鈥淲e’re in the middle of an industrial revolution that’s bigger than the dot.com revolution, and the world is not prepared for it,鈥� Weingarten told 社区黑料. 鈥淎nd our country鈥檚 leaders have a laissez-faire attitude about it. So I feel a huge responsibility to try and get it right.鈥澛�

Weingarten has proposed reshaping how U.S. public schools navigate AI in particular and technology more broadly, saying our kids are experiencing a crisis of attention and well-being 鈥� and that teachers are getting precious little guidance on how to help young people navigate these challenges.

Her proposal: Trim tech use, especially for younger kids, and teach all students how to think critically, communicate, collaborate and persist.鈥淥ne of the worst things we’ve done in education was to call collaboration and communication 鈥榮oft skills,鈥欌�� she said, 鈥渂ecause applied learning, problem solving, communication, collaboration, persistence 鈥� all of these 鈥� are the skills that any young adult is going to need in an AI world. In fact, these are the skills that are going to be much more competitive in an AI world.鈥�

In a May 27 at the National Press Club in Washington, she proposed a near-ban on computer screens for students through second grade, including for assessments. She proposed banning student-facing AI in elementary schools, arguing that young children need to build foundational skills without algorithmic shortcuts. 

And she said that young people should not have access to 鈥�social companion鈥� chatbots that simulate human relationships until age 16.

The speech makes Weingarten and AFT, the second-largest teachers union in the nation, new and potentially powerful supporters of a growing parent-powered movement to trim technology from U.S. classrooms, even as the union pushes to train thousands of teachers on how AI works. 

Weingarten proposed that schools redesign their offerings so that 鈥渁ctive learning, including project-based, experiential and career-connected learning,鈥� is the norm across all grade levels. She decried 鈥渄rill-and-kill” rote instruction, saying that in an age when any fact is retrievable with a single prompt, the ability to apply knowledge, think critically, communicate and collaborate matters far more than memorization.

鈥淭o really prepare young people for complex challenges, our true goal is to have students who can work together and problem solve,鈥� she said.

Weingarten noted that 31 states have now adopted some form of phone ban, and that several countries that were early adopters of education technology are pulling back. Sweden, she said, has returned to printed textbooks. Estonia, where research linked higher screen time in young children to weaker language skills, is calling for more human-to-human interaction. And Italy is re-emphasizing handwriting and traditional instruction.

Weingarten also called for establishing a rigorous new national safety and privacy standard for AI products sold to schools and creating an independently funded research consortium to study tech鈥檚 effects on children. And she proposed a new tax on Big Tech companies鈥� earnings to offset the environmental and societal costs of AI-driven disruption, including workers 鈥渂eing displaced by AI.鈥�

In an interview Monday, Weingarten said AFT’s own $23 million AI academy, launched last year in New York City to help teachers understand and shape how AI enters their classrooms, exists in part to provide crucial guidance on how to understand the technology. Over the next five years, the National Academy for AI Instruction is expected to provide hands-on workshops for 400,000 educators, or one in 10 U.S. teachers, effectively reaching the more than 7.2 million students they teach. 

She said the institute鈥檚 mission and her new stance on tech aren鈥檛 incompatible.

鈥淭he AI Institute is really about teachers teaching teachers, and how the tech companies are not in control,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t is a people-first, safety-first focus.鈥�

When she announced the academy in July, Weingarten said teachers face 鈥渉uge challenges,鈥� including navigating AI wisely, ethically and safely. 鈥淭he question was whether we would be chasing it 鈥� or whether we would be trying to harness it.鈥�

Nearly a year later, she said the institute now serves a crucial role in the absence of guidance from the Trump administration, which last week issued a U.S. Surgeon General鈥檚 urging families and schools to reduce children鈥檚 screen time. It suggested that schools limit school computers to computer labs, invest in physical textbooks and 鈥減rioritize pen-and-paper curricula, hands-on activities and social activities for all grade levels.鈥�

In a media appearance last week, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said schools 鈥渘eed to embrace A.I., and to use it .鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Weingarten said it鈥檚 鈥渃razy鈥� that the U.S. Surgeon General鈥檚 office is offering more detailed recommendations than the Education Department. 

鈥淲hen you actually have two-thirds of teachers in the United States having no idea how to use AI in schools, and when you have one-third saying there’s no formal guidance, and then you have the Education Secretary saying they should use it 鈥榓ppropriately,鈥� I mean, this is part of the problem,鈥� she said. 

U.S. Education Department Press Secretary Savannah Newhouse said McMahon 鈥渉as highlighted the many types of schools that are successfully and responsibly integrating AI in the classroom to help our nation鈥檚 students meet the challenges of today.鈥�

Weingarten also took a swipe at Melania Trump鈥檚 recent tech-and-education event, in which the First Lady the White House alongside a humanoid robot to highlight the potential benefits of robots replacing teachers. The stunt, Weingarten said, 鈥渟poke volumes. So did the responses from teachers wondering how a robot was going to build trust with students or know when someone was having a bad day. There鈥檚 no algorithm for that. Students need their teachers 鈥� real human beings, not robots and not chatbots.鈥�

Newhouse didn鈥檛 address Weingarten鈥檚 allegations about the administration鈥檚 leadership on AI, instead criticizing union priorities more broadly: 鈥淚f there鈥檚 finally going to be an honest conversation about the damage done to American students, it should begin with the teachers unions鈥� enthusiastic support for a federal bureaucracy that has spent over $3 trillion only to watch student outcomes decline, along with their relentless push to keep schools shuttered during COVID,鈥� Newhouse said. 

鈥楰ids are getting burned鈥�

The effort to curb tech in schools comes on the heels of a similar one, led in large part by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, to limit cellphone use in schools.

Weingarten on Monday said she has steeped herself in research on educational technology and artificial intelligence. But it wasn鈥檛 until she spoke to Haidt last summer about young people鈥檚 worsening that she knew she had to draw a line. 

鈥淲hat really drove me was the issues around attention,鈥� she said. 

Haidt, author of the best-selling 2024 book The Anxious Generation, has said short-form videos and other social media tools have decimated our kids鈥� ability to pay attention in school, resulting in fewer books read, poorer basic skills and worsening mental health. A more recent book, The Digital Delusion, by the educational neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath, argues that basic classroom technology has had a similar effect on skills.

In her speech, much of Weingarten鈥檚 criticism centered around increasingly widespread fears that our society is losing its way when it comes to young people鈥檚 technology use. She noted that more than half of 11-year-olds already carry smartphones, a figure that climbs to 95% among teenagers. Four in 10 teens report being online almost constantly, she said. 鈥淭he pace of this tech revolution has been blisteringly fast, and kids are getting burned.鈥�

She pointed to Haidt’s research linking heavy smartphone and social media use to rising rates of social isolation, anxiety and depression among young people, with academic consequences as well from the rollout of classroom technology. Scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which had been climbing steadily, have in many cases worsened after widespread digital adoption. Weingarten acknowledged that correlation is not causation, but said the pattern, appearing consistently across states, grade levels and subjects, deserves serious attention.

She also pointed to research showing that 88% of teachers in a survey reported that their students’ attention spans were shrinking, which she attributed in part to the instant-rewards of online platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. Cognitive scientist work, she said, suggests students are not incapable of focusing, but are increasingly unwilling to do so when schoolwork feels dull by comparison to their online lives.

But she cautioned that she鈥檚 not anti-tech.

鈥淚鈥檓 not calling for an AI ban or a Chromebook bonfire,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hat I am calling for is getting the balance right to harness the benefits of technology while mitigating the harms. I鈥檓 wary of the dangers of AI, but it is here to stay. We need enforceable guardrails and help to cushion the disruption to people鈥檚 lives.鈥� 

Alex Kotran, the founder and CEO of , said Weingarten is 鈥渞ight where it counts鈥� about limiting AI for younger students but giving teachers access to the tools. 鈥淚t’s about getting the balance right,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd I really don’t talk to anybody that believes that we shouldn’t have some sort of balance.鈥�

Kotran said he鈥檇 recently spoken at an National Education Association meeting and saw that, like AFT, they鈥檙e focused on understanding AI. 鈥淭here’s this almost-meme, ‘Oh, the unions are getting in the way of AI transformation, AI readiness,’ and I really disagree with that fundamentally. The unions have a very sophisticated understanding of what really matters here.鈥�

Weingarten鈥檚 push to give teachers a better understanding of AI makes sense as well, he said. 鈥淲hen teachers feel like they are the main characters of the story of AI transformation, their willingness to really lean in and learn, it’s a lot more. You see a lot more buy-in.鈥�

More broadly, Kotran said, supporting active learning, project-based and career-connected learning is 鈥渨hat all the smartest people in the field,鈥� including CEOs and labor economists, are recommending. 鈥淲hat everybody’s basically saying is that the skills that matter now are people who can just get shit done, who can work independently and proactively on projects, who can create and build. And so it’s really, really important to hear a union actually naming that.鈥�

On Monday, Weingarten said parents are leading the way on this issue 鈥� and that schools risk being caught between parents who opt their children out of classroom technology and those who want to keep it. 鈥淗ow does a teacher in kindergarten work in a classroom where half the kids opt out of screens and half the kids are on screens?鈥�

鈥淏lah blah blah.鈥� That’s all I heard during story time, sitting on a colorful checkered carpet in kindergarten, feeling like a stain that didn’t belong, yet somehow stood out. English was not my first language, and mastering it took time. Years later, I became the one other students would ask, 鈥淲hat clicked?鈥� or 鈥淗ow’d you do it?鈥� 

The answer I always heard from upperclassmen was simple: 鈥淛ust do the work.鈥� But as a first-generation student in East Tulsa, I learned that doing the work was not enough. Balancing school, homework, extracurriculars, home responsibilities and applications all before turning 18 is tough. 

Like most of my classmates, fitting in was a priority. Many were Hispanic like me, but they often had siblings or parents who spoke English. I didn’t have that privilege. As the oldest, I became the bridge between home and my community: the translator, the example, the one who had to 鈥渨alk鈥� so my siblings could run. My mom was just as lost as I was, a non-English speaker herself, navigating a school system nothing like the one she grew up in. Nevertheless, she found a way to support me. 

She enrolled me at ReadSmart Learning, a tutoring program in Tulsa. I still remember the big cartoony bluebird at drop-off and the pins I earned for completing lessons. Slowly, my grades rose and I spoke English with more confidence. My mom noticed, rewarding me with packs of Shopkins figurines and saying, 鈥淵a vez? No hay mal que por bien no venga mija, siguele echando ganas.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Every cloud has a silver lining, sweetie. Keep working hard.

Her faith in me made me believe that effort could change everything. For first-generation students like me, programs like ReadSmart aren’t extras. They’re essentials. 

Middle school brought a new challenge, an all-English environment. Although it was intimidating at first, it also brought math. Numbers became a language I could master, and that love followed me into high school. Tulsa Honor Academy鈥檚 College Readiness team was a constant presence, always helping me navigate hands-on opportunities that I wouldn’t have found on my own, including Tulsa Technology Center’s dual enrollment program. Tulsa Tech offers a two-year program that allows students to take classes and get a real view on what engineering or pre-med tracks might look like. It was here that I found that electrical engineering was the career path I wanted. 

I’ll never forget the project in which my team and I used programming sensors to detect a chocolate chip cookie. Our clay “chips” had a mind of their own and tumbled off the conveyor belt, scattering everywhere. Hours of troubleshooting, reshaping and laughing with my team taught me more about perseverance. I learned that pushing through the struggle is what makes the result feel rewarding and worth it. 

That same perseverance carried me through applying for programs and scholarships such as , and Imposter syndrome creeps in sometimes, but I always keep going. 

Perseverance has helped me become a and earned me a full ride to Washington University in St. Louis.

Now, when students come to me and ask 鈥淲hat clicked?鈥� or 鈥淗ow’d you do it?鈥� I don’t tell them to just do the work. I tell them to look for scholarships, apply to summer programs, build their extracurriculars, keep their grades up, and most importantly, take every opportunity in their path. I give them the guidance I had to piece together for myself, because nobody handed it to me. 

My story isn’t about being exceptional. It’s about dreaming big for your future and creating a plan. It’s about dedication to your goals and being relentless, no matter what obstacles stand in your way. It’s about the power of having someone who believes in you and is willing to walk alongside you, even if they don’t have all the answers. 

The truth is, your circumstances do not define your future. With perseverance, hard work and the courage to keep going, kids like me don’t just get by. We succeed academically. We become professionals. We go back and tell the next kid on that carpet: 鈥淵ou belong here, too.鈥�

鈥淩esting up from my vacay.鈥�

鈥淣etflix binge last night.鈥�

Those were among the 鈥渓ame excuses鈥� for missing school that Oklahoma鈥檚 Union Public Schools featured during the 2024-25 school year, part of a humorous campaign intended to reduce chronic absenteeism.

Behind the comical posters, however, leaders were troubled by the data. During the 2022-23 school year, 29% of students missed at least 10% of the school year. At Union High School, the rate soared to 43%.

鈥淚 think there have been huge changes in behavior since COVID,鈥� said Chris Payne, spokesman for the Tulsa-area district. He echoed what policy experts and school leaders nationwide have been saying since rates skyrocketed after schools fully reopened. 鈥淚 think people reprioritized and decided, 鈥榊ou know, I’ve got things I need to take care of.鈥� 鈥�

In addition to the attendance campaign, staff met with parents and visited students鈥� homes to find out why they were missing school. But starting in 2027, Oklahoma schools will no longer be judged on whether those chronic absenteeism rates go up or down. The legislature voted last year to remove the indicator from the state鈥檚 education accountability system as a factor that contributes to a school鈥檚 overall grade and can determine whether a school is labeled in need of improvement. 

Among , teachers and administrators, there鈥檚 a sense of relief.

鈥淚’m not sure that it’s fair to evaluate schools based on something that we cannot control,鈥� said Mike Simpson, superintendent of the Guthrie Public Schools, north of Oklahoma City. Originally in favor of making chronic absenteeism a factor in schools鈥� A-F grades, he no longer thinks it鈥檚 a good way to assess schools.

Oklahoma鈥檚 most , for 2024-25, gives the state a D for the percentage of students with good attendance. Its chronic absenteeism rate of 19% is far from the worst in the nation, but it鈥檚 still 5 percentage points above the state鈥檚 pre-pandemic level of 14%. Data from shows the rate stands at about 21%. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 not just an Oklahoma thing,鈥� Simpson said. 鈥淚’ve got colleagues and friends all over the country, and they’re fighting some of the same challenges.鈥�

Oklahoma isn鈥檛 the first state to remove chronic absenteeism from its accountability system. Arkansas took it out in 2024 as part of . Illinois officials have recommended replacing chronic absenteeism with , and now reports broader attendance data rather than just chronic absenteeism.

鈥楽tates already had the data鈥�

The federal Every Student Succeeds Act requires state accountability systems, and the report cards available to the public include indicators of academic performance, graduation rates, progress in learning English and an additional measure of student success. For that last metric, 38 states chose chronic absenteeism.

The U.S. Department of Education confirmed that it鈥檚 currently considering the state鈥檚 request to replace chronic absenteeism with a new measure, but so far, state officials haven鈥檛 said what that鈥檚 going to be. The challenge will be landing on a K-12 data point that is comparable across Oklahoma鈥檚 more than 500 districts, said Paige Kowalski, executive vice president for the Data Quality Campaign. The nonprofit has published reviews of state report cards since 2016.

Chronic absenteeism 鈥渨as an inexpensive indicator to implement because states already had the data,鈥� she said. Adopting a new measure, she said, could require districts to pay for changes to their student information systems and spend time training staff to collect and input the data. In addition, she said, it takes two years to ensure data is reliable enough to use in decisions about school ratings.

But the connections between chronic absenteeism and student achievement are backed by years of research. , for example, showed that a 1% increase in attendance was linked to a 1.5% jump in third graders passing the state reading test. showed that students who were chronically absent in middle school had lower math scores and were less likely to graduate on time than those who didn鈥檛 miss as much school. 

Kowalski said there鈥檚 plenty schools can do to improve attendance. Reducing bullying, increasing teacher retention and challenges, she said, can address some of the reasons students miss school.

Transportation surfaced as a barrier when the Union district surveyed parents, teachers and students on the issue. But teachers were far less likely than parents to say that reliable transportation would improve attendance 鈥� 25% compared to 47%. There were also stark differences between parents and students. Twenty-three percent of students said mental health reasons kept them home, while 12% of parents said that was a common explanation. 

Tulsa makes progress

Some communities in Oklahoma have adopted a tough posture toward parents whose children are frequently absent. Erik Johnson, a Republican district attorney in the southeastern part of the state, has prosecuted and jailed parents to force compliance with the law. 

Prior to the pandemic, Guthrie allowing police to fine parents for their kids鈥� truancy, but Simpson, the superintendent, said those measures didn鈥檛 鈥渕ove the needle.鈥�

In Tulsa, the state鈥檚 largest district, Board Member Stacey Woolley said she鈥檚 glad chronic absenteeism is no longer part of the grading formula because the indicator lowered schools鈥� scores. 

鈥淎t the same time, we have to continue to make it a priority,鈥� she said. When leaders examine student data, they find that students who struggle are chronically absent, regardless of their socioeconomic status. 

The district鈥檚 work shows that reductions are possible. The rate has declined over the past two years from 44% to 37%, and have seen drops of at least 10% compared to last school year. 

Such efforts won鈥檛 go completely unrewarded. Under the to the Education Department, schools that lower chronic absenteeism could still score 鈥渂onus points鈥� toward their grade but the indicator won鈥檛 be used in determining which schools are identified as needing improvement. 

By the end of the Union district鈥檚 campaign, chronic absenteeism had dropped by about 1.4%, well below the goal of 7%. Still, Payne said, the progress equated to 200 fewer chronically absent students. 

Leaders also realized something else: Students in the district鈥檚 career-tech programs, like aerospace and construction, had lower absenteeism rates than those in the general student population. Now, in response to local workforce shortages, the district has launched a healthcare career pathway as well. 

鈥淚 had students that didn鈥檛 really have a direction,鈥� said Jason McMullen, who teaches aviation courses at the district鈥檚 Innovation Lab. 鈥淭hen they see a helicopter land and that lightbulb goes off.鈥�

On a recent Wednesday morning, some students at the lab learned how to secure safety wire to the nuts and bolts that hold planes together, while others patched holes in sheetrock. 

The change to the state鈥檚 accountability system, 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 mean we’re going to quit working on it,鈥� said Payne, the district鈥檚 spokesman. 鈥淭he reality remains that if students are not present, they’re not going to perform and have success in school and life.鈥�

To Lila Byock, one of two California moms suing Curriculum Associates over its product i-Ready, the advisory was the right move. Thousands of school districts use the program, with its animated alien characters, to give students practice in math and reading.

鈥淓xcessive classroom screen use is a public health crisis,鈥� she said, adding that district leaders should 鈥渞educe the use of individual devices, reinvest in paper curricula and stop letting Big Ed Tech exploit our kids for profit.鈥�

Districts like and , are already rethinking their use of i-Ready or in response to growing backlash from parents. , led by the Austin-based EdTech Law Center, could be one reason. The complaint argues that the company gained 鈥渧irtually unfettered access鈥� to children鈥檚 personal information, like birth date, gender, race and disability status, and shared it with 鈥渕yriad third parties.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Curriculum Associates denies the accusations. 

鈥淐urriculum Associates takes student data privacy extremely seriously, and the claims in this litigation are without merit,鈥� a spokesperson told 社区黑料. 鈥淲e do not sell student data, use it for advertising, or create commercial profiles of students. All use of student information is limited to supporting the educational services requested and authorized by schools and districts in compliance with applicable federal and state laws.鈥�

Ed tech vendors rely on long-standing federal that says 鈥渟chools may act as the parent鈥檚 agent,鈥� provided the data they gather is for educational, not commercial, purposes. 

The lawyers taking ed tech companies to court are challenging that guidance. Linnette Attai, a data privacy consultant and founder of Playwell, LLC, said the complaint over i-Ready is based on 鈥渁 lot of speculation,鈥� but it has still put vendors and education leaders on alert.

鈥淐urriculum Associates is facing significant legal bills, but also a public relations and customer retention issue. The industry is sitting up and taking notice,鈥� she said. But she said the issues the complaints raise are 鈥渂etter suited for legislators and not a courtroom.鈥�

鈥楾heories of consent鈥�

Congress passed the in 1998, requiring online sites to verify parents鈥� approval before they collect, use or share information from children under 13. 

Last , the Federal Trade Commission鈥檚 FAQ on the law says that schools 鈥渃an consent under COPPA to the collection of kids鈥� information on the parent鈥檚 behalf.鈥�

But with that put students鈥� privacy at risk and that digital tools benefit kids, the attorneys representing parents like Byock hope to defeat that interpretation of the law. 

鈥淭hese theories of consent that companies rely on in order to bypass actual consent from parents are all bogus,鈥� said Andrew Liddell, one half of the husband-and-wife legal team behind the EdTech Law Center. 鈥淭hey have no basis in the law whatsoever.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

The FTC updated its COPPA regulation in early 2025, but left the school consent issue alone. The agency, however, it was 鈥渃oncerned about the use of and other engagement techniques to keep kids online in ways that could harm their mental health.鈥�

Last summer, the FTC submitted an in support of EdTech Law Center in a separate , an online learning platform used by more than 18 million students. The Liddells sued on behalf of three Kansas families who said the company uses 鈥渄eceptive design techniques鈥� to keep kids hooked and shares their data with a 鈥渉ost of private companies.鈥� The families have asked for monetary damages.  

The law, the FTC wrote, does not create an 鈥渁gency relationship between schools and the parents of school children.鈥�

The Liddells say the brief is the most definitive statement yet that parents, not schools, have the final say over what data ed tech vendors can access. But the FTC hasn鈥檛 changed its existing guidance, and other student privacy experts say schools can continue to it.

A spokesperson for the FTC told 社区黑料 it doesn鈥檛 鈥渉ave anything to add to the amicus brief.鈥�

鈥楾he long game鈥�

Meg Leta Jones, founder of the Center for Digital Ethics at Georgetown University, said there is tension in Washington over this issue. On one hand, the administration is 鈥渢rying to be pro-AI,鈥� she said. First lady Melania Trump entered a White House education summit in April alongside a saying, 鈥淭he future of A.I. is 鈥榩ersonified,鈥� 鈥� 

At the same time, Republicans support parental rights, and a few months earlier, a Senate committee held to examine the harms of ed tech.

鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to move when both of those things are happening,鈥� Jones said. The lawsuits are important, she said, because they take the issue out of federal officials鈥� hands. 鈥淐larity around this consent issue is what will come in the long game.鈥�

Outside the courts, the litigation has inspired more parents to push for restrictions on i-Ready and other ed tech platforms. Parents in New York City鈥檚 District 4, on Manhattan鈥檚 East Side, noted the i-Ready lawsuit in a calling for screen time limits. 

Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a mom of two who chairs the Community Education Council for District 4, has already opted her kids out of i-Ready and NWEA鈥檚 MAP tests. But she said she remains 鈥渁 thousand percent鈥� concerned about her 14-year-old鈥檚 use of programs like Google Classroom, IXL and JumpRope, a grading platform.

The resolution cited a recent finding 141 data breaches or 鈥渦nauthorized data releases鈥� between 2023 and 2025. The district, the New York comptroller鈥檚 office said, doesn鈥檛 have an 鈥渁ccurate inventory鈥� of all of the software programs schools use or the privacy risks involved. 

鈥淚t’s like ed tech on steroids,鈥� said Salas-Ramirez, also a neuroscientist who trains future doctors. 鈥淲e don’t have the data to validate that these quote unquote tools, instruments or assessments provide us anything worthwhile.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

鈥楢dministrative nightmare鈥�

Ed tech experts say schools wouldn鈥檛 be able to function if vendors had to get consent directly from parents for all the online products students use in the classroom. 

It鈥檚 an 鈥渁dministrative nightmare鈥� said Mark Williams, a California attorney who specializes in ed tech contracts and student privacy. 鈥淭hrow that out the window; it doesn鈥檛 work.鈥�

Vendors share data with third parties. That part isn鈥檛 in dispute. The question is if it鈥檚 being shared, as the FTC says, 鈥渇or the use and benefit of the school鈥� or falling into the hands of companies that use it for marketing or targeted ads based on students鈥� characteristics.  

A last year offered another look into what happens when kids click answers or type personal information into a program. The state board turned to , a nonprofit that tests software products, to investigate 100 apps commonly used in the state鈥檚 schools. 

The review found that over a third shared student information with advertisers. shared data with six advertisers. Others shared data with dozens of advertisers as well as with sites like Google and Microsoft.

The report stressed that the 鈥減resence of sharing alone does not necessarily constitute a contract violation.鈥� Some sharing is necessary for an app to function properly, the authors wrote.

It鈥檚 鈥渃ommon sense鈥� for a vendor to share data they collect to fix bugs or security flaws, said Steve Smith, executive director of , a global network of vendors and schools. But legally, it鈥檚 鈥渁 little bit of a stretch鈥� for a company to create a new program with that information.

Vendors go too far when they share 鈥渋ncredibly sensitive student data鈥� from a school monitoring app to develop a new product, said Amelia Vance, president of the nonprofit Public Interest Privacy Center. Many schools use such programs to monitor for online threats or risks of self harm.

鈥淭he companies have everything the kid has done online, everything that they’ve written in the Google Drive,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou can think about that extremely personal information then being used to create a personalized learning platform that they sell back to schools.鈥�

鈥楶retty opaque鈥�

Inspired by Utah鈥檚 work, Access4Learning is developing a tool that districts can use to track what vendors do with student information. Leaders expect to launch it later this year. 

But that might not satisfy the concerns of some parents leading the charge against ed tech. They often point out that such organizations or have received funding from some of the very companies the screen-free lobby opposes. The growing mistrust surfaced at last December that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration held to discuss kids鈥� 鈥渆xcessive screen time.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

鈥淓d tech is so devious that it’s created dozens of nonprofits cloaked as online safety organizations,鈥� Lisa Cline, a Maryland parent who has advocated against screens in the Montgomery County Public Schools, said at the event. 鈥淪ome of them are here today. Look closely. These guys are bankrolled by big tech and frankly, they mock the work that unpaid people like myself do to educate parents.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

While the lawsuits between parents and vendors could drag on for a while, districts should at least be transparent about the products they鈥檙e using, said Williams, the California attorney. 

Parents are allowing districts 鈥渢o collect and give to a third party data that they would not otherwise be entitled to,鈥� he said. In return, educators should explain what data they take and what they do with it. 鈥淯nfortunately, that process can be pretty opaque.鈥�

Last year, WalletHub, , ranked the state 50th 鈥� just above New Mexico 鈥� on a mix of criteria including test scores, graduation and teacher certification rates. More recently, a University of Oklahoma researcher zoomed in on the , where the state places 48th overall in math and reading.

The unwelcome attention typically prompts a wave of finger-pointing from politicians and . 

Sometimes, teachers like Sarah Clifford.

A single mom of two who relocated from New York, she鈥檚 among the thousands in the state who entered the classroom without completing a teacher training program. In 2023, as a new teacher in the Edmond Public Schools outside Oklahoma City, she struggled to write lesson plans and hated teaching math, a subject she disliked as a child. Districts statewide have increasingly depended on emergency certified educators like her to fill vacancies. In 2023-24, the number topped 5,000, state data shows. Since 2022, the state has also allowed schools to hire , who may have no more than a high school diploma.

鈥淲e don’t want to demonize any person who is stepping up to be a teacher, regardless of the pathway,鈥� said Bryan Duke, dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies at the University of Central Oklahoma. 鈥淏ut the difference in preparation launches people successfully or unsuccessfully into careers.鈥�

Duke鈥檚 program has been part of the solution. In 2024, the university received nearly $2.5 million in from the state for scholarships to help teachers like Clifford complete their certification programs and earn a master鈥檚 degree. She graduated with last December after spending nine months instruction so she could 鈥渉elp students feel confident and start to love something that’s hard.鈥� Most of her third graders students who were 鈥渙n watch鈥� in math ended up on grade level by the end of the year.

鈥淥ur state doesn’t look like we’re doing well,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut if you go inside a classroom with people who have the passion and want to be there, those kids are thriving.鈥�

The data on the state鈥檚 decline is undeniable. In the mid-鈥�90s, the state ranked 17th in math and reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. With the 2024 scores, the state had fallen to 48th.

In a , University of Oklahoma researcher Adam Tyner described how Oklahoma missed the 鈥渟outhern surge鈥� that brought academic turnarounds to states like Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. Those states saw improvement after pouring millions of dollars into teacher training, strong curriculum and coaching.

Oklahoma鈥檚 results have also affected public opinion. Less than a third of Oklahomans graded their local schools an A or B in from the university鈥檚 Oklahoma Center for Education Policy. Two years ago, 41% gave their schools high marks.

At about $12,500, the state鈥檚 per-pupil spending is . One reason is because it takes a in the legislature to approve a tax increase. District budgets could take another hit if voters this fall approve on property taxes. 

鈥淚f it’s really hard to increase revenues, you have to take away things from other areas,鈥� said Deven Carlson, a public policy researcher at the University of Oklahoma. 鈥淚t’s going to be hard to improve outcomes, if you think that money matters.鈥�

One possible off-ramp for parents is school choice. Many charter schools their local district schools, data shows, leading to push for expanding the charter sector.

This year, lawmakers took a dual approach to tackling the state鈥檚 education challenges. They gave teachers a $2,000 raise 鈥� but the is still well below neighboring Texas and Arkansas. Gov. Kevin Stitt also signed a increasing the minimum number of days in the school calendar from 166 to 173. That will make it harder for some districts with four-day weeks to maintain that schedule.

鈥淲e’ve lost a lot of instructional days,鈥� said Education Secretary Dan Hamlin. 鈥淚t’s not the only thing that matters; you need other things, too. But it is a component that’s meaningful.鈥�

鈥楢rt of teaching鈥�

State data shows that 184 districts are in session for 166 days or less, which they can achieve through four-day weeks with longer days. 

shows four-day weeks don鈥檛 necessarily improve retention, but districts that don鈥檛 adopt them can to nearby ones that do. The model is generally popular with teachers, who trade off longer hours for three-day weekends.

Superintendent Rick Cobb鈥檚 experience in the Mid-Del School District, outside Oklahoma City, illustrates the problem. When he became superintendent in 2015, he was 鈥渁larmed鈥� that the district had 20 emergency certified teachers, he said. Now 114 either have emergency certifications or are adjunct teachers, according to .

His district, which serves a blue collar community near an Air Force base, never shifted to a four-day week. But others around Mid-Del did, luring away his teachers.

Knowledge of the subject matter generally isn鈥檛 a weak spot for emergency certified teachers, he said. But they often lack the skills to manage classrooms and modify lessons for students working at higher and lower levels.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 the art of teaching,鈥� he said.

Mike Simpson, superintendent of the Guthrie Public Schools, north of Oklahoma City, has faced the same challenge. His district, where nearly 60% qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, has lost teachers to districts with four-day weeks. But he never went that route because parents in his district depend on schools not just for education, but also for school meals. 

鈥淚f the parents go to work, who’s taking care of those kids? Who’s feeding them?鈥� he asked. 鈥淚 take that very seriously.鈥�

The small, rural Jennings Public Schools, west of Tulsa, is among those that run four days. It received a waiver from the state to operate a 156-day calendar.

Superintendent Derrick Meador doesn鈥檛 struggle to find certified teachers. He had three job openings recently and about 10 applicants for each one. It was the first time in three years he鈥檚 had to hire a teacher. Families, he said, support the four-day week and don鈥檛 want to lose it. Fewer than 2% of students are chronically absent, and the district performs well academically.

鈥淚f we weren’t getting the results that we were, I would have ended it a long time ago,鈥� Meador said. He doesn鈥檛 appreciate districts with four-day weeks getting for dragging the state down. 鈥淚 don’t like being lumped in with other districts. We stand alone on our merits and should be judged accordingly.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

He hopes the state will continue to allow waivers from the new 173-day requirement, but without it, Jennings will likely have to give up its four-day week.

鈥楲ife experience鈥�

It鈥檚 difficult to tie student outcomes to any one education policy, whether that鈥檚 the academic calendar or teacher certification. But Dan Goldhaber, director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research at the American Institutes for Research, said if performance is falling, teacher quality 鈥渋s one of the very first things that I would look toward.鈥�

Oklahoma is certainly not alone in lowering the bar to teach, especially since the pandemic. Goldhaber examined post-COVID outcomes for students in Massachusetts and found that those whose teachers had emergency licenses in math and science than their peers. 

In Texas, a third of teachers were unlicensed in 2023-24. aims to reverse that trend by gradually reducing the share of unlicensed teachers that districts can hire to 5% by 2029.

Oklahoma took a small step in that direction this year when it tightened restrictions on adjunct teachers, who are only required to have 鈥渄istinguished qualifications in their field,鈥� but not a college degree. Stitt signed that stops schools from hiring adjuncts to teach core content areas in K-5.

that educators with temporary or emergency certifications are more likely than those who are fully certified to leave the profession. But they often take positions that would otherwise be nearly impossible to fill. 

In the Union Public Schools, which serves southeast Tulsa and part of Broken Arrow, several teach at the district鈥檚 Innovation Lab, a hub for career and technical education courses. They include Jeremy Weber, a who teaches students the basics of aircraft maintenance. On a recent morning, he showed students how to use safety wire to secure nuts and bolts to parts of a plane.

鈥淭hat life experience is pretty valuable,鈥� said Kenneth Moore, the district鈥檚 executive director of secondary education.

Earlier this month, newly certified teachers with years of life and career experience gathered at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond to celebrate their graduation from the two-year alternative certification program. 

Grabbing refreshments at a pre-graduation reception and posing for pictures with their families and fellow graduates, they talked about wanting to reverse the stigma attached to teachers who take a nontraditional route to the classroom.

They included Cherice McDonald, a teacher in Oklahoma City schools who previously worked in the oil and gas industry, and is now being recruited to work as an assistant principal. 

Melanie Whitekiller Lawrence, a member of the Cherokee Nation, stayed home to raise her four kids before taking a job as a long-term substitute. When she took charge of a fourth grade class in Edmond, she said she 鈥渉ad no idea鈥� there were academic standards in math and reading she was required to teach under state law. She鈥檚 come a long way since the days when a colleague in the classroom next door would supply her with ready-made lessons for the week.

Last fall, her colleagues at Chisholm Elementary chose her to represent their school as . 

鈥淪ometimes, I feel like I’m more knowledgeable about current and best practices than my colleagues who have been teaching for a very long time,鈥� she said at the reception. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not just warm bodies.鈥�

RAY LAKE, Wyo. 鈥� There was a lot of giggling in the parking lot as teenagers plunged bare hands into coolers filled with small, slippery rainbow trout fry. 

The objective was to catch the fish in clear plastic cups, but the juvenile trout were fast and very squirmy, and the effort elicited shrieks, splashing and laughter. 

The kids 鈥� middle and high school students from Fort Washakie, Wyoming Indian and St. Stephens schools 鈥� were pretty comfortable handling the baby trout. That makes sense, given that they hatched them from eggs and reared them in classroom tanks over the previous four months. 

Thursday鈥檚 fish release under leaky rainclouds was the culmination of the Trout in the Classroom program, which schools on the Wind River Reservation have participated in for three years. 

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department funds the program, which Trout Unlimited facilitates and the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative coordinates. Trout in the Classroom allows students to learn an array of scientific lessons as they do the hands-on work of raising the fish. 

After circling up in the Ray Lake parking lot, talking about watershed ecology and listening to a tribal blessing, students and their teachers got busy transporting dozens of fry from coolers in the parking lot to the nearby lake鈥檚 muddy shores. There, they released them, cup by cup, into the shallows, nudging them to their new wild home 

鈥淥K, goodbye fishies!鈥� a girl called as she knelt by the water. 

鈥淪wim free!鈥� a boy chimed in. 

Connecting the students directly to wildlife and its habitats helps foster emotional investment, Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative Education and Culture Coordinator Jeremy Molt said. That contributes to the ultimate goal, 鈥渨hich is to inspire responsible cultural stewardship of the land.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Molt has seen the shores of reservation lakes like this one grow less littered since the trout program began, which he links to young people鈥檚 increasing awareness of ecological health and a desire to protect it. 

Through the program, he said, 鈥渨e鈥檙e kind of healing some of those disconnections鈥� with the landscape and natural food sources. 鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to rewire some of that.鈥�

Fort Washakie science teacher John Gookin was among the fish transporters. The program gives educators like him opportunities to teach about topics like beneficial bacteria, the chemistry of water, how trout extract oxygen through their gills and the life cycles of freshwater swimmers.

鈥淚t engages the kids, and gives something operational for things like biochemistry,鈥� he said. 

For example, in the classroom, his students 鈥渢est how much ammonia is in the water,鈥� Gookin said. 鈥淭hen we learn about the shape of the ammonia molecule, the cycles of it and why that even matters.鈥�

Because his students are all anglers themselves, he said, they were excited to help stock the lake and perpetuate healthy waters. 

And though they became wet with rain and mud, the giggles never died down.

罢丑颈蝉听聽first appeared in .

Supporters of the proposal argue that programs like MEGA reflect a broader recognition that states and local communities are often better positioned than Washington to understand the unique challenges facing their schools. Rather than maintaining fragmented federal programs with rigid compliance structures, decentralization efforts seek to give states more authority to innovate, coordinate resources and tailor solutions to regional realities.

The MEGA proposal therefore illustrates both the promise and the responsibility that accompany decentralization. Returning authority to states creates opportunities for more responsive and adaptive governance, but it also places responsibility squarely on state leaders to produce measurable results for children and families.

Decentralization alone does not guarantee success.

For decades, critics of centralized education policy argued that federal mandates often produced bloated compliance systems and procedural requirements disconnected from local realities. Washington became increasingly skilled at regulating inputs while struggling to improve long-term outcomes. 

Yet granting states more autonomy does not automatically produce effective governance.

A state can possess broad authority and still oversee failing schools, collapsing civic trust and stagnant upward mobility. Debates over parental rights, curriculum transparency, school choice and cultural accountability have become central to education politics in many states. Those issues matter. Parents should have meaningful authority over their children鈥檚 education, and communities deserve institutions that reflect local needs and values.

But education policy cannot become merely a politics of resistance. It must also become a politics of construction.

The real test of decentralization is whether states can build institutions that work.

Today, educational inequality remains profoundly geographic. In many parts of the country, a child鈥檚 ZIP code predicts educational achievement, workforce readiness, family stability and future earnings with alarming consistency. Some communities consistently produce mobility and strong civic outcomes. Others remain trapped in cycles of decline.

This is no longer simply a federal problem. It is increasingly a problem of state capacity.

Too many states spent decades demanding greater autonomy without building the institutional sophistication required to govern effectively once power returned to them. Many accountability systems still operate as relics of the old compliance era. They measure standardized-test averages and graduation statistics while failing to answer the question parents actually care about: Are children prepared to flourish as adults?

Any serious education agenda should focus less on bureaucratic processes and more on long-term human outcomes.

States should begin measuring mobility itself. That means tracking educational opportunity and life outcomes geographically鈥攑articularly at the ZIP-code level鈥攁nd identifying which communities consistently produce upward mobility and which do not.

The purpose of these measures is not to create another compliance regime, but to identify which communities are successfully helping children transition into stable adulthood.

Such systems could include measures such as:

• Early literacy and numeracy rates 
• Chronic absenteeism 
• Access to tutoring, mentoring and after-school programs聽
• Participation in career and technical education 
• Youth employment and apprenticeship participation 
• Postsecondary completion 
• Workforce participation 
• Family stability and parental involvement 

Examples of effective state-level reform already exist. Mississippi, once ranked near the bottom nationally in educational performance, has posted significant gains in early literacy after implementing statewide reading reforms, teacher training initiatives and evidence-based intervention strategies. Other states have increasingly aligned community colleges, workforce-development systems and career education with regional labor-market needs.聽

These efforts remain uneven, but they demonstrate that state-led governance can produce measurable improvement when institutions are coherent and focused on outcomes.

States should not fear this kind of measurement or experimentation. Properly designed, it strengthens decentralization rather than weakens it. A governor in Wisconsin may understand the needs of manufacturing communities better than federal officials in Washington. Rural Appalachia faces different challenges than suburban Texas. States can align workforce systems, transportation policy, public safety and education in ways national bureaucracies often cannot.

That flexibility is precisely why decentralization matters. But flexibility without accountability becomes little more than fragmentation.

Decentralization is a governing framework, not a substitute for governing.

The central questions are straightforward: Can states build integrated longitudinal data systems that actually track outcomes over time? Can they identify which neighborhoods consistently trap children in educational failure? Can they align K鈥�12 education with workforce demand and civic formation? Can they distinguish between symbolic politics and measurable improvement? 

Those are the priorities that matter now.

Americans increasingly distrust centralized institutions, but distrust alone does not build flourishing communities. Strong families, strong schools and strong civic institutions require operational excellence, not merely political rhetoric.

The country stands at another inflection point in education governance. The argument for returning greater authority to states has gained substantial momentum. The next challenge is proving that states can use that authority wisely.

Decentralization was never meant to be an escape from responsibility. Properly understood, it is a demand for greater responsibility 鈥� closer to the people, more responsive to local conditions and ultimately more accountable for results.

If states cannot deliver upward mobility, civic stability and educational competence, then the case for decentralization weakens. But if they can, this may yet become one of the great renewal stories of American public life.

The fourth time a child told me something similar, I knew we had a problem. A few minutes later, a little girl tugged on my shirt to tell me she didn’t need to learn either. She knew how from watching TV.

As a 16-year-old water safety advocate and teen ambassador for the National Drowning Prevention Alliance, I visit preschools and elementary schools around New York City 鈥� reading stories about water safety, teaching the rules, then purposely reciting them wrong so the kids can giggle at my mistakes and correct me. To the outside, it may look like storytime. To me, it is a lesson that could save a life.

Our nation has not come close to solving the childhood drowning epidemic. Each year, drown in America. Drowning is the for children ages 1 to 4. For children ages 5 to 14, it is the second leading cause of accidental death.

There’s a reason we keep failing. We have focused almost entirely on swim lessons because the data is too good to ignore: Formal instruction reduces drowning risk by a . But swim lessons only work if children actually get them. Millions of children don’t. 

Lessons require money, transportation, pool access and a caregiver who can take them. Even when programs are free, families still must find them, navigate registration forms and overcome language barriers. As a result, many children, especially in low-income, minority neighborhoods, fall through the cracks and receive no water safety education at all.聽

African-American children ages 5 to 19 drown in swimming pools at than white children, and have few or no swimming skills.

That’s where teachers come in.

Teachers don’t need a pool. They don’t need a budget or a liability waiver. And they have the one thing no existing swim policy can guarantee: a captive audience of kids, already in the room.

It’s most urgent for the youngest children. To 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds, water is fascinating and naturally attracts them. It can also kill them, yet many don’t understand those dangers. It’s a concept adults tend to gloss over because to us, those dangers seem obvious.

A teacher can tell a preschooler never to go near water without a grown-up. A teacher can tell a kindergartner that water is dangerous even in 鈥� bathtubs, buckets, anything more than an inch. A teacher can teach small children that if they fall in, they should try to flip onto their back and float. Even knowing this could save a life.

Some educators worry that talking about water with young children will frighten them. I heard that line repeatedly when preschools rejected my request to visit the classroom. But consider this: We teach fire safety to preschoolers without frightening them. We teach them to get low and crawl. We teach street safety. We instruct them to look both ways before crossing the street. We even conduct lockdown drills with them. Water safety is no different. And when I speak to little children, I never use the word drowning. The kids still leave knowing exactly what to do.

The beauty of water safety education is that it can grow with the child. What starts as rules for little children turns into more sophisticated explanations for older children who can understand the science and consequences of water.

In elementary school, a teacher can explain that drowning doesn’t look like it does in the movies. There’s no splashing or screaming. It’s mostly silent. And if a friend is in trouble, you shouldn’t jump in after them. In water safety circles, it’s called the rule 鈥� throw something that floats, but never jump in yourself. A third or fourth grader can also understand that you never jump or dive into water without knowing how deep it is.

When children reach middle school, the lessons fit naturally into science class. A teacher can explain what a rip current is, how to identify one and what to do if you’re caught in one. They can also explain how suction works and why a broken pool drain generates enough force to hold a swimmer underwater.

In high school, water safety belongs in health class. We teach sex education. Why is water safety never mentioned? A teacher can explain why alcohol and open water are a deadly combination, how hydraulics in rivers and waterfalls can trap even the strongest swimmers, and why jumping on a dare may be the last decision they ever make.

None of this requires water. It requires a teacher. And the curriculum already exists for free from the and the .

Only one state has figured this out. In 2018, a 1-year-old boy named slipped away at a neighbor’s party and drowned in their pool. His parents turned their grief , signed in 2022, requiring water safety education in every Louisiana public school, kindergarten through 12th grade. In the three years since it passed, has followed. And now, the federal government has stepped back, too. In August 2025, the Trump administration the CDC’s drowning prevention program.

What’s clear is that classroom education can never replace swim lessons. There is no substitute for instruction in the water. But the classroom can serve as an insurance policy for the millions of children who will never get swim lessons.

Teachers don’t need to wait for a law. They can start tomorrow. If I can teach this during my lunch hour, just imagine what a real teacher could do.

Last Thursday, that would have allowed public school teachers, among other public-sector employees, to form unions and negotiate over their wages and working conditions throughout Virginia. At present, those workers can organize only ; those number fewer than 20 of the state鈥檚 133 city- or county-level governments.

Many of the governor鈥檚 supporters in labor were outraged by the decision, of a key constituency. One of the largest unions in the state, the Virginia Education Association, almost a full year before last fall鈥檚 election, putting their membership of more than 40,000 teachers and school personnel behind a high-profile effort to retake the governor鈥檚 mansion from Republican control. 

VEA President Carol Bauer referenced her organization鈥檚 efforts in an interview with 社区黑料, calling the veto 鈥渁 great disappointment.鈥�

鈥淥ur members campaigned for Gov. Spanberger on the promise that she supported workers, supported affordability, and supported collective bargaining, and we were hopeful,鈥� Bauer said. 鈥淲e had every indication she was going to sign a collective bargaining bill.鈥�

But the Democratic-led proposal to allow statewide bargaining put Spanberger in the challenging position of weighing workers鈥� rights 鈥� an after the Trump administration terminated thousands of federal employees in early 2025 鈥� against her mandate to reduce costs for taxpayers and local governments, . If inflation and interest rates continue to rise , other Democratic leaders could soon face similar considerations.

The governor鈥檚 office did not respond to a request for comment. But one of the bill鈥檚 main detractors said her veto was a necessary corrective.

Derrick Max, president of Virginia鈥檚 conservative , called the legislation an overreach that would weaken local control over public services. While some of the bluest communities in the state for their workforces, including those in Richmond and the suburban counties around Washington, D.C., other Democratic-led jurisdictions have demurred over concerns about financial implications, he said.

鈥淭he biggest problem is that [HB 1263] took local governments out of the decision on whether or not to allow collective bargaining,鈥� Max wrote in an email. 鈥淎t a time when affordability is the top priority, passing a bill that would likely lead to massive increases in costs was not wise.鈥�

Local officials made throughout the spring while attempting to put the brakes on the bill, arguing that compelling them to bargain with teachers, firefighters, and other public employees would significantly budgeting. By the time of the legislature鈥檚 vote, across the state had issued statements in opposition to the adoption of the law. 

It is difficult to estimate a price tag for the policy, the costs of which will ultimately depend on the outcome of negotiations between workers and school boards. The Virginia Commission on Local Government, a state agency created to assist towns, cities and counties, issued a report indicating that some jurisdictions could face recurring expenses totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars.  

Yet activists in the VEA and other unions that a guaranteed right to negotiate over pay and working conditions was critical to closing wage gaps in the teaching profession, protecting workers from retaliation for seeking to organize, and limiting staff turnover that has proven deleterious to student achievement. 

It also situated the fight playing out in the state鈥檚 House of Delegates within the broader struggle to win greater power for labor and end Virginia鈥檚 long-running reputation as a state hostile to public-sector unions. Educators only gained limited bargaining rights , after Democrats took unified control over state government for the first time in a generation; prior to that breakthrough, Virginia was one of just three states that expressly banned the practice.

Local teachers rushed to swell the ranks of unions in the aftermath, forming large new organizations in just a few years. The in the state鈥檚 largest county was hailed by the national American Federation of Teachers as 鈥渢he largest U.S. public sector union victory in 25 years.鈥�

In her bid to reclaim the governorship after the single term of Republican Glenn Youngkin, Spanberger on the organizing power of labor, vowing to 鈥渟tand up for Virginia鈥檚 workers鈥� after the mass layoffs precipitated by the Trump administration. Yet she also walked a careful line in campaign pronouncements, the idea of fully repealing the state鈥檚 right-to-work statute even as she acknowledged that it would 鈥渄isappoint鈥� some of her supporters. 

As Democrats in Richmond came closer to passing the statewide expansion, the governor asked the legislature to consider amendments that would delay its implementation until 2030 to allow local governments to prepare for the adjustment. Those proposed changes were ultimately not taken up.

Balancing the demands of her coalition may be particularly important as Spanberger considers her political future. She was elected only last fall in to show a substantial Democratic recovery from the doldrums of the 2024 presidential contest, and within weeks of her inauguration, to give the official response to President Trump鈥檚 State of the Union address 鈥� a plum reserved for fast risers.

Since then, the governor has been embroiled in a highly controversial push to re-draw Virginia鈥檚 congressional districts, boosting her profile and enraging her opponents at the same time. showed that her favorability ratings have suffered in recent months.

Though it is too early to speculate on the state of the 2028 primary field, any Democrat with ambitions to lead their party will need to court teachers鈥� unions, whose millions of members and generous campaign contributions help deliver victory in primary campaigns and general elections alike. Governors thought to be considering a run, including Illinois鈥檚 J.B. Pritzker and Michigan鈥檚 Gretchen Whitmer, significant in their respective states. In Wisconsin, the controversial Act 10 law barring teachers from negotiating over compensation is thought to be in serious legal jeopardy now that Democrats control the state鈥檚 Supreme Court.

Michael Hartney, a political scientist at Boston College who studies the political power of teachers鈥� unions, said that Spanberger鈥檚 veto may reflect political calculation as much as principle. Unlike those in other states, governors in Virginia cannot serve consecutive terms, meaning that frustrating her labor allies won鈥檛 cost her reelection in a few years鈥� time, he wrote in an email.

鈥淔or Spanberger, the move allows her to cultivate an image as a centrist, 鈥榓bundance鈥�-oriented Democrat rather than a reflexive ally of public-sector unions 鈥� a potentially valuable distinction if she wants to occupy that moderate lane within the party,鈥� Hartney observed.

For her part, Bauer said that she hoped to persuade Spanberger that her organization鈥檚 priorities should be central to the Democratic agenda in the months and years to come. 

鈥淲e will be organizing,鈥� she said. 鈥淥ur action didn’t start with this bill, and it’s not going to end with this bill.鈥�

At the helm since 2019, an unusually long tenure for an , Ferebee led DCPS through the pandemic and leaves at a time of historic increases in student performance. Last week, researchers for the Education Scorecard as the district that had made the greatest gains in both math and reading since the pandemic.

鈥淗igh quality instructional materials have always been a part of the way that I thought about improving student achievement,鈥� said Ferebee, who previously led the Indianapolis Public Schools and began his career as a teacher and principal in North Carolina. 鈥淭his is a remarkable opportunity to take that to scale nationally.鈥�

Under Ferebee鈥檚 leadership, D.C. schools have experienced 鈥渕eaningful progress,鈥� according to a by the D.C. Policy Center. has risen to 52,000, up from the pre-pandemic level of 49,000, even as other urban districts suffered continued declines. On the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, fourth graders improved 10 points in math, for large cities. While the district continues to battle high 鈥� nearly 38% in 2024-25 鈥� it implemented a that has contributed to a rebound. In an interview with 社区黑料, Ferebee said he expects the district to 鈥渂uild on that momentum and contribute nationally to the whole recovery narrative.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

He will remain with DCPS until June 18 and assume his new role the following week. With D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser for re-election, a new mayor will choose his replacement.

The leader of a parent advocacy group in the district said Ferebee has always considered parents鈥� input, something she hopes the future mayor will consider when looking for a new chancellor.

鈥淭his is the most stable period of leadership that we’ve seen in the district in quite a while,鈥� said Maya Martin Cadogan, executive director of Parents Amplifying Voices in Education. 鈥淚n a city where so many of our families have housing instability and economic instability, to have stability in our school system has been really critical.鈥�

As the successor to EdReports鈥� founder Eric Hirsch, Ferebee will join the organization at a time of change. It recently began reviewing pre-K curriculum and adopted through 2029 that aims to produce more timely reviews and information about the research behind curriculum products. Dana Nerenberg, EdReports board chair, called Ferebee 鈥渢he right fit in all the right ways.鈥�

Hirsch, who announced his resignation last year, launched the nonprofit in 2015 to help point districts toward materials aligned to the Common Core standards that the majority of states still follow. Experts said independent reviews were needed at the time as an alternative to curriculum publishers鈥� promotional materials. Many district and state leaders continue to base their curriculum purchasing decisions on whether a product gets the coveted green rating from EdReports.

But with the growing emphasis on the role of curriculum in driving student achievement, some critics said the organization didn鈥檛 adapt quickly enough. Reviews, they argued, didn鈥檛 emphasize phonics-based, foundational skills and gave lower, yellow ratings for reading they helped students improve. EdReports has since revised its criteria to emphasize the science of reading.

Kareem Weaver, founder of FULCRUM, an Oakland-based literacy advocacy group, said Ferebee faces a huge responsibility.

鈥淭he shifts that the education field is demanding have become a matter of civil rights. Including evidence of results in their reviews is no small thing,鈥� he said. 鈥淧arents, teachers, principals, superintendents, kids want to know, 鈥楧oes this stuff work?鈥� 鈥�

He called Ferebee 鈥渁 good choice鈥� because he has 鈥渉is feet planted in the ground as a system leader.鈥�

Ferebee replaced former Chancellor Antwan Wilson, who following a scandal involving his daughter鈥檚 transfer into a sought-after high school with a long waitlist. found that his predecessor, Kaya Henderson, gave the children of some government officials special treatment in the school lottery process. 

But her resignation in 2016 was unrelated to that issue, and during her nearly six years in charge, the district saw increasing enrollment and graduation rates. 

鈥淭hey have this history of long-time superintendents who have built on the work of each other,鈥� said Ray Hart, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools. 

Cadogan, who leads the parent advocacy group, pointed to the expansion of dual enrollment programs and the , which trains teachers in evidence-based literacy practices, as examples of innovations she wants the new mayor to continue.聽

But significant challenges remain. In scores on reading, 37.6% of students performed in the proficient range, the highest point since the test began. But less than 30% of Black students scored at that level. The difference in performance between poor and more affluent students is even larger. The next leader will also inherit an with the federal government to improve services for students with disabilities, especially transportation. 

鈥淧arents are really proud of the progress we’ve made,鈥� Cadogan said, 鈥渂ut there are still so many gaps between our students.鈥�

A of four urban districts confirms these research-based early literacy pedagogies are indeed widely implemented in these school systems. Educators are doing many things right: They are consistently delivering explicit phonics instruction that includes a clear purpose using high-quality foundational skills curricula.聽

Across the four districts, between 88% and 94% of over 200 surveyed teachers reported using their foundational skills curriculum daily or almost daily. Classroom observations of 112 foundational skills lessons confirmed that instruction was focused, aligned, and explicit鈥攈allmarks of effective early literacy teaching.

But something critical was often absent from those same lessons: the opportunity to

connect sounds and words to meaning. In a previous report, we explored how meaning is often missing in the tasks that upper elementary students are assigned 鈥� for instance, finding literal and nonliteral language in a reading passage but not what the author was trying to convey. In our latest publication, we look specifically at the foundational reading skills taught in the earlier grades.

Moreover, we found that many students meet literacy benchmarks for foundational skills on early literacy screening assessments. But by third grade 鈥� when they are expected to make meaning from more complex texts on state literacy assessments 鈥� far fewer demonstrate proficiency. 

In other words, early success with word reading does not always translate into later success with comprehension. 

This mirrors national trends: relying on early literacy assessments indicates that 56% of K鈥�2 students nationally are 鈥渙n track鈥� for learning to read, but only 31% of fourth graders performed at or above the proficient level on the 2024 NAEP reading assessment, a test that requires students to comprehend with greater depth.

What we found in our research, which included hours of classroom observation, was that only about one in five lessons gave students the chance to apply their phonics knowledge beyond single words to connected text: sentences, passages or stories that build reading fluency. And in more than half of lessons, teachers addressed word meaning just once or not at all.

In other words, students are learning how to blend sounds together to read words but not consistently how to make sense of them. We鈥檝e made real progress on decoding, but the connections between decoding and meaning are often missing.

That stems, in part, from how early literacy instruction is structured and supported. Decoding and language comprehension are often taught in distinct lessons with different curricula, and teachers receive separate professional learning for each.

While this structure can support focused instruction, it can also give the false impression that meaning making does not belong in phonics lessons. At the same time, K鈥�2 literacy data systems 鈥� including screeners and progress monitoring 鈥� tend to emphasize phonemic awareness and phonics, reinforcing the idea that those are the outcomes that matter.

The findings from this study point to an area for growth in foundational skills instruction that may help: bridging processes. These processes are the mechanisms that connect word recognition and language comprehension and should be incorporated into word recognition or phonics instruction, supporting students to build more meaning as they learn to decode. Two key bridging processes are vocabulary knowledge, which is understanding the meanings of words, and reading fluency or the ability to read connected text accurately and smoothly.

Without these bridging processes, decoding single words can be devoid of meaning.

Students may be able to sound out words yet still struggle to understand what they read. Importantly, bridging processes must be built into phonics instruction early on, and students should work on them throughout their early years of schooling, not just after they have successfully learned to decode words.

The encouraging news is that incorporating bridging processes does not require an overhaul of instruction or instructional systems. In many cases, bridging processes can be embedded into existing lessons in small but powerful ways.

Consider a phonics lesson on the two common sounds for double o, as in mood and look. A teacher might briefly define a target word 鈥� such as, 鈥渁 brook is a small stream鈥� 鈥� and show a picture of a brook before students practice reading it. Then she might instruct students to turn to a partner and share a sentence with the word brook.

This can take less than a minute but can anchor decoding in meaning, which is important for all students, especially for emergent multilingual students to expand their vocabulary as they are learning English. 

Similarly, building fluency doesn鈥檛 require a pivot away from explicit phonics instruction.

It requires ensuring that students regularly read sentences, passages and texts that incorporate the phonics patterns they are learning.聽

For example, after decoding a list of words like book, cook, hood, soon, tool, and boot, students might read a simple sentence like, 鈥淲e went to fish in the brook,鈥� applying their phonics knowledge to connected text. Then they might read a short story about animals at a brook with several other double o words.

Our study found that such opportunities to build fluency were surprisingly rare and did not meaningfully increase from kindergarten through second grade. 

This is a missed opportunity. 

Stories and passages that use targeted phonics skills are often provided in early literacy curricula but are sometimes skipped due to pacing or a lack of understanding their importance. 

Fluency develops through practice with connected text; without it, students struggle to transition from decoding single words to understanding longer texts.

Bridging processes are critical for students to connect word recognition and language comprehension. Adequately addressing them requires more than individual teacher effort. District leaders must clearly assert that these processes are fundamental to foundational skills instruction and reflect this priority in curricula, professional learning and classroom observation tools.

District and school leaders should expand the data they use to capture a broader view of reading development, aligning tools with bridging processes and incorporating information beyond word recognition.

School leaders and instructional coaches should provide professional learning opportunities around bridging processes, leveraging existing structures like professional learning communities to teach educators how to embed vocabulary and fluency practice into phonics lessons without sacrificing instructional focus. 

This can be done through watching exemplar videos, conducting peer observations, lesson rehearsal and engaging in coaching conversations.

The promise of early literacy reform has always been that strong foundations would lead to strong readers. But developing students鈥� decoding skills alone is not enough.

If we continue to teach decoding and language comprehension as separate endeavors, the result will be the same: early gains that fade when students are asked to read and comprehend longer texts. But if we build the bridges through vocabulary knowledge, reading fluency practice and intentional meaning making in phonics instruction, we can change that trajectory.

SRI Education and 社区黑料 both receive financial support from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies.

Using a protocol I developed called 鈥�,鈥� students mapped what gets in the way of learning. Nearly 100 participants generated more than 250 responses, which they posted, grouped and debated in real time. Students facilitated the process themselves and surfaced patterns with a clarity many adult teams struggle to reach. 

One theme rose quickly: 鈥淣othing changes.鈥�

Students weren鈥檛 talking about curriculum or rigor. They were describing what happens after they speak up. 鈥淲e report things and nothing changes,鈥� one student explained. Another added, 鈥淭he biggest issue isn鈥檛 just bullying, it鈥檚 when adults don鈥檛 respond.鈥� Across the workshop, roughly half of student responses pointed to the same issue: not whether students have a voice, but whether that voice leads to visible action. That鈥檚 the difference.

Across the country, policymakers are doubling down on civics, adding coursework, expanding standards and promoting credentials meant to signal engagement, including efforts like the Seal of Civic Engagement in Connecticut. These efforts are politically appealing, but they risk solving the wrong problem.

They rest on a flawed premise: that civic disengagement can be fixed through coursework and recognition alone. In reality, they may reinforce the very dynamic students describe, where participation is encouraged in theory but rarely shapes outcomes in practice.

This pattern is not unique. National surveys, including those from , show that many students feel their input is collected but rarely acted upon. The issue is not whether students are asked for their voice, but whether that voice meaningfully shapes outcomes.

When students spend years in systems where their input rarely influences decisions, they internalize a quiet but powerful lesson about how institutions work. Participation becomes symbolic, authority feels fixed and influence seems out of reach. Over time, students don鈥檛 just disengage. They adjust their expectations of how institutions operate.

The students in that Connecticut workshop were not disengaged. They were observant. In that room, they didn鈥檛 just identify problems; they modeled the kind of participation schools say they want to teach. Repeated experience taught them that speaking up does not necessarily lead to change.

We are asking students to believe in democracy while placing them in systems that rarely practice it. Civic engagement is not just about understanding democratic systems. It is about believing that participation matters and seeing evidence that it does.

A school can require civics coursework and still operate in ways that undermine it. It can teach the structure of government while modeling a system where decisions are largely made without meaningful student input. That contradiction is embedded in daily experience.

In too many schools, disengagement isn鈥檛 an accident. It is a predictable outcome of how systems are designed. Schools are one of the first public institutions young people encounter, and what they learn there about voice and power does not stay there. If we are serious about strengthening civic engagement, we have to look beyond what we teach and examine how schools function. 

This is, at its core, a design problem.

Students are more likely to engage when they feel known and respected. But belonging alone is not enough; a student can feel supported and still feel powerless.

The same conditions that build belonging, voice, participation and the ability to influence outcomes are also the conditions that foster long-term civic engagement. When those elements are absent, engagement fades over time.

What Needs to Change

This is not a call for another initiative layered onto an already crowded system. It is a call to rethink how schools operate on a daily basis. At a minimum, schools should establish structures where students regularly present proposals to school leadership and where responses are publicly tracked so students can see what changes and why. 

Schools should also make feedback loops visible, create consistent opportunities for dialogue and disagreement, and provide authentic audiences beyond the classroom where student ideas carry weight.

In the Connecticut workshop, the most striking moment was not the list of problems. It was what happened when students were given real responsibility to surface, organize and present their ideas. They did so thoughtfully and collaboratively, demonstrating the very civic skills schools aim to teach. The capacity is already there. The question is whether schools are designed to use it.

We tell students their voice matters, yet we place them in systems where it rarely influences outcomes. Students notice, and over time, they internalize that gap, not because they are apathetic, but because their experience has taught them what to expect.

If we continue to treat civic learning as a content issue, we will keep missing the point.

America does not have a civics crisis because students are disengaged. It has a civics crisis because too many schools are not designed to give students meaningful opportunities to participate. Until that changes, no amount of additional coursework will be enough, because students are already learning how our systems work 鈥� not from what we teach, but from how our schools actually operate.

On Nov. 5, 2024, men and women around the U.S. headed to the polls to decide a race hyped as a battle of the sexes.

By evening鈥檚 end, Kamala Harris鈥� quest to punch through and become America鈥檚 first female president lay in shambles. Donald Trump, the Republican Party鈥檚 undisputed since 2015, would return to the White House. And voters, especially the youngest ones, were themselves divided starkly on lines of gender.

As in each of the three previous federal elections, women鈥檚 support for the Democratic ticket considerably exceeded men鈥檚. But the gulf separating Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 was historically wide: According to , a data and analytics company that contracts with progressive organizations, Harris won the backing of 63% of women and just 46% of men.

The 17-point gap cleaving through Generation Z was not only bigger than that of every other age group; it was comfortably the largest Catalist had measured across four presidential cycles. of Trump鈥檚 approval conducted corroborated the same trend the following year, showing disparities between the men and women of Gen Z that eclipsed smaller splits among Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers.

Jennifer Benz, a political scientist who leads the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, said findings like that were consistent across surveys she administered prior to the Trump-Harris contest, as well as exit polling conducted at the end of the campaign. Men and women for roughly a half-century, but it was unusual for newly minted voters to lead the way, she added.

鈥淲hat’s been notable about this younger generation is that the gender divide is already shaping up now, as opposed to when they age into the more typical partisan patterns we’ve seen over recent years,” Benz said.

While Gen Z鈥檚 gender gap is a relatively new phenomenon, its features can already be seen in K鈥�12 schools. They spring from the rancorous gender politics of the 2020s, which have left girls repelled by Trump鈥檚 policies and boys disaffected by Democrats鈥� seeming indifference to their concerns. 

As the youngest 鈥淶oomers鈥� enter high school this year, they appear to be accelerating toward the political 鈥� and often social 鈥� estrangement already evident among their older brothers and sisters. Their stories, based on interviews with 社区黑料 and supported by the insights of educators and public opinion researchers, offer a rare snapshot of that polarization as it takes shape. In America鈥檚 college dorms and high school homerooms, young adults are , occupying separate online spaces and even demonstrating an aversion to dating.

Sarah Campbell, a high school teacher in Brunswick, Maine, said she鈥檇 noticed a pronounced change in her social studies classroom. Earlier in her career, students broadly approached discussions of politics and public policy with open minds. But over the past 10 years, a growing number have entered those conversations 鈥渁lready aligned with certain ideas.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檝e had girls talk about things like safety, rights or future opportunities in very real, personal ways, and in the same conversation, boys are questioning whether those issues are still relevant,鈥� Campbell wrote in an email. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not just disagreeing, they鈥檙e experiencing these issues from completely different realities.鈥�

鈥楩eminism rooted in me鈥�

Those distinct worldviews may have origins stretching long before adolescence. Celeste Lay, a professor at Tulane University who studies how young people acquire political beliefs, noted that their beginnings overlap with children鈥檚 early attempts to fashion adult identities for themselves. 

“At the same time young people are going through political socialization, they’re also going through gender socialization,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o as they’re developing their politics, they’re learning what it means to be a boy or a girl and what society says those concepts mean.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

In , Lay and several co-authors used survey data from more than 1,500 children to determine when they start to examine the world through the lens of partisanship. They discovered that kids as young as six are already tottering down the path to the ballot box, and nearly half the study鈥檚 participants affiliated with a party by the age of 12. 

A high school senior named Lily was once such a novice partisan. Raised in South Lyon, Michigan, along the outskirts of Metro Detroit, she was encouraged by liberal-minded parents to take an interest in U.S. history and current events. When she was eight, the Democrats nominated the first woman to lead a major party鈥檚 presidential ticket. After that, her course was set. 

鈥淭his sense of feminism rooted in me because my parents were letting me educate myself,鈥� Lily recalled. “When Hillary Clinton was up against Trump, I was like, ‘There’s never been a female president! I have to support her.鈥欌��

A decade after that formative electoral heartbreak, she spoke to 社区黑料 while taking part in the , a for-profit summer program offering learning experiences in a range of fields. Alongside a few dozen others with similarly arcane interests in bicameralism and campaign finance, Lily 鈥� whose last name has been withheld to allow her and her peers to speak freely about political matters 鈥� spent nine days last July at the Georgetown University campus. In between sessions role-playing as U.S. congressmen, the group made field trips to walk the halls of the Capitol in person.

Lily and her fellow government enthusiasts might reasonably be called some of the most civically engaged high schoolers in the nation. But countless girls her age followed a similar trajectory to both political consciousness and the political left. 

In the years spanning the Clinton and Biden administrations, the youngest female voters steadily warmed to the label of 鈥渓iberal鈥� ( ideological category). By 2023, Gallup research shows, the proportion of women aged 18鈥�29 who described themselves as liberal had leapt from 28% to 40%, while liberal men of the same age stalled at 25% over the same period. 

The evolution was not merely rhetorical. Teenage and 20-something women adopted on the environment, abortion, gun rights, marijuana access, the Israel-Palestine conflict and an array of other cultural issues. Today, the women of Gen Z are commonly regarded as voter demographic. 

Marie Sarnacki, an English and history instructor in South Lyon, contrasted recent waves of female students with those in her own graduating class of 2009. While stipulating that she spoke only for herself, Sarnacki added that girls in 2026 had far fewer reservations about voicing feminist beliefs on some of the most pressing questions of the day. 

鈥淚 don’t know if they would give themselves the label, but it’s safe to say they’re more open about their concern for reproductive rights or supporting classmates who are gay,鈥� she said.

The elephant in the room

Sarnacki believes that the ideological shift she has witnessed throughout 11 years in the classroom can be substantially explained by a corresponding development unfolding on the Right. 

Trump鈥檚 presidencies, each achieved through , have repeatedly pushed debates around sexism and women’s rights to the center of the national agenda, she argued. From the Women鈥檚 March to the #MeToo-inflected Kavanaugh hearings, the stunning demise of Roe v. Wade, and the president鈥檚 demeaning comments about various female antagonists, the Trump era may have hastened a leftward drift that was already in progress.

Daniel Cox, director of the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI)鈥檚 , agreed with Sarnacki. While women have lately gained or even in some professional and educational spheres, he continued, many of the most 鈥渕omentous cultural events鈥� of the last 10 years led them to the conclusion that their rights were imperiled.

鈥淭hey were doing really well in higher education and high schools in terms of AP courses and graduation rates, and tons of statistics suggest that young women were comparatively doing better than men,鈥� Cox said. 鈥淏ut when they looked around politics and the culture, they were upset about a lot of things and became politically active.” 

Public opinion research provides clear signs that their dissatisfaction remains high during the second Trump presidency 鈥� and is equally vivid among those too young to participate in elections. revealed that, within a representative panel of children aged 13鈥�17, girls were vastly more negative than boys in their assessments of Trump (-38 from females versus -7 favorability from male respondents) and the GOP (-16 from girls and +2 from boys), while also much warmer toward the Democratic Party (+13 from girls and -5 from boys).

Trump鈥檚 macho stylings and media omnipresence play a crucial role in expanding the rift. Lily remarked that he has become an inescapable figure, whether in school or on social media. If anything, the president鈥檚 ubiquity was actually heightened by his reelection defeat in 2020, which lengthened his time in the spotlight.

“He’s so loud, with all the scandalous things he’s done,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou can avoid the news, but you can’t avoid him.”

Another participant in the NSLC鈥檚 Georgetown session was Cate, a junior enrolled at a small private school in Louisville, Kentucky. Like Lily, she said she was motivated by societal injustice to become involved in politics. Her father is gay, and his experiences were part of what spurred her to activism. 

But whether engaged in private discussions with friends or public outreach through her school鈥檚 Human Rights Club, Cate felt frustrated by her male classmates鈥� lack of interest in the politics of Kentucky or the wider world.

She expressed particular disappointment with boys in her school who, she suspected, held views similar to hers but would not voice them out of fear of losing face with friends who 鈥渋dolize鈥� Trump鈥檚 brash manner. The gush of on platforms like TikTok helped foster a hero worship that was difficult to puncture.

It was understandable that young men would seek to emulate a powerful personality, Cate said, specifically citing the 2024 assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. The moment after that attack, when the then-candidate rose to his feet and exhorted his audience to 鈥渇ight,鈥� has become a centerpiece of at teenage boys, she said. Yet his influence heightened a dynamic in which 鈥渆mpathy is seen by this generation of men as weak, feminine.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

鈥淚t gets into all this misogyny,鈥� she lamented. 鈥淏ut women, who don’t care about that and can be empathetic loudly, are more able to share their political opinions.”

鈥榃here am I in this equation?鈥�

Girls were not alone in observing the stridency of gender conflict. Nor were self-described progressives the only ones to complain about its occasionally personal nature. 

Nathan, a junior from the prosperous suburban enclave of Westfield, New Jersey, struck a note of bemusement when describing an of the online right: left-leaning white women, a category encompassing many of the students he鈥檇 met that week at Georgetown. 

鈥淭here’s a stereotype that liberal white women are self-hating,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd supposedly it’s not feminine, and it’s not attractive, and it’s not manly if you support it.鈥�

Voluble and direct, Nathan described himself as a 鈥渞ight-winger,鈥� one of the few participating in the program. But he professed no admiration for political harangues mingled with sexism, and he objected to the treatment suffered by some of his gay classmates at home, who he said were frequently mocked in private. 

Instead, along with several other male students, he spent much of an hour-long conversation with 社区黑料 lampooning the fixation of social authorities 鈥� including his school鈥檚 leaders 鈥� with identity politics. A multitude of perceived sins drew their attention, including the proliferation of various 鈥渉eritage months鈥� across the school calendar and the alleged maligning of the Founding Fathers in history curricula. The most annoying of these were dismissed as 鈥渧irtue signalling.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Many politically engaged young men share Nathan鈥檚 perspective on the newfound prominence of equity-focused language and policies. 

This is, in fact, a key distinction between male and female Zoomers. According to , Gen Z men and their Millennial counterparts were only about half as likely as women to 鈥渃losely follow鈥� news coverage of social issues. And while the rising salience of such causes, including LGBT rights and abortion, have clearly played a role in politically activating many American women, they do not appear to have galvanized men to support Democratic candidates.

Catalist鈥檚 overview of the election results shows that both men and women became more likely to vote Republican between 2020 and 2024, but the gender gap across all ages was principally driven by men abandoning the Democratic Party. 

Monty, a junior from deep-blue San Diego, said that students attending his private high school were 鈥渆xtremely left,鈥� and typically surrounded by friends and family members of the same mindset. A strong impulse to activism also pervaded the halls, he added, attracting a number of his peers to Pride marches and No Kings rallies over the past year.

As Monty described it, the somewhat airless ideology of his school mirrored that of the larger progressive movement: Just as he鈥檇 periodically felt isolated during a long stretch of school assemblies commemorating the historic contributions of women and minority groups, a groundswell of 鈥渟tranded people鈥� were successfully targeted by the Trump campaign .

鈥淵ou have all these other groups represented, and then you have a generation of these young white males saying, ‘Okay, where am I in this equation? Because I’m not Black, I’m not a woman, I’m not LGBTQ, and I don’t know where I’m going to fit into this,’鈥� Monty said.

Rachel Janfaza is an independent researcher who writes the newsletter , which aims to surface the attitudes of Gen Z for a national audience by convening focus groups and listening sessions around the United States. In an interview, she said Democrats had 鈥渇umbled鈥� in 2024 with a critical group of potential male supporters.

鈥淚 don’t think the Republican Party necessarily set out to attract young men from the start, but the Democratic Party being so coded as being friendly to women made it hard for young men to see themselves in that party,鈥� Janfaza said. 鈥淎 lot of the men I spoke to who voted for Trump in 2024 felt like they were still not being messaged to by the Democratic Party.鈥�

鈥楾his system doesn鈥檛 benefit us鈥�

Part of the difficulty in communicating to Gen Z is the fact that, beneath the level of partisan affiliation, perceptions of society and gender often differ significantly. 

Nowhere is this clearer than in the respective views of men and women toward feminism, a cause that has since the 1960s. Women have always been more keen than men to accept the label of 鈥渇eminist,鈥� but showed that over half of male Millennials said the term fit them personally; that figure was actually higher than the proportion of women from preceding generations who agreed with the description.

Yet far fewer of the youngest male respondents agreed. Zoomer men were only as likely as those in Gen X 鈥� a group more than twice their age 鈥� to call themselves feminists. Between that striking reversion and the leap in self-described feminism among younger women, Gen Z saw the widest gender gap on the issue of any age cohort. 

In the same survey, 23% of Gen Z men said they had experienced gender-based discrimination, a nearly fourfold increase over the oldest men included in the sample. Women are also increasingly likely to express this belief, with half of all Gen Z females saying they鈥檇 been discriminated against (compared with just 38% of Boomer women). 

Some fear that such sharp departures on fundamental questions will foment mutual resentment. Nathan, the New Jersey high schooler, said that boys his age were becoming embittered by a lack of recognition from the political left. In particular, he said that white males could be alienated from the Democratic Party in the same way that African Americans in the 20th century. 

鈥淚 think a similar situation is happening with young white men,鈥� Nathan said. 鈥淭hey’re like, ‘This system, this establishment, doesn’t benefit us in any way. We have no stake in maintaining it.'” 

Meanwhile, dramatic developments in the political realm can leave residue in the social one. The interpersonal relations of men and women are under greater strain than at any time in the past few decades, epitomized by exploring romantic relationships. While almost 90% of high school seniors reported that they鈥檇 gone out on at least one date in 1987, according to a recent poll by the Institute for Family Studies, only about half said the same in 2024. 

Competing partisanship seems to be at least partially responsible for the decline. In a by NPR and PBS News, 60% of Zoomers agreed that it was 鈥渋mportant to date or marry someone who shared your political views鈥�; by contrast, 62% of respondents aged 60 or older said that politics didn鈥檛 carry much weight in matters of the heart. A published last year on the American dating scene found that fully three-quarters of single women with a college degree said they would think twice before dating a Trump supporter.

Campbell, the Maine social studies teacher, said she had seen both sides of the dichotomy in her high school class. Girls are increasingly hesitant to pair off, or even socialize, with male classmates. Boys jokingly attack one another as “simps” 鈥� a slang term for men desperate for the attention of women 鈥� and have become “much more likely to push back” in class discussions of gender differences.

鈥淭here is almost a defensiveness in their attitude, as if I am trying to tell them they aren鈥檛 important and girls are,鈥� Campbell wrote. 鈥淚t is genuinely a shift that is concerning to me.鈥�

Lily, who now attends high school in State College, Pennsylvania, didn鈥檛 address her dating life. But she opined that the apparently right-wing outlook expressed by some boys may simply reflect their wish to fit in 鈥� an instinct with which she sympathized.

“The same way we find ourselves in social situations where we’re pressured to join some clique, that’s present in our political positions too,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd guys experience that too. I just think they’re better at hiding it.”

What comes next?

Neither students, teachers, nor researchers could guess whether the gender gap would reverse with time or continue to grow.

In his sixth year in office, young women haven鈥檛 relented in their loathing for Donald Trump. In fact, it might be said that American women and the Democratic Party have , both measurably more feminist, more liberal, and more credentialed than they were a generation ago. According to Gallup data, is now a college-educated woman.

On the other hand, it is far from clear whether a sufficiently large number of today鈥檚 high school boys will reverse course and embrace the Democratic candidate in 2028. A of the semi-annual Yale Youth Poll showed that 68% of voters aged 18鈥�22 disapprove of Trump鈥檚 performance in office, a four-point increase since the previous fall; still, men in that age range actually became less favorable toward the Democrats during that same five-month span.

If national Republicans hope that disenchantment brings them an army of converts, they may find themselves disappointed. AEI鈥檚 Cox said the evidence from most polling and election results shows only that young men have become hostile toward Democrats 鈥� not that they have become doctrinaire conservatives.

鈥淚’m not even sure they like the Republicans that much, honestly,鈥� Cox said. 鈥淚t’s not so much that they’re attracted to the whole GOP agenda 鈥� it’s that, between the two parties, they’re looking at which one seems more receptive to the concerns they have.鈥�

Asher, visiting NLSC鈥檚 summer program from Pennsylvania鈥檚 solid-blue Delaware County, said he would have voted for the Democratic ticket in 2024 had he been old enough. The measured junior particularly came to admire Tim Walz after he was selected as Harris鈥檚 vice-presidential pick. 

Yet he critiqued the way in which the party sought to woo men as 鈥減andering,鈥� including launched to rally 鈥淲hite Dudes for Harris,鈥� and Walz鈥檚 . (The Minnesota governor later disclosed that he saw his ability to 鈥溾�� as one of his major contributions to the campaign.) 

Nathan recalled an episode that saw Walz join Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in streamed on the popular service Twitch. “They had the most artificial attempts to win over men,鈥� he marveled. 鈥淭im Walz and AOC playing video games, and you could tell they weren’t actually playing. No one related to that!”

Asher 鈥� happy to number himself among the relatively scarce white dudes for Harris, albeit one without a vote 鈥� said he hadn鈥檛 personally felt excluded from political debates with left-leaning classmates, but acknowledged that such conversations sometimes hinged on participants鈥� personal 鈥渃redibility鈥� to speak on specific issues. 

鈥淚 have seen that happen with people: ‘You don’t have female genitals, so you don’t get to have an opinion about abortion,’鈥� he said.

The Up and Up鈥檚 Janfaza said that similar complaints are a hallmark of her listening sessions with college undergraduates. Many feel as though their sentiments, goals and desires are so diffuse that they are 鈥渢alking past each other.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

鈥淲hen I ask young men and women, ‘Do you see a gender divide in your community?鈥� they are so quick to tell me that they feel men and women are on different playing fields,鈥� she said. 鈥淭his isn’t fun for anyone.” 

An overhaul of Indiana鈥檚 public K-12 school accountability ratings will take effect despite objections from Attorney General Todd Rokita, who criticized the new system as diluting the importance of academic proficiency.

Rokita and Gov. Mike Braun signed off on the State Board of Education rule this month, concluding a multiyear effort by lawmakers to rewrite Indiana鈥檚 high school graduation and accountability requirements.

Braun on Wednesday brushed off Rokita鈥檚 criticism of the revised A-F ratings, which formally take effect for the 2026-27 school year.

A look at the new A-F model

The Board of Education the new statewide A-F model in March.

The new system assigns points to each student rather than using schoolwide averages and standardized test scores.

These student scores are based on academic proficiency, growth and other success indicators, which are then averaged within elementary, middle and high school grade bands and combined into the overall A-F grade assigned to each school.

Education officials praised the changes for better reflecting student progress, literacy and post-graduation readiness in place of the 鈥渁ll-or-nothing鈥� model of the past.

The new approach mirrors changes to Indiana鈥檚 high school diplomas and diploma seals.

A school鈥檚 graduation rate and SAT performance each account for 10% of its score, combined with other measures like coursework, credentials, work-based learning and student engagement.

The state will calculate and publicly release letter grades under the new system for the 2025-26 school year, but will not take action against poorly rated schools during the transition year.

The rule is now final following signatures from Rokita and Braun on May 1.

Rokita argues new system blunts accountability

Rokita again raised concerns about the new accountability metrics in a letter to Braun this month, citing Board of Education metrics revealing few schools will be rated as D or F schools despite poor academic proficiency.

Thirty-three percent of Hoosier students in grades 3-8 are proficient in both English language arts and math on the state鈥檚 standardized exams, while fewer than one in four high school students meet SAT proficiency benchmarks, yet few schools will receive low ratings, Rokita wrote in the letter provided to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

鈥淯nder any system driven by academic performance, these proficiency rates would be expected to produce far more low-rated schools,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淭hey do not.鈥�

Rokita served as chairman of the subcommittee on K-12 education in the U.S. House of Representatives before his election as attorney general.

In his letter to Braun, Rokita criticized the Indiana Department of Education for not making its internal modeling public during the rulemaking process, writing the 鈥渟urprisingly high number of schools鈥� with higher-than-expected ratings is by design.

鈥淚n the extreme, a school where all students are fully proficient and a school where no students are proficient could receive the same rating if the nonproficient students satisfy various nonacademic indicators,鈥� he wrote.

The Board of Education made revisions to the rule earlier this year to satisfy Rokita鈥檚 objections.

While those revisions satisfied his legal review, Rokita wrote he remains concerned the new system fails to accurately reflect student proficiency, which in turn could undermine the state鈥檚 school choice reforms.

He urged Braun to direct the Board of Education to reconsider its approach.

鈥淚f Indiana鈥檚 A-F system is to remain credible and transparent, it should clearly distinguish between schools where students meet those standards and those where they do not,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淚n practice, the Rule will likely not accomplish this task.鈥�

Asked Wednesday about Rokita鈥檚 objections, Braun stood by Education Secretary Katie Jenner and the Board of Education.

鈥淚鈥檓 going to trust the secretary of education, the boards that weigh into it,鈥� Braun told reporters. 鈥淎nd to me, I鈥檓 always going to error on the side of more accountability, not less.鈥�

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.

It was also the kind of video that makes many teachers think, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 amazing 鈥� and there is absolutely no way I can do that.鈥�

Most educators are not looking for one more performance to add to their day. They are already managing lesson plans, behavior, parent communication, paperwork, staff meetings, substitute shortages and the emotional weight of trying to meet every student鈥檚 needs. So when 鈥済reet students at the door鈥� gets presented as another big, elaborate thing, it can feel unrealistic.

But the real power of a doorway greeting is not in the choreography.

It is in the connection.

I have seen this moment matter from preschool classrooms to high school hallways. After years of working with students and schools as a social worker, district administrator and consultant, I鈥檝e learned that the ages and settings may change, but the need is remarkably consistent: Students want to know that someone is glad they are there.

Research suggests that this small routine can make a measurable difference. classrooms where teachers greeted students at the door saw a 20 percentage point increase in academic engagement and a 9 percentage point decrease in disruptive behavior. The researchers estimated that this kind of increase in engagement could add roughly an extra hour of engagement across a five-hour instructional day.

That is a significant return on a very small investment.

The beginning of class is one of the most important transitions of the school day. Students are moving from the hallway, cafeteria, playground or another classroom into a learning environment. They may be carrying noise, conflict, anxiety, excitement, frustration or unfinished conversations with them. The first few minutes of class can quickly become a scramble: students talking over each other, wandering, negotiating, arguing, sharpening pencils, asking what they missed or waiting to see how much the teacher will tolerate before stepping in.

A doorway greeting sets the tone before students cross the threshold.

The good news is that the most effective greetings in the research were not complicated and did not require special dance moves. The essentials are: Teachers used the student鈥檚 name. They made eye contact. They offered a brief nonverbal greeting 鈥� a handshake, fist bump, high five, nod or wave. Then they added a short positive or 鈥減re-corrective鈥� statement, which is simply a friendly reminder of what to do next.

That might sound like:

鈥淕ood morning, Jayden. I鈥檓 glad you鈥檙e here. Take a look at the warm-up on the board.鈥�

鈥淗i, Maria. Good to see you. Grab your notebook and start with question one.鈥�

鈥淲elcome back, Marcus. Today is a fresh start. I鈥檓 glad you鈥檙e here because we鈥檙e going to learn about those volcanoes you were asking about.鈥�

There is nothing flashy about it. But it is powerful because it combines connection and structure.

That combination matters.

Too often, schools treat relationships and expectations as if they are competing priorities. Some educators worry that a focus on relationships means being permissive. Others worry that a focus on expectations means being rigid or punitive. But students need both. They need to know that adults care about them, and they need to know what is expected.

A doorway greeting brings those two needs together in a practical way.

From a behavioral perspective, it is a predictable routine that explicitly teaches and reinforces expected behavior. Students know how to enter, where to look, what to start and how the class begins. That predictability lowers stress for students and teachers.

From a restorative practices perspective, it is a relationship-building habit. It communicates belonging. It gives teachers a daily opportunity to notice students before there is a problem. It allows a teacher to quietly repair after a difficult day, offer encouragement to a student who struggled yesterday or simply communicate, 鈥淵ou matter here. I see you and I鈥檓 glad you鈥檙e here.鈥�

And from a classroom management perspective, it is prevention.

Teachers know that once a class begins in chaos, it can take a long time to recover. A calm, consistent start protects instructional time. It also reduces the need for repeated corrections once students are inside the room.

This practice becomes even more powerful when it is adopted schoolwide. I have seen schools make a community agreement for everyone to stand at their doors during passing periods or arrival time. The effect was immediate. Hallways felt calmer. Students were more connected to adults. Minor misbehavior decreased because adults were present, visible and welcoming. The whole building felt different. 

And something unexpected happened, too: Teachers began connecting with one another. They smiled and waved across the hall, offered words of encouragement, shared a quick joke and reminded one another, in small but meaningful ways, that they were in this together.

Of course, implementation matters. Doorway greetings should be simple, sustainable and adaptable. Teachers can choose a greeting style that fits their personality and their students. Some may use a fist bump. Some may use a warm verbal greeting. Some may offer students a choice: wave, elbow bump, peace sign or no-contact greeting. The point is not the gesture itself. The point is consistent positive contact paired with a clear start-of-class direction.

School leaders also have a role to play. If they want teachers greeting students at the door, they can model it themselves. They can be present, visible and engaged with students and staff during passing periods. That kind of modeling communicates that connection is not one more classroom management trick. It is part of the culture.

The best strategies in schools are often not the most complicated ones. They are the ones that are easy to repeat, grounded in research and aligned with what students and teachers actually need.

Greeting students at the door will not solve every behavior challenge. It will not replace strong instruction, meaningful relationships, clear routines or effective support systems. But it is one small practice that brings all of those ideas together. And when a routine becomes a habit, it becomes easier to sustain.

Two minutes at the door can say: You are welcome here. We are ready to learn. I see you. Let鈥檚 begin again.

For many students, that may be exactly the connection moment they need.

Testing experts at the Education Department had been laid off and the board in charge of the program . But now, expansion is coming in the form of additional results that could give the public more information about how students in their states are performing.

The National Assessment Governing Board approved a new testing schedule Friday that allows for state-level results in 12th grade math and reading, eighth and 12th grade civics and eighth grade science. 

The vote was 16 to 3.

NAGB, which sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress, has long aspired to add more granular results, said Executive Director Lesley Muldoon.

鈥淭hat’s what helps drive actual policy action at the state level,鈥� she said. 

The would take effect in 2028 for eighth grade civics and 12th grade math and reading. The eighth grade science test would be administered in 2029 and 12th graders would take a civics exam in 2032. Participation is optional, but NAGB wants to know states鈥� intentions by this summer.

The governing board isn鈥檛 alone in wanting NAEP to be more useful to state policymakers. In its on the future of the American workforce, the Bipartisan Policy Center, led by former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, called for more state-level data in the same three areas and a shorter, six-month timeline between the assessment and the release of the results.

Some observers say the board鈥檚 vote underscores the importance of NAEP.

鈥淭his suggests an acknowledgment that standardized testing, and comparable data across states, still matters,鈥� said Dale Chu, an education consultant who frequently writes about assessment. 

At the same time, in its fiscal year 2027 budget, the administration is requesting less for the program than Congress has appropriated in recent years, $137 million compared with $193 million.

Muldoon told 社区黑料 that if Congress maintains $193 million for the program, no additional money would be needed to expand testing at the state level. But if all 50 states want to participate, they might need more resources. 

鈥榃e got busy鈥�

The response from states, she said, has been positive, but she doesn鈥檛 expect all to sign up. 

Board Member Julia Rafal-Baer, who voted against the plan, said while she agreed with the science and civics schedule, she鈥檚 concerned about whether enough states would participate in the 12^th grade assessments. The announcement, she said, would also come in the midst of a 鈥渃harged environment.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

鈥淵ou can see it bubbling up now 鈥� public trust around testing, technology, AI, screens and student data,鈥� she said during the meeting. 鈥淚n this room, we understand all the differences. Parents right now do not understand the differences.鈥�&苍产蝉辫; 

Others noted that with 39 governors鈥� races this year, those who show interest now might be out of office by the time they have to formally commit. But Board Member Ron Reynolds, formerly head of a California private school organization, said the elections shouldn鈥檛 affect the board鈥檚 decision.

鈥淚 think we would cross a dangerous line if we began to anticipate what the political environment might be at a specific time and then make decisions in advance that might foreclose an opportunity to assess and report,鈥� he said.

States would need to identify a sample ranging from 1,200 to 2,000 students in each of the categories for which they want new results. 

Tennessee Rep. Mark White, a Republican and current NAGB chair, told 社区黑料 that his state is among those that would likely 鈥渏ump on the opportunity鈥� to see how the state鈥檚 students are performing in science, civics and in their senior year.

鈥淭ennessee realized that our K-12 standards were not adequate in 2011 when we compared our performance to NAEP data,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e got busy.鈥�

In 2013, the state was the in the nation, and this week as a top performer in post-pandemic academic recovery.

Ang茅lica Infante Green, Rhode Island鈥檚 education commissioner, wants her state to participate in all of the assessments, but is particularly enthusiastic about state-level civics . The state passed in 2021 requiring students to demonstrate proficiency in civics to graduate.

鈥淚t’s important, based on where we are as a country,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f our students don’t know how the government works and how our democracy works, that poses a challenge.鈥�

Chu said he wouldn鈥檛 be surprised if Mike Morath, state chief in Texas, or Indiana Education Secretary Katie Jenner also take 鈥渁 keen interest,鈥� but predicted that 鈥渋n many other places the reaction would amount to little more than a shrug.鈥�

Former Florida Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. after the 2024 fourth and eighth grade results were released. The state saw a sharp decline in reading scores, which he attributed to a sample of schools that he said was not representative of the state overall and included two of the lowest-performing schools. He also blamed the shift that year on the switch to a digital test on school district devices. 

The Florida Department of Education did not respond to questions about whether the state might participate. 

鈥楶owerful source of information鈥�

Chu and others, however, question whether state-level data on 12th graders would be that useful. 

鈥淟ow student motivation has long been a cloud hanging over 12th grade,鈥� he said. 鈥淚鈥檓 not sure bringing those results to the state level adds much unless that issue is addressed.鈥�

Muldoon disagreed that motivation is a challenge, but said that getting a large enough national sample of 12th graders can be. Seniors, she said, are sometimes off campus for internships or college trips. 

Some states, like Nevada, require students to take the ACT for graduation. But Jhone Ebert, superintendent of the Clark County School District, and former state chief, said a college entrance exam might not be the best way to measure the skills of students planning to go straight into the workforce. NAEP, she said, would offer a fuller view of students鈥� skills.

鈥淣ot everybody鈥檚 going to college,鈥� said Ebert, also on the board. 鈥淭hat doesn’t mean that they’re not going to be successful participants in our society.鈥�

National results from 2024鈥檚 12th graders were discouraging. Twenty-two percent tested at the proficient level in math, a 2 percentage point decline since 2019. In reading, 35% were proficient, also a drop. As with fourth and eighth graders in recent years, the percentage of high school seniors scoring at the below basic level increased. But those results don鈥檛 tell states anything about their specific strengths and weaknesses. 

State-level data could be a 鈥渞eally powerful source of information,鈥� Muldoon said. 鈥淭here is no other nationally representative assessment of high school students鈥� achievement.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

鈥楤lue and red states鈥�

The same is true for civics. The last NAEP civics test was in 2022, and just in eighth grade. Average scores on the 300-point scale fell by two points, the first-ever decline in the 25-year history of the test, which measures students鈥� knowledge of government, the founding documents and politics. 

Twelfth grade results in civics haven鈥檛 been available since 2010. The 2032 civics test in 12th grade will also be an updated version. Patrick Kelly, chair of NAGB鈥檚 assessment development committee, told the members Friday that while the 鈥渂ones are good,鈥� the design of the civics assessment is old.

The last time the test was updated, 鈥渙ur president of the United States was playing ,鈥� he said. 

Shawn Healy, chief policy and advocacy officer at iCivics, a nonprofit that provides civics lesson plans and online games, called the state-level results and the update 鈥渁 big win for our field.鈥�

The results, he said, will offer insight into the success of civics education policies at the state level, such as requiring a dedicated course or completion of student projects, or offering diplomas that recognize achievements. This year, he鈥檚 tracked 240 civics education bills in 40 states.

鈥淭hat speaks to the interest in this issue across blue and red states,鈥� he said.

In science, 2029 won鈥檛 be the first time state results will be available. Most states voluntarily . But now, under a new design, the questions will more closely match what states expect eighth graders to know in science, said Christine Cunningham, senior vice president of STEM learning at the Museum of Science in Boston and a NAGB member. Large school systems,  those in the Trial Urban District Assessment group, would also be able to opt in to that science exam. Currently, only national data is available for those subjects and grades.

鈥淎t a time when science and engineering are having such a profound impact on our lives, it鈥檚 important to understand how our students are doing,鈥� she said. 鈥淓ducation leaders continue to see value in expanding opportunities for state-level reporting beyond reading and math.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

This story was originally published by . for their newsletters.

The primary for the state鈥檚 top K-12 schools job is in less than a month, but judging from the polls, it鈥檚 debatable whether anyone is paying attention.

A whopping 32% of voters are undecided with just a few weeks until the for state superintendent of public instruction, according to by the Public Policy Institute of California. In the past, it鈥檚 been one of the state鈥檚 hottest races, with millions of dollars in spending.

Among the dozen or so candidates, none had more than 10% of voters鈥� support, meaning that the race is essentially a 10-way tie.

鈥淭here鈥檚 no lack of qualified candidates, but previous elections had an urgency and a sense that who won really mattered,鈥� said Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at USC. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have that this time.鈥�

A job with few duties?

One reason for the malaise, observers said, may be that voters are more focused on education policy unfolding in Washington, D.C. The Trump administration is in the process of dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, which could potentially upend funding and student rights. Another reason might be that most of the candidates agree on the major issues, so there鈥檚 not much to distinguish them.

Regardless, the position might be nearly irrelevant by the time the new superintendent takes office. The state is poised to . Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed in January that the superintendent no longer run the California Department of Education. Instead, it would fall under the control of the State Board of Education, which is appointed by the governor. The idea was introduced in his January budget proposal and is expected to pass the Legislature.

That would shift power over the state鈥檚 10,000 public schools to the governor鈥檚 office. The superintendent would have few responsibilities except championing various education-related causes. The governor鈥檚 race would carry more relevance to school funding, policies and other issues than the superintendent鈥檚 race.

Teachers union weighs in

The California Teachers Association, one of the biggest players in education politics, has been far more involved in the governor鈥檚 race than the superintendent race. After Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the governor鈥檚 race, the union endorsed billionaire Tom Steyer for governor, citing his alignment with the union鈥檚 priorities.

For superintendent, the union endorsed Richard Barrera, a San Diego Unified school board member who was little known outside San Diego before winning the union鈥檚 backing.

鈥淭he superintendent race is off the radar because the governor鈥檚 race has taken up so much bandwidth,鈥� said David Goldberg, president of the union. 鈥淎lthough the superintendent鈥檚 impact is deeply felt by those who work in public education, it鈥檚 not widely known outside public education.鈥�

The next superintendent will replace Tony Thurmond, who is termed out and is running for governor. The superintendent position is nonpartisan and pays . The top two candidates in June鈥檚 primary will advance to the November general election.

So far, the leading candidates in the superintendent鈥檚 race include a host of education policy veterans. Among them: Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, former head of the Assembly education committee; Josh Newman, former head of the Senate education committee; Anthony Rendon, former speaker of the Assembly and a longtime early education program administrator; and Nichelle Henderson, a Los Angeles Community College District board member.

鈥楢 lightning rod鈥�

Sonja Shaw, a school board member in Chino Valley, is also running and has gained traction on the right. In the most recent poll, she had support from 7% of voters, the same as Barrera. Lance Christensen, who ran against Thurmond in 2022, predicted that Shaw will advance to the November election because Democrats鈥� votes will split among the other candidates.

Shaw is best known for her fiery positions on transgender student rights. She was propelled to the limelight in 2023 when she presided over a Chino Valley school board meeting where out when he spoke over his time limit defending transgender students鈥� right to privacy. She鈥檚 been an outspoken advocate for schools to inform parents if their child identifies as transgender, and for students to participate on teams that align with their gender at birth.

鈥淭hey can say anything they want about her, but she鈥檚 such a lightning rod that now everyone knows who she is,鈥� said Christensen, who鈥檚 now a vice president at the anti-union California Policy Center. 鈥淚 think this issue will take her all the way to Sacramento.鈥�

Why no one鈥檚 talking about charter schools

One issue that鈥檚 been glaringly absent in the superintendent race is charter schools. In years past, charter schools were the No. 1 topic in the race. Candidates were deemed to be either 鈥減ro-charter鈥� or 鈥渁nti-charter,鈥� with donations and rhetoric following suit. 鈥淧ro-charter鈥� was often interpreted to mean anti-union, leading to an avalanche of rancor from both sides.

But the public, and even the unions, seem to have grown tired of arguing about the independent public schools. One reason is that many charter schools now have unions. Another reason is that because of declining enrollment, charter schools are no longer expanding; they appear to have plateaued at about 10% of overall enrollment.

A more likely reason is that voters see that charter schools and traditional public schools grapple with the same issues, said Marshall Tuck, a former chief executive of the Green Dot charter school network who ran for superintendent in 2018 and 2014. The 2018 election in which he lost to Thurmond was one of the most costly superintendent races ever, with contributions topping $50 million. By comparison, no candidate in the current election has raised more than $1 million so far.

Most schools 鈥� regardless of their governance structure 鈥� are facing , and lackluster student engagement since the pandemic ended.

鈥淣ow that we鈥檝e removed the charter vitriol, we can focus on bigger issues,鈥� said Tuck, who is now chief executive at EdVoice, a policy advocacy organization. 鈥淭he core issues are the same everywhere.鈥�

This article was and was republished under the license.

The disquieting findings come from the latest release of the , a data project spearheaded by scholars at Dartmouth, Harvard, and Stanford. Rolled out in 2022, the collaborative initially aimed to chart how quickly schools bounced back from the disruption of remote learning. Now in its fifth year, the research team has turned their perspective backward in time to examine events leading up to the academic crash.

Among those developments, the newest dispatch devotes special attention to two: the rollback of school accountability policies that were the hallmark of the federal No Child Left Behind law, and the spread of social media to younger children. While acknowledging a lack of firm causal evidence, the authors argue that the parallel trends helped precipitate a downward spiral in student outcomes.

Thomas Kane, a professor of economics at Harvard and one of the Scorecard鈥檚 creators, said that taking a longer perspective on student achievement illustrates not merely the enormity of the loss, but also the impressive progress that preceded it. 

Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (a federal exam often referred to as ) show that fourth- and eighth-graders steadily grew more proficient in core academic subjects from 1990 through 2015, absorbing the equivalent of two grade levels in math knowledge during that time. Kane said it was all the more frustrating to see those gains, which he stacked against the most important public policy successes of the last half-century, substantially unwound over the last decade.

鈥淚f you had told me in 1990 that we would see that kind of rise in fourth- and eighth-grade math, I’d have said you were crazy,鈥� Kane reflected. 鈥淎nd yet it happened, and nobody celebrated.” 

The post-pandemic era has seen a number of experts explore the beginnings of the K鈥�12 downturn, which first became evident through NAEP data near the end of the Obama presidency. Those have that learning losses started well before 2020, while shining less light on possible explanations. Morgan Polikoff, a professor of education at the University of Southern California, said the Scorecard was laudable in its ambition to 鈥渢ell the whole story,鈥� even in the absence of dispositive proof.

“This paper is, by far, the most comprehensive effort to explore the two main hypotheses for what’s gone wrong in education over the last decade-plus,鈥� he said.

What remains uncertain is the path forward for schools and communities that have seen a generation of students learn less successfully than the one preceding it. Kane and his collaborators recommend a reorientation in federal research priorities to study the impact of social media use, as well as wide-ranging responses to the problem of chronic absenteeism. In the meantime, their release includes a set of local case studies showing where districts have led meaningful improvements in the last few years. Among them are a number of major urban school systems not historically numbered among the nation鈥檚 top performers, such as Atlanta, Birmingham, Alabama and Compton, California.

But the silver linings of the 2020s may be obscured by the grim chronicle of the 2010s. 

Doug Lemov is a former teacher whose book, , has become a reference text for educators around the world. Reviewing the report鈥檚 conclusions, he said he hoped it would help both the public and the education policy world reach a fuller understanding of the challenges converging in American classrooms 鈥� a long list encompassing technology and accountability policy, but also a broader collapse in the authority of schools, he added.

鈥淎ll of these social changes have happened together, they’ve been disastrous for schools, and their effects tend to narrowly be blamed on ‘the pandemic,’鈥� Lemov said. 鈥淏ut the causes are bigger.”

The end of NCLB

If part of that blame can be laid at the feet of the federal government, as Kane and his co-authors contend, it can be traced back to 2011.

That was the year when the Obama administration to avoid penalties for failing to meet the conditions of the decade-old NLCB, which had boldly mandated that 100 percent of K鈥�12 pupils attain proficiency in math and reading by the end of the 2013鈥�14 school year. 

While student performance in both subjects had , no state could meet that timeline; NCLB鈥檚 ever-rising standards meant that fell short of their academic goals by 2011. In a bargain struck with Obama鈥檚 Department of Education, states could seek relief from federal accountability requirements to adopt new academic standards, overhaul their teacher evaluation systems, and meet a few other requirements. In all, over 40 states had applied for and received the waivers.

As the Scorecard authors document, education leaders used their newly earned flexibility to ease off their scrutiny of the lowest-performing schools in their states; by 2014, under 10 percent of schools were flagged for missing learning benchmarks, a massive decline from just a few years earlier. 

In consequence, not only were fewer teachers, principals and superintendents explicitly prodded to boost student learning 鈥� under NCLB, schools faced an escalating set of sanctions, including the prospect of permanent closure, for persistent ineffectiveness 鈥� public awareness of academic underperformance also fell dramatically. Through an archival search of major news outlets, the Scorecard researchers discovered that the annual number of media references to federal accountability categories and penalties fell by 97 percent after 2017. By that time, NCLB had been replaced entirely by the Every Student Succeeds Act, which ratcheted down expectations on states to an even greater extent.

Polikoff recalled that, prior to the changes of the 2010s, even his affluent home district in suburban Chicago was leery of federal interventions. But such communities were largely able to relax after being granted waivers.  

鈥淭he waivers, and then ESSA, fundamentally changed the level of pressure and scrutiny on a big chunk of schools 鈥� in particular, these middle-to-high-performing schools that clearly know they’re not going to be at the bottom of the distribution.鈥�

The second major factor identified in the paper is the rapid rise of social media use among school-aged children. According to , the portion of U.S. teenagers saying that they were online 鈥渁lmost constantly鈥� jumped to 46 percent by 2022.

While the effects of this shift are debated, a growing body of psychological research has pointed over the last few years to a link between internet use, social media saturation, and poor youth mental health. While stipulating that the connection cannot be assumed to be causal, Kane and his coauthors note that the students who posted the lowest scores on the international PISA exam were also the likeliest to report high social media use.

Laws restricting smartphone use inside of schools have spread rapidly in the past few years, though published studies have shown little corresponding signs of academic improvement. One widely cited paper, released earlier this month by Stanford professor Thomas Dee, delivered a split verdict: After two years of implementation, students forced to hand over their phones each day exhibited better psychological well-being, but their showing on state assessments was mostly unaffected.

David Figlio, an economist at the University of Rochester who conducted some of the earliest research into schoolwide bans, has found they yield modest academic benefits in their early stages. In an email, he wrote that he was unsurprised to see social media use specifically called out  in the Scorecard report. But he also noted that most kids enjoy free access to digital technology outside the classroom. 

鈥淭o the extent that reducing cellphone use will reduce classroom distraction, that seems like a good thing. But there are many ways for students to access these distractions even in the face of cellphone bans,鈥� Figlio said. 鈥淗ome use, with its attendant sleep disruption and crowding out of homework, study, etc., is certainly still present.鈥�

鈥楾op national priority鈥�

The few existing studies probing the correlation between student achievement and social media鈥檚 sudden ubiquity paint only a suggestive, if incomplete, picture, Kane conceded, adding that the broadening of that inquiry 鈥渙ught to be a top national priority.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

That could be a job for a reconstituted Institute for Education Sciences, the Washington agency charged with supporting education research. About 90 percent of the IES workforce was terminated in the early months of the Trump presidency, but some re-staffing has taken place since. More recently, the Department of Education commissioned a blueprint for the rebuilding of its empirical arm, including a recommendation that federal officials narrow their focus to a set of key issues facing schools.

Kane remarked that the phenomena identified in the latest Scorecard release would make an excellent start. University-based experts couldn鈥檛 summon the same resources or urgency as the U.S. government, he concluded.

鈥淚f you leave it up to the research community to come to consensus on the science of reading, or the effects of cellphone bans, or the effects of social media, you’re going to be waiting decades,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o somebody needs to be convening people, looking for conflicting findings, and trying to reconcile them.” 

In the meantime, the report identified 108 districts that have posted sizable gains in both math and reading 鈥� and nearly 450 that have seen large improvements in at least one of the two subjects 鈥� since 2022. While some are listed among the most privileged school systems in the country, a number of large and relatively unsung urban districts have already returned to pre-COVID learning rates.

Among them is Washington, D.C., where reading achievement for students in grades 3鈥�8 now exceeds the level set in 2018 by the equivalent of almost half of one grade level. A case study assembled by Kane and his colleagues identifies specific steps taken by the district鈥檚 leaders to bring about that progress, including the development of and for undergoing specialized literacy training.

The Scorecard team recommends that education leaders deploy their own staff to rapidly improving districts to learn from their success. With time, they conclude, cities like Washington could become K鈥�12 exemplars in the same way that Mississippi has set a template for states with its reading reforms. 

Figlio said there was promise in the idea, but added a note of caution.

鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to go to a school district, see that they are doing ten different things, and know which of these things is actually leading to the improvements,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淏y all means, we should study districts that seem to be beating the odds, but we need to make sure that the lessons learned are durable and transportable rather than anecdotes or circumstantial evidence.鈥�

Lemov said that the most important lessons might be gleaned from years past. Since the reform era, he lamented, states have been all too happy to overlook poor results from their schools 鈥� and the schools themselves have been loath to set higher expectations for themselves or their students. The effects can be measured in lost learning opportunities, he said, but also teacher burnout from working in increasingly chaotic disciplinary environments.

“All of the things we did really well 鈥� only in unwinding them have we realized how much progress we were actually making. Which is tragic, but it suggests that we could wind them back up if we wanted to.”

When a family in crisis 鈥� immigration status, housing or food insecurity or chronic health issues 鈥� opens that door, the central question is who they trust enough to let in. The effectiveness of human-centered efforts to combat chronic absenteeism depends not just on what advocates do, but also on who they are.

to return chronically absent students to the classroom fail because the outreach often triggers fear and deeper institutional distrust in the communities it is meant to help. Successful community outreach requires professionals who share cultural background, common language and lived experience. 

The fundamental flaw in the traditional, compliance-based approach to chronic absenteeism is that it assumes everyone views institutional authority in the same manner. However, for marginalized families 鈥� such as undocumented households, those in poverty or those with prior experience with the judicial system 鈥� contact from official institutions inspires fear, not partnership. A recent report from Concentric Educational Solutions details this phenomenon. 

To reconnect the chronically absent to opportunity, a new approach 鈥� and a new face 鈥� is needed.

That is why the key to reengaging the approximately 25% of American students who are chronically absent is systematic, supportive outreach conducted by local community members who know the cultural background, language, lived experience and neighborhood context of the families they serve. 

This approach, which focuses on learning the 鈥渨hy鈥� behind absenteeism, is about understanding why a parent might not answer the door, what a family’s silence communicates and how to build a relationship in a living room that is often a family鈥檚 safest space. 

The presence of a professional who is invested in the community, who speaks a family’s language and understands its culture is qualitatively different even the most well meaning truancy officer. A shared identity is essential, ensuring advocates are perceived as trusted neighbors, not representatives of a system that may have previously failed the family.

Data shows that supportive interventions by trained community members lead to positive results. of this type of in-home outreach found that 48% of chronically absent students returned to school after just a single supportive intervention. This data shows the importance of families trusting the person delivering the help and the limits of compliance-based approaches to chronic absenteeism. 

For K-12 school districts and policymakers, the implications are clear. When thinking through outreach to the chronically absent, the messenger matters. Some districts use school staff for such outreach, but this often requires overtime pay and is hard to sustain; others hire members of the community specifically for the work. This is not a soft add-on: It is a critical component of how evidence-based attendance models actually function in the real world.

Unless school leaders hire individuals who are culturally and linguistically connected to the communities they serve for this sensitive outreach, they cannot expect genuine relational trust to simply materialize. That means prioritizing local hiring, language concordance and lived experience. This strategy ensures that the face at the door is one families recognize and trust and will directly translate institutional goals into positive student outcomes.

The knock at the door that can truly change a student鈥檚 trajectory is not the one carrying the authority of a uniform and truancy summons. It simply is the knock a family recognizes. Returning a student to school, engaging them in learning and reconnecting them to opportunity is sensitive work that occurs by rebuilding relationships one conversation at a time. And these critical conversations require individuals sharing a common language, a shared background and a face families already know and trust.

A similar split was present in the vast architecture of special education offered through Individualized Education Programs 鈥� though in that case, the dynamic was reversed, with IEP recipients much more likely to come from low-income families than well-off ones.

Nick Ainsworth, a doctoral student at the University of California, Irvine, and lead author, said his interest in the topic was stoked during the COVID era, when evaluations for special education fell dramatically in schools around the country. While studying trends leading up to the pandemic, however, he and his colleagues noticed how differently rich and poor households access the federal government鈥檚 two biggest sources of disability services.

鈥淲e looked across the income distribution and started to see these large differences,鈥� Ainsworth said. 鈥淲e had some hypotheses about what that would look like with respect to 504 plans, but we did not expect to see those differences favoring high-income students.”

Those findings may have come as a surprise to the research team, but they validate long-held suspicions among education observers that 504-mandated aid 鈥� considered less comprehensive than those provided by IEPs, but subject to fewer legal requirements 鈥� are directed disproportionately toward the affluent. 

In 2019, a pair of investigations by and revealed that school districts with higher average incomes enrolled conspicuously larger numbers of students with 504 plans. Eligible pupils are typically given extra time to complete assignments and tests, raising concerns that some parents exploited the program to gain unneeded academic perks for their kids.

Such cynicism is perhaps inevitable amid the furious competition waged for top scores and coveted admissions slots. And the jostling for position doesn鈥檛 even relent with the arrival of college acceptance letters: at America鈥檚 most prestigious universities now say they experience conditions like anxiety and ADHD, which can confer special accommodations. But experts say it is unclear whether the system is being gamed, or if its design simply leaves needier children underserved. 

Ainsworth and his colleagues created the study by gathering academic records for millions of Oregon students between the 2008鈥�09 and 2018鈥�19 school years, then over the same period. The combined data allowed them to see not only which students were classified as needing IEP vs. 504 services, but which specific disability they reported.

In all, one-quarter of the most disadvantaged students had an IEP, a portion more than three times greater than that of the very wealthiest students. Meanwhile, nearly twice as many students from families near the top of the income scale were assigned a 504 plan than those near the bottom (2.9 percent vs. 1.5 percent).

Paul Morgan, a professor at the University of Albany whose work focuses on disability classification, said those patterns reflected important distinctions in how the two offerings are used. 

IEPs provide specialized instruction geared toward each student鈥檚 learning goals, sometimes including placement outside general education classrooms. By contrast, 504 plans only require schools to make the requisite modification to give students equal access to learning opportunities. Their looser eligibility standards may allow parents with the resources and wherewithal to access support on behalf of children who aren鈥檛 obvious candidates for IEPs, Morgan remarked.

鈥淭hese are benefits that don’t come with a lot of costs. Your child is typically not leaving the classroom,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey might be seen as beneficial without much downside in terms of tradeoffs.鈥�

The laws鈥� tradeoffs

To a large degree, the tradeoffs families face when choosing between an IEP and a 504 plan are shaped by the laws governing each policy. Differences in those statutes mean that many don鈥檛 perceive a choice at all. 

IEPs were created by the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, which lists 鈥� from deaf-blindness to traumatic brain injury 鈥� that make children eligible for special education. Congress disburses annual grants to states ( in FY 2025) that pay for the provisions included in each student鈥檚 IEP. 

The calculation is different with 504 plans, which are not attached to any federal funding. Under the eponymous Section 504 of the , the plans establish students鈥� rights to reasonable accommodations for a much broader array of conditions. Yet in the absence of a federal subsidy, the assistance provided usually takes the form of cost-free interventions like extra testing time, preferential classroom seating, and even reduced homework burdens.

Schools are to find and evaluate children who may be disabled, but in practice, many are never referred for services. Christopher Cleveland, an assistant professor of education at Brown University and one of Ainsworth鈥檚 coauthors, said the incentives for schools to initiate the 504 process are 鈥減robably less clear.鈥�

鈥淢any school leaders feel that they’re in a high-pressure situation to figure out the resources of special education versus local, in-state dollars,鈥� Cleveland added. 鈥淲hereas the 504 plan decisions seem like they’re more subject to advocacy on the part of families.鈥�

The parents best equipped to wrangle the needed paperwork and prod school staffers toward a resolution are those with sufficient time, mental bandwidth, and experience dealing with bureaucracies. Since the outcome of 504 evaluations can hinge on diagnoses for disorders like social anxiety or attention deficit, it also helps to be able to afford the kind of expensive neuropsychological evaluations that insurance doesn鈥檛 always cover.

Miriam Nunberg is a former attorney for the Department of Education鈥檚 Office of Civil Rights who now works as in New York City. She said parents are obliged to be proactive in seeking accommodations, especially for high achievers whose performance at school tends to conceal learning difficulties. For guidance, they can turn to a cottage industry of lawyers, professional advocates, tutors, and clinical evaluators.

While each of them bill at healthy rates, the expense could be unavoidable in New York. As in many other jurisdictions, disability evaluations conducted through the school district have in the past due to staffing shortages.

鈥淲hen kids are pulling As and Bs, school staff generally aren’t referring them to assessments, whether for 504s or IEPs,鈥� Nunberg said. 鈥淪o it really has to come from the family 鈥� and that’s where you need to have the ability to educate yourself, or hire someone to help you with it.鈥�

Help on the SAT

Still, the mere fact that financially comfortable families are well positioned to hire that help doesn鈥檛 reveal anything about their motives. 

Ben Lovett, a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University鈥檚 Teachers College, said he thought the 鈥渧aluable鈥� study鈥檚 finding that poorer students are likelier to be assigned IEPs was plausible because poverty and disability . On the other hand, he wrote in an email, the overrepresentation of 504s at the high end of the income scale was 鈥渉arder to understand.鈥�

Some combination of three factors had to explain what was going on, Lovett continued: Either moneyed parents are pushing schools to issue 504 plans that are not educationally necessary; their children are particularly susceptible to conditions, such as mood or anxiety disorders, that aren鈥檛 usually addressed through special education; or the families of the neediest learners are more challenged than others in navigating the system. 

鈥淥nly additional research that audits 504 plans and investigates the evidence of disability for each student can really determine the degree to which these three factors explain the disparities,鈥� he wrote.

One suggestive detail is that the socioeconomic divide estimated in Ainsworth鈥檚 paper actually grew slightly as students entered middle and high school, when academic demands escalate. The lure of extra time on college exams could be a powerful inducement to grab any available edge.

A , published in March by Princeton doctoral candidate Tiffany Liu, discovered a measurable uptick in 504 plan enrollments in 2017 after the College Board began a policy of automatically honoring test takers鈥� school-based accommodations when they took the SAT. The increase was sharpest in wealthier schools.

Nunberg agreed that the elevated academic stakes of high school likely motivated some parents to have their sons and daughters evaluated for disabilities 鈥� especially after seeing them underperform on, or become anxious about, tests like the PSAT. But while conceding that some parents in New York always search for unwarranted advantages, she argued that it was more common to encounter intelligent kids juggling real problems of focus and executive function.

鈥淲hat I see much more often are kids who are brilliant and have a lot of pressure put on them by their parents, or themselves, or the system at large, and who are literally staying up all night to achieve high grades,鈥� she lamented.

The University of Albany鈥檚 Morgan said he believed there was substantial unmet need for disability services in K鈥�12 schools. What鈥檚 more, he concluded, it was 鈥渘ot unreasonable鈥� to think that people would use the methods at their disposal to push their offspring to the top of the pile.

鈥淚 imagine there is abuse or manipulation of the system, including by parents who view it as a way for their child to get additional support. Especially for some selective colleges, things have gotten so extremely cutthroat that you’d want to give your kid any benefit you could.鈥�

Yet just freely letting students use AI to generate ideas, explain difficult concepts and produce/revise writing 鈥� upon which learning depends and . 

So I have been attempting the 鈥渢hird option鈥� recommended by both the and the : teaching AI literacy.

This year my 10^th and 11^th grade English students used AI itself as a text to advance their critical thinking skills. We still read novels and short stories, still engaged in discussions and wrote essays, but AI was now a regular part of our work together.

As we read, we examined how large language models鈥� recycled novel 鈥渁nalyses鈥� mis-read and oversimplified complex literature, producing distillations that often lacked nuance compared with the creative, discursive yet defensible readings that the students themselves generated. They learned to discern actual analysis from simplistic summaries, and to suspect the allure of AI鈥檚 instant 鈥渃orrect answers.鈥�

As we engaged in literary discussions, we sometimes invited chatbots into the conversation; many students described these interactions as 鈥渂izarre鈥� and 鈥渄isjointed,鈥� adequate for reviewing plot but too circular or directionless for genuinely provocative dialogue. ChatGPT鈥檚 sycophancy in particular tended to kill the necessary tension for true debate. One student 鈥渟tarted purposely saying dumb things just to see how GPT would still find a way to say `great idea.鈥� It just felt so fake.鈥�

As we wrote, we compared LLM-generated essays with human-generated ones, teasing out how AI鈥檚 鈥渟ophisticated-sounding鈥� yet 鈥済eneric鈥� prose differed from the 鈥渕essier鈥� but ultimately, in the students鈥� judgment, more engaging language they themselves created. In a world where everyone has access to LLMs, these students were discovering the value of developing genuine voice. I hope at least some emerged thinking ChatGPT was best reserved for inter-office memos and letters to one鈥檚 utility company.

As we researched, we studied how AI search summaries 鈥� which users are now 鈥� don鈥檛 actually represent internet searches, but instead reflect word proximity within a static corpus of text, a corpus lacking access to paywalled scholarly research and therefore drawing disproportionately on unregulated chat forums. 

Students examined whether LLMs accurately reported their sources and to what extent AI drew from ideologically extreme sites. They saw how wording a query 鈥� e.g., 鈥渋s abortion safe鈥� vs. 鈥渋s abortion murder鈥� 鈥� could lead to politically-slanted results based on what the AI thought they wanted to see, and how sources often said something very different than AI summaries claimed they did. 

As we took and organized notes, students compared their manual note-taking process to the output of AI note-taking tools, learning how what we choose to include or exclude in summarizing notes, how we use emphasis and phrasing 鈥� did Africa under colonialism 鈥渇uel worldwide industrial production鈥� or were African resources and peoples 鈥渆xploited for the benefit of Western industrial profit鈥� 鈥� create and propagate different narratives.

These narratives do not ; 鈥渨hat is ranked at the top鈥� of AI searches 鈥渋s ultimately influenced by the priorities of LLMs鈥� shareholders,鈥� so we studied studying the politics of AI magnates like Sam Altman and Peter Thiel, learning how Gemini鈥檚 responses to political questions, and studying algorithmic bias (e.g., image generation requests for 鈥渄octor鈥� returning mainly white males), all helped my students re-think their understanding that AI tools were neutral and simply utilitarian.

When we studied AI, we simultaneously studied neurological research about how humans, unlike LLMs, don鈥檛 just rely on pattern recognition, but also make intuitive leaps, and used Edward De Bono鈥檚 activities as practice. Students did something else that AI couldn鈥檛: related classroom content to personal experiences. 

One multilingual student recalled attending a business meeting with her father where he faltered, because he 鈥淸knew] that someone who has the ability to speak English better [me] sat right next to him… 鈥業t makes me want to depend on you鈥� he told me, 鈥榳hen I鈥檓 totally capable of doing so by myself.鈥� He did much better after I left.鈥� The student then made the leap to consider how, even if AI help is readily available, perhaps we gain something by refusing to rely on it.

When I abandoned AI bans, I instituted AI audits. Students had to demonstrate their thoughtful, detailed evaluation of each AI tool they used, including knowledge of how it operated, what they felt they gained and lost by using it, how they verified accuracy of information, and how they had not relinquished their own thinking. The students didn鈥檛 necessarily conclude 鈥淎I is always bad,鈥� but they did see that using it always requires vigilance. Best of all, they didn鈥檛 have to take my moralizing word for any of this; they discovered it for themselves. 

Yes, I had to teach fewer novels in order to make room for AI literacy, but ultimately my job is not to teach novels; it鈥檚 to teach students. Their insights 鈥� how Grammarly鈥檚 鈥渃orrecting鈥� language altered integral parts of people鈥檚 unique voices, how personal evolution often comes from struggle and discomfort, how our desire for ease can hold us back from achieving our potential, how dangerous it is to invest authority in words just because they emerge from a machine 鈥� were equally valuable as any takeaway they gleaned from novels. And this time I knew those takeaways were theirs, not ChatGPT鈥檚.

I teach an affluent population, but are with more economically and linguistically diverse learners. To be sure, my experience was often fraught. Some of my less-confident students never stopped considering LLMs鈥� 鈥渃lear鈥� and 鈥渨ell organized鈥� writing superior to their own, and still hesitated to trust their own readings of literature over 鈥渢he answers鈥� ChatGPT offered. 

I struggle with asking students to critically evaluate AI while their own linguistic and analytic skills are still developing, but I also know I cannot create the conditions that allow teenagers to become master writers and thinkers before they are exposed to AI; they will soon arrive at my classroom having been using it since childhood. 

Post-pandemic suggests that, when teaching anything, we cannot wait for students operating well-below grade level to 鈥渃atch up鈥� before introducing higher order thinking skills; we have to figure out how to teach both simultaneously.   

That requires creativity, and creativity is what makes humans superior to AI, which can only regurgitate already-created ideas. Teachers excel at creativity; every day we come up with new ways to meet the ever-changing needs of our students, and right now AI literacy is one of those needs. 

that this training is crucial for keeping AI users 鈥� a population swiftly becoming synonymous with 鈥渉umans beings鈥� 鈥� from engaging in 鈥渃ognitive surrender, marked by passive trust and uncritical evaluation of external information,鈥� as opposed to 鈥渃ognitive offloading, which involves strategic delegation of cognition during deliberation鈥� when using AI.

about AI rendering English classes obsolete forget that the humanities are about studying what is human about us 鈥� including both our criticality and our adaptability.

Note: This is an abridged, non-scholarly version of a peer-reviewed article slated for publication in Issue 115.6 of NCTE鈥檚 .

The change has been highly controversial. Purists see umpiring as more art than science and worry that technology strips the game of its human element, holding umpires to near-impossible . Supporters counter that ABS encourages data-driven decisions that improves fairness and accountability.

If this debate sounds familiar to folks in K-12 education it should. 

More than a decade ago, tried to fix a broken teacher evaluation system that to distinguish between high and low performers and rarely used measures of actual effectiveness in deploying, rewarding and retaining teacher talent. Most controversially, reformers embraced new technology known as 鈥渧alue-added鈥� measures of teacher effectiveness that were ultimately abandoned for reasons ranging from political resistance to usage.

In many ways, the ABS system for grading umpires offers a useful lens for revisiting what teacher evaluation reform got right, where it went wrong, and what reformers and critics missed. 

Five lessons stand out.

First, start with where value-added provided useful information鈥攁nd where it did not. These measures were never equally informative for all teachers. Instead, they were strongest at the extremes, where the signal is largest. They were also only available for a subset of teachers, since only some subjects and grade levels are tested. As Cory Koedel , value-added measures are most useful for identifying the highest- and lowest-performing teachers, while distinguishing among the middle is much more difficult. 

Baseball has built an evaluation system grounded in that insight. ABS is not trying to get every call right or perfectly rank umpires from first to worst. Rather, it is designed to catch the most obvious mistakes, identifying consistently poor umpiring. 

Consider embattled umpire The show he misses , including ones where the stakes are simply too high to ignore. That is what ABS is built to detect, and the same logic applies to teacher evaluation. Even if value-added measures could not perfectly rank teachers, they could identify clear cases where students are being shortchanged with consistently ineffective instructors. Reformers sometimes pushed these measures too far, but critics were too quick to dismiss information that, in some contexts, clearly meant something.

A second lesson comes from how unions responded to the reform moment. There are only two basic ways to evaluate performance: subjective judgment or objective measures. Value-added was an imperfect attempt to introduce more objective information into a system long dominated by subjective evaluation. Rejecting it without offering a meaningful alternative with real consequences for poor performance was not a defense of good evaluation. It was a rejection of evaluation altogether.

That shift is especially striking when contrasted with how unions approached the issue in baseball. MLB umpires are , and their association did not block ABS outright. Instead, the union agreed to a hybrid system that preserves their role while using the new data to ensure umpiring excellence. 

There was a time when teacher-union leaders spoke in similar terms. As once put it, unions should be willing to 鈥渋dentify excellence and not simply be concerned with protecting jobs and defending due process.鈥� But this mindset often failed to take root. After the National Education Association briefly showed some openness to evaluation reform in 2011, it course, holding that 鈥渟tandardized tests, even if deemed valid and reliable, may not be used to support any employment action against a teacher.鈥� Then NEA-president Lily Eskelsen Garc铆a went so far as to value-added as 鈥渢he mark of the devil.鈥�

Some local unions have embraced peer review as an alternative: having teachers evaluate other teachers. In principle, this makes sense. A of Cincinnati鈥檚 evaluation system, which relied heavily on peer observation, found that teachers became more effective after being evaluated. But that is a different question from whether systems meaningfully differentiate performance or remove persistently low performers at scale. There, the evidence is less clear and evaluation systems designed to support improvement are not always well suited to making high-stakes personnel decisions.

Third, measurement only matters if it carries consequences. In baseball, it does. Umpires are graded using performance data and those evaluations directly affect playoff game assignments (bonuses). In other words, measurement is not symbolic, it is tied directly to outcomes. In education, that link is often missing. Many districts still rely on last-in, first-out rules that remove newer teachers first, regardless of their classroom effectiveness. Here again baseball offers a clear illustration of why that misses the mark. When analysts retiring veteran umpires with the younger group replacing them, the younger cohort was significantly more accurate.

Fourth, these debates remind us just how far actors with a vested interest will go to defend the status quo when reform threatens their career interests. Consider the  from veteran pitcher Walker Buehler that experienced players should receive a more generous strike zone. The logic is familiar. In education, similar arguments are made to insulate veteran teachers from performance-based decisions. In both cases, the argument is less about getting it right than about protecting incumbents.

Finally, this is about getting it right for the people the system is meant to serve. In baseball, the league operates under what is essentially a fiduciary obligation to the integrity of the game. That is, it has a duty to act in the best interests of the game itself, which includes striving for fairness and accuracy in how the game is played. As one recent put it, MLB鈥檚 governing rules and 鈥渂est interests of baseball鈥� authority create a fiduciary-like duty to minimize preventable errors that could undermine trust in outcomes. That obligation has real implications. It does not disappear because new technology is uncomfortable for employees or changes how the job is done. If better tools can reduce clear errors, ignoring them risks undermining the game itself. 

Education rarely operates this way. Student learning is often treated as one goal among many, balanced against . Courts have even declined to recognize a basic right to effective teaching, as in the 2014 ruling. But if schools exist for anything, they to educate students. That should be the north star. Evaluation systems are not about satisfying adults. They are about ensuring that students are not consistently shortchanged.

Baseball is showing that there is a better way. Imperfect tools can still improve decision-making when they are used where they are strongest. The question is not whether a measure captures everything. It is whether it helps us avoid the most obvious mistakes.

鈥淚t is painful,鈥� he said, 鈥渁nd some of you have moved two to three times to find a school for your child.鈥�

His passion for the issue was one of the reasons he wanted to chair the education committee when Republicans took control of the Senate in 2024. That same year, he issued pointing to the nation鈥檚 sagging performance in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress and advocated for more phonics-based instruction. His staff is now working on a far-reaching literacy bill that would ensure federal funds are spent on the programs that follow the science of reading.

But Cassidy might not be in Congress to see the culmination of his efforts. In his race for re-election, he faces three primary challengers, including Rep. Julie Letlow, who, unlike Cassidy, has secured President Donald Trump鈥檚 endorsement. 

Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming and Mark Spencer, who calls himself a 鈥済uns and Bible conservative鈥� are also on the ballot May 16, but the real race is between Cassidy, Fleming and Letlow. the vote could be close.

鈥淭his is a three-way race and anything can happen,鈥� said Robert Hogan, a political scientist at Louisiana State University. It鈥檚 rare for an incumbent senator to lose in a primary. The last one was moderate Republican of Indiana in 2012. At this point, Hogan said, there鈥檚 no guarantee Cassidy will even get to a runoff.

The first sign that Cassidy鈥檚 bid for a third term was in trouble came when he voted in 2021 to of inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6 that year. 鈥淭he country is more important than any one person,鈥� he said in a brief statement at the time. As Trump eyed his return to the White House, Louisiana lawmakers in 2024 changed the election law so that only registered party members or those who are unaffiliated can vote in a party鈥檚 primary. Previously, open primaries allowed Cassidy to pick up support from voters on the left. 

The move, Hogan said, was meant to squeeze out so-called RINOS, or Republicans-in-name-only. To MAGA Republicans, Bill Cassidy hasn鈥檛 been loyal enough. 

Gov. Jeff Landry, who , has complained that Cassidy supported 鈥渓iberal Obama judges鈥� and listened to 鈥淣ever Trumpers.鈥� While Cassidy, a physician, voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services, he continues to express disagreement with Kennedy鈥檚 statements that cast doubt on vaccine safety.

鈥淟ife is lived forward, and so what I have to do is do my best to reassure the American people that vaccines are safe,鈥� he last fall without answering whether he regretted voting in favor of the secretary鈥檚 nomination. The two clashed again over vaccine research when Kennedy testified before the committee. Those who support Kennedy鈥檚 positions on public health issues are .

鈥楾he same language鈥�

On other issues, the incumbent continues to voice his allegiance to Trump鈥檚 agenda. He launched an investigation into Massachusetts over allowing a trans female to compete on a girls鈥� track team. The president 鈥渟igned an executive order to restore fairness for women and girls. I’m demanding that states comply,鈥� he posted on X.

Following Trump鈥檚 State of the Union address in February, all the ways he has 鈥渨orked with President Trump.鈥� But to Trump, it appears, the vote to impeach is all that matters.

鈥淭his administration is completely blinded by their need for retribution at any cost,鈥� said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, who has been pushing for updating federal policy on literacy. Cassidy, she said, is 鈥�100% principally aligned鈥� with what Education Secretary Linda McMahon wants to accomplish, but the administration 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 think very strategically around those things.鈥�

Three years ago, Rodrigues didn鈥檛 consider Cassidy an ally. 

He was among the five GOP senators in late 2022 who objected to her involvement in a parent council launched by former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. The organizations chosen to participate, they argued, were 鈥渓iberal advocacy groups鈥� out to 鈥渘ationalize our education systems.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

But Rodrigues and Cassidy found common ground on solving the nation鈥檚 literacy crisis. He has greeted busloads of parents that the advocacy organization has brought to Capitol Hill over the years to share their stories.聽

鈥淚t was almost like he connected with his people,鈥� she said, 鈥渂ecause they all spoke the same language.鈥�

Letlow, first elected to the House in 2020, has also focused on parents鈥� concerns. she backed in 2023 aimed to give parents more say over curriculum and library materials, require schools to notify parents about violent incidents at schools and increase transparency into district budgets. The bill passed the House, but never received a vote in the Senate.

A former university administrator, Letlow supports Trump鈥檚 plan to . But her stance on diversity, equity and inclusion before she entered politics gave Cassidy a reason to question whether she鈥檚 sufficiently loyal to Trump.

Conservative news outlets dug up a of Letlow interviewing to be president of the University of Louisiana at Monroe in which she said it was 鈥渟hameful鈥� that the institution didn鈥檛 have more women faculty members. While she didn鈥檛 get the job, she said establishing a DEI office would have been one of her first moves. 

She has since , saying that DEI efforts were 鈥渉ijacked by the radical left and turned into indoctrination.鈥�

Fleming, a former Congressman and then Trump adviser, as a 鈥減roven MAGA conservative鈥� who didn鈥檛 鈥渃ut and run鈥� from the administration after Jan. 6.

The Louisiana Senate seat is considered safe for Republicans. Whoever emerges as the party鈥檚 nominee is expected to win the general election in November. But neither Letlow nor Fleming would be in line to chair the education committee. 

If Cassidy loses and the GOP stays in control of the Senate, that job would likely go to Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said David Cleary, a former Republican education staffer for the Senate and now a principal with The Group, a Washington lobbying firm. 

Those with more seniority than her would be highly unlikely to give up their current leadership posts, Cleary said. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky chairs the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, if she wins re-election in November, 鈥渨ould never鈥� leave her position as chair of the appropriations committee, he said.

Murkowski, considered a GOP moderate, to shutter the Education Department. In March, she with Cassidy to make it easier for students to find funds for college. 

But the window to get a literacy bill passed could close if Cassidy doesn鈥檛 return to the Senate next year, said Rodrigues with the National Parents Union. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be kind of back to the drawing board.鈥�

The appeal, published last fall, was unexpected in part because Duncan 鈥� who served in the Obama cabinet from 2009 to 2016 after a well-regarded stint as CEO of Chicago Public Schools 鈥� spends much less of his time opining on national K鈥�12 politics than he did a decade ago. His daily focus is now directed at reducing gun violence through the work of , a nonprofit he helped found in the city where he was raised.

But even more surprising was the substance of Duncan鈥檚 broadside, which pitched the Education Freedom Tax Credit to Democratic officeholders and voters as a 鈥渘o-brainer鈥� tool to give struggling students a chance to receive a better education. The $1,700 scholarships, available beginning in January, are federally funded through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and can only be accessed in states that opt in. 

Among Democratic governors, only one has given his assent to the program thus far, and Senate Democrats have already introduced legislation before it even takes effect. But while he remains a passionate critic of President Trump, whom he calls a would-be autocrat, Duncan sees potential in the kind of school choice offering that his party has spent decades opposing. He believes the magnitude of post-COVID learning loss, disproportionately borne by children already facing huge disadvantages, necessitates the philosophical shift. 

The argument is part of a broader critique of Democrats鈥� education stances over the last decade, which have veered significantly from the model of accountability-based education reform that Duncan practiced in both Chicago and Washington. Like fellow Chicagoan and Obama administration veteran , he believes his party has largely conceded the issue of K鈥�12 schools to Republicans and allowed students to suffer in the partisan crossfire. In March, he signed on as a senior fellow at the advocacy group Democrats for Education Reform. 

鈥淲e’re adrift, it’s killing us politically, and it’s killing our kids,鈥� he told 社区黑料鈥檚 Kevin Mahnken. 鈥淚’m deeply troubled by what’s happening to kids, and by what’s happening to us because we’ve lost any vision for education.鈥�

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

社区黑料: Your op-ed last fall encouraged Democrats to participate in the Education Freedom Tax Credit. That seemed like your first major intervention on national K鈥�12 issues in a while. What was behind that decision?

Arne Duncan: I don’t actually think it was that dramatic. I’ve been out there 鈥� maybe not writing, but doing four or five panels at the ASU+GSV conference every year, and traveling to speak. My day job is gun violence in Chicago, so I’m not doing this all day, every day, but I didn’t see the op-ed in that way.

It was striking that you expressed a view that very few other Democrats hold. I’m only aware of one Democratic governor, Jared Polis of Colorado, who has opted into the program.

Let me try to speak to that by saying a couple of things. 

First, I was personally impacted by ICE here in Chicago. seeing horrific abuses, including things I’ve never seen before. I try to fight gun violence and gang violence every day here 鈥� last year, we were lucky to have the safest year here in 60 years 鈥� but I’ve never seen a gang in Chicago as well-armed and well-financed and violent as ICE. What they did to innocent people, citizens and non-citizens, was unbelievable.

So if I have a choice between sending a tax dollar to fund ICE to attack our people, or keep it in my state to help a child get more summer school, or tutoring, or whatever it may be, that’s not a close decision for me. That’s as plainly as I can put it: One hundred times out of 100, I would rather help kids struggling in my home state to catch up and have a chance to be successful in life, instead of sending another dollar to D.C. to fund ICE to come attack us.

But in the op-ed, you didn’t just make an argument to keep away as much revenue as possible from the Trump administration. You see a positive good flowing from this federal program providing more money for kids’ educational costs, right?

One hundred percent. There’s no loss of funds from our state’s taxpayers, it’s all additive. I don’t have the math in front of me right now, but hundreds of millions of dollars, or even billions of dollars. And that’s if only 20% or 30% of people took advantage of the program, which is a conservative estimate.

Pre-pandemic, we had tens of millions of kids who were way too far behind. Coming out of the pandemic, it’s gotten even more catastrophic. You saw last year’s NAEP results, which were devastating, but I just don’t see the sense of urgency out there. I don’t see people pulling their hair out and asking, 鈥榃hat more can we do to help kids catch up?鈥� If I have a chance to help the kids who are farthest behind, and to do it now, it’s a moral obligation: Let’s help these kids who are so incredibly far behind before we lose them. 

I don’t want to lose that generation of talent, not for our economy and not for our democracy, but that’s what we’re in danger of. I think the chronic absenteeism rate in Chicago is 41%; just think of four out of 10 kids missing a month or more of school every year! What are we going to do, just say that school is optional? 

I’m trying to help you understand how simple this is to me, and what an obvious moral choice it is. To say to all of these kids, 鈥業 have a chance to give you more money for summer school, or afterschool, but I’m going to send it all to Trump鈥� 鈥� are you fucking kidding me? It’s inconceivable.

What would you say to people who say this policy will inevitably undermine public schools, or who fear that private schools receiving public funding could discriminate against gay or trans kids? These are of these programs.

Of course, you need all kinds of guardrails. There’s no free lunch with public money, and there needs to be accountability. If school admissions are discriminatory, that’s a nonstarter. 

But in every state, 90-plus percent of kids go to public schools, and they’re going to remain in public schools. This is a program to supplement what they get because we’re not giving them enough. I’m trying to give them longer days, Saturday school, summer school. Our dosage of education ain’t working because it’s insufficient for what they need to build a better life. Obviously, governors can and should put parameters on use so that organizations that discriminate against students or families can’t receive the money. It’s not that hard.

Have you personally recommended to Gov. Pritzker that Illinois participate in the program?

He’s been an amazing partner working on violence in Chicago, but I haven’t had that conversation with him. 

I’m happy to talk to current governors, but we have 38 gubernatorial elections this year. With a nonexistent Department of Education, and dysfunction in D.C., all the action is at the state level now. Whether it’s sitting governors, or candidates, or people thinking about running, I’m happy to share my perspective. There are a lot of other perspectives they should hear, but there’s a huge opportunity here.

What’s the downside risk on education for Democratic officeholders and candidates right now? 

There are three reasons I’m concerned. First, overall student performance is devastatingly low, as I’ve mentioned. Second, going into the last election, Republicans were . It’s inconceivable to me, but education was a losing issue for Democrats. And that election was so close, you could argue that our party’s lack of leadership on education helped to give the presidency to Trump. Had we been winning on education in those states, maybe that would have been just enough to tip the election our way. 

Finally, the only bright spots on NAEP are coming from red states. To me, that’s an embarrassment. How is it possible that the states showing the most progress on student results are all red states? We should be deeply ashamed. I’m watching all of this and feeling like we’re lost. 

In education, you need four things: You need goals, you need strategies to achieve your goals, you need metrics to measure them and you need public transparency and accountability. If you asked anyone on our side what our goals are, our strategies or metrics, we don’t have any of those things. We’re adrift, it’s killing us politically, and it’s killing our kids. So if you ask why I’m speaking out more, that’s why. I’m deeply troubled by what’s happening to kids, and by what’s happening to us because we’ve lost any vision for education.

There is good evidence that the polling outlook has improved for Democrats since 2023, when that swing state polling was conducted. How big a disadvantage do you really think education will be for the party? Is this an issue that voters will care about more than, say, the economy?

I’ve been blessed to work for two political leaders, Mayor Daley in Chicago and Barack Obama. I know how lucky that was. Both of them ran on education, both talked about it every day, and both put their time and resources and reputation on the line to improve education. To me, it’s not a coincidence that they were wildly popular politicians.

If the other side is selling fear and culture wars, and we’re selling nothing, we’re conceding the issue. Everyone’s worried about their kids right now, everyone’s worried about the economy, and everyone’s worried about democracy. For me, high-quality education for everybody is the answer to all of that. I look at those two extraordinarily successful politicians, and you couldn’t talk about their legacy without mentioning education. Good policy helped them politically.

So it’s a mistake to not run on education, not lead with it, not learn from those examples of politicians who put their sweat, blood, and tears into the issue. It was the right thing for the city of Chicago and the country, and guess what? It was also good for them politically.

And you don’t see Democrats emulating them?

That’s what I’m telling you! We have no goals. I can’t be more explicit about the fact that we don’t have an education agenda, and that is incredibly troubling to me. You can quote me on that.

We need those four things I just mentioned, and we need to run on education. It’s the right thing for our kids, and it’s the right thing for our communities and local economies to have graduates instead of having dropouts. We need to own this. The fact that we’ve conceded that education leadership to Republicans, who are selling crap and pitting people against each other 鈥� that’s just untenable to me.

It seems as though the GOP is pursuing the same goal it’s had for many decades 鈥� private school choice 鈥� but the Democrats have kind of let go of the rope with respect to questions like academic standards, accountability and forms of public school choice like charter schools.

I’d disagree with you on the Republican side because I think it’s more insidious than that. They’re pushing hate and divisiveness, like attacking trans athletes. This is not neutral territory. They are pitting people against each other because it’s a winning strategy for them to divide and conquer. They’re attacking the most vulnerable by gutting the Office of Civil Rights at the Education Department, which fights for the kids who are the most abused and traumatized. 

I hate that that’s a winner politically, but it is. But I don’t want to wrestle in the mud with them and fight those battles. I want to create a plan to help all kids and tell parents that we care desperately about their future, that we want them to have access to education beyond high school. Let’s have these conversations and be honest about it. 

I’m out talking with parents all the time, and it resonates when you’re speaking to them. Parents don’t care about systems. They care about their kid, their school, their classrooms, and that’s what we’ve got to speak to them about.

Do you think it’s possible to swerve around the cultural fights? As you mention, some of these social controversies 鈥� the inclusion of trans athletes, but also things like accelerated learning in places like San Francisco 鈥� are quite important to people, and they seem to leave Democrats wrong-footed. I don’t think those issues can be ignored.

I’m worried about 100% of kids. The trans athlete issue affects, what, 0.0001% of kids? It’s insignificant, but somehow it becomes a good political issue for Republicans. Which I hate because, again, it’s attacking the most vulnerable. I just want to put out a proactive agenda that says that we care about 100% of kids, we’re not happy with reading scores now, we’re not happy with chronic absenteeism and we’re not doing enough. 

We have to be honest with parents because parents are smart: 鈥榃e want to help every child find their path, and we need to partner better with you because you’re always going to be kids’ first and most important teachers. How can parents and teachers and students come together and do things differently?鈥� And, to go back to the first issue we talked about: 鈥楤y the way, here’s some additional money to help your students! What would it take for them to learn biology in the summer?鈥�

You think that conversation wouldn’t resonate? You think it wouldn’t get parents to say, 鈥楾hese guys actually care about me and my family?鈥� We can do this. We have to do it.

Do you find it notable that on education right now may well be a fellow Chicagoan, Rahm Emanuel? What do you make of his reemergence as a potential presidential candidate?

We all come at this in different ways. I’ve done a couple things with him, and we agree on some things and disagree on others. But what I appreciate about him 鈥� whether he runs for president or not, and I know he’s looking at it 鈥� is that he’s . I just want everybody, Republican or Democrat, talking about this. 

Rahm sees there’s a void there, a gap, and he knows how important it is. Like Mayor Daley, he ran Chicago, and they both know that you can’t have a great city without a great public education system 鈥� just like you can’t have a great country without a great public education system. He’s lived this, and I appreciate him elevating the issue in ways that many others don’t. 

I’m much less interested in the specific policies in schools because I’ve traveled the country, and what works in Montana might be very different from what works in Mississippi or West Virginia. What I want is for governors, congressmen, senators, and presidential candidates to run saying that education is what they care about, and that they’ll hold themselves accountable to that. That would be nirvana for me.

When President Trump returned to the White House, you expressed serious fears about his plans for the Education Department. A year later, would you say those fears have been realized?

It’s pathetic. It’s so sad.

Last year, I was on a flight going to speak at [the education conference] ASU+GSV. When I got off the plane, my phone is blowing up with messages saying, 鈥榊ou’re not going to believe it, but Linda McMahon is talking about steak sauce. She’s talking about A1.鈥� [In a discussion of innovation in schools, the education secretary the abbreviation for artificial intelligence with the name of the popular condiment.] I had to walk into a session that afternoon thinking about that.

Think about someone leading the Education Department who is so divorced from what’s going on in the world that they literally don’t know what AI is. It was in her notes, and she literally didn’t know. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so revealing about what Trump thinks. Trump aspires to be an autocratic leader. What every autocratic leader needs to do is attack and dismantle education. Whether it’s the assault on higher education or the gutting of the Department of Education, what is most scary to autocratic leaders is to have people who can think critically and discern information from misinformation. There’s nothing he’s done that is of any surprise.

This is much bigger than just dismantling the Department of Education, which is horrible in its own right. It’s part of a strategy of attacking education, and it’s what [outgoing prime minister Viktor] Orban did in Hungary. So it’s important that your readers understand that what’s at stake is not just about this department and that department. The way authoritarian leaders win is by becoming the only source of truth.

Why did slave masters kill slaves that learned how to read? Because they knew that reading is powerful. It’s the same throughline here: Why is Trump going after education? Because he knows knowledge is power.

Given the ongoing series of political controversies in your hometown, are you concerned about school governance in Chicago?

Yes. When I was superintendent, I answered to seven board members who were appointed by the mayor. They now have 21 board members, and I don’t know anyone in life who ever wanted 21 bosses. That’s a few too many.

I worry that it’s been set up for failure. They’re working through it, but I can’t think of a major, high-functioning company with 21 bosses who each have their own constituents. As the district recently went through a CEO search, I talked to some very high-quality people across the country, and none of them were interested because of the governance. So it’s scaring away talent.

A private meeting between the Senate education committee and Education Secretary Linda McMahon was canceled Wednesday after Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat, invited the press to listen in. 鈥淚 was unwilling to accept the notion that the discussion of matters of this magnitude, that matter so much to Virginians, could only be behind closed doors,鈥� he told reporters.

He said he was willing to back down if the secretary would commit to appearing before the committee within the next six weeks. In December, Democrats to participate in a hearing to discuss efforts to shut down the Department of Education, but that hasn鈥檛 happened. Following passage of the 2026 budget in January, Congress asked to meet regularly with officials for updates on the interagency agreements with other agencies, but Kaine added that he鈥檚 unaware if those have taken place.

鈥淚n my view,鈥� he said, 鈥渢he secretary and other leaders have pursued a strategy that is unlawful in taking programs within the Department of Education that are statutory in nature and sort of willy nilly ending them, shrinking them or handing them over to other agencies.鈥�

In , GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, chair of the committee, said 鈥淒emocrats will not dictate the terms of today鈥檚 meeting and have lost the chance to speak to the Secretary today.鈥�

McMahon hasn鈥檛 appeared before the committee since her confirmation hearing over a year ago. On X, : 鈥淚t鈥檚 disappointing that instead of a productive conversation about the state of our nation鈥檚 students and the steps we鈥檙e taking at the Department of Education to reverse this trend and break up the bureaucracy, this became about producing another media clip for MSNBC.鈥�

It was only three months ago that Congress the Trump administration鈥檚 last attempt to slash education spending and roll an array of programs into a block grant.

From the reception that some members of the Senate Appropriations Committee gave U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Tuesday, it appeared not much has changed. 

Both Republicans and Democrats grilled the secretary over the Trump administration鈥檚 plan to cut funding for rural schools and programs that help low-income students enter and complete college. 

Consolidating $220 million for rural education with 16 other programs 鈥� including literacy grants, education for homeless students and afterschool programs 鈥� into a $2 billion Make Education Great Again grant program would 鈥渦ndermine the goals of helping our K through 12 schools,鈥� Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the committee, told McMahon. 鈥淧rotecting rural schools and rural communities has always been one of my top priorities.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Throughout the two-hour hearing, McMahon defended the president鈥檚 $76.5 billion , saying that although 鈥渋t is a reduction,鈥� the block grant proposal 鈥� a long time goal for conservatives 鈥� would give states more say over how to spend federal dollars. The so-called MEGA grant program will prioritize reading and math, McMahon said, and 鈥渦nleash momentous opportunity for every child to realize their God-given potential.鈥�

The budget would maintain funding for Title I, serving high-poverty schools, at $18.4 million, and boost spending for students with disabilities by over $500 million. 

But the proposal includes a 35% cut to the Office for Civil Rights and eliminates some programs completely. Those include $428 million in services for migrant children and what is known as TRIO, a batch of programs that prepare students for higher education as early as middle school. 

鈥淚 oppose the administration’s proposal to 鈥� eliminate a program that enjoys robust support and has made such a difference in the lives of children,鈥� Collins said, noting that three of her staff members would not have attended college without TRIO.

She was among the six Republicans and six Democrats who sent McMahon earlier this month objecting to how the department has altered two of the TRIO grants to direct students toward the workforce instead of college. 

鈥淐ollege is not the only solution for everyone,鈥� McMahon told the members.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, cited data showing that low-income, high school students who participate in Upward Bound are more than twice as likely to earn a bachelor鈥檚 degree by age 24 than their peers who don鈥檛 participate. 

鈥淭he stats from these programs are pretty damn impressive,鈥� he said. 

Even Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, who has authored that would eliminate the Education Department, called TRIO a “sensitive area鈥� and urged McMahon to consider the committee鈥檚 concerns. 

Other Republicans praised the secretary for continuing efforts to shut down the department in the face of extensive criticism.

鈥淵ou are so cool, literally and figuratively,鈥� said Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana. 鈥淭hey call you names, and you just ignore them.鈥�

鈥�50 years of progress鈥�

To some Democrats, McMahon has also turned her back on parents who don鈥檛 want to see special education offloaded to another agency. The secretary said her team still hasn鈥檛 decided what would happen to programs that fall under the Individuals with Disabilities Act. Some might go to the Department of Labor, while others could go to the Department of Health and Human Services, she said.

鈥淚’ve gotten a petition from thousands of parents, educators, advocates who are concerned that will really undermine 50 years of progress in making sure the rights of children and students with disabilities are met,鈥� said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, ranking member of the committee.

Both Murray and Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut clashed with McMahon over the way her staff has handled civil rights enforcement. 

鈥淗ow do you defend that not a single child in Connecticut got a positive resolution from the Department of Education for their discrimination claims?鈥� Murphy asked her. 鈥淪eventy of them had disability claims.鈥�

While he鈥檚 not on the committee, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent, released a calling McMahon鈥檚 OCR 鈥渢he least productive in over a decade.鈥� The document notes that the office reached 鈥渮ero resolution agreements for students facing serious traumatic incidents including sexual harassment, sexual violence, seclusion, restraint, racial harassment and discriminatory school discipline.鈥�

He cited a January government watchdog report showing that putting OCR staff on paid leave last year, after she tried to fire them, cost taxpayers at least $38 million. 

McMahon insisted that the administration was ramping up efforts to address such complaints and seemed confused that the president calls for a $49 million cut to OCR, bringing the budget to $91 million.

鈥淭hat’s a floor number,鈥� she said. 鈥淗opefully we’ll have the ability to increase that number.鈥�

She ordered OCR staff on leave to return in December to address a backlog of cases, and is supervisors and attorneys for regional offices. An internal memo, shared with 社区黑料, shows the regional directors would go to Denver, Seattle and the D.C. offices. But according to an OCR attorney, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, there have been 鈥渓ots of departures鈥� among those McMahon brought back. 

鈥極verdue for a debate鈥�

Some who watched the exchanges between McMahon and the committee Tuesday were struck by the level of bipartisanship over the TRIO program.

鈥淚t shows the kind of Congressional support these programs have built up over many years, and the strong constituencies they have behind them,鈥� said Maureen Tracey-Mooney, associate director of FutureEd, a Georgetown University think tank. Previously, she led K-12 policy development for the Biden White House.

She added that the programs that McMahon aims to wrap into the MEGA program 鈥渇ocus on the most vulnerable student groups.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Those would include students who need after-school care and are currently served by the 21st Century Community Learn Centers program. 

鈥淲hat do you do once they leave the classroom when they’re so young and they can’t obviously take care of themselves at home?鈥� asked Republican Sen. Shelley Capito of West Virginia.

McMahon responded that it would be up to states to decide whether after-school programs are a priority for them.鈥淲e’re certainly overdue for a debate about how to best support our nation’s students,鈥� Tracey-Mooney said. 鈥淏ut I think we are unlikely to see a rigorous engagement in Congress with these ideas through the budget process.鈥�