the State Board of Education.

Board leaders about the provision, saying the hearings 鈥渨ill likely be a frustrating exercise in futility for all involved” and a 鈥渟ignificant expenditure of resources.鈥�

On Thursday, the Board discussed a regarding such hearings.

Under the policy, parents can only request a hearing with the Board under limited circumstances. One set of circumstances include the failure of a child鈥檚 school to adopt and implement policies to notify parents about the following items:

• Health care services at the child鈥檚 school and how parents can provide consent for services.
• The procedures available to parents to remedy concerns.
• A copy of student well-being questionnaires or health screening forms for students in K-3, and how parents can consent to the form.
• Changes in services or monitoring related to 鈥渢heir child鈥檚 mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being and the school鈥檚 ability to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for that child.鈥�
• Changes in the name or pronoun used for a student 鈥渋n school records or by school personnel.鈥�

Parents can also also seeks hearings with the Board about the existence of the following procedures or practices at their child’s school:

• Procedures that 鈥渄o not include a requirement that school personnel either encourage a child to discuss issues related to the child鈥檚 well-being with his or her parents or facilitate a discussion of the issues with the child鈥檚 parents,鈥� or that encourage a child 鈥渢o withhold information from that child鈥檚 parents about his or her mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being.鈥�
• Procedures that prohibit parents from accessing their children’s school education and health records, except in investigations of abuse.
• Procedures that “result in instruction on gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality鈥� in K-4.

Notably, that list does not include book challenges, which must be handled at the local level.

Parents can request a hearing about the above items after notifying the principal of their child鈥檚 school, if the school has not resolved the concerns within 30 days.

Under the new policy, the Board will appoint a hearing officer for each case who is a member of the North Carolina State Bar and has experience in education and administrative law in the last five years. The public school must pay for the costs of that hearing officer, who would then hold a hearing and submit a recommended decision to the Board within 30 days after their appointment.

鈥淎t the next regularly scheduled State Board meeting, held more than seven days after receipt of the recommended decision, the State Board shall vote to either approve, reject, or amend the hearing officer鈥檚 recommended decision,鈥� the draft policy says.

Graduation requirements

The new budget also requires the State Board of Education to create a three-year graduation track for high school students by Nov. 1. That track will consist of 22 credits, and must receive parental consent.

The budget currently states that “local boards of education shall offer a sequence of courses in accordance” with that minimum requirement. Many schools already allow early graduation pathways for some students, but most schools typically require 28 credits for graduation.

Many education leaders worried the budget’s provision would prevent them from requiring more than 22 credits for any students.

“That of course, caused a lot of outcry from our school districts,” said Sneha Shah-Coltrane, director of advanced learning and gifted education at the Department of Public Instruction (DPI). “As a result, we are very grateful that we are working with the General Assembly on some technical corrections, to be able to move forward with a reasonable, different approach.”

In anticipation of such technical corrections, the Board discussed . That policy will come to the Board for approval next month, pending the corrections.

The proposed amendment, “Authority for Local School Boards to Exceed Minimum Graduation Requirements,” outlines a process for students who wish to graduate after three years to 鈥渞equest that local board waive the additional local requirements.鈥�

The student must complete and sign a waiver from the local board. That waiver must also be signed by the student鈥檚 parent or legal guardian, unless the student is 18 years or older, or has been emancipated. An administrator from the student鈥檚 high school must also then meet with the student and their parent 鈥渢o discuss the implications of graduating in three years.鈥�

Students who successfully opt to graduate early 鈥� and who also seek a degree, diploma, or certificate at an eligible postsecondary institution 鈥� will be eligible for 鈥渆arly graduate scholarships鈥� based on financial need. Read more starting on 

“This is just another step toward recognizing that the nature of school and work is changing before our very eyes,” Truitt said. “I think it is a very small percentage of students for who it is right to stop at 22 (credits) — this may continue to grow as more and more options become available to students — but what I really like is that this policy requires parent buy-in for this happen.”

Teacher pay

Truitt also spoke about the budget’s raises for school employees — which included a 7% raise over two year for most school employees, and a 3.6-10.8% raise for teachers.

Earlier this long session, Truitt and the Board asked lawmakers for at least a 10% raise for employees.

鈥淎s a former educator, I鈥檝e been vocal that North Carolina鈥檚 teachers deserve a raise, and I鈥檓 disappointed that we did not see the double digit pay increase for educators that we hoped for in this Conference budget,” she said in . “Salaries in other professions have kept pace with inflation, however that is not the case with education.”

Truitt highlighted her disappointment with the raises again during her report on Thursday. Board members also spoke about disappointment in the budget’s provisions for teacher raises.

Board Chair Alan Duncan said he hopes lawmakers will readdress teacher pay in the short session.

鈥淚 cannot help but express some disappointment that there was not a better response to the request,” he said. “And I鈥檓 sorry for the educators that there was not.鈥�

You can view the updated salary schedules for 2023-24 . You can also read about the budget’s supplements outlined for educators at

Truitt said DPI’s requests for the short session will include funding for professional development for middle school teachers, with a focus on improving math proficiency.

Truitt also highlighted the budget’s provision of nearly $13 million into the Advanced Teaching Roles (ATR) initiative — the first directed state funding for the program.

Under that program, adult leadership teachers in participating districts will receive a $10,000 supplement. Classroom excellence teachers will receive a $3,000 supplement.

The Board heard a presentation on the Friday Institute’s The Board opted to send a partial version of the report, due Oct. 15, to the General Assembly, and will submit the full report in November after it is approved with additional information requested by Board members.

Truitt also highlighted the following items from the budget during her report:

Reports on students with disabilities and low-performing schools

The Board heard several important reports on Wednesday regarding student success.

First, the Board discussed a .

Per the report, a federal view found several things that “need assistance” within the state’s Exceptional Children (EC) department. The priority areas identified in the report include:

• Participation and performance on statewide assessments
• Suspension and expulsion
• Preschool outcomes
• Child Find/Early Childhood Transition
• Secondary Transition/Post-School Outcomes

The Board also received from the Council on Educational Services for Exceptional Children, which advises the State Board of Education “on unmet needs of children with special needs and the development and implementation of policies related to the coordination of services for students with disabilities.”

The council made the following recommendations in its 2022-23 report:

• “Hear from the ground.” Invite organizations which provide support to families navigating the education system to speak about best practices and challenges at least once a year.
• Do a survey of other organizations that also serve families with disabilities along with mental health concerns.
• Incorporate “A New Wave of Evidence,” showing that connections between school, family, and community lead to student success.

The Board also discussed its annual report to lawmakers

State law defines low-performing schools as those that receive a school performance grade of a D or F and a school growth score of “met expected growth” or “not met expected growth.” A low-performing school district is defined as a district in which the majority of the schools are low-performing.

Here is some data from that report.

On Thursday, the Board also approved two policies related to low-performing schools.

First, the Board approved a policy allowing the Board 鈥渢o assign an assistance team to any school identified as low-performing or to any other school that requests an assistance team and that the State Board determines would benefit from an assistance team.鈥�

Second, the Board approved a new policy that allows them to appoint an interim district superintendent when more than half the schools in that district are designated as low-performing and the assistance team assigned to a school 鈥渞ecommends the superintendent has failed to cooperate with the assistance team or has otherwise hindered that school’s ability to improve.鈥�

Finally, the Board also saw a preview of its annual report to the General Assembly The Board will vote on that report next month.

Updates to parental leave policy

The State Board of Education gave final approval to its temporary , as mandated by . That section requires a paid parental leave policy for all state agency, public school, UNC, and community college employees.

Originally, the policy — based on state law — said that employees must have been employed by the public school unit without a break in service 鈥渇or at least 1,040 hours within the previous 12-month period” to be eligible for paid parental leave.

In other words, employees who moved school districts would not have been eligible for the benefits, even if they had worked in North Carolina public schools for 10 years.

Following pushback, lawmakers made technical corrections to the law. The Board’s new policy will now cover employees who recently switched districts, as long as they have an aggregate 1,040 hours without a break of service at a North Carolina school or state agency.

The policy provides up to eight weeks of paid parental leave after giving birth to a child on or after July 1, 2023, or up to four weeks after any other qualifying event, like adoption or legal guardianship.

The revisions to the rule will be effective on Nov. 7.

Other things to know

• The Board approved a report to the General Assembly on the The goal for 2022鈥�23 was set at 89.5%. The statewide rate, 86.5%, did not meet this year鈥檚 target, though 31 individual school districts did.
• The Charter Schools Review Board (CSRB) presented in light of new state laws regarding charter schools in the budget. There are currently 15 applications for 2023.
• The Board also approved a new policy, . That policy is in response to a new state law that allows “an applicant for a charter school, a charter school, or the State Superintendent of Public Instruction (to) appeal to the State Board of Education from a final decision by the Charter Schools Review Board on whether to grant, renew, revoke, or amend a charter.”
• Thursday marked the last Board meeting for Dr. Maria Pitre-Martin, the director of Board operations and policy.
• The Board offered initial approval two additional community colleges to offer the Elementary Education Residency Licensure Certificate Program: Pitt Community College and Robeson Community College. Those colleges join many other community colleges to receive initial authorization for the program

The full State Board of Education meets next Oct. 31 through Nov. 2 at East Carolina University in Greenville for its planning and work session.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

In the last two years, have passed laws or policies limiting if or how race and gender are discussed in the schools. The details of these restrictions vary, but most are . Kentucky law, for example, states that tying racial disparities to slavery is 鈥渄estructive to the unification of our nation.鈥� Tennessee prohibits public schools from promoting notions of unconscious bias. 

When RAND U.S. teachers about these policies last spring, one in four reported that such limitations have influenced their curriculum choices and instructional practices. Replying to a follow-up question asking for more detail, many described veering away from any discussion of race and gender, regardless of whether a topic was specifically banned by law. 

鈥淭he past two years have made me nervous about teaching Frederick Douglass because I don鈥檛 think the people in my community know the difference between teaching [Black] history and teaching critical race theory,鈥� one teacher told us. Another teacher wrote this: 鈥淲hile it was never explicitly stated by my district not to discuss gender or race-related topics in the classroom, I know that my district would not have my back should I choose to add instruction on these important issues.鈥� 

For students of color, the psychological phenomenon to be concerned about is called identity threat. This is defined as feelings of fear and danger that can arise from the of one鈥檚 group through stereotypes, marginalization or discrimination.

Stanford social psychologist Claude Steele has studied identity threat for decades. In he undertook with colleagues, college students watched videos advertising a STEM leadership conference: one version had three times as many men as women, while the other showed gender parity. Sensors attached to the viewers’ wrists captured significantly faster heart rates, blood pressure and sweating among female students who viewed the video with fewer women, while men鈥檚 physiological reactions were the same in both cases. The women also reported less desire to attend the leadership conference than the men. led by Columbia psychology professor Valerie Purdie-Vaughns found similar heightened anxiety among African American professionals after viewing recruiting materials from various corporate workplace settings showing predominantly white people.

When a school eliminates courses, lessons or books featuring women and people of color, it sends a similar message of identity threat. Ruby Bridges鈥� 鈥�,鈥� Angie Thomas鈥� 鈥�” and Ashley Hope Per茅z鈥檚 鈥�,” all stories about students of color, were banned in public schools across the U.S. this year. Girls and children of color could take this as a cue that they aren鈥檛 valued or don鈥檛 belong in school 鈥� and that can create stress that harms their ability to learn. 

The most direct way to mitigate identity threat, of course, is to integrate learning material that sends messages to students of color that they matter. of at-risk ninth-graders in San Francisco, for example, showed that taking an ethnic studies course increased attendance by 21 percentage points, grade-point average by 1.4 points and credits earned by 23. That, however, is exactly the type of course that could generate the negative attention many schools and teachers wish to avoid in this turbulent moment.

Although race and gender bans are leaving many teachers uncertain about what is safe to teach, their hands are not completely tied. There are other ways to support students of color and offset identity threat.

have demonstrated that specific classroom interventions 鈥� invoking high standards, prompting students to reflect on their own core values and helping them develop optimism in the face of adversity 鈥� can give children experiencing identity threat the encouragement they need to succeed at school and beyond. The effects of these interventions include a greater sense of belonging, improved and .

Self-affirming activities, like asking students to choose their most important values from a list and explain why they are essential, can by 12 percentage points among students who complete this exercise three to four times in one year. In one , African American college freshmen were given narratives that portrayed social adversity as common but transient and short-lived, and they were then asked to write an essay鈥攁nd then make a video鈥攖hat considered their own experiences alongside those narratives. The experiment raised participants’ grade point averages, relative to a control group, and cut the achievement gap in half.  

By conveying to girls and students of color that they are individually capable of overcoming adversity 鈥� and that who they are matters 鈥� educators might soften the blow of public laws and policies that send the opposite message.

A graduate of the Cleveland-area school where he鈥檚 taught for 25 years, Russell still works to pull together an annual basketball tournament and festival in Oberlin 鈥� the experience that convinced him it was a 鈥渏oy鈥� to work with high school students.听

鈥淗e just commands the best out of you when you鈥檙e tired and you feel like you can’t do anymore,鈥� said senior Caleb Peterson, who has had 鈥淩uss鈥� as a teacher every year since ninth grade and is taking three of his courses this year. He also played basketball freshman and sophomore year. 鈥淭he lessons he鈥檚 taught me on the court or in the classroom will stick in my heart.鈥�

On Tuesday, the Council of Chief State School Officers named Russell the 2022 National Teacher of the Year. Students and staff, wearing the school鈥檚 red, white and blue colors, gathered early at the school for a watch party. When the announcement came, just after 8 a.m Eastern on , 鈥渢he whole auditorium lit up,鈥� Peterson said.

Teaching American history with a focus on the Black experience 鈥� at a time of intense national scrutiny over how educators discuss race and discrimination 鈥� the veteran educator plans to focus his year as the nation鈥檚 top teacher on breaking down barriers in education.

听鈥淚 would like to focus on diversity and making sure students receive a well-rounded educational experience,鈥� said Russell, adding that he鈥檒l advocate for girls to pursue听STEM fields and more men teaching in the early grades.

He was inspired to go into education when he had a Black male teacher, Larry Thomas, for eighth grade math. 鈥淐ulturally I could relate to him,鈥� Russell said. 鈥� His family migrated from the South. My family migrated from the South. Some of the discussion I had in class was personal to me.鈥�

Russell turned that connection to his cultural roots into a career, teaching U.S. History and electives on race, oppression and Black music that are among the school鈥檚 most popular courses. When he鈥檚 teaching, his booming voice carries down the hallways. 

鈥淗e puts his entire heart into his students and they are very engaged in his lesson,鈥� said Denita Tolbert-Brown, a business teacher at the school who has worked with Russell for 24 years. 

Peterson, who is weighing offers from Temple University in Philadelphia and Clark Atlanta University, said even though reading doesn鈥檛 鈥済rasp鈥� him like it used to, Russell has sparked his interest in books about racial history.

鈥淣o matter what I end up doing, I want to have the same impact,鈥� he said about his favorite teacher and former coach. 鈥淚 want to try to be like him and excel and inspire people.鈥�

Russell feels fortunate that he鈥檚 been able to work in a 鈥減rogressive鈥� district where he hasn鈥檛 faced backlash from the community over teaching about racial and gender discrimination. Parents, he said, have been 鈥渁ccepting.鈥� That鈥檚 in contrast to Republican lawmakers in his state, who have introduced three bills to restrict lessons on so-called 鈥渄ivisive鈥� topics. would also limit references to gender identity and sexual orientation.

Even so, broader opposition, combined with the impact of the pandemic, has left many colleagues feeling worn down.

鈥淔or me, it’s just the idea of respect,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f someone visits a doctor and the doctor prescribes the medication, we don鈥檛 think twice about that. In education, teachers are not trusted. Politicians are telling teachers what we can or can鈥檛 teach.鈥�

CCSSO鈥檚 choice of Russell as the winner 鈥渄oes bring a perspective that could add to the conversation both in Ohio and across the country,鈥� said Anton Schulzki, president of the National Council for the Social Studies. 鈥淏ut that will be up to him to decide how to use his voice.鈥�

Bills like those proposed in Ohio are 鈥渟caring鈥� people out of the profession, said Jeff Wensing, vice president of the Ohio Education Association.

鈥淲e are looking at a time where students are really not considering the education profession,鈥� he said, adding that Russell鈥檚 most important contribution over the next year could be to spark interest in the education field among young Black men. 鈥淲e need more teachers of color. Students need to see people like themselves standing in front of them as educators.鈥澨�

The issues surround public schools and workplaces and a bill moving in the Legislature called HB 7.

Critics fear that the bill will whitewash history, oppression and slavery in America while shielding students and employees from discomfort.

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Ranika Ashcroft, an advocacy group named Dream Defenders, has been attending legislative committee meetings and speaking against the bill.

She said on the evening of the rally that supporters of the bill, and others like it nationally, are pushing it 鈥渟imply out of fear.鈥�

鈥淏ecause the worst thing you can do is educate a person, because if you educate them, you can鈥檛 take that back. Knowledge is power,鈥� Ashcroft said.

State Rep. Angie Nixon, along with other Democratic lawmakers, criticized the legislation at the rally. Nixon referred to the bill as the 鈥淪top Learning Act鈥� and said that the legislation is 鈥渄esigned to destroy public education and safe working environments in the state of Florida.鈥�

鈥淚n the Florida Legislature, we are afraid of all the wrong things and it鈥檚 dangerous for folks who look like me,鈥� Nixon said at the rally. She is a Black lawmaker who represents part of Duval County.

鈥淚 can鈥檛 just wash my skin and no longer be Black, as a young boy once told me to do. I don鈥檛 get to just walk away from these issues when I鈥檓 tired of them,鈥� she said.

Speaking on the education front, Nixon said that Florida teachers have 鈥渁lways done their best to help our children thrive.鈥�

鈥淲e鈥檝e trusted teachers to be on the front lines of a pandemic and deal with gun violence in our schools, so we can trust them to have these necessary conversations and prepare our kids for the real world,鈥� she said.

While much of the debate on the bill reflects similar motions that Gov. Ron DeSantis has pushed to limit how race is discussed, particularly in schools, members of Florida鈥檚 transgender community and advocates say that HB 7 will limit how gender is discussed too.

Delilah Pierre, an activist with a grassroots racial justice organization called the Tallahassee Community Action Committee, said that the DeSantis administration should be focused on other concerns, such as overcrowded classrooms, instead of 鈥渁ttacking queer and trans people鈥� and 鈥渢rying to make us non-existent.鈥�

鈥淲e need to get rid of this ignorance that exists within our state that prevents people from truly understanding and learning what our history is, learning how to fight back against the system that oppress them,鈥� Pierre said.

She continued: 鈥淗e (Gov. Ron DeSantis) doesn鈥檛 want to teach about Black history because he knows by teaching Black history, it empowers Black children. He doesn鈥檛 want to history about trans people, because if you don鈥檛 know about the history of trans people, he makes one more trans kid stay in the closet鈥�

Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried, who is campaigning for the Democratic nominee in the 2022 gubernatorial election, said that legislation such as HB 7 is 鈥減olitical theater.鈥�

鈥淭hey don鈥檛 care about you, they don鈥檛 care about any of us. They care about one thing and one thing only, and that鈥檚 power,鈥� Fried said. 鈥淎nd how they can have power is by intimidation, by scare tactics. By trying to make people feel that they are inferior.鈥�

鈥淎s somebody who is a member of the Jewish community, what I am seeing in our state makes me so (much) more angry to keep fighting this, to stand up,鈥� Fried said. 鈥淏ecause we see what hatred does to a society, and we cannot stand back and let that happen here in Florida and across the country.鈥�

The bill includes concepts that teachers and students, or employees, should not be subjected to:

•  鈥淢embers of one race, color, national origin, or sex are morally superior to members of another race, color, national origin, or sex.鈥�
• 鈥淎n individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.鈥�
• 鈥淎n individual鈥檚 moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.鈥�

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on and .

Problem is, I get the impression none of them has ever reported from an actual elementary school, where these gender gaps start.

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This week, New York Times writer Thomas Edsall into an issue, this time the 鈥渂oy troubles.鈥� The theories from the academics appeared to reflect their personal areas of research: fatherless families, jobs offshoring, a constant need to act macho and the slowly maturing male brain.

One example, from Frances Elizabeth Jensen, chair of the department of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania鈥檚 Perelman School of Medicine, responding to Edsall鈥檚 query:

Teens go through a period of increased emotional fluctuation and are like a Ferrari with weak brakes. The emotional center of the brain, the limbic system, which controls emotions, is fully connected, but the frontal lobe that sharpens critical thinking isn鈥檛 well-connected. That means the part of the brain that makes them pause and say to themselves, 鈥淏ad idea. Don鈥檛 post that on Facebook because it might hurt my chances of getting a job in the future鈥� or 鈥淒on鈥檛 jump in the lake, there may be a rock,鈥� isn鈥檛 mature.

I get that, especially after watching over my grandsons. How do they ever survive through high school?

The issue I have with all their theories is that most don鈥檛 explain the recent decline. Boys have always had slower-maturing brains. And none of them appear to dive into elementary school classrooms where, as best as I could determine while researching my 2011 book, many of these recent gender problems originate.

First: the recent news about men: A about the slipping numbers of men enrolling and graduating from college expertly laid out the dilemma. Soon, there will be two females earning bachelor’s degrees for every one male.

Is that a problem? Veteran higher education columnist Kevin Carey doesn鈥檛 think so, and he made his case in a recent New York Times . Carey鈥檚 argument is familiar: Just because women are doing better doesn鈥檛 mean men are doing worse.

But the bulk of the recent reporting seems to favor the we-have-a-problem side of the argument, and When you weigh the considerable societal impacts that are part of this trend, an increase in single parenting and a rise in political polarization between the educated and less-educated, we have a problem.

So, what to do about it? The issue I have with explanations such as excessive machismo is not only have these factors been around forever, and thus can鈥檛 explain recent declines, but they are also immutable. What, exactly, is going to turn around machismo or male brain-maturation time?

As a result, these observations don鈥檛 lead to solutions. And there are solutions that can turn around at least some of the problems we鈥檙e seeing with boys and men.

In my book, I sifted through multiple explanations offered for boys falling behind, and settled on one that can both explain the recent boys-failing phenomenon and is not immutable: literacy shortfalls.

Yes, boys do mature slower, especially in the acquisition of literacy skills. In the book, I describe my shock when visiting our oldest daughter’s first-grade class. While the girls were sketching out graceful letters, the boys were tearing holes in the paper with deathgrip clutches on pencils.

At the time, I recall innocently wondering: Did our daughter just happen to land in a class full of boy dunces? Eventually, of course, the boys caught up in reading, at least by fourth or fifth grade, and all was good.

But those were the days before education 鈥渞eform鈥� changed elementary school. Starting with the 1989 governors education summit in Charlottesville, nearly all states ramped up their curriculum to prepare students for a world where college was the new high school.

The governors鈥� logic was prescient, but the follow-through by school systems was lacking. Schools pushed their reading demands up by roughly two grades, meaning even some kindergarteners are expected to keep journals. But most teachers failed to shift strategies so that boys would not fall behind.

In short, girls adapted to an early push on literacy skills, but boys couldn鈥檛. Soon, non-reading boys were seen by teachers as aggressive and in need of discipline, while the boys themselves concluded that school was for girls. Suddenly, video games became far more appealing.

Does this explain everything behind the sinking fortunes of boys in school? Of course not, but it explains enough that reversing these harmful practices could make a dent in the dismaying trend we saw in the Wall Street Journal data.

How? There鈥檚 a long list, starting with better literacy instruction for elementary school teachers so they all follow research-based methods that embrace extensive instruction in phonics. And don鈥檛 fear comic books and graphic novels 鈥� many boys get their reading launched that way.

For parents, it鈥檚 a matter of watching your son鈥檚 literacy growth and being aware of online resources such as . If your elementary teachers aren鈥檛 assigning reading that appeals to your son, find it yourself. And dads 鈥� and moms 鈥� stop reading with your daughters and throwing footballs with your sons.

In K-12 schools, there鈥檚 been a successful push to catch girls up on math and science, but a resistance to doing the same for boys around reading. Why?

After my book was published, I had many with representatives from advocacy groups such as the American Association of University Women, which is closely tied to the female-dominated teachers unions. The AAUW is a key skeptic of boys falling behind in school and the primary advocate for . My bottom line from many interactions: Groups such as AAUW downplay the boys’ problems in K-12 schools and ignore the rising gender gaps in college for a simple reason. They see this as a zero sum game: Doing something for boys on literacy would subtract from what鈥檚 being done for girls in math and science. This has to cease.

Again, boy-friendly literacy instruction can鈥檛 solve the entire problem. The special burden that fatherless families place on young boys, for example, can鈥檛 be solved with graphic novels.

But if we know there鈥檚 a problem out there, and we also know of a solution that addresses a good chunk of the problem, what鈥檚 holding us back?

Education writer Richard Whitmire is the author of six books. His first was “Why Boys Fail: Saving our Sons From an Educational System That鈥檚 Leaving Them Behind.”

As young people continue to line up for coronavirus shots, the gender breakdown appears, well, surprisingly even.

Compared to a persistent gap between adult men and women in vaccination rates, with , early data indicate that the split has been far less pronounced among youth.

In Rhode Island, as of early June, young people had seen only a 4 percentage point difference between males and females in COVID-19 immunization, according to numbers provided by the Rhode Island Department of Health, compared to a . On the same timescale in Vermont, the gender split was even narrower, at 2 percentage points among vaccinated youth, according to Vermont Department of Health statistics, compared to .

Nicolette Carrion, a first-year at Georgetown University from Nassau County, New York, understands the numbers as being due to 鈥済enerational difference.鈥�

Young people today are 鈥渂rought up in a different society,鈥� Carrion told 社区黑料. Not only are kids eager to socialize and connect with peers, but living through a pandemic has helped raise their social consciousness from an early age.

鈥淔rom what I’ve seen, the care for other people, I think it’s a whole different level,鈥� she said.

Among youth, the gender gap in immunization appears to shrink further when students have increased access to vaccinations.

In Carrion鈥檚 home county on Long Island, schools launched a youth vaccination campaign complete with student ambassadors to answer peers鈥� questions about the shots. Amid their immunization push, rates of inoculation stood virtually even, with 50.1 percent of shots going to young women and 49.9 percent going to young men, according to data provided by the county in late May. East Hartford, Connecticut, which hosted a senior 鈥渟kip day鈥� for vaccinations in late April, immunized 130 female students and 134 males, the district said.

Carrion, who worked as a vaccine ambassador, said that the even immunization rates across gender for students in Nassau County reflected the conversations she had with her peers.

鈥淚 never really saw a difference with how my male peers and female peers spoke about the vaccines,鈥� said Carrion. 鈥淭hey wanted to live out their lives as young people and that’s really what it was all about.鈥�

Among adults, on the other hand, longstanding gender gaps have persisted nationwide. In April, the gap measured about , which some observers initially wrote off as the result of women holding occupations that received early vaccine priority at higher rates than men. But even as access to shots widened, the disparity has remained persistent, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting this week that .

Reports from early in the pandemic found that men were less likely to wear masks and follow virus-related safety protocols, due to ideas that doing so would be a 鈥�.鈥�

For Rohith Raman, however, a graduating high school senior in Houston, Texas, the choice was simple. He lives with his grandmother, and his sister has severe asthma, so Raman got a shot as soon as he was eligible.

鈥淚t was a pretty cut-and-dry decision,鈥� the Houston senior told 社区黑料. Now he can visit with friends without the risk of bringing the virus home. 鈥淎 little bit of stress has been relieved.鈥�

Most of the young people in Raman鈥檚 social circle have also received their vaccinations. He credits social media with applying a positive peer effect on students, encouraging them to get immunized.

鈥淭here is a huge ripple effect when you see your friends getting [the shot],鈥� said Raman.

In mid-May, the Food and Drug Administration authorized youth aged 12 to 15 for shots based on their existing emergency use approval. And though children are still considered much less likely to develop severe symptoms or die from COVID-19, a third of kids who were hospitalized for the disease in early 2021 were admitted to intensive care, and 5 percent required ventilators, according to a . Boys account for while girls make up 44 percent, CDC numbers show.

With more adults now immunized than youth, and with , young people represent an , and health experts are .

Carrion, who after a year of remote classes was able to step onto her college campus for the first time in early June thanks to her vaccination, also emphasized the social upside to immunization for people her age, in addition to the public health reasons. It was prom season in late May and now it鈥檚 graduation season, she points out, and students don鈥檛 want to be stuck on the sidelines.

鈥淲e see the benefits in real time,鈥� she said.