But the 鈥渢echlash鈥� took a turn last week when seven families in a Philadelphia suburb sued their school district in federal court for not allowing families to opt their children out of using the internet.

The 8,500-student Lower Merion School District adopted a Aug. 17 that limits the use of devices in elementary school and doesn鈥檛 assign laptops or iPads to students until they鈥檙e in fifth grade. 

The policy tries to strike a balance between recognizing that 鈥渇amilies have different perspectives on student access to technology,鈥� while still 鈥渕aximizing the educational value of technology resources.鈥� But in June, the board repealed a that allowed  parents to refuse internet-connected devices for their kids. 

Citing research on the addictive nature of online sites and the harmful effects of social media, the parents accuse the district, Superintendent Frank Ranelli and seven board members of creating 鈥渁n environment that is unhealthy, unsafe and invasive for students.鈥� The complaint argues that the policy denies parents鈥� rights to make decisions about their children鈥檚 鈥渦pbringing and education鈥� and puts kids at risk of accessing online pornography and violent videos. One child, according to the lawsuit, began 鈥渃ompulsively playing an online poker game on his school device.鈥�

In a statement, the district said it 鈥渄enies the allegations and will respond further through the judicial process.鈥� But officials also noted that not all of the parents have students in the district. Of the seven families bringing the lawsuit, just three have students still enrolled. The rest have children described as 鈥渆ligible to attend鈥� this fall. One family enrolled their kids in a private school, according to the complaint.

An 鈥榰nusual lawsuit鈥�

The case is the latest move by the EdTech Law Center, led by a husband and wife legal team in Texas, to force districts to significantly restrict internet use. Andrew and Julie Liddell, who are working with a representing the parents, also have several active cases against ed tech vendors, including , an online learning platform, and  , a student information system. In a statement, Andrew Liddell said he believes the case 鈥渋s the first of its kind.鈥� It鈥檚 not typical, experts say, for disputes between parents and districts over tech use to end up in court. 

鈥淭his is an unusual lawsuit,鈥� said Stacy Hawthorne, board chair for the Consortium for School Networking, a professional organization. It鈥檚 difficult, she said, to bring a constitutional challenge over a school board鈥檚 policymaking authority. 鈥淐ourts generally have not given individual families a veto over a district鈥檚 instructional or technology policies.鈥�

The lawsuit comes about a week after Education Secretary Linda McMahon said during a CNN interview that to request something different if they think an ed tech tool, especially one using artificial intelligence, is not right for their child. 

In response to parents鈥� concerns and warnings from researchers about the effects of too much screen time, several states are . Last week, New York lawmakers that would make paper-and-pencil tasks the predominant means of instruction in elementary classrooms. 

Kelly Clancy, a Brooklyn mom of three who serves on a local community education council in the New York City Public Schools, said parents are 鈥渞eally excited鈥� about the bill and that advocacy groups 鈥渁re planning a major statewide push.鈥� But she thinks most parents are more interested in seeing districts adopt strict screen time policies rather than opting out. 

鈥淧arents want to trust their kids鈥� schools to put learning first,鈥� she said. 鈥淣o one wants to reach the point of litigation.鈥� 

Ed tech organizations and the have called for limiting overuse while thoroughly vetting programs to ensure they improve learning.

鈥淣othing should replace that one-on-one teacher interaction with students,鈥� McMahon said during her CNN spot. 鈥淎re we looking at it as recreational screen time or are we looking at it as tutorial screen time? There is a right balance to be used in the classroom.鈥� 

Hawthorne, chair of the Consortium for School Networking, said she doesn鈥檛 expect similar lawsuits to become common, and that most disputes over screen time, privacy and AI 鈥渨ill continue to play out through school board deliberations, elections and state policymaking.鈥� 

But she urged districts to take parents鈥� concerns seriously and to explain how their use of technology supports learning and protects kids online.

鈥楾eacher-led education鈥�

The debate between Lower Merion district leaders and parents flared up in the spring when, according to the complaint, device use 鈥渉ad grown intolerable to many parents.鈥� 

Yair Lev, the lead plaintiff, has two children at Cynwyd Elementary in the district and helped organize Pencils Over Pixels to advocate in favor of maintaining the opt-out policy. When Ranelli, the superintendent, and local school administrators began telling parents they couldn鈥檛 opt out, the conflict escalated.

Lev, a cardiologist and professor at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, sent numerous emails to board members asking them not to 鈥渆liminate parent protections.鈥�

In a July message, he described an earlier conversation in which he said the superintendent told him that parents who object to Chromebooks and online curriculum 鈥渨ere welcome to leave the public school district and go to private school.鈥�

at previous meetings by some parents demanding to opt their children out of using devices, the district ultimately moved the final vote on the policy to Zoom and allowed no public comments. The district is also adopting a new program that allows both to monitor device use.

In a statement shared with 社区黑料, Lev said he has no plans to pull his kids out of the district.

“We are not willing to sacrifice the public schools and community we love,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e simply seek to preserve our right as parents to choose a teacher-led education for our children without mandatory technology requirements.”

Now he鈥檚 likely to be the next state superintendent after defeating teacher and conservative pastor James Taylor in the Republican runoff Tuesday. 

鈥淚 thought to myself, 鈥業f we lose, at least it edifies the work that you’re doing. You’ll have a much more grounded perspective,鈥� 鈥� he told 社区黑料 in an interview.

He鈥檒l face the Democratic candidate Jennettie Marshall, a pastor and former Tulsa Public Schools board member, in November. But in such a conservative state, Franklin is expected to be the frontrunner. 

With strong support from pro-public school networks, Franklin鈥檚 primary win represents a clear departure from the state鈥檚 last elected state superintendent, conservative firebrand Ryan Walters. The former history teacher pushed Bibles in classrooms, threatened to revoke teachers鈥� licenses for teaching topics some view as divisive and filled his calendar with appearances on conservative talk shows. Critics said he neglected the state鈥檚 education system. 

Franklin, a moderate Republican, has more than 40 years in education as a teacher, administrator and associate superintendent at Tulsa Tech, an independent district offering career training to high school students and adults. As a former member of the state鈥檚 now-defunct virtual charter school board, he voted against allowing the state to open the nation鈥檚 first religious charter school, separating himself from Walters and other officials who battled unsuccessfully all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to establish the school. With the state now trying to improve its poor educational rankings, where it is nearly last in the nation, one political expert said Franklin seemed 鈥渓ike the safer choice.鈥�

鈥淩yan Walters is pretty fresh in a lot of folks鈥� memories across the state, including Republicans,鈥� said Deven Carlson, a public policy researcher at the University of Oklahoma. As an inductee into the state鈥檚 Educator Hall of Fame, Franklin, he said 鈥渋s kind of a known quantity in the education space.鈥�

Franklin stepped into the race after Rob Miller, former superintendent of the Bixby Public Schools and an outspoken critic of Walters, withdrew . Teacher groups quickly shifted their support to Franklin, who along with Taylor, edged out five other candidates in the June primary, including state Sen. Adam Pugh.

Walters, who had been expected to run for governor, left his job a year early and now runs an organization that encourages teachers to opt out of their unions. Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed Lindel Fields, a retired career and technical education administrator, to complete the term and has since appointed him as education secretary. 

Fields some of Walters鈥� policies, like requiring classrooms to have Bibles and expecting applicants for teaching positions from blue states to take an , a conservative media company. The multiple choice test covered civics and history topics, but also included ideological questions about parental rights and gender issues.

Education advocates see Franklin as one who can further mend the relationship between school districts and the department.

鈥淔ranklin is hands down the most qualified person that we’ve ever seen run for this position in the history of the state,鈥� said Erika Wright, founder of and now a community organizer with the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.

Taylor, meanwhile, appealed to many of the same groups that helped Walters win in 2022, like the . He for more Christianity in the classroom and teaching students 鈥渢he word of God鈥� through historical documents. 

He proposed to under countywide school boards as a way to save money, but Franklin warned that such an approach would take away local control.

The state鈥檚 Republican party ahead of the runoff. It has historically remained neutral until the nominees are named. Some in the party criticized the move as an attempt to influence voters ahead of the runoff.

Taylor said his job as a history and government teacher in the Little Axe Public Schools, outside Oklahoma City, would give him the insight he needed to lead the state education department. But some called his success as an educator into question after records showed that he taught in an Advanced Placement U.S. Government class took the exam. He only taught the class once in 2024.

After his defeat Tuesday night, Taylor posted on , 鈥淚 exit this race with zero regrets.鈥�

鈥楶ockets of excellence鈥�

Franklin faced his own controversy during the campaign, a 2014 incident in which he accidentally with disabilities at a camp he co-founded in 1986. The issue came to light when the child鈥檚 mother warned not to vote for Franklin and accused him of having 鈥渆xplosive anger issues.鈥�

In a statement, Franklin, a former special education teacher, explained that he was trying to get control of a child who had become aggressive. When he grabbed the boy, he left scratches behind his ears.聽

鈥淚鈥檝e worked with thousands of individuals with special needs,鈥� he told 社区黑料. 鈥淚’ve had to intervene a lot with young people. Sometimes it just doesn’t go according to script.鈥�

The camp鈥檚 director confirmed that he was trying to de-escalate a situation and said the camp鈥檚 leaders took appropriate action.

Whoever wins in November will oversee implementation of a that requires struggling readers in the early grades to be held back or receive extra help. Third graders not proficient in reading would be required to repeat the grade unless they qualify for an exemption. This year鈥檚 state test scores show that about 24% of students reached the proficiency level, a slight drop from last year.

鈥淥klahomans expect both candidates in the general election for state superintendent to make the case for how they will lead the successful implementation of our state鈥檚 landmark reading reforms,鈥� said Dave Bond, vice president for advocacy at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank. 鈥淭hose reforms passed our state legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support earlier this year, and our next state superintendent has a mandate to approach them with a no-excuses focus on student success.鈥�

Franklin or Marshall will also inherit a system in which districts often rely on emergency certified teachers to staff classrooms. 

Franklin said it鈥檚 important to look for 鈥減ockets of excellence鈥� in the state where schools are outperforming in reading outcomes even though they serve a higher-poverty population. He suggested establishing regional support centers to make expertise more readily available to districts.

But 鈥渨e just don’t have enough trained educators in front of young people,鈥� he said. Turnover rates are higher among teachers with emergency credentials. 鈥淲e’re just kind of spinning our wheels, trying to train people and get them up to speed.鈥�

The state, he said, should consider tax breaks for teachers, like it has for . 

Marshall, the Democratic candidate, has also made teacher recruitment and retention a part of her platform, and has said that serving on the school board in Tulsa, the state鈥檚 largest district, to lead the state education agency. She said she would focus on being a smart steward of state funds and that a lack of resources 鈥渋s one of the main reasons that we’re struggling.鈥� 

Her diverse career includes 17 years with the Department of Corrections as a parole officer and three years as a child welfare investigator.

Like Franklin, Marshall has pledged to keep policies focused on core academics and not politically divisive topics that put children and teachers in the middle of polarizing debates.

But the future state chief may have to work with a governor who, during , said the state has 鈥�541 school districts that are run by liberal, left-leaning radical socialists.鈥�

Businessman and former state senator narrowly defeated Attorney General Gentner Drummond in the GOP runoff Tuesday. Endorsed by President Donald Trump, he鈥檚 called for partisan school board elections as a way to tip districts toward more conservative policies. He鈥檒l face Democrat Cyndi Munson, minority leader in the state House, in the general election.

Governors appoint the state school board, which the future superintendent will have to work with to implement any new policies. Carlson, with the University of Oklahoma, said Mazzei doesn鈥檛 have much of a 鈥減olitical track record.鈥�

鈥淲e really don鈥檛 know what we鈥檙e getting,鈥� he said.

Mazzei has promised to appoint a state literacy director, but Marshall sees a potential conflict with that arrangement. 

鈥淭hat person is going to usurp the authority of the department and there’s going to be a whole new battle,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat’s why education is hurting; there are too many irrelevant distractions.鈥� 

But Wright, with Appleseed, said Franklin is capable of navigating political differences as they arise.聽

鈥淚f there’s anyone that can bridge that divide,鈥� she said, 鈥渋t’s Dr. Franklin.鈥�

Lightning McQueen from 鈥淐ars,鈥� Nemo the clownfish and the Parr family from 鈥淭he Incredibles鈥� are among the animated personalities starring in the agency鈥檚 social media posts in recent months. 

鈥淜A-CHOW! The Freedom 250 Grand Prix is coming to DC!鈥� a department staffer posted July 23, using McQueen鈥檚 well-known catchphrase to promote the event that took over the streets of the nation鈥檚 capital last weekend. 

Disney fans on Facebook were quick to catch that the department had replaced the cartoon car鈥檚 number, 95, with 47 to represent President Donald Trump. Racing enthusiasts corrected the team for using a NASCAR-type vehicle to publicize an IndyCar event. But others jumped on the potential legal issues involved in the government鈥檚 use of copyrighted material.

鈥淒oes Disney know you鈥檙e using the likeness of Lightning McQueen in this way??鈥� one Facebook commenter asked.

Disney is just one of several entertainment giants whose characters have inspired the department鈥檚 posts over the past several months. Sometimes, as in the 鈥淐ars鈥� example, the messages have nothing to do with education. In other instances, the department clearly used the characters to promote its agenda. 

Last December, it employed kind and sensitive to plug its signature policy goal: getting rid of the agency. 鈥淔ranklin knows the Department of Education doesn鈥檛 do any educating,鈥� the post on X read. Similarly, twice this month, appeared on the department鈥檚 social media feed in support of what Education Secretary Linda McMahon calls her 鈥渇inal mission,鈥� closing the department. 

Following a Monday, the White House used the same tactic, turning The Magic School Bus, a popular children鈥檚 book series, into The Magic Deportation Bus. Josh Cowen, a Michigan State University professor and former Democratic candidate for Congress, suggested the altered image, which showed main character Ms. Frizzle transporting passengers in handcuffs, was offensive.

鈥淭he entire right-wing education reform network was at the White House yesterday 鈥� will a single person denounce a back-to-school message based on a bus full of children in chains?鈥� he . 

Agency officials did not respond to multiple requests from 社区黑料 seeking to find out whether it had permission to use the images or how the re-creations might meet the standards for fair use. But one First Amendment scholar said she doubts officials sought approval from Disney, Nickelodeon, Scholastic or any of the other businesses that own the rights to the characters.

鈥淭his administration doesn’t ask for permission; it thinks that doing so is weak,鈥� said Rebecca Tushnet, a law professor at Harvard Law School with expertise in legal issues affecting the .

The company is known for frequently to protect its content. In one example, it joined Warner Brothers, Discovery and Universal Pictures last year to sue a Chinese AI image generator for . It once sued three for painting Disney characters on their walls.

The fact that the Education Department鈥檚 use of its characters hasn鈥檛 sparked the same response suggests that 鈥渢he administration’s tactics of seeking vengeance and punishing disagreement are factors weighing against legal action,鈥� Tushnet said. 

Disney might also have more important legal matters to contend with.

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission over the agency鈥檚 review of its broadcast licenses in eight markets, including New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The company argues that the Trump administration is trying to control what hosts say on 鈥淭he View,鈥� a morning show, and retaliate for late night talk show host calling first lady Melania Trump an 鈥渆xpectant widow.鈥�

At press time Tuesday, the department released a statement making light of the controversy.

“It’s always great to see the 74 writing a hard-hitting piece about social media posts 鈥� and not the fact that 3 in 10 students are not proficient in reading or math, 1 in 10 students may be a victim of sexual misconduct prior to graduation, or chronic absenteeism rates skyrocketing across the nation,鈥� wrote Ellen Keast, a department spokeswoman. 鈥淭hose are just three-story ideas for you that parents, local leaders, and educators are tracking across the country, not an irrelevant opinion about high-performing social media posts.”

Inspiring 鈥榞enerations of children鈥�

Most of the companies that 社区黑料 contacted for reaction did not respond. But Peanuts Worldwide, which manages copyright and licensing for Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the  gang, said in an email that the department鈥檚 meme showing the characters reading books around the iconic red doghouse was 鈥渁lmost certainly an unauthorized reinterpretation.鈥� 

鈥淧eanuts does not take a political stance,鈥� the statement said. 

The production company that owns , however, is suing the Department of the Interior. The complaint says the agency used the version of 鈥淥 Tannenbaum鈥� from 鈥淎 Charlie Brown Christmas鈥� on its social media accounts without permission.

The Snoopy doghouse image was seemingly innocuous, promoting literacy as the 鈥渇oundation for a lifetime of success.鈥� But the Super Mario image, like the use of Franklin, delivered a clearly partisan message. The Franklin post about shuttering the department came about a week after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted an image that reimagined the gentle turtle as hanging out of a helicopter and firing a machine gun toward a boat. 鈥淔ranklin Targets Narco Terrorists,鈥� the imitation book cover said.

Kids Can Press, which owns the rights to Franklin, .

鈥淔ranklin the Turtle is a beloved Canadian icon who has inspired generations of children and stands for kindness, empathy and inclusivity,鈥� the Canada-based children鈥檚 publisher said. 鈥淲e strongly condemn any denigrating, violent or unauthorized use of Franklin鈥檚 name or image, which directly contradicts these values.鈥�

But the publisher chose to stay quiet on the Education Department鈥檚 use.

鈥淲e would prefer not to be involved,鈥� spokeswoman Michaela Cornell told 社区黑料.

Since the December Franklin post, roughly two dozen others have employed movie or book characters. One of the latest, published after the Monday White House event, features Sesame Street鈥檚 Elmo in a red Make Education Great Again hat.

Respecting boundaries

At the Education Department, career staffers have historically been diligent about adhering to copyright laws, said Hussien Salama, a Democratic political appointee who served as a video producer at the department under former Secretary Miguel Cardona. 

He recalled an instance in which Sally Harris, managing director of digital media and creative services at the department, warned him against using a CNN clip that featured Cardona unless he had 鈥渆xpress permission, written down鈥� from the network.

Harris, he said, worked to establish a 鈥渇irewall,鈥� in which the secretary鈥檚 account was used for more political messaging, like one about being 鈥渂ullied for who they are,鈥� while the official department account stayed more neutral. The political team, he added, understood that the career staff would still be there after the administration changed.

鈥淥ne of the most frustrating things in the world is to leave the department, having done all of this stuff to try to respect these boundaries, and see it all thrown in the garbage,鈥� he said. 

Under Cardona, the department frequently posted messages about supporting LGBTQ students and forgiving student loans, policies on which the Biden and Trump administrations sharply disagree. But the memes didn鈥檛 use well-known characters to convey those policy statements and often featured drawings created by an in-house graphic designer, Salama said. 

He said he 鈥�100%鈥� suspects political appointees who work for McMahon are posting the copyrighted material. 

Meanwhile, Harris and the career staffers are likely 鈥渃ringing every moment they see blatant copyright violations posted on the Department of Education鈥檚 social media channels,鈥� Salama said. 鈥淲e had arguments about splitting hairs on fair use news clippings, not using Disney characters to endorse a political agenda.鈥� 

There are situations in which using copyrighted material is allowable under the law. But legal experts couldn鈥檛 say for sure whether the department鈥檚 depiction of the characters, from the to , would apply.

The fact that the government isn鈥檛 making a profit off the posts would 鈥渇avor fair use,鈥� said Tushnet, the Harvard law professor. In Hegseth鈥檚 case, she added, the secretary could argue that his Franklin meme was . 

The Education Department, however, hasn鈥檛 altered characters enough to fit that standard, said Matthew Sag, a copyright expert at Emory University. 

鈥淢ost things that end up being bound to be fair use are transformative,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey take something that was used for one purpose and use it in a very different purpose.鈥�

Teacher appreciation

One policy expert defended the department鈥檚 use of the material and expressed support for their underlying messages. The 鈥淔inding Nemo鈥� post, for example, shows Nemo and his father Marlin with the slogan, 鈥淧arents know best.鈥�

鈥淔amilies matter for student success, and reading and math scores are at or near historical lows,鈥�  said Jonathan Butcher, acting director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

In response to its 鈥淧arents know best,鈥� memes, a few expressed agreement or touted homeschooling as better than public schools. With the 鈥淔inding Nemo鈥� post, one person , 鈥淧arents do know what is best. No school should keep secrets from parents.鈥� But most noted that in the Pixar story, Marlin lost Nemo because he was overprotective.

The department also used a series of fictional educators to mark Teacher Appreciation Week in May. They included Ms. Fowl, from Nickelodeon鈥檚 鈥淛immy Neutron,鈥� known for making bird-like noises, and Elizabeth Hoover, from 鈥淭he Simpsons.鈥� Under the heading, 鈥淭eachers are mentors,鈥� Hoover, often described as jaded after decades on the job, is depicted with a red MEGA (Make Education Great Again) book under her arm. In a separate post, Mrs. Puff, the teacher from SpongeBob SquarePants, was shown .

The posts drew widespread criticism from real teachers.

鈥淚 think we are being trolled,鈥� one commenter . 

Stephanie Toliver, an assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, saw the choices of characters 鈥渨ho are often well-meaning but marred by burnout, incompetence, eccentricity and paranoia鈥� as a not-so-subtle dig at the profession.

鈥淚f we appreciate teachers the way McMahon has, we won鈥檛 have many left,鈥� .

Journalist John Ortved, a , offered a different take on Hoover. 

鈥淚nitially, she was written as a stand-in for 鈥榯eachers鈥� in the public school system, who are exhausted or beaten down and perhaps just uncaring about their jobs,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut she鈥檚 there every day, in the world of the Simpsons, for the past 35 years. In some ways it鈥檚 a testament to the commitment of these people.鈥�

There鈥檚 no way to know whether the staffer behind the Hoover post perceived the character that way. But one education policy expert said it doesn鈥檛 matter.

Neal McCluskey, formerly with the libertarian Cato Institute, supports shutting down the department. Still, he that the government should 鈥渟top paying for people at the department to create social media memes. Which would, of course, make it smaller.鈥�

McCluskey, now with Florida State University鈥檚 Institute for Governance and Civics, said he hasn鈥檛 considered the copyright issues, but said, “If they’re belt-tightening, people who make cutesy tweets seem kind of nonessential, especially for a department that shouldn’t exist.”

Two recent studies seek to provide an answer, assembling compelling evidence of public opinion but arriving at separate conclusions. One shows that firsthand experience with school choice makes people more likely to support its expansion, particularly if they were skeptical of the policy at first. Another indicates that greater proximity to charter schools once made Democrats more likely to favor them, but that the relatively good feelings disappeared over the last decade.

While not diametrically opposed, the two findings heighten the ambiguity surrounding the public鈥檚 reception of K鈥�12 education. Parents continue to rate their community鈥檚 schools highly, while eagerly making use of alternative options when given the chance. Meanwhile, Democrats have shown early signs of a split on federal initiatives to bolster parental choices, including by directing federal funds to private schools.

Michael Henderson, a professor of political communication at Louisiana State University, said his paper on charter schools pointed to the challenge of attracting buy-in for new programs or services. This is doubly true when most voters and taxpayers do not directly access them.

鈥淚t鈥檚 either going to mean that you need to get the vast majority of people directly participating in the policy 鈥� something like Social Security 鈥� or you have to build a broad base of support in response to the policy,鈥� he observed.

gathers data on charter enrollment in U.S. school districts from 2005 to 2021 鈥� a period marked, especially at the outset, by rapid growth in the sector. He then added nearly a decade鈥檚 worth of geographically targeted responses from the Education Next poll, which ran continuously through 2022, to determine whether subjects tended to like charters more as their enrollment grew in the surrounding areas.

Overall, he finds, proximity to higher numbers of charter schools and students did not have an impact on public views. But that average masked an interesting partisan trend. Democrats鈥� opinions of charters slightly improved as their student enrollment rose, while Republicans鈥� views headed downward. As a town or city鈥檚 share of students attending charter schools rose from 0 percent to 20 percent, average Democratic support rose from a 3.2 (on a five-point scale) to a 3.4. Average Republican support dipped from 3.4 to 3.1 during the same period.

In other words, charter schools have the potential to be a depolarizing issue, bringing the views of left and right into closer alignment. 

Henderson added a caveat, however. The partisan gap decreased during the earlier part of the period, from 2014 to 2016, while seeing no change from 2020 to 2021. In other words, whatever lifted Democrats鈥� favorability toward public schools of choice appears to have petered out toward the end of the 2010s.

Henderson said the changing views might reveal something about how people form political assessments generally. Most people are only hazy on the details of charter schooling, meaning that they are somewhat more likely to take their cues from leaders of their political party. As each side hardened their stances on school choice during the first Trump administration, with elected Democrats voicing more hesitancy around charters, a message was likely sent to voters as well.

鈥淥n the whole, we don鈥檛 see expanding polarization,鈥� Henderson said. 鈥淏ut we do see the earlier depolarization going away, which is consistent with the idea that people are attuned more to the political discourse than to the policy itself.”

David Houston, a professor of education policy at George Mason University, has studied the ways in which parties sometimes inadvertently divide the public simply by discussing K鈥�12 questions. In an interview, he noted that the shift in opinion coincided with the Democratic Party鈥檚 Trump-era pivot away from charter schools and toward priorities like universal pre-K, which carry less divisive potential.

During the Biden presidency, Houston remarked, 鈥測ou don’t have a whole lot of elite opinion leadership on K鈥�12 education issues, at least on the ones that had united leaders of both parties for a couple of decades beforehand. And in the absence of that elite consensus, you start to see partisan polarization among the general public as well.”

The power of precedent

But , also released this spring, points to positive and lasting results from more direct contact with school choice.

James Shuls, a professor at Florida State University, examined survey responses from families that had experienced choice in a variety of forms 鈥� including charter schools, vouchers, education savings accounts, homeschooling, and open enrollment 鈥� and compared them with those of respondents who had not. He and his co-authors discovered that participants with personal experience expressed greater support for expanding educational choice. The effect was statistically significant for all types of choice except ESAs.

“The paper confirms what school choice advocates have long thought intuitively,” Shuls wrote in an email. “School choice is the type of reform that builds a constituency over time.”

The researchers also conducted a separate experiment, randomly prompting some survey participants with the information that various school choice policies already existed in places familiar to them 鈥� open enrollment in Colorado, as well as voucher-like programs in Florida, Arizona, Sweden, and Ireland.

Those 鈥渞eal-world鈥� cues led to increased support, particularly among those who initially said they opposed the spread of school choice. Self-described liberals鈥� likelihood of approving more choice measures increased by 14 percentage points after hearing about Sweden鈥檚 national subsidy for private school tuition.

But an opposing pattern emerged at the same time. Conservatives actually became six points less favorable toward choice after receiving the same information. And both liberals and Democrats notably soured on the idea (by eight points and five points, respectively) after hearing it couched in the example of Florida.

Shuls said the experiment showed the power of precedent. The Democratic governors of Colorado and New York have said they will opt into a newly passed federal school choice tax credit, which will provide money for parents to spend on a variety of educational expenses 鈥� including private school tuition. More blue and purple states could follow once the Trump administration on how the funds can be used. 

If people in Democratic-leaning states could be shown that vouchers or ESAs are not 鈥渟ome crazy right-wing plot,鈥� Shuls said, it might generate a groundswell.

“If choice begets more choice, as our study suggests,” he wrote, “the expansion of choice programs in blue states will likely lead to greater support for school choice among blue voters.”

A note of caution

Yet there is reason to interpret the results of each paper with a degree of caution.

Families who make the decision to apply for a voucher are likely more open to private school choice than those who don鈥檛 take the opportunity; their rising appreciation for the policy may  have been baked in already. A similar point might be made of the subjects in Henderson鈥檚 study, since they were living in a community that elected to permit charter schools to begin with. 

“It’s not altogether surprising that you would see higher rates of support among folks who opted into these programs,” said Houston. 鈥淚f you had asked me that research question, what they found is what I would have expected them to find.鈥�

What鈥檚 more, polling on education has proven to be highly sensitive to the details of individual programs, and even the wording used to describe them. A by Paul DiPerna, a researcher at the advocacy group EdChoice, showed that education savings accounts attracted much greater backing when they were characterized as universal. Support for 鈥渟chool vouchers鈥� specifically fell among Democrats and independents after 2023. 

Shuls and his collaborators stipulate that their study does not establish that school choice caused parents to become more supportive. But neither does it support the idea that families generally become disillusioned after using such programs, he added.

Henderson sees the two papers as complementary, with his own research focusing on the indirect political consequences of policy expansion. Even if someone living in a charter-dense community never visits the campus, for example, she might hear about it from neighbors or view its billboards along the side of the highway. Political signals from each party clearly influence their response even further.

“They’re related projects,” Henderson said. “You’re going to be concerned about people who directly participate, but you’re also going to be concerned about people who don’t directly participate, but might be exposed in other ways.” 

Just as the technology has rewired the relationship between young writers-in-training and their teachers, it has also changed how student journalists and their editors work together 鈥� or, in some cases, don鈥檛. 

And AI has created headaches for these journalists that mirror those afflicting their professional peers, with school newsrooms struggling to figure out how to respond.

As with their schools more broadly, student newsrooms have spent these years deploying surveillance software and, in many cases, drafting zero-tolerance policies for AI. Different newsrooms have developed different answers to the same basic question: How much do we trust teenagers to not let a chatbot do their work? 

社区黑料 spoke recently to three student journalists from three very different newsrooms about their experiences:

• Cid Frydman, a rising senior at Berkeley High School in California, who writes for the ;
• Veronica Mollod, a rising senior and current events editor at , the student newspaper at the High School of American Studies at Lehman College in the Bronx, N.Y.;
• Tova Weiss, a recent high school graduate in Ann Arbor, Mich., who has split her time between Pioneer High School and . Weiss has written and edited for the and , a publication written by and for Jewish teens.

Here are eight-and-a-half ways 鈥� including one counterintuitive, not-for-attribution observation 鈥� in which AI is changing their realities:

1. In a few schools, AI has overturned the culture of newspapers.

Frydman, the Berkeley student, said strict AI use policies at her publication have bred resentment among student writers. 

鈥淚 think a lot of the people higher up on my paper, and in journalism in general, don’t have a lot of trust in writers anymore, especially with so many AI resources that are out there,鈥� she said. 

Editors are 鈥渧ery harsh on writers鈥� over worries that they鈥檒l use AI, keeping strict controls over documents, she said. They鈥檒l poke around writers鈥� search histories and analyze their typing speed and word choices, matching drafts to previous work. 

鈥淚t’s very strict when you put it all together,鈥� Frydman said. 鈥淭hey don’t have a lot of faith in our ability to actually produce real journalism, and so just assume the worst automatically, which can be a little frustrating when you’re just trying to do your best as a writer.鈥�

At the Berkeley High newspaper, staffers have been let go over suspected AI use. 

Frydman sees the high cost of such heavy-handed policies: 鈥淲e’re here because we love journalism,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e’re here to write about things that we’re hopefully passionate about, and the heavy approach of 鈥楾here’s no tolerance whatsoever,鈥� and not even giving writers the grace and the trust to make their own decisions and do this work on their own 鈥� just minding it and monitoring it so heavily, I think it’s very discouraging.鈥�

More broadly, getting caught using AI to write academic assignments carries weighty consequences, she said. You鈥檙e unable to get a letter of recommendation from any teacher, Frydman said. 

And a single infraction travels fast: Get caught using AI once, she said, and teachers will tell all of their colleagues 鈥渢o watch out because this student has used AI before 鈥� they might use it in your class.鈥�

2. AI is changing how 鈥� and how much 鈥� students write.

Frydman said she鈥檚 adopting what鈥檚 basically a minimalist approach to writing these days, holding back details so she doesn’t draw suspicion from editors or teachers. 

Though she doesn鈥檛 use AI for writing, she said, 鈥淎 lot of times, I find myself sort of slimming down my writing to not go so into detail on things because it鈥檒l be suspected to be something that’s not original. You don’t have a lot of room to be creative in this process, so it’s definitely been a little challenging.鈥�

Ann Arbor鈥檚 Weiss said she鈥檚 also seeing many young journalists 鈥渁djust their writing voice鈥� to avoid being flagged as relying on AI. Many students, she said, now intentionally add typos to their writing to support its legitimacy. 鈥淚t’s absolutely devastating to watch how many people are intentionally damaging or diminishing the quality and authenticity of their work,鈥� she said. 

At Berkeley High, school-issued Chromebooks are locked down to block access to ChatGPT, Claude and other major AI tools outright 鈥� and any attempt to reach them gets flagged. 鈥淚t notifies the teacher through this program that we have called Go Guardian, which is embedded into a lot of the Chromebooks, where they can sort of see what you’re doing and be able to call you out on it,鈥� Frydman said.

3. A few newsrooms are writing AI policies.

At Youth Environmental Press Team, where Weiss is an editor, staffers have been talking 鈥渋n pretty much every director’s meeting鈥� about the implications and problems surrounding AI. 鈥淲e are an environmental publication, which means a lot of us are very climate-conscious.鈥�

The environmental impacts of AI data centers are a cause of great concern, Weiss said.

After fielding a wave of questions from reporters, the publication developed formal guidelines rather than instituting an outright ban on AI. 鈥淚t was always very clear for us that we would not publish or even entertain the idea of publishing anything that was written by a chatbot or any kind of generative AI,鈥� Weiss said. But they soon got queries from reporters asking if they could use AI for outlining, for formatting statistics, for interview transcriptions and the like.

The policy that emerged prohibits AI-written and AI-edited work, including work that heavily uses tools like Grammarly. But transcription services and basic spell-check are still allowed. 

The organization, she said, wants to make writing 鈥渁s accessible as possible so people can have their work published 鈥� but not if that means it’s not really their work, and especially not if that’s at the cost of the environment.鈥� 

4. Other newsrooms rely on experience and vibes.

Weiss helped craft the formal AI policy at the environmental journal. At jGirls+ Magazine, by contrast, she said there鈥檚 no written policy. But in practice the standard is clear: Submissions and even staff applications that appear to be AI-generated are not accepted. In one case, she recalled, an obviously AI-written editorial board application 鈥� with a stiff style that lacked personal voice 鈥� tested with an AI detector as 100% AI, 鈥渨hich was really something none of us had expected.鈥�

Weiss said AI detectors should be used only 鈥渨hen there is already prior reason to suspect something might have been AI generated鈥� 鈥� a student with a track record of misusing AI, for instance, or because something just simply reads a little 鈥渙ff.鈥�

5. In most cases, AI detectors are widely seen as unreliable.

Weiss described a tiered system in the environmental outlet鈥檚 workflow, with writers operating on an 鈥渉onor system鈥� but with student editors flagging 鈥渟ketchy鈥� pieces such as those that are missing statistical sources or those that quote dubious ones 鈥� or writing that doesn’t sound like a typical teenager’s.

鈥淭he thing about student voices is typically each writer has a distinctive style of writing,” she said. 鈥淲e’re high schoolers: We have typos, we make mistakes in there. And if we’re finding something that’s void of personal style or just generally reads in a way that doesn’t seem like it was written by a student, we’re going to look into that further.鈥� 

But she and others worry that using an AI detector could unfairly flag strong writing as suspicious simply because it’s polished 鈥� a phenomenon that happens more than you鈥檇 think in many schools, Weiss suggested.

AI detectors aren’t really reliable, said Frydman, the Berkeley senior, 鈥渟o even if you write something really well, it’ll just automatically assume that it might be AI and your writing will get flagged, which has happened to a lot of my friends.鈥� 

6. A few simple rules can keep AI from taking over, journalists say.

Mollod, the New York City journalist, said a somewhat arcane editing rule at her publication basically serves to help keep AI-generated content at bay: At Common Sense, every article is required to include a quote from a student in each grade level 鈥� a structural feature that makes it hard for AI to intrude, since students typically remember what they鈥檝e said to a reporter. 

7. In a few cases, teachers are using AI more than students.

The journalists described several instances in which teachers, not students, were the ones turning to AI, relying on the technology to formulate lesson plans, create assignments and grade them.

One student who asked not to be quoted directly spoke of a teacher who 鈥渨ill just copy and paste straight off of Chat GPT or Claude, and just give us assignments that are so clearly AI that it’s ridiculous.鈥�

Others rely on it for grading assignments, which 鈥渓eads to a lot of people getting unfair grades, because AI can mess up,鈥� said the student.

The more teachers rely on the technology, 鈥渢he easier it is to just forget that you’re there for a reason, you’re trying to do your job for a reason 鈥� and AI should not be teaching kids Spanish or English or math or anything like that. It can’t reproduce real thinking. So it’s definitely a little dystopian.鈥�

8. For many students, refusing AI isn’t a school rule. It’s personal.

Weiss, the Ann Arbor writer, said she has never used Open AI鈥檚 popular ChatGPT, due to environmental concerns over data centers as well as personal concerns over AI more broadly. 鈥淚t just does not align with my morals at all,” she said. 

But casual AI use has become normalized among many of her peers, she said, with students openly saying, sometimes within earshot of teachers, that they ran an assignment through a chatbot the night before it was due.

The best way to fight AI, she said, is basically to boycott it. 鈥淭he strongest way anyone can combat artificial intelligence is just by refusing to have anything to do with it,鈥� she said.

While AI-generated writing more broadly can damage the way that people learn and is worth thinking about, Mollod said, she鈥檚 not sure that it has gotten to the point where 鈥渏ust everyone is just cheating, and no one’s really actually taking their work seriously.鈥�

She reads the coverage and believes most people who don鈥檛 spend time in schools overestimate how much teens use AI. 鈥淧eople not in school are like, 鈥榃ell, I didn’t have this great tool. If I had it, I wouldn’t have done anything,鈥欌�� she said. But relying on the technology, which showed up in the middle of her eighth-grade year, isn鈥檛 yet common practice for most students she knows. 

Whether future students will warm to it more isn鈥檛 yet clear, Mollod said.

Weiss, the Michigan student, said her work 鈥� especially at the environmental publication 鈥� has taken on a new significance in the age of AI, pushing to celebrate and highlight 鈥渁uthentic youth journalism and youth narrative鈥� in the face of encroaching technology. 鈥淚n my view,鈥� she said, 鈥渄emonstrating our talents as humans and as youth is a form of silent protest against AI by proving that artificial intelligence isn’t necessary to produce professional-quality journalism.鈥�

Bonus: Non-AI cheating abides. 

On background, one of the students said she thought a lot of the news coverage about AI cheating, while serious, simply misses the point. The old-fashioned kind of cheating, for now, remains much more common. In 2026, students are still relying on copying each other’s homework, just as generations before them did. 

鈥淢ostly it’s just, like, circles of people, where there’ll be a math class and five people do the homework 鈥� and the other 20 got it from this person, [who] got it from this person, [who] got it from this person 鈥� which has always kind of been going on.鈥�

As superintendent of Desert Sands Unified in California鈥檚 Coachella Valley, Kelly May-Vollmar has a hard time naming a system that鈥檚 not somehow connected to the district鈥檚 broadband network.

Parents can check a school bus tracking app to make sure their child arrived on time. Cafeteria staff don鈥檛 use cash registers; kids鈥� meal accounts are linked to the cloud. Even grounds crews depend on external wireless access points to maintain the fields and landscaping at the district鈥檚 34 schools.

鈥淭hey’re running our sprinkler systems off iPads,鈥� May-Vollmar said.

Her district is like the across the country that apply each year for discounts on broadband service through a federal program called E-Rate. High-poverty districts like Desert Sands save up to 90% of the cost of connecting their schools and classrooms to the internet.

But the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the program Congress created 30 years ago, has launched a 鈥渢op-to-bottom鈥� evaluation that has leaders of the nation鈥檚 school districts on edge. The FCC is collecting views on how the program should be reformed or even whether it should be abandoned altogether because it 鈥渉as fulfilled鈥� its mission. In addition to asking whether the benefit should be restricted to rural districts, the agency links E-Rate to present-day concerns over screen time. Oct. 13 and replies are due Nov. 12.

The proposal is 鈥渁imed at empowering parents and ensuring that our E-Rate program produces the great educational outcomes stakeholders have intended,鈥� FCC Chairman in early June when he announced the review. In , the far-right Heritage Foundation鈥檚 blueprint for the Trump administration, Carr said because of advancements in technology, decisions about the program 鈥渟hould be made with an eye to right-sizing the federal government鈥檚 existing broadband initiatives.鈥�

The review process has left ed tech leaders both confused and ready to fight.

鈥淭hey’re asking us to comment on a potential rulemaking and they haven’t told us what the rules would be,鈥� said Keith Krueger, CEO of the Consortium for School Networking, a leading ed tech professional organization. He called the initial the FCC released 鈥渟o extraordinarily broad and comprehensive鈥� that they鈥檙e too overwhelming for the average district leader to address. 鈥淲e’re going to have to be very loud and noisy as a community to our members of Congress and to governors to say 鈥楬ands off the E-Rate.鈥� 鈥澛�

As in Desert Sands, districts depend on internet access for a lot more than classroom instruction, including taking attendance and managing payroll. But it鈥檚 how students use the internet at school that has taken over the discussion about updating the program.

鈥淗istorically, underserved students lacked access to computers and technology, and efforts were made to 鈥榗lose the digital divide,鈥� 鈥� said Emily Cherkin, a Seattle-based consultant and leading figure in the battle against 鈥渂ig tech.鈥� In 2026, she said, 鈥渢he pendulum has swung too far.鈥�

In January, she , saying that children鈥檚 access to the internet has led to 鈥渃atastrophic鈥� impacts on their mental health, learning and development. In response to those concerns, some states are . Parents are demanding the chance to of apps and learning platforms, and others, including Cherkin, are suing and publishers, accusing them of and .  

鈥楢 connectivity program鈥�

Groups like the Consortium for School Networking have called for a balanced approach before the valid concerns over kids鈥� time online threatens the loss of a program that saves schools and libraries over $2.5 billion each year. 

The discounts apply to high-speed internet service as well as Wi-Fi access points, routers and switches. Desert Sands, for example, is currently upgrading such equipment district-wide 鈥� a $1 million project that is only costing the district $200,000 because of the discount. But E-Rate benefits don鈥檛 extend to devices for students, digital content or software licenses. 

E-Rate 鈥渋s a connectivity program,鈥� Krueger said. 鈥淚t’s not an education program.鈥� 

Last week, CoSN released highlighting examples of 鈥減urposeful鈥� technology use and stressed that there鈥檚 a difference between a student scrolling social media during the school day and another working with a classmate on a multimedia project. 

鈥淭he goal is not simply to reduce or increase screen time,鈥� the report says. 鈥淭he goal is to ensure that every use of technology has a clear instructional purpose.鈥�

But Cherkin is skeptical of what she calls the industry鈥檚 鈥�.鈥� As long as students are spending time on a device, she wrote that it doesn鈥檛 matter whether they have high-quality materials. Her years as a former middle school English teacher in Seattle private schools, from 2003 to 2015, helped to shape her views on technology. Schools had computer labs and a dedicated technology teacher, a model she鈥檇 like to see reinstated. That arrangement evolved into reserving a cart with laptops that she would bring to her classroom when needed.

The turning point, she said, was when she started uploading grades into a digital portal.

鈥淚nstead of coming to talk to me directly and having a conversation about what they might need to do to improve 鈥� they were instead directed to a digital platform that had a number or letter grade, which told them very little overall,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 saw it devaluing the experience of learning to be a student who could self-advocate.鈥�

Parents, whom she described as 鈥渉ighly anxious,鈥� constantly checked the portal and emailed her about why their children didn鈥檛 get an A or were missing a grade. Despite her concerns over the internet鈥檚 impact on students, she still supports the argument that access should be universally available. 

鈥楶ulling out the rug鈥�

For Krueger and others who fought to increase access for students in schools and homes, this moment feels like a giant step backward. As founder of EducationSuperhighway, a nonprofit, Evan Marwell advocated for a fiber connection to every school in the nation, reaching . 

鈥淭here are a lot of good uses of technology in classrooms,鈥� he said. 鈥淧ulling out the rug from teachers and students on all those good uses would be, in my opinion, a big mistake.鈥� 

During the pandemic, his organization pivoted to signing up low-income families for discounted high-speed service at home so students wouldn鈥檛 have to sit in McDonalds鈥� parking lots to pick up Wi-Fi to do homework.

Last fall, in its first move toward rolling back federal broadband initiatives, the FCC at-home and school bus Wi-Fi access from the program, features that were added during the Biden administration. The move, Carr said in , would end what he called 鈥渋llegal funding鈥� of young kids鈥� unsupervised screen time.

Sen. Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who wrote the E-Rate program as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act said in that the decision would 鈥渓eave low-income, rural and marginalized communities disconnected.鈥� 

The FCC asks whether E-Rate should be 鈥渓imited or sunset,鈥� considering the nearly universal access in schools. But Kevin Taglang, an executive editor with the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, a nonprofit, that high-poverty districts receiving the largest discounts serve more than 16 million students. In Desert Sands, those kids have parents who work at the resorts, golf courses and restaurants across Palm Springs.

鈥淎ny eligibility change that removes these schools from the program, or substantially reduces their discount levels, would fall hardest on the students and districts least able to absorb the loss,鈥� he wrote.

Preventing fraud

Conservatives first tried to end E-Rate through a 2023 lawsuit. Consumers Research, a nonprofit, argued that the FCC鈥檚 arrangement with the Universal Service Administrative Company, the private entity that , was illegal and gave too much power to a federal agency. But in a 6-3 decision last year, the U.S. Supreme Court .

The Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, highlighted E-Rate in a , saying that out of five government programs evaluated, it was the only one following all nine recommended practices for preventing fraud, waste and abuse. That was a big improvement over a , which flagged the program for 鈥渟everal key fraud risks.鈥� 

Krueger, with CoSN, said some improvements to E-Rate are needed, like more 鈥渟erious funding鈥� for cybersecurity. 

鈥淗aving broadband that is at risk for cyber attacks isn’t helpful,鈥� he said. 

Between July 2023 and December 2024, 82% of schools experienced some type of cyber incident, such as a ransomware attack, a data breach or a phishing attempt, according to last year from the nonprofit Center for Internet Security. When the FCC opened up a $200 million E-Rate cybersecurity pilot program in 2024, the demand was huge. The agency totaling $3.7 billion. 

Krueger, however, questions whether the FCC is the right agency to determine whether Wi-Fi access is harming students鈥� learning. That, he said, should be the responsibility of the Office of Educational Technology, which the Trump administration gutted last year when it eliminated roughly half of the Department of Education鈥檚 staff.

At a late July gathering in Washington, Amber Davis, chief of staff in the Department of Education鈥檚 Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, told advocates from about 22 states that there is still an ed tech office at the agency, according to CoSN Chair Stacy Hawthorne. The attendees, Hawthorne said, joked that it may only exist on paper. 

The department did not respond to questions about the makeup of the office. But on Thursday it issued that tries to redirect the debate over ed tech away from screen time. Ed tech 鈥渟hould not be evaluated solely by the amount of time students spend using it,鈥� it said, adding that district spending on technology should be 鈥済uided by evidence of effectiveness.鈥�

The July event was one of several likely to occur over the next couple months as leaders advocate to preserve E-Rate. With this year鈥檚 application period already complete, the FCC on July 29 that the program still exists and that its 鈥渘otice of potential rulemaking鈥� won鈥檛 immediately result in a loss of funding. 

If the administration scales back or discontinues E-Rate, district leaders say they鈥檒l have to make up the difference somehow. LaTonya Goffney, superintendent of the Aldine Independent School District, near Houston, said with 86% of her district鈥檚 budget tied up in personnel, she would have to cut staff or programs to replace the more than $2 million saved each year from discounts.

鈥淭he utilities, the transportation 鈥� all of those things we can’t eliminate,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e still have to provide those for our students.鈥�

In Desert Sands, May-Vollmar added that because E-Rate requires聽, the cost of broadband service for schools would likely increase if the program is gone. For her, unlimited Wi-Fi in the classroom replicates the real-world for students.聽

鈥淵ou and I don’t schedule time to go to a computer lab,鈥� she said. 鈥淎t work, if I say 鈥楨verybody, go get your computer,鈥� we have that ability. I want that ability in the classroom, too.鈥�

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. 鈥�  can conjure a familiar scene: adults crammed into child-size chairs, listening to teachers run through a list of students鈥� achievements and struggles.

For many families, they can also mean frustration. Today鈥檚 school conferences are sometimes 15 to 20 minutes, with little time for parents to ask their own questions. Adults may arrive with their own baggage about their time in school. They may be worried about being judged or dreading what a teacher may say about their child. 

For teachers, conferences can mean pressure to give a snapshot of a child鈥檚 progress, with the next opportunity to connect months away 鈥� if at all.

The conference may be brief, but it can set the tone for a family鈥檚 relationship and partnership with the teacher. Parents, teachers and school administrators have these tips to make the conference productive and help build a stronger connection between home and school.

Communicate early and figure out what works

Schools typically offer several early opportunities for parents and teachers to connect, from meet-the-teacher events and  nights to open houses. By the time conferences are on the calendar, parents and teachers should already be communicating.

But sometimes it can take weeks, or even months, to hear from your child鈥檚 teacher, who must establish relationships with dozens of families. Don鈥檛 wait, say parents and teachers alike. Take the initiative and reach out yourself.

鈥淒o you want to set your child up for success? It鈥檚 a yes or no. And if it鈥檚 a yes, then you have to be very involved,鈥� said Bell White, a Houston mother of two.

When her son Lennox, now 8, was in preschool, four teachers came and went during the school year. White quickly learned how important it was to stay engaged with the school.

Since then, she has introduced herself to each of her son鈥檚 teachers at the first opportunity, even if virtually. She tells them how she prefers to communicate 鈥� whether over email, phone or via a school app 鈥� and when she鈥檚 most reachable. 

Technology can make it easier for parents with multiple children or busy schedules to stay connected and for teachers to send quick messages or reminders. But with , some parents say it helps to establish a preferred way to communicate.

Early in the relationship, parents and teachers should focus on building trust, said J.B. Robinson, a clinical psychologist and dean of students at National University in San Diego. Positive interactions are like putting money into a relationship bank that can be drawn on when challenges arise, he said. For parents, that can mean showing interest in the classroom and recognizing the effort that goes into creating a positive learning environment. Teachers can similarly begin with questions about the individual child, rather than immediately moving into classroom expectations or academic performance.

Whatever the nature of your first communication with a teacher, try not to worry that you鈥檙e bothering the teacher. Your child鈥檚 growth is the priority, and communicating with you is part of the teacher鈥檚 job.

Make the time count

Parent-teacher conferences are designed to address students鈥� academic and social progress, identify concerns and discuss what comes next, but there may not be time to cover everything parents or teachers want to discuss.

鈥淭he teacher and the parent need to go in with realistic expectations as to what can actually be accomplished in one parent-teacher conference and see that more as a starting point for a conversation,鈥� said Robinson, the psychologist.

The meetings can also be ripe for tension. Teachers may be having dozens of back-to-back conferences, while parents may arrive with weeks鈥� worth of questions, all seemingly valid. Depending on the school and the child鈥檚 grade, some teachers follow a set agenda, with presentation slides, packets or lists of topics to cover.

Emily Henderson, who teaches first and second grade at BASIS Charter School in Flagstaff, Arizona, says her conversations are mostly individualized, with some focusing more on academics and others on social-emotional needs.

鈥淲e use parent-teacher conferences to really talk about strengths, talk about weaknesses of students, and then come up with a plan together to address those concerns or address those needs,鈥� Henderson said.

Given time constraints, parents should come with just a few thoughtful questions, teachers say. But remember this is a starting point. It鈥檚 totally reasonable to set up another conference later in the year, even if your school doesn鈥檛 have one scheduled. Or you can continue the conversation online or over the phone.

What to do if your kid is present

Some schools recommend that students join the conference, and in other cases, a parent may want to bring them along 鈥� or need to, if they lack child care. For younger students, teachers recommend asking in advance whether they should attend, if that is an option. If you do plan to bring the student or younger siblings, let the teacher know ahead of time so they can prepare for a more engaging meeting or set up a few distractions.

If younger students are present, it is up to administrators and teachers to engage them and speak directly to them, said Kellie Hintze, head of school at BASIS Flagstaff.

鈥淲hen I have younger students at a meeting, we typically have a mini meeting with the student and the parent,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hen we can dive a little deeper or have those long, drawn-out conversations that a student wouldn鈥檛 want to be a part of or be able to focus through.鈥�

Older students have more agency over their learning and are better positioned to contribute to discussions about their progress, challenges and possible next steps, experts say.

鈥淲e鈥檙e doing students a disservice when we鈥檙e not teaching them how to advocate, when we are not teaching them those communication skills, to have the tough conversations when they need to be had,鈥� said Kendrick Friendly, who is a high school assistant principal with Denver Public Schools. 鈥淭his is a safe space for those conversations to happen.鈥�

Questions to consider

Parents don鈥檛 need to arrive with a long list of questions. A few thoughtful ones can help clarify what a teacher considers success, what they are seeing in the classroom, what support is available and how to stay connected throughout the year.

Consider asking:

1. How do you prefer to communicate with parents, and how often should we check in?

2. What does success look like for my child this year?

3. How do you identify when a student is falling behind, and who should I speak with about getting additional support?

4. What are you noticing about my child that I might not see at home?

Leave with a plan

Parent-teacher conferences do not resolve every concern, but they should identify next steps, whether those are regular check-ins, strategies for improved behavior or additional resources, such as tutors, specialized instruction or extracurricular activities.

Before leaving, make sure everyone knows what happens next, who is responsible for it and when you鈥檒l check back in. Don鈥檛 be afraid to request another conference later in the year. Remember: Your child鈥檚 growth is the priority, and it will take everyone in the room to get there.

This story was originally published by The Associated Press

The Associated Press鈥� education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP鈥檚  for working with philanthropies, a  of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

According to the latest jobs from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, K-12 schools lost 50,000 workers from June to July. The numbers for May were also revised down by another 47,000.

These are seasonally adjusted numbers. Each year, public schools 鈥渓ose鈥� about 1 million employees who come off the payrolls in the summer months, only to add those workers back in the fall. But the latest numbers suggest that the 2026 decline is a bit larger than normal.

Because of these summer patterns, I like to look at the non-seasonally adjusted numbers. The graph below shows that trend over the last few years. Each line represents one calendar year. The 2020 line is in red. You can see the big drop-off in March when schools shut down for COVID. They no longer needed as many bus drivers and lunch staff, etc. But each year since then payrolls have grown (follow the gray lines upwards).

Now look at the 2026 line, in green. It was trending slightly above 2025 in the spring, but it now sits below the 2025 line. As of July, with no seasonal adjustment, public schools employed about 29,000 fewer workers than they did at this time last year.

Now, these are preliminary figures subject to revisions. But they represent the first year-over-year declines that we鈥檝e seen since the pandemic.

The decline so far is not large in percentage terms. We鈥檙e talking about a decline of 0.4%, and this represents total workers, not full-time equivalents. School districts typically adjust around the margins first, reducing part-time positions or cutting hours before eliminating full-time jobs. These also don鈥檛 represent increases in layoffs鈥攖hose remain stable. Instead, this is mostly about a slowdown in hiring.

This shouldn鈥檛 be entirely surprising. School districts have spent the last two years warning about the end of federal pandemic aid and slower state revenue growth. For a while, many districts have been able to avoid workforce reductions. These latest employment numbers suggest that budget pressures may finally be showing up in the national data.

The other education sectors did not have as big of a change. As I鈥檝e written , the number of state education employees (public higher education) peaked more than a year ago. As a sector, it is down about 25,000 employees from a year ago, a decline of 1.1%.

The private childcare sector is down about 5,000 workers from a year ago, a decline of 0.4%.

Whether the latest numbers mark the beginning of a sustained decline or just a temporary pause will become clearer over time. But the years of uninterrupted staffing growth may be ending.

Joe Biden that he will soon release a memoir of his time in office. That volume follows on the heels of Jill Biden鈥檚 , which triggered controversy when some Democrats was attempting to gloss her husband鈥檚 delayed decision to not to seek reelection. And recent polls have toward the former president, with voters favorably comparing his economic record to his successor鈥檚.

So far, however, only one published retrospective has provided deep insight into the education legacy of the Biden White House. Written by New School Professor Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, the account appears as a chapter in , an essay collection featuring contributions from over a dozen historians. 

The author of , Petrzela examines President Biden鈥檚 K鈥�12 efforts within the longer context of a political life stretching back to the 1970s. At the outset of that half-century career, the 30-something senator was billed as a different kind of Democrat, and doubtful about the benefits of directing more money to schools. 

That early record stood in contrast with the first few years of his presidency. In early 2021, Biden signed the American Rescue Plan, a gargantuan spending bill, while also backing off from the education reform goals of his Democratic predecessors, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Neither that local schools move away from virtual learning as the COVID pandemic wound down. Perhaps the boldest executive move on education came in the form of a failed bid to cancel billions of dollars of student loan debt. 

After four years, the result was a muddle, Petrzela concludes. The increasingly embattled president advanced some ambitious K鈥�12 priorities, from massive ESSER expenditures to a revision of Title IX around LGBT rights in schools. But his education initiatives largely unfolded far from public attention, and the absence of assertive messaging allowed .

In an interview with 社区黑料鈥檚 Kevin Mahnken, Petrzela spoke about the recurrence of cultural conflicts in schools, the public鈥檚 COVID-era frustrations with Biden鈥檚 party, and why the president seemed to dart left on education and other issues.

鈥淒uring Biden’s presidential administration, he wasn’t much of a leader,鈥� she said. 鈥淗e was a one-term president, very old, and he was following the whims of the party quite a bit.鈥�

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

社区黑料: You do a great job examining the Biden administration’s education priorities in the light of Joe Biden’s early political career, which began during the busing controversies of the 1970s. Was there anything about that period that surprised you during your research?

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: I knew something of Joe Biden’s political evolution. But when I went back to the primary sources, I was actually surprised at about Great Society programs, and about this abiding faith 鈥� which others in his party had 鈥� that Big Government could fix really thorny social issues. 

When you already know that his presidential administration oversaw this huge outlay of money called the American Rescue Plan, and that his whole career was really about expanding federal spending in education, it was really something else to read . I’m paraphrasing, but he was essentially saying that America can’t spend its way out of its problems, and that Democrats shouldn’t see government spending through rose-colored lenses.

Biden’s reputation for being a new kind of Democrat 鈥� implicitly contrasted with the Great Society consensus, as you say 鈥� is ironic because, once he became president, the predecessor he was most often compared with . So he seems to finally end up in the same place he departed from.

If you think about what happened in both parties across the intervening decades, you really see the lines harden in terms of who’s onboard with expanding government spending and who comes down against it as the root of all evil. 

But early in the 1970s, the jury was still out on how this would fall. You had hardcore right-wingers in the John Birch Society, who thought that the New Deal was one step away from socialism. But it still wasn’t totally clear that the Great Society would establish the political architecture of the Democratic Party until today, or that the Republicans would define themselves against it. For that reason, it would be increasingly untenable for Democrats in the mainstream of the party to resist it in the way that Biden raised those questions early on.

So in the scope of that long political history, his trajectory makes perfect sense. But it’s still jarring to look at the primary sources and see how that shift happened.

Conservatives seemed to acculturate themselves to the New Deal in ways they never did to the liberalism of the ’60s and ’70s. The movement has usually pushed to shrink the government, even if Medicare was here to stay.

And we thought the Department of Education was here to stay! One of the things we teach in the history of education is how Ronald Reagan vowed to get rid of the department, and instead, under his administration, it was expanded. That’s a moment that is often used by political historians to show the enduring power of these agencies, and how they have a kind of permanence to them. But under Trump II, we’re seeing that they’re not so permanent.

But that move isn’t just a Trump-era relic. The era of big Washington-led initiatives like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, and the commitment to education reform that they embodied, petered out during President Obama’s second term. In retrospect, the Biden administration seems like the first glimpse of a post-reform Democratic Party. 

I agree with that. But the big turning point we’ve got to think about, especially in terms of what my chapter was responding to, was COVID. More than the end of NCLB, COVID redraws the lines of politics and discourse around education. 

Prior to the pandemic, I wouldn’t say education was off to the side 鈥� because we’re always fighting about education 鈥� but there was a lot of stuff that came into being, largely through Democrats during the Great Society and its aftermath, that people were not fundamentally questioning. Everyone wants their kids to read and write at school, and they want special education to be available at their kids’ schools. 

I’m a cultural historian, so I’m not trying to underplay the conflict that existed, but in 2020 and beyond, you have a series of converging circumstances that really put schools at the center of lots of people’s concerns about what’s going wrong in society. And it’s very easy to point at the Democrats as the villains who created those circumstances.

You point to a handful of major education pillars of the Biden education agenda, all grouped under the general theme of equity: Close to $200 billion in federal funding to states and districts to cope with the pandemic, and an overhaul of Title IX, but no real action on NCLB-style accountability and no immediate pressure on schools to reopen for in-person learning. Would you agree that these pillars largely reflected the growing influence and importance of teachers’ unions in Democratic politics?

That’s very accurate. You see the disappearance of the accountability agenda, which, to be clear, had some major problems. But there was a combination of a long-term push to loosen accountability, often led by the heads of unions, with the move to keep schools closed. And added to that was an emphasis on social justice content that a lot of people would say is both politically biased and irrelevant to fundamental academic skills.聽

At the same time, due to the school closures, a lot of parents had a much closer perspective on what their children were learning or not learning. That made it a complete powder keg, and one that seemed to have been created by Democrats 鈥� particularly because of the role of unions at the heart of things.

During the 2020 primaries, you might have predicted that a Biden education platform would resemble that of President Obama, to whom he closely tied himself. But right after becoming the nominee, he’s naming an education task force with two teachers’ union heads and no notable figures from the party’s reform wing. I’m wondering whether a decision like that reflects coalitional politics, Biden’s authentic beliefs, or some combination of the two.

Early in his career, Biden really cared about education and made it a big part of his politics. Jill Biden is obviously an educator, which may have contributed to that. So it’s kind of a surprise that he turned away from it in some ways, to the extent that I don’t think there really was a coherent educational agenda under the Biden administration. Democrats, in general, were really struggling with the issue, so who’s going to step in to create a unified agenda? It’s going to be the teachers’ unions, and they make it their agenda. 

In the article, I give the unions credit for some things. In other places, I think they’re totally off-base. There are a lot of different interest groups that find a way into policy conversations through union advocacy, and not all of those union priorities are working to improve education or to make Democrats look particularly good on education. 

And all of this is part of why you saw the Biden administration not really saying much about schools. You could say they were actually doing a lot, especially with the American Rescue Plan, but they’re not saying much. It’s a passive or surreptitious cession of power, and not a lot of control over messaging. If you think about it through the left-right perspective, it did allow the parts of the left that were aligned with unions to have a ton of latitude. But it also allowed the right to paint the Bidens as the vanguard of this radical leftist takeover of America. That’s totally unfair and over the top, but the administration didn’t do much to resist that characterization.

How much do you think these developments were accelerated by the first Trump term? Following the deep resistance to the views and policies of Betsy DeVos, it would have been really hard for President Biden to enter office in 2021 as an unreconstructed advocate for high-quality charter schools, for example.

Just think of how the discourse moved around education policy during that time. It really accelerated throughout the Biden administration because they didn’t do anything to change course. There was such a push-back against standardized tests, accountability, and charter schools, and a determination to attack “white supremacy culture” 鈥� with that term used to encapsulate all of these ideas that had been central to the education reform movement, from hard work to punctuality. There was no way Biden could come back and align himself with that agenda.

I think this gets at why Biden chose Kamala Harris as his running mate after she’d been so critical of his views on school busing. I’m not saying he was insincere in making that selection, but it was an important political move to show, in a very efficient way, how he’d changed his tune on education and race.

The exchange between those two during the Democratic primary debate, on an issue that was last relevant to national politics in the 1970s, seems even more significant in retrospect than it was at the time. Are there themes from that era of liberal politics that dovetail with similar debates today? 

Yeah, it’s bizarre in some ways that policies from 50 years ago can play such a central role in politics today. But and its aftermath 鈥� both the boldness of that idea and its unfulfilled legacy 鈥� kind of remains the central fulcrum point of educational politics, especially as it relates to race. 

When the LBJ was in office, there was an ongoing debate on the left about equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome. The Great Society, I would say, still came from the opportunity side of that spectrum. It’s shifting through the ’60s, but you had a lot of mainstream Democrats talking explicitly about opening the doors to opportunity. 

On the other hand, you’re just starting to see commitments to differential funding to achieve equal outcomes. Even though Title I exists by that point, it’s not as much a part of the discourse as today, when there’s so much talk about equity 鈥� and not just that, but lots of arguments that equality of opportunity, or meritocracy, or a level playing field, are just fantasies. That’s not how people were talking about these issues at the beginning of Biden’s career, even as they were creating the infrastructure for equity-centric policies.

I’m reminded that, in his Senate career, Biden was a kind of bellwether of the Democratic mainstream, always managing to . Maybe the simplest explanation for his migration on schools is that, rather than any kind of personal conviction, he moved with the party away from what had become an uncomfortable position in the 2010s.

I think so. 

I’m going to sound pretty critical saying this, but during Biden’s presidential administration, he wasn’t much of a leader. He was a one-term president, very old, and he was following the whims of the party quite a bit. Particularly on education, which was at the center of the intense political discord of that moment, he wasn’t really staking a claim to move the discourse in a new direction. 

And that was in spite of the fact that these were big policies: the American Rescue Plan, which was a very big piece of spending, the equity agenda, the focus on racial justice, the willingness to put union leaders front and center. In the article, I highlight the moment when Randi Weingarten and Becky Pringle [presidents of the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association, respectively] were brought as kids were still learning from home. As a parent, I remember that felt like a huge slap in the face.

You also write a little about the “,” which has seen college-educated voters move left and non-college-educated voters trend rightward. I wonder if that phenomenon has seen both sides polarize against the kind of liberalism Biden represented.

Biden found himself in a difficult position during his presidency. It was the culmination of his political career, but it came at a very awkward moment for someone of his age and background and beliefs. The last 10鈥�15 years have just been a very strange moment in thinking about the Democratic Party’s positions on all these things. Particularly for a lifer like Biden, who cares about party, it’s very hard to navigate all of that.

I’m critical of Biden in this article because I wish he’d done some things quite differently. But I also think he was in a very hard position, and playing it safe on education might have been an understandable move politically. 

Another objection that many parents raised during the COVID period was that schools were slipping political content into classroom lessons, particularly around “culture war” issues. Where did that come from?

Issues like sexuality, morality, and race are not necessarily about schools. But they are often framed through curricular or educational sites, with the school 鈥� I use that term generally, but it could be teachers, administrators, or whatever 鈥� being the promoter of radical, leftwing, elitist values. Schools and educators are very often characterized as out of touch with everyday people.

That is a remarkable thing. Public schools are a bedrock, free institution that most American kids go through, and it takes a lot of skill to present them as being in the thrall of an elitist project. But Democrats, and the cultural left more broadly, have sometimes made it too easy to paint that picture, and a lot of that has to do with the effect of education schools. There’s a lot of good work that comes out of ed schools, but it’s another institution that is way too easy to caricature as peddling wild, progressive thought about children that is immoral, probably un-American, and taking over U.S. schools. 

This distrust of schools has been a long-running divide in U.S. politics. And sometimes, some of these critics are right! I wrote my first book about culture wars in America, focusing a lot on sex education. And if you’re asking me, I think rightwing people who believe you should never talk about sexuality in school are wrong. It’s actually important to educate kids about these things. 

But they were making pretty good points sometimes, like when they pointed out that a lot of teachers of this newfangled sex education curriculum had no training themselves. It was true; there was no training at that time. People wanted to know what their kids were being taught, and they thought it was inappropriate for a teacher to be able to go off-script about these intimate things. Those are all legitimate questions to raise.

But it was easy to take those legitimate concerns and spin them into much larger, unfounded claims, like the idea that sex education was a Communist plot to turn children into sex slaves. That was something that got national coverage, and it’s not so different today from the “groomer” discourse that we hear about all the time: Radical, leftwing indoctrinators are grooming your kids.

And of course, some of this stuff does exist because the teaching force is massive, and we have a media environment that spreads all this stuff. But the idea that most teachers are like this, or that you should pull your kids out of public school, is crazy.

Does it surprise you that this suspicion of public schools has been such a consistent narrative for President Trump? As you mentioned, there’s nothing necessarily new about this distrust in the history of American politics, but it seems odd that a populist movement would position itself against the schools that 90 percent of American kids attend.

You’re right that it’s not a new thing, but there is something different about this moment of right-left polarization around education.

You could point to a lot of parallels with today’s education politics in the ’60s and ’70s. But what’s different about that time is that both right and left were fighting over public schools. They both want to control this institution that they acknowledge is really important for American society. So there’s a question of who will win and take over.

That’s basically gone right now. You have people on the right 鈥� Trump, but also lots of bloggers and podcasters and various other folks in rightwing media 鈥� saying that “government schools,” as they call them, are completely ideologically unsound and a systemic overreach of government power. Their view is that you shouldn’t have to pay taxes for these things, and you shouldn’t have to send your kids somewhere where government appointees will have control over them eight hours a day.

The solution that a lot of those folks offer is, yes, under the banner of privatization. But it’s not in the Mitt Romney way, or even the broadly understood way of advocating for private schools. There’s also been a big boom in homeschooling, and there’s a growing sense that education is a family responsibility for people to educate their own kids.

The way that is presented by Trump and other followers, is not to say, “Let’s find a way to get your kids an elite private school education.” It’s more like, “This is a time for the family to take control of raising their kids again, not outsourcing it to government bureaucrats, who are either lazy or scheming and nefarious.”

The National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, Inc, led by former Democratic Congressman Peter Deutsch, the Statewide Charter School Board in March, saying that Oklahoma鈥檚 law requiring charter schools to be nonsectarian qualifies as religious discrimination. 

“Many parents, both Jewish and non-Jewish, want the kind of rigorous, faith-based education Ben Gamla would provide,鈥� said Daniel Chen, an attorney with Becket, a nonprofit law firm focusing on religious liberty. 

The earliest the virtual school could open would be the fall of 2027. 

Ben Gamla is the second religious charter school that has tried to open in Oklahoma, where Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and former state Superintendent Ryan Walters encouraged the first online Catholic charter school. Last year, a lawsuit over St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in a 4-4 tie deadlocked over the question of whether charter schools are private and can, therefore, explicitly teach religion. That leaves the question unanswered, say supporters of religious charter schools. Similar efforts in other states, including Tennessee and California, mean there are many routes for returning the issue to the high court.

In the Ben Gamla case, U.S. District Judge David Russell, for the Western District of Oklahoma, will consider two issues. In addition to asking the court to allow the school to open while the case proceeds, Ben Gamla鈥檚 organizers also want the court to block Oklahoma families, now 鈥渋ntervenors鈥� in the case, from accessing information about the school, like proposed admission and student conduct policies.

鈥淚ntervenors are going on a fishing expedition, seeking sensitive information about schoolchildren, donors and the like,” Chen said.

But attorneys representing the families, , say any planning documents should be publicly available.

鈥淭o what extent will those policies discriminate against students or employees based on religion or sexual orientation or gender identity?鈥� asked Alex Luchenitser, vice president and associate legal director for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. 鈥淗ow religiously coercive will school operations be?鈥� 

In June, Russell granted requests from two groups of parents to intervene in the case. They argue that the school would force taxpayers to subsidize religion. Because the charter school board is not opposed to the Ben Gamla school in theory and even welcomed the lawsuit, that leaves the parents, including those whose children attend charter schools, as 鈥渢he only litigants seeking to defend the constitutionality鈥� of the state law, he wrote.

The judge is expected to rule in a few weeks, but Luchenitser said he could issue a decision on the documents sooner.

Luchenitser is also Americans United鈥檚 lead attorney on a federal case in Tennessee in which , a proposed 鈥淐hrist-centered鈥� charter school in Knoxville, is suing the Knox County Schools because the district wouldn鈥檛 allow the organizers to submit a charter application. 

U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley Jr., for the Eastern District of Tennessee, has set a trial date in that case for the week of Jan. 12. As in Oklahoma, the judge allowed a group of community members to intervene in the case when the school board said it wouldn鈥檛 take a position on Wilberforce鈥檚 legal argument. The organization says that while the state supports families who want a religious education for their children through its education savings account program, it shows 鈥渉ostility鈥� toward religious charter schools.

鈥楴ot freestanding鈥�

In Colorado, a over a Christian 鈥渃ontract鈥� school, similar to a charter, was another potential test case for faith-based public schools, But the 30-student Riverstone Academy shut down permanently at the end of last school year after health and safety violations as its facility. The state legislature also , making the school ineligible for funding. 

In a fourth case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled earlier this year that a homeschool program in California that operates under the umbrella of the Blue Ridge Academy charter school is still a public school, and, therefore, can鈥檛 practice religion. Parents and grandparents sued the state when officials said using public funds to purchase religious curriculum materials would violate state law. 

Liberty Justice Center, the conservative law firm representing the families, has until Aug. 20 to to the Supreme Court. 

But while supporters of religious charter schools plan their legal strategy for getting the issue back before the conservative justices, some advocates are sharpening arguments saying that charters are, without question, public schools.

According to a from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, these schools of choice 鈥渁re not freestanding private institutions.鈥� They exist only because of state action and operate with public resources.

Kevin Welner, an education and law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, called the paper a 鈥渧aliant effort,鈥� but one unlikely to sway the court the next time they hear a case over religious charter schools. 

The only reason the St. Isidore case ended in a tie is because Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself. While she didn鈥檛 give a reason, Barrett is close friends with a law professor who advised the school鈥檚 founders. That won鈥檛 happen a second time, and given that Barrett typically sides with those wanting on religious expression. Welner said he鈥檚 convinced that the Alliance 鈥渨ill lose that argument.鈥�

Along with Carol Burris of the Network for Public Education and Preston Green of the University of Connecticut, in a policy paper that if the court ultimately rules that charter schools are private entities, such schools will not only be able to practice religion, but potentially ignore other 鈥渂asic laws governing public schools,鈥� like open meetings requirements and conflict-of-interest rules.

To prevent that possibility, the three recommend that states should have districts govern charters instead of independent nonprofit boards. This change, they said, would make charters 鈥渦nambiguously governmental entities鈥� that are 鈥渇ully subject to constitutional requirements and civil rights laws.鈥�

Watching Florida

Starlee Coleman, president and CEO of the Alliance, rejected the idea, saying their proposal 鈥渨ould open the door to more regulation that will basically turn charters into district schools.鈥� The Alliance and other choice advocacy groups, like the , favor charter laws that allow for a variety of authorizers, including nonprofits.  

Meanwhile, in Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued stating that the First Amendment doesn鈥檛 prevent states from 鈥渆ncouraging鈥� religion and that excluding religious groups from opening charter schools violates the Constitution. 

So far, the Alliance hasn鈥檛 seen any religious groups trying to launch charters based on Uthmeier鈥檚 statements, Coleman said.

鈥淏ut it doesn鈥檛 mean we won鈥檛,鈥� she said. 

After all, Deutsch represented Florida in the House from 1993 to 2005 and that鈥檚 where he built a successful network of secular charter schools that teach Hebrew language and culture. In 2023, he told 社区黑料 that if he had known education savings accounts and private school choice programs were about to take off, he would have founded a 鈥淛ewish voucher school.鈥�

鈥淲e know there are people in Florida who are interested in advancing this issue,鈥� Coleman said. 鈥淲e are expecting that Florida could be the next state with an active case.鈥�

NEWNAN, Ga. 鈥� Arnco-Sargent Elementary sits in a wooded area on a two-lane road about 50 miles south of Atlanta. Across the street is a child care center. A Baptist church is less than a mile away. 

But if developers get their way, the school鈥檚 newest neighbor could be a sprawling data center campus housing the networking infrastructure needed to help power Americans鈥� reliance on the internet, and increasingly, artificial intelligence.

Families, some who have lived in the area for generations, are opposed, concerned about traffic, noise, water-quality and other adverse effects. In April, the rezoned 832 rural acres to accommodate the industrial development. Project Sail, as it鈥檚 called, could be under construction for the next 10 years.  

鈥淚 have a first grader. He’ll be in high school by the time it’s even finished,鈥� said Laura Beth, whose tree-lined property backs up to the proposed site. 鈥淭his will be his whole childhood.鈥� 

She chairs , which is to stop the project, while also leading a petition drive to get a referendum against it on the ballot. The battle is one of several nationwide in which the rapid expansion of these 鈥渉yperscale鈥� centers is colliding with the daily lives of public school families and staff. Americans depend on data centers to work, shop and learn. Despite the recent backlash to ed tech, one research firm estimates that the global in education will grow to over $136 billion by 2035. 

As demand surges, tech companies look for land that is relatively close to customers and existing electricity and water sources. 

鈥淭he closer data is stored to the people and systems relying on it, the faster it loads 鈥� a benefit that touches everything from healthcare to the classroom technology students and teachers use every day,鈥� said Dan Diorio, executive vice president of state policy and government affairs at the Data Center Coalition, a membership organization. 

But with concerns about energy use and environmental impacts, local governments 鈥� and 鈥� have on new data centers, and opponents say officials should restrict building near schools and residential neighborhoods. 

鈥淚 would like to say our situation鈥檚 unique,鈥� Beth said. 鈥淚t hurts me that it鈥檚 not.鈥�

Nationally, 1,878 public schools sit within a mile of at least one data center or a future facility that is approved for construction, according to researchers at Brown University. Shared exclusively with 社区黑料, the analysis of and National Center for Education Statistics data shows that California has by far the largest number of schools close to data centers or buildings-in-progress: 602, representing 32% of the nation鈥檚 total.

Ahmed Saeed, an assistant professor in computer science at Georgia Tech, explained that the infrastructure data centers rely on is more widely available near 鈥減opulation centers.鈥� But because dense urban areas don鈥檛 have enough affordable land, developers often gravitate to suburban and exurban areas. 

鈥淎s the number of data centers continues to grow, it becomes increasingly likely that some will be located near schools and residential neighborhoods,鈥� he said.

The latest , fueled by advancements in AI, is fairly recent, so researchers know little about the long-term effects of attending school near a facility. The Brown team, however, will soon release research showing that math scores are lower among students whose schools are closer to a data center. Companies say they take measures to minimize disruption, like planting trees to absorb sound, and some argue the downsides . 

鈥楾his buzzing noise鈥�

District leaders are among those who say data centers pose too many risks to ignore. 

鈥淎I is not going anywhere,鈥� said Marcia Andrews, a school board member in Palm Beach, Florida. 鈥淢y biggest concern is that these data centers should be far enough away that it doesn’t harm the community, it doesn’t harm the schools.鈥�

The Palm Beach County commission agreed. In July, members , a 202-acre near the Arden subdivision that would have been 鈥渏ust a football field away,鈥� from Saddle View Elementary School, Andrews said. The vote, however, leaves the door open for the developers to revise and resubmit their plans in the future. Andrews, whose district includes Saddle View, grew curious about the site when she saw crews widening the roads and planting palm trees. 

鈥淧eople across the country are waking up now saying, 鈥楳y gosh, we never dreamed that we would hear this buzzing noise 24/7,鈥� 鈥� she said.

One frequent complaint against data centers is the sound coming from cooling systems, fans and generators. In , a resident likened it to a jet engine. Another in , known for having the of data centers in the world, said the inescapable humming makes him 鈥渨ant to curse.鈥�

A from a former NASA safety manager and planning commissioner in Prince William County, Virginia, predicted that classroom noise from data centers near schools would likely exceed recommended levels. A separate in the state found that the sound is 鈥済enerally quieter than a lawn mower or nearby conversation,鈥� said Diorio, with the Data Center Coalition. But opponents there often share from a mother at Chris Yung Elementary who said her child wouldn鈥檛 go outside for recess because of the sound. 

Many data centers use , which would be like 鈥渁 bunch of semi trucks idling right next to the school,鈥� said Jessica Owens, the director of data at Science for Georgia, a nonprofit. 鈥淲ould you want your child in a facility next to a place that’s emitting pollutants, especially in the South when we have heat waves that exacerbate those pollutants?鈥�

Noise, she added, would impact a school within a mile, but they also create 鈥渉eat islands鈥� that can extend up to six miles. 

The closest Project Sail building would be about 1,000 feet from Arnco-Sargent Elementary 鈥渨ith setbacks, tree buffers, berms and other screening incorporated into the design,鈥� said  Mattie Sorrentino, a spokeswoman for Prologis, the company behind the Coweta County project. The site is 鈥渨ell-suited鈥� for the data center because of its close proximity to Plant Yates, a Georgia Power facility. 

The company 鈥渨ill meet or exceed every requirement,鈥� she said. 鈥淥ur goal is to keep the project out of sight as much as possible.鈥�

鈥業mpact on achievement鈥�

Even if students can鈥檛 see a data center from the playground, their learning may be at risk.

In a forthcoming paper, Brown University researchers will show that students who attend school within a mile of a data center have lower math scores than those who are farther away.

鈥淵ou can rule out all other factors,鈥� said Samantha Kane, a research associate and part of the university鈥檚 Sustainable Education Research Initiative. 鈥淚t’s actually the proximity to the data center and the potential pollution coming from the data center that is having the impact on achievement and not other things about the region.鈥�

Critics often as one way data centers put a strain on local resources. Early estimates said Project Sail would use 6 to 9 million gallons per day. Now Prologis says it would draw up to roughly 300,000 gallons a day from the Chattahoochee River, and some comparisons from 2023 show data centers use far less water than , like golf courses.

To reduce dependence on the local water supply, Project Sail would use what鈥檚 called a 鈥渃losed-loop鈥� cooling system. But there are . To keep the hardware inside from overheating, those mechanisms are 鈥渂lowing hot air into the area and increasing the temperature鈥� as much as , Owens said. If there鈥檚 already a heat wave, kids might get less recess time outside. The soaring temperatures also on the power grid as residents, businesses and schools crank up the air conditioning to stay comfortable. 

In Virginia this summer, officials in Henrico County, , asked the school system to help cut energy costs that are expected to increase by $5 million. District spokeswoman Eileen Cox said the system, with 81 schools and more than 50,000 students, already takes a 鈥減roactive approach鈥� to conserve electricity, like setting thermostats higher and operating a four-day work week during the summer.

The state, however, just enacted a new on data centers to offset some of the decline in revenue from tax breaks. from state and local taxes also make Georgia a preferred site for the industry. At this point, how many data centers are operating or proposed in Georgia, but Arnco-Sargent isn鈥檛 the only school in the state near land eyed by developers.

Closer to Atlanta, residents in Lovejoy are petitioning against a facility that would potentially sit between Michelle Obama STEM Academy and Eddie White Middle Academy.  

The site plan envisions about 3.5 million square feet and 15 buildings of data center space on at least 400 acres, said Clayton County , who has scheduled a community meeting for this Saturday. 

The community, she said, 鈥渘aturally has serious, legitimate questions about the cumulative, long-term impacts.鈥�

Traffic concerns

Schools in the vicinity of these facilities can feel the effects even before sites are operational. An elementary school in northeast Louisiana last year to protect students from the thousands of cement trucks and 18-wheelers traveling every day to what is expected to be . There were at least three truck crashes last year, and one smashed into the school鈥檚 gate. 

For Project Sail, Prologis agreed to some road improvements as a condition for the rezoning. Sorrentino said construction trucks would be routed away from the school and that when finished, the project would 鈥済enerate limited traffic.鈥�

But families are still worried. The intersection that parents and school bus drivers navigate for drop off and pick up every day doesn鈥檛 have a traffic light. 

The school has a long history in the community. Now 70 years old, Arnco-Sargent consolidated two older schools that used to serve children from local mill villages. But in 1996, the area鈥檚 leading textile company went bankrupt, families moved away and the area, Beth said, has never prospered like other parts of Coweta County. Nearly 60% of the school鈥檚 students live in poverty. 

鈥淭hese people are just trying to make a living,鈥� she said. Compared to those who the Palm Beach project, Arnco-Sargent parents perhaps have been less outspoken. 鈥淭hey don’t have time to go to a meeting at 6:00 on a Tuesday. They’re working and have young kids.鈥� 

But Beth is hopeful. At the first signature-gathering event, as residents waited to sign the petition. The organizers have nearly reached their goal of 14,000 signatures 

鈥淚 feel that this is what it took for the county to listen,鈥� she said.

A Senate committee advanced legislation Thursday aimed at undoing the Trump administration鈥檚 efforts to split apart the U.S. Department of Education. The bill delivers the plan the biggest rebuke since Education Secretary Linda McMahon began shifting offices to other agencies last year.

The education committee鈥檚 would keep oversight of K-12 and services for students with disabilities at the department. It would also keep the Office of Postsecondary Education out of the Department of Labor and the Office of Indian Education from moving to the Department of the Interior.

The legislation leaves 鈥渓andmark education programs,鈥� like Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 鈥渁t the Department of Education where Congress specifically put them and where they belong,鈥� said Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, who along with GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat. 

Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the committee, voted no on the bill, saying that he鈥檚 open to moving some programs, but opposes giving the Department of Health and Human Services responsibility for special education. That move treats 鈥渟tudents with disabilities as patients to diagnose rather than learners to educate,鈥� he said, adding that he doubts that any Education Department staff transferred there would be 鈥渆mpowered and prioritized鈥� to do their jobs.

Despite the bipartisan support for leaving much of the department intact, nine members, all Republicans, voted against it. 鈥淢any of us have long believed that the federal footprint in education is much larger than it needs to be,鈥� said Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.

Following the vote, McMahon and six other Trump cabinet members saying there are 鈥渕isconceptions鈥� about the agreements and they just need more time to prove they鈥檒l work. They have already 鈥渄emonstrated measurable results by driving stronger grant competitions, streamlining government operations and producing better outcomes for Americans,鈥� they wrote.

Political observers have said since the beginning that the administration鈥檚 plan to eliminate the department doesn鈥檛 stand a chance of passing the Senate, and Thursday was evidence of that. The legislation, however, still needs to pass the full Senate and is a sharp contrast to the package of 10 bills the House education committee moved earlier this month formalizing the movement of most key programs out of the department. While House Republicans call the arrangements 鈥渞eform,鈥� the actions have prompted Rep. Suzanne Bonamici to launch an impeachment effort against McMahon. The Oregon Democrat says the agreements are illegal and that the Republicans鈥� bills are an attempt 鈥渢o cover for the unlawful actions already taken.鈥� 

Even if the House passes those 10 bills, it鈥檚 highly unlikely they would ever get votes in the Senate, said David Cleary, a principal with The Group, a Washington lobbying firm and a former Republican education staffer for the Senate.

The Senate bill, he added, might not go any further either. It鈥檚 possible, he said, that Collins and Murkowski could attach it as an amendment to the for defense spending that Republicans are trying to pass through a process known as reconciliation. But even then, it might fail, Cleary said.

During that July 15 markup in the House, Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia said that the proposals don鈥檛 do anything to fulfill McMahon鈥檚 promise to 鈥渞eturn education to the states.鈥�

鈥淵ou鈥檙e just moving people around Washington D.C.,鈥� he said.

On Thursday, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington pressed the department to disclose how much the moves are costing taxpayers.

The Senate bill includes her amendment requiring McMahon to provide Congress with quarterly reports on how much the department is spending to implement the agreements. The department, so far, has spent $1 million to move just one relatively small office running to the Department of Labor, and the administration is asking for an to hire more staff to help with the transition.

鈥淚f you’re proud of this deal, show us the price tag,鈥� Murray said. 鈥淲hat do you have to hide?鈥�

Murray also offered separate amendments to reverse all of the agreements, including relocating the Office for Civil Rights to the Department of Justice, but those didn鈥檛 pass the committee. Collins said she鈥檚 in favor of letting the Justice Department take over education civil rights investigations because she said OCR has failed to address anti-semitism on college campuses.

But Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a Democrat, said the move won鈥檛 improve conditions for Jewish students because the administration has downsized the civil rights workforce. 

鈥淲e are at a 12-year low in terms of the number of cases that are being resolved,鈥� he said. DOJ is 鈥渏ust out of the business of trying to investigate serious instances of civil rights abuse.鈥�

Of all the interagency agreements, placing special education within HHS has received the most attention. One advocacy group supports the change, arguing that the shift would offer families more resources when their children transition out of the K-12 system. Out of the , HHS already runs federally funded programs for adults with disabilities.

鈥淭oo many students leave school without a clear path to a meaningful career, education or training path,鈥� Rachel Barkley, director of Able Americans, wrote in . 

But overall, have been highly unpopular. Over 700 organizations have signed saying that moving special education to HHS and civil rights to the Department of Justice undermines a 鈥渃oordinated and cohesive approach鈥� to addressing discrimination complaints. 

Shifting oversight, some advocates say, not only separates special education from OCR, but also from the Office for Elementary and Secondary Education, which McMahon transferred to the Department of Labor.

鈥淭hese are education programs,鈥� Bonamici said during the July 15 House markup. 鈥淜-12 is education; it is not job training.鈥� 

On a recent call with reporters, led by Murray, one parent explained that when her older son was diagnosed with a disability, she immediately wondered if he would ever go to college. Both of Lanya Elsa鈥檚 sons have Usher syndrome, a genetic disease that affects hearing and vision.

Conner, now 26, graduated college and works for Alaska Airlines. Dalton, 18, graduated this year with a 4.0 GPA from Bellevue High School in Washington. She attributed their success to the Department of Education鈥檚 鈥渟pecialized expertise.鈥�

鈥淭hat future was not guaranteed for them,鈥� said Elsa, also a special education researcher and teacher. 鈥淚t was made possible by families, educators, specialists, 鈥� federally funded deafblind programs and civil rights protections that believed my sons belonged.鈥�

The (S.4689) would strengthen the federal government鈥檚 oversight of the science of reading through amendments to the , which currently provides $194 million to aid literacy instruction in 23 states.聽

鈥淐apable students are dropping out of high school simply because they were never taught to read,鈥� said U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee chairman Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana. 鈥淭his legislation aims to address the national literacy crisis by strengthening evidence-based literacy instruction 鈥� and empowering states, local communities and parents with more resources.鈥�

After the bill鈥檚 20-2 passage out of the Senate HELP Committee, it now heads to the floor for a full senate vote. Other bills, including one that would explicitly identify dyslexia as a learning disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, also passed Thursday.

The READ Act closely mirrors and expands on a similar bill that unanimously passed the House of Representative鈥檚 Education Committee in March, but has not yet been taken up for a full House vote.

Both the Senate and House bill aim to define the science of reading in federal law as instruction that teaches phonics and phonemic awareness and also builds vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, oral language and writing skills. 

A report released earlier this year found nearly a third of teachers still used 鈥渄iscredited鈥� methods to teach kids how to read and aren鈥檛 fully committed to the science of reading. Both bills, however, would reject the use of federal funds for other teaching methods, such as three-cueing, where students are asked to figure out unfamiliar words through context clues or pictures.

The READ Act further includes proposals for prioritizing federal support for the bottom 10% of underperforming states and shifting funding of individual literacy projects to more systematic widespread efforts like requirements for early literacy screening.

It also has language that calls for teacher preparation program audits, expands professional development opportunities and creates new requirements for states to provide more detailed annual reports with the number of students receiving intervention, the number of teachers receiving professional development and the number of districts using high-quality learning materials aligned with the science of reading if they鈥檙e receiving the grant.

Keri Rodrigues, co-founder and president of the National Parents Union, said the bill’s passage out of committee is the result of years of advocacy from families.

鈥淭his is a bill that codifies the fact that the sky is blue,鈥� Rodrigues said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e just very excited that folks are seeing the importance of this, and we’re able to finally get [lawmakers] to show they can prioritize kids, they can be swayed based on evidence, they can actually make good decisions for kids and frankly do the right thing in what is a very difficult political climate.鈥�

Lawmakers on Thursday also considered the (S.3010), another piece of legislation that would affect students who are learning to read.

The 21st Century Dyslexia Act proposed to add and explicitly define dyslexia as a disability covered under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 鈥� requiring schools to provide accommodations and other services needed for dyslexic students to be successful in the classroom.

Under IDEA, students with 鈥溾�� are protected, but Cassidy argued that making dyslexia a disability category 鈥� similar to what was done with 鈥� would 鈥渋ncrease screening, identification and the number of students receiving appropriate accommodations.”

鈥淲hen reading scores haven’t moved and 20% of readers are dyslexic 鈥� and therefore learn to read differently 鈥� we either choose or choose not to do something positive for these students,鈥� Cassidy said. 鈥淚f we’re serious about addressing the inexcusably low literacy rates, we must pass this bill.鈥�

More than a dozen organizations, including The Reading League, National Center for Learning Disabilities and International Dyslexia Association , with concerns it would undermine support and confuse states.

In a written statement, the organizations also argued the legislation could be harmful because it used an outdated definition of dyslexia from the early 2000s. A new definition, which removed old IQ-discrepancy requirements, was from the International Dyslexia Association.

Democratic lawmakers, such as Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, brought up the challenges Thursday. 

鈥淭here are 27 states, including Indiana, Florida, Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina, that effectively ban the use of this definition. Congress banned the use of this definition in the 2004 version of the IDEA,鈥� Murphy said. 鈥淲hen you define dyslexia as relational between intelligence and reading ability, … many students with dyslexia 鈥� are judged to have lower intelligence levels. They don’t get services because you essentially have to show that there is a substantial difference between your reading ability and your assessed level of intelligence.鈥�

Murphy recommended to 鈥渃onvene a national conversation on this issue of the definition,鈥� and for the federal government 鈥渢o provide a higher level of technical assistance to states as they seek to get services out to people with disabilities,鈥� before the bill ultimately passed 12-10.

By 2030, the Foundation pledges to foster higher levels of math achievement; an increase in the number of first-generation college-goers; significantly improved pass rates for college freshmen; and a 25 percent jump in college credits successfully transferred between institutions. The campaign鈥檚 overarching mission is to galvanize 10 million people to earn valuable academic or professional credentials over the next few decades.  

The reset comes a little over a year after the massive philanthropy, a global player in education, development, and public health, announced to its dissolution in 2045. Approximately $200 billion in assets must be dispensed across the organization鈥檚 portfolio ahead of that still-distant deadline, which will bring an end to a half-century of giving.

Central to the organization鈥檚 vision will be the integration of artificial intelligence into instruction and college advising. A recent flood of AI tools, such as tutoring chatbots, has offered some hope of a leap forward in academic performance. But growing numbers of teachers relying on that technology, and a relative absence of standards of safety or effectiveness, suggest that results could be inconsistent over the next few years.

Allan Golston, president of the Foundation鈥檚 U.S. Program, told 社区黑料 that his aspiration was to bring together educators and innovators to generate guidance on the best uses of AI and move the field closer to something like quality control.

鈥淲e’re concerned about the proliferation of tools out there, where teachers and school leaders and district leaders don’t have the information they need to discern which ones to use or not to use,鈥� said Golston.

In the spring of 2024, roughly one-third of teachers said that they鈥檇 employed AI in their work at least once. A year later, that proportion had almost doubled. Yet in the same Gallup survey that reported the latter figure, 68 percent of respondents said they鈥檇 received no training to proceed, and just 19 percent were employed at schools with a formal AI policy. Last July, the U.S. Department of Education published outlining responsible uses for AI, including the development of tutoring applications.

While much of the public attention around AI has been directed toward products accessed by students 鈥� which depend, in most cases, on children鈥檚 willingness to actually participate 鈥� the Gates announcement specifically mentions teacher-facing functions intended to help individualize instruction to learners at different levels of understanding.

Golston cited as an example the , developed by the company Kiddom and piloted among roughly 180 teachers in New York City. Using short quizzes administered at the end of the school day, Atlas provided regular status reports on each student鈥檚 grasp of different math concepts; compared with demographically similar peers learning the same curriculum, middle schoolers using the program on the tests over time.

While the timely data was important, Golston argued that there was additional value in simplifying teachers鈥� jobs: Instead of having to toggle between their core curricula, supplemental learning materials, and a separate assessment interface, they could access all of it through one source.

鈥淭he burden of trying to make meaning out of all those inputs 鈥� which are critical to providing a quality education 鈥� rests on the teacher right now,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e think it’s possible to have AI do that behind the scenes and give teachers the information they need to be outstanding teachers for every single student.鈥� 

AI advisors

Boosting math performance has been the centerpiece of the Gates Foundation鈥檚 K鈥�12 strategy since its leaders made a $1.1 billion investment in curriculum development and teacher training in 2022. That priority was restated in the organization鈥檚 announcement Wednesday, which proposed to substantially increase the number of pupils completing Algebra 1 by the ninth grade.

Algebra has been an object of focus for over a decade in the world of math education, seen as a gateway to the advanced skills needed for a career in STEM fields. Other Gates commitments also focused on what the organization characterized as vital pivot points where students often find themselves at risk of falling behind.

One is the deployment of AI assistance to college advisors 鈥� especially those in comparatively low-capacity high schools, where some are charged with advising 400 or more children each year. High schoolers who don鈥檛 enjoy access to advisors or guidance counselors may be more likely to struggle with some of the procedural steps necessary to enroll in college.

New AI agents could help keep track of which students have completed applications or filled out FAFSA forms, allowing humans to offer more personal services and perspective, Golston said. That may mean prodding an admitted student to buy their textbooks, or encouraging an academically high-performing applicant to pursue dual-enrollment courses that earn college credit.

Carly Robinson, a Stanford University researcher whose work touches on both AI and the bonds between students and educators, agreed that easing the paperwork burden might allow advisors to focus on 鈥渢he parts of the job that actually benefits from a human relationship.鈥�

鈥淎 huge share of their time goes to red tape rather than actually working with kids,鈥� Robinson wrote in an email. 鈥淚f AI can absorb that logistical load, you’re not replacing the counselor. You鈥檙e directing them to be able to do more of the important work with students.鈥�

The Foundation鈥檚 other targets 鈥� including a redesign of first-year college classes to reduce the number of freshmen withdrawing from STEM coursework, and steps to facilitate the transfer of college credits 鈥� also clearly reflect 鈥渉igh-leverage areas where effective interventions can ripple out to millions of students,鈥� Robinson continued.

In a notable development, the updated blueprint places an institutional emphasis firmly on secondary and post-secondary success, with an ultimate ambition of doubling the rate of growth in 18鈥�34-year-olds who such as a college degree or professional license. While the Foundation has spent widely since the late 1990s, its most publicized education interventions have tended to focus on the K鈥�12 sphere, from an early push for to subsequent efforts around teacher evaluation systems and the .

Golston, who will be leaving his position at the end of August, said the organization鈥檚 strategic shift did not portend a retreat from younger students and that preparing middle and high schoolers for Algebra necessitated the development of rigorous and complementary math curricula from kindergarten onward. 

What role artificial intelligence may play in that endeavor, if any, is unknowable. Acknowledging the incredible pace of evolution in frontier technology, Golston noted that the next few years could uncover entirely new applications for AI inside and outside the classroom.

鈥淭hat might be tutoring in Calculus 1, if a student needs help at 10 p.m. when they’re studying and there’s no teacher or teaching assistant available,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t can also help students who have credits from across multiple systems to understand how those credits come together to get them on the path to a degree.鈥�

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

But unlike other states with millions of eligible students, like Texas, Florida and New York, California hasn鈥檛 opted into the new Treasury Department program, and so far, there鈥檚 no sign it will. 

That鈥檚 one takeaway from by advocates showing the number of students in each state who would qualify for the funding under the Education Freedom Tax Credit. Overall, 51.7 million children in public, private and charter schools could potentially receive a taxpayer-funded scholarship, according to the analysis from the American Federation for Children, the leading advocacy group behind the legislation. Past estimates have shown how much scholarship granting organizations, or SGOs, might each year and what the tax credit might cost the federal government in . But author Patrick Graff, a senior fellow at the organization, said it was important to look at the program from another angle. 

鈥淲ho are the kids that would actually benefit from these programs, and who are the families that would receive services that they otherwise wouldn’t receive?鈥� he asked. Founded by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the federation has historically championed private school choice. 

But with public school students able to receive funds for tutoring and other supplemental programs, Graff expects district superintendents 鈥渆specially in states where there are going to be budget crunches to strongly call on leaders鈥� to participate, if not next year, then in 2028.

To calculate the number of eligible students, Graff used Census Bureau estimates and survey data. K-12 students qualify if their household income doesn鈥檛 exceed 300% of the area median income. In Montgomery County, Maryland, for example, that鈥檚 almost $500,000. In Perry County, Alabama, one of the poorest counties in the nation, the family income limit would be $125,500. 

The report also notes that close to 800,000 homeschooled students would be left out of the program even though they meet family income requirements. Under current guidance, those children would only be eligible if their states classify homeschoolers as private school students. Unless the Treasury Department provides further clarification on the issue, that means some homeschoolers who use microschools would also be excluded. 

鈥楥omplete mystery鈥�

So far, 31 states have opted in by submitting paperwork with the IRS or indicating that they will. New York and Colorado are the only two Democratic-led states that plan to participate.

In California, school choice advocates are frustrated. 

鈥淚t’s a complete mystery why Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t made the easiest no-brainer decision and opted into the program already,鈥� said Lance Christensen, vice president of the conservative California Policy Center and a former Republican candidate for state superintendent.

But the governor, who President Donald Trump and criticizes his policies, has been silent on the issue. A spokeswoman for the governor declined to comment about the program. 

Congressman Kevin Kiley, an independent from the Sacramento area, Newsom to opt in before he leaves office in January. A state legislator, Republican Assemblyman Josh Hoover has also introduced encouraging the governor to participate. 

Democrat Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services secretary in the Biden administration, is leading in to succeed Newsom, but his focuses on early-childhood education and lowering class sizes. Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate, and would be more likely to opt into the tax credit.

鈥楤enefits for public schools鈥�

Starting next year, the program, also known as the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, allows taxpayers who donate up to $1,700 annually to a nonprofit SGO to deduct that same amount from what they owe in taxes. States will have to submit a list of approved SGOs, and according to , won鈥檛 be able to set additional requirements on those organizations, like only approving nonprofits that intend to serve students in public or private schools.

To help prepare district leaders, AASA, the School Superintendents Association, and Education Resource Strategies launched a last week. Josh Cowen, a Michigan State University professor and outspoken critic of publicly funded vouchers, said the guidance will help districts and nonprofits that intend to serve public school students catch up with what has traditionally been a private sector model.

鈥淭here’s nothing like this with respect to the benefits for public schools,鈥� said Cowen, who doesn鈥檛 want districts to miss out on new funding. His views on the program changed when the final version of the law, part of Trump鈥檚 One Big Beautiful Bill, made participation optional and limited what donors could contribute. 鈥淚 think public school students are going to be by far the biggest beneficiaries.鈥� 

By early next year, he expects the number of states opting in to reach 40, but he doesn鈥檛 think the American Federation for Children鈥檚 analysis will prompt any action from undecided governors. 

In fact, he thinks Democrats are turned off by Tommy Schultz, CEO of the federation, for opting in over from the teachers unions and Education Secretary Linda McMahon promoting the program. In June, she participated in aimed at getting Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro to sign up.

On one hand, governors 鈥渦nderstand there’s substantial revenue for public schools involved in this,鈥� Cowen said. But the same Trump administration, he added, in Minnesota earlier this year and is from California and Minnesota as it conducts a review. 鈥淚t’s really hard for them to look at the program and say 鈥榃ell, this is a good faith effort.鈥� 鈥�

In court documents, the administration has also clean energy grants to states that didn鈥檛 vote for Trump in 2024. Those larger political issues are getting in the way, Cowen said. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said she won鈥檛 opt into the tax credit program because she the administration, and recently called it a 鈥渢ax scheme鈥� that would benefit private schools.

Critics, like the left-leaning Century Foundation, argue that the new source of funds will support private and religious schools that LGBTQ students and those with disabilities. As the number of private schools increases in anticipation of the new program, students will likely be able to use the scholarships at schools that receive . 

In a , Jack Schneider, director of the Center for Education Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and journalist Jennifer Berkshire called the program 鈥渁 Trojan horse designed to bring the chaos of privatization into Democratic strongholds like Massachusetts,鈥� and warned Gov. Maura Healey against it.

Taking the opposite view, Charles Barone, senior director of the National Parents Union鈥檚 Center for Innovation, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill to opt in, calling the policy 鈥渁 potential tool for expanding opportunity within the public system.鈥�

Because taxpayers can donate to SGOs in any state, Graff, with the American Federation for Children, predicts that it will be especially hard for states in the northeast to resist.

鈥淭hey’re pretty quickly being surrounded by states that are signaling their intent to opt in,鈥� he said. In addition to New York, New Hampshire will participate. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 giving a few of those other governors a little more permission to step out on this issue.鈥� 

In AP Chemistry, the share of students scoring a 3, 4 or 5 (generally interpreted as a passing grade on , which are scored on a 1-5 scale) increased from 54% in 2022 to 75.1% in 2023. In AP United States Government and Politics, that proportion grew even more, from 49.2% to 73% from year to year. By , roughly 100,000 more students hit the passing threshold on AP U.S. History in 2024 than in 2023.

The change came 鈥� the nonprofit education organization that owns and administers both AP and the SAT 鈥� to adopt a new scoring methodology intended to tamp down volatility in results. The organization鈥檚 leadership said the new procedures brought their standards into better alignment with those of universities themselves, making the AP a more reliable indicator of students鈥� readiness for college-level work. Since scores of 3 or above are generally accepted for college credit, there needs to be a close equivalency between high ratings on the 42 AP subject tests and what is expected by postsecondary institutions.

Yet some critics say the surge in higher marks shows that the tests have simply been made easier to pass. The most prominent, Harvard political scientist Paul Peterson, pointedly accused the College Board of 鈥渄umbing down鈥� its hallmark products in a recent of published by the journal Education Next. 

Peterson said the shift might be seen as a reflection of grade inflation at the college level, adding that, after a long period , it could be seen as 鈥渁ppropriate鈥� for a test taker to now earn a 4 with a performance that previously would have merited a 3. 

On the other hand, he faulted the College Board for stirring confusion over what American students actually know 鈥� and for not being more forthcoming about changes in their methods.

鈥淭he College Board wants to say, 鈥榃e haven’t changed our standards, and we’re the one reliable benchmark out there that everyone should pay attention to,鈥� 鈥� Peterson told 社区黑料. 鈥淏ut at the same time, they’ve modified the way they score the material.鈥�

Trevor Packer, the College Board鈥檚 senior vice president for AP and instruction, rejected that characterization. Passing rates have risen precipitously because the old grading process, reliant on small panels of college instructors, dramatically understated high schoolers鈥� actual readiness for college, he said.

For a number of tests, Packer wrote in an email, 鈥減rior panels had established artificially stringent standards that produced pass rates well below the historical AP standard.鈥� 

Much could depend on whether states and colleges accept that explanation. Dozens of states to sit for the exams, and about the same number for passing scores. What鈥檚 more, governors and local education leaders and participation rates as in their states.

Tom Loveless, a veteran K鈥�12 researcher who formerly headed the Brookings Institution鈥檚 Brown Center on Education Policy, said the upsurge in AP grading is particularly incongruous with the results of virtually all other standardized testing from the last half-decade, which have shown significant drops in academic achievement coinciding with the emergence of COVID-19 and subsequent closure of schools to in-person learning. 

鈥淭hey started this [change in scoring] during the pandemic, and no one in their right mind thinks the scores went up during the pandemic,鈥� Loveless said. 鈥淵et the AP tests are defying what every other test is telling us.鈥� 

The 鈥楪reat Recalibration鈥�

Peterson鈥檚 analysis, based on the College Board鈥檚 scores on each subject test, shows that the phenomenon produced startling effects immediately.

Student grades across a selection of AP鈥檚 鈥� Biology, Chemistry, English Language and Composition, English Literature and Composition, Human Geography, U.S. Government and Politics, U.S. History, World History and Psychology 鈥� leapt at both the middle and top of the distribution. 

The fraction of students rated 3 or higher in those subjects rose from 52% in 2021 to 71% in 2025, while those scoring a 4 or a 5 ( as as either 鈥渨ell-qualified鈥� or 鈥渆xtremely well-qualified鈥� for college coursework) increased from 28% to 45%. The progress was not obviously the consequence of a more selective pool of participants; in fact, the total number of test takers grew by over 10% during those four years.

The sharp ascent accompanied called 鈥渆vidence-based standard setting,鈥� which incorporate input from hundreds of college faculty members about the performance expectations for their undergraduate courses. In the aftermath of that changeover, far more high schoolers were deemed capable of passing such courses than in years prior.

Packer, who has led AP for over 20 years, vigorously defends what critics call as a necessary step to smooth out inconsistencies in scoring that had plagued the program. In , he said the boost to scores under EBSS was actually much smaller than the annual changes generated by the earlier system 鈥� citing as an example a group of biology teachers whose 2013 update 鈥渟ubjectively reduced鈥� the number of students earning 5s by approximately three-quarters.

That example comes with a caveat, however: Far from a sudden jolt, the 2013 compression in biology grades followed an overhaul to the course curriculum that was previewed . At the time, that university professors considered the new exam 鈥渢he gold standard of college-level Biology.鈥�

In an email, College Board spokeswoman Sara Sympson said that the biology panel had erred in aligning their cut scores (the minimum score to attain a given mark, such as a 3) with the course鈥檚 new content and expectations.

鈥淭he redesigned course was excellent; the standard-setting was not,鈥� Sympson wrote.

Perhaps more pressing is the fact that little of the College Board鈥檚 recent data support claims of wild swings in student performance from one year to the next. Of the nine tests that were initially converted to the EBSS rubric, most had seen only modest scoring increases or decreases in the two decades before the pandemic. 

Between 2002 and 2019, the biggest year-over-year change in the share of students earning a passing grade on any of those tests was 12.3 percentage points (in AP Biology, after the 2013 redesign). By comparison, in the first year after EBSS鈥檚 adoption, the proportion of students who scored a 3 or above grew by an average of 17.4 points across all of the nine subjects. In virtually every case, the new system quickly lifted the number of passing grades to their highest level in recent memory. 

One noticeable example of scoring inconsistency occurred in 2022, when the pass rate for AP English Literature and Composition number skyrocketed by 34 points over the previous year. In an email, the College Board listed that explosion as an impetus to move away from its existing scoring process. 

Its description was somewhat ambiguous, however, specifying that the increase did not result from 鈥渢he full EBSS methodology.鈥� 

When publicizing the increase four years ago, to both the efforts of AP teachers and 鈥渁n accumulation of powerful data from colleges鈥� 鈥� wording that strongly echoes of the EBSS process, which it says 鈥渃ollects input from hundreds of experts and assembles fine-grained student performance data for analysis.鈥� This suggests the evolution toward new criteria may have already been underway that year, at least in part. 

A question of rigor

Packer has repeatedly explained the changes in a number of venues 鈥� including by authoring in which he dismissed as 鈥渆ntirely false鈥� the notion that the rigor of AP exams has been diluted.

In doing so, he addressed a secondary question that is decidedly murkier than the issue of cut scores. Over the last decade, some students and educators have questioned whether alterations to content and formatting may also be driving the growth in high scores. 

Most prominent among them is John Moscatiello, a career teacher and tutor who founded his own . In with Peterson in May, he said that the English Literature and Composition test now features shorter, simpler literary passages for student response than were common in the early 2000s. A of the items鈥� textual complexity reveals a substantial deterioration in difficulty over the last two decades, Moscatiello has argued. 

Tweaks at the margins may subtly impact how high schoolers experience the assessments. The College Board (a slight deduction in points for wrong answers, as opposed to leaving a question blank) in 2010, added in the U.S. History exam鈥檚 analytical reasoning section and recently in its virtual testing platforms.

Still, the cumulative effect of these shifts is difficult to know with any precision. 

Two years ago, when the AP history exams lowered the citation quota for their document-based questions (i.e., the number of sources that students are asked to reference in response to an essay prompt) from six to four, Steve Heimler that the decision would make a high score 鈥渕uch easier鈥� to achieve. 

The Georgia-based tutor, who once specialized in homeschool instruction, on YouTube and TikTok during the COVID era by dispensing tips to nudge his viewers鈥� point total upward. Many of his almost 1.3 million subscribers laud Heimler for guiding them to a better score, but notwithstanding the occasional adjustment from the College Board, Heimler believes that AP鈥檚 materials have lost little of their academic challenge.

In an email, he said he found it unlikely that the organization would deliberately water down their own assessments.

鈥淚 suppose it’s possible that they have modified their equations to result in higher scores, but I’m skeptical of that explanation since colleges rely on certain standards of rigor in AP exams in order to award credit,鈥� Heimler wrote. 鈥淚 assume they’d soon dissolve their partnerships with the College Board if it was clear that the scores were artificially inflated.鈥�

Calls for greater transparency

Some colleges already curtail students鈥� ability to substitute their AP scores for credit.

A from the Progressive Policy Institute found that, among the 153 most competitive postsecondary institutions in the United States, half restrict the amount of AP credits students can receive. Over 80% limit the applicability of AP credits in at least one subject area, and 10 schools 鈥� among them Dartmouth, Brown and CalTech 鈥� do not accept AP credit at all.

But those are fairly exceptional cases, and across the country, the vast majority of colleges honor AP scores of 3 or above. In part, this is because they are made to: Thirty-seven states actually require their public universities to award AP credits. 

Many of the same states for economically disadvantaged students to sit for the tests, which come with a $99 fee. Their investment in the program therefore imposes multiple demands on local taxpayers 鈥� both of which could become more tenuous if lawmakers and education leaders come to believe that the academic value of the exams and courses have been debased.

Richard P. Phelps, a longtime observer of K鈥�12 policy and the founder of the , has previously criticized the College Board鈥檚 financial and organizational structure. But in an email, he was sparing in his criticism of the so-called Great Recalibration, which he called a reasonable effort to make sure that AP coursework did not hold high school juniors to a loftier standard than college freshmen. 

Where Phelps did critique the Advanced Placement program was in its aggressive approach to public affairs. The College Board鈥檚 , he wrote, has 鈥渟uccessfully constrained many public colleges鈥� freedom to adjust their course credit policies.鈥� 

鈥淭hey must award course credit for certain AP exam scores even if they no longer believe those scores merit it,鈥� Phelps lamented. 

The prestige of AP clearly maintains a hold on the public, as evidenced by the growing numbers of students enrolling in its courses. Over 1.3 million pupils took at least one AP test in 2025, and about 80% of public high schoolers attend a school in which five or more AP courses are available. And political leaders in states like and have recently hailed 鈥渞ecord-high鈥� AP scores and course participation rates. 

But calls for transparency will likely grow. One early sign of skepticism emerged in February, when the boards overseeing admissions and academic policy throughout the University of California noted several concerns about AP scoring in to the system鈥檚 academic senate. The authors recommended that UC faculty carefully study 鈥渟pecific parameters 鈥� within EBSS that may be responsible for a sharp increase in pass rates鈥� and, if needed, reconsider their criteria for admissions, course placement and course credit.

To date, the College Board has only released addressing the controversy. More technical reports, including psychometric analyses from EBSS鈥檚 originators and historical scoring data from different AP iterations, haven鈥檛 been made public.

Loveless said that the College Board likely had defensible reasons for rolling out the policies that began in 2022. But what he called the absence of clarity in the organization鈥檚 actions 鈥渞aised suspicion,鈥� he continued.

鈥淭hey probably have data to justify a lot of what’s going on. The problem is they just haven’t released it,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey need to do a lot more explaining of what they did.鈥�

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The funding crisis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Changing conversations

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

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

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

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

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

What does the future hold?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This first appeared on .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The requests frequently become .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

鈥業gnoring FOIA officers鈥�

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

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

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

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

The logs also show:

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

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

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

鈥楩ind funding elsewhere鈥�

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

鈥楶roactively鈥� posting records

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

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

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

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

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

Notably, however, these effects fluctuated over time. After consistently outperforming district schools for more than a decade, MIT researcher Geoffrey Kocks found that charters forfeited their relative advantage entirely between 2015 and 2019, only to bounce back during the pandemic. By 2022, charters statewide once again enjoyed a meaningful edge, though not one as great as they exhibited before the slowdown. 

The shifts depicted in could reframe perceptions of a school choice sector that has for . They also offer a more textured picture of how one of the most influential education initiatives of the 21st century has evolved during a period of major social and economic changes, including the COVID shock and a lengthy period of academic stagnation that has been felt around the country. 

鈥淚 found it really interesting to refresh our understanding of what’s taking place, and to see that these effects were not static,鈥� said Kocks, a doctoral student working under the auspices of MIT鈥檚 . 鈥淚t’s not some kind of fixed charter effect that’s going to be large no matter what.鈥�

A half-decade slide

To track those effects over time, Kocks gathered data from admissions lotteries for 32 Massachusetts charter schools between 2002 and 2025. When charters receive more applications than they have seats, those lotteries determine which families are offered a place. They also create a natural experiment, effectively assigning otherwise-similar students to either charters or their local public school on a random basis. 

Prior lottery-based research 鈥� conducted by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joshua Angrist, who helped oversee Kocks鈥檚 work at MIT 鈥� has demonstrated powerful gains accruing to students enrolled at urban charters embracing the so-called No Excuses model of high academic standards, rigorous behavioral codes, and supplemental instruction through tutoring and extended school days. But much of that literature was published during the Bush and Obama presidencies, with fewer follow-up studies through the 2020s.

Kocks broadly points to similar benefits. By combining the lottery outcomes with students鈥� academic records from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, he also estimated large improvements to learning in the charter sector. For each year of attendance at a charter middle or high school, he estimated that students鈥� scores on the state鈥檚 mandated MCAS exam rose by six percentile points in math and three points in reading. 

Composite scores on the SAT also rose by 11.5 points per year of exposure to a Massachusetts charter school 鈥� a phenomenon driven almost entirely by charters in Boston and a ring of communities in its immediate vicinity, which lifted SAT scores by 25.7 points annually. Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged children also experienced an especially large boost, ascending by an average of 8鈥�11 points in math and 5鈥�6 points in reading on the MCAS.

Yet those impressive results began a steady decline in 2013, eventually receding to the point that charter performance was statistically indistinguishable from that of neighborhood public schools. Again, the trends were highly place-specific, with steep declines in urban charters and much gentler ones elsewhere; SAT scores for Boston-area charter students fell by a disquieting 43.1 points per year of charter enrollment between 2015 and 2019. 

The latest lottery and testing data offers signs of a strong rebound. Boston charters have reversed most of the damage sustained during the late 2010s, with the average student in the 2020s actually outpacing the annual literacy gains seen from 2010 to 2014.That movement is variable, though, with top-performing schools pulling away from scuffling ones.

Jim Peyser, who served a long stint as Massachusetts secretary of education during the period included in the study, said he was glad to see Boston students bouncing back. But he described the recovery in the state capital as 鈥渁 tale of two cities.鈥�

鈥淪ome of the charter schools that fell off a lot between 2019 and 2021 have come back pretty strongly,鈥� Peyser said. 鈥淏ut then you’ve got others that were struggling before COVID. They lost ground during the pandemic, and they haven’t necessarily recovered even back to where they were before.鈥�

Searching for explanations

But what could have caused the mysterious, half-decade slide in relative charter performance?

Kocks first ruled out a set of possible explanations, including modifications to state tests (Massachusetts shuffled through several assessments during this time) and transformations to student demographics (which were mostly small). Instead, he detected two important changes to charter school personnel at a critical time.

First, he found that principals at Boston-area charter schools turned over somewhat faster than those employed by Boston Public Schools in each year from 2015 to 2018. Greater churn was also evident when examining charters in and around Boston against those scattered further afield; just 20% of Boston-area charters were still led by their original CEO as of 2017, compared with 60% in others across the state.

Even more suggestive was a long-running trend in teacher qualifications: Boston-area charters were initially more likely to hire teachers who majored in, or were specifically licensed to teach, their classroom subject. But between 2012 and 2017, the percentage of their teachers with domain-specific knowledge fell from 55% to 40%, while the share of those teachers stayed flat in non-Boston charters.聽

Kocks noted that these findings did not represent causal proof. Yet several sources noted the potential importance of changes to Boston鈥檚 charter workforce around the time learning began to slip.

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Orin Gutlerner led a teacher residency program at the highly regarded . During that time, he said there was no difficulty signing up would-be educators with sterling academic credentials. With unemployment still high in the wake of the Great Recession, and the education reform era approaching its zenith, he sometimes received 20 or more applications for each slot.

But as the labor market recovered, many young employees chafed at the long hours and tough expectations at No Excuses schools. Testing evidence was promising, but school leaders were concerned enough about burnout to consider changing their practices. Gutlerner cited the example of a charter that quietly abandoned a requirement that teachers make at least 10 check-in calls to families each week, reasoning that it didn鈥檛 rise to the importance of their other commitments.

鈥淲hen we saw those strong academic results, and the teacher attrition, we said, 鈥榃e need to go all the way in the other direction and be much more mindful of teacher sustainability,鈥� 鈥� recalled Gutlerner, who now leads in the city鈥檚 Roxbury neighborhood. 鈥淚t’s not that that’s necessarily bad, but these things are very delicate balances, and it started to tip more in that direction.”

At the same time, Boston Public Schools was becoming more aggressive at recruiting high-level talent. In 2014, BPS that it had hired for 82% of its open positions by the end of June 鈥� a startling increase from just 9% the year before.聽

Sarah Cohodes, a professor of education policy at the University of Michigan who has published a string of influential studies on Boston charter schools, observed that the district鈥檚 generous compensation package also helped draw job seekers away from alternatives like Match, Bridge Boston, and Uncommon Schools.

鈥淭he BPS salary scale gets you close to $100,000 in nine years,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o people wanted those jobs, and once BPS got it together in terms of hiring, that was much more appealing than the charters.鈥�

鈥楢ntiracist鈥� policies under scrutiny

Kocks鈥檚 paper does not directly address another prominent hypothesis for charters鈥� temporary swoon.

In for The Boston Globe, education advocate Steven Wilson asserted that a sector-wide embrace of 鈥渁ntiracist鈥� policies聽led to the drop in achievement. The former charter leader 鈥� who was from the high-performing network he founded after authoring a blog post calling for more rigor in classrooms 鈥� last year making the same case in a national context.

The implementation of equity-focused initiatives, such as restorative justice or culturally responsive curricula, can be difficult to document over time. The MIT study did consider the possibility that Boston charters鈥� gradually decreasing rates of out-of-school suspension harmed learning, but ultimately showed that suspensions fell at BPS schools at the same time (albeit from a lower baseline). 

Gutlerner called Wilson鈥檚 views 鈥渁 pretty narrow analysis,鈥� while noting that increasing skepticism toward many aspects of school reform led to a reconsideration of discipline in some campuses. Charter teachers themselves suddenly became conversant on topics like the then-ubiquitous 鈥�,鈥� spurring dissent within schools, he remembered.

鈥淚nstead of methodically evaluating and shifting practices and making improvements, there were some wholesale calls to just rip out the entire behavior management system,鈥� he said. 鈥淥r to stop retaining students, ever.鈥澛�

Besides suspensions, a raft of stringent expectations and customs came to define many successful charters, such as silent hallway transitions and . The , and other moment-to-moment techniques used by school staff to keep instruction running smoothly, could have played a more important role than disciplinary penalties like suspension and detention, Gutlerner reflected. 

Peyser added that, as charter leaders became more distantly removed from the generation of founders who established the schools鈥� cultures, some of the organizations鈥� urgency and vision dissipated as well.

鈥淭hat [turnover] is associated with a weakening of the ‘No-Excuses’ culture, which many of the schools had adopted,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat possibly led to a general relaxation of school culture, which had been so important to their success.鈥�

Kocks said those historic observations, along with the drifting trajectory of learning outcomes at charter schools, indicated that much of their striking benefits could be contingent upon their own policies and implementation, along with conditions far outside their walls.

鈥淲hat surprised me was seeing how unstable these effects were, both in terms of the decline and the eventual rebound,鈥� he concluded. 鈥淭hat means that these inputs matter a lot, and we have the potential to make big changes in how effective schools are within a relatively short period of time.鈥�

This year, at least six states enacted laws trying to reduce the number of students chronically absent from school.

The measures include requiring monitoring of absences and publicly releasing data, developing new guidance on the best ways to address the problem and increasing punishments for parents and guardians of chronically absent students.

Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of school days in an academic year, which equates to about 18 days or two days per month.

A signed in March creates a student attendance monitoring system and requires the identification of at-risk students. Parents of students in grades 1-6 will receive a notice of violation after five truancies. If parents don鈥檛 meet with school officials to address the truancy, they could face a class B misdemeanor.

requires every school district and public charter school to compile data about the students who regularly attend class or are chronically absent, which will be made publicly available by the state鈥檚 Department of Education.

overhauls how the state defines and handles chronic absenteeism and truancy. Chronic absenteeism will remain categorized as 10% or more days of missed attendance. Truancy is classified as 20 or more unexcused absences within a school year.

If a student is considered truant and school-based interventions haven鈥檛 improved attendance, the law allows the state鈥檚 attorney to fine parents a maximum of $1,000 or to file a court petition against the parents.

Additionally, by July 2027, the state鈥檚 Agency of Education must develop a model policy on chronic absenteeism and truancy, including guidance on excusing absences, addressing absenteeism among students with disabilities and considering how bullying and hazing could impact a student鈥檚 attendance.

Under , a student transferring during the school year will have the number of unexcused absences reported to their next school, and any future unexcused absences will be added on a cumulative record. And it removes the five-hour limit on the amount of community service a judge may order for the parent or guardian of a student with five or more unexcused absences during a school year.

Under a sweeping K-12 education legislative enacted this year in Mississippi, the state is required to fund one attendance officer per 4,000 compulsory鈥憇chool鈥慳ged children.

And a recent New Jersey law establishes a chronic absenteeism task force, which will develop recommendations on the best way to address the problem.

According to FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University, lawmakers filed this legislative session about chronic absenteeism.

Of the 44 states and Washington, D.C., that have released 2024-25 attendance data, most states showed improvement, FutureEd found. But Colorado, Oklahoma, Mississippi, New Mexico and the district reported a rise in missed school days. And no state has fully returned to pre-pandemic levels, it said.

According to its most recent data, the U.S. Department of Education says the national rate of chronic absenteeism reached about 31% in 2021-22 and fell to 28% in 2022-23.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

That鈥檚 why our newsroom recently launched a new on Instagram () spotlighting a handful of important articles, case studies, data analyses and solutions snapshots that might have gotten lost in the noise. (You can also get these kind of daily highlights delivered straight to your inbox by signing up for our national newsletter.)听

From the new demands facing college students in this era of artificial intelligence to a leadership transition at America鈥檚 largest union, here are five stories you might have missed this week: 

1. Elementary Principals Are Getting a Crash Course in How Young Kids Learn Best

Young children need different conditions than older students to thrive. Some school leaders are adapting their practices to reflect that reality.

2. Princess Moss Elected NEA President With Votes From 50% of Assembly Members

The former music teacher, who previously served as the union’s vice president, narrowly avoided a run-off in July 5 election.

3. What Today鈥檚 College Students Need That Previous Generations Didn鈥檛

College degrees don鈥檛 guarantee good jobs anymore, so students must build resumes and AI skills in high school and college, experts say.

4. A Restored Detroit Rail Station Looks to the Future, Offering Training for Teens

Michigan Central Station, long a symbol of decline and decay, is now an innovation hub with workshops and cutting edge equipment for youth.

5. Q&A 鈥� 鈥楻ehumaning鈥� Education: Banning Screens Is Only Part of the Solution

鈥榃e don’t have to remove all tech,鈥� author Stephanie Malia Krauss says. 鈥榃e need to remove toxic tech鈥� and bring back play and adequate sleep.

But for microschools, a growing segment of the private school market, the initial guidance from federal officials has left school leaders worried they could be left out.

The law says that students can use scholarships for expenses at a public, private or religious school. But many microschools operate outside of their state鈥檚 private school sector 鈥� as tutoring centers, homeschool groups and learning pods. Depending on state law,聽they may or may not be classified as private schools.

In his , Kevin Salinger, the deputy assistant secretary for tax policy, added that 鈥渁 homeschool would be treated as a school if it is treated as a school under state law.鈥�

His comments have left some microschool leaders scratching their heads.

Even if a state decides to opt in to the new program, 鈥渋t is my concern that some will exclude microschools,鈥� said Don Soifer, CEO of the National Microschooling Center, who is closely monitoring the issue.

To him, Congress鈥� intent was clear. The states that if a student is eligible to attend a public K-12 school, then they will qualify for a scholarship as long as their family鈥檚 income doesn鈥檛 exceed 300% of the area median income, a high bar. Florida, Ohio and Tennessee are among the states that plan to participate in the program but have microschools that don鈥檛 fall under the private school umbrella. Some who advocated for passage of the law say microschool leaders should stay tuned for more information.

鈥淲e think Treasury misspoke or is misinterpreting the statute,鈥� said Jim Blew, a former Department of Education official who is working to implement the new program. 鈥淚t’ll all be cleared up by the time they issue the rules for 2027.鈥�

The Treasury Department did not respond to requests for comment.

鈥業n the hands of the states鈥� 

Under the program, which starts next year, taxpayers who donate to a nonprofit scholarship granting organization will get a dollar-for-dollar credit, up to $1,700. Opponents, including Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, want Congress to , and the teachers unions are to opt out. They note that Salinger, the Treasury official, said states won鈥檛 be able to 鈥渋mpose鈥� restrictions on SGOs. They can鈥檛, for example, only approve nonprofits that offer scholarships to public school kids and not approve those that serve students attending private schools.

Other Democrats, like former Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Jorge Elorza, CEO of Democrats for Education Reform, have urged blue state governors to opt in. that the program 鈥渙pens the door to new, private donations, at no cost to taxpayers, that can support students in public and nonpublic settings alike.鈥�

Cecilia Retelle Zywicki, founder of LearningSpring, which is building a system for states to track SGOs and payments, expects the Trump administration to stay out of the debate over how states define a school.

鈥淒etails like this are going to remain in the hands of the states,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he Treasury has made it clear in actions and words that oversight and compliance will remain with the states.鈥�

鈥楢 bummer鈥�

That means even in red states that already intend to participate, some students could be left out. 

鈥淚t’s a bummer because I know it would help the families,鈥� said Tonya Kipe, who runs Kipe Academy in Winter Haven, Florida, as a nonprofit tutoring center out of a Methodist church. 

She鈥檚 among those microschool founders who prefer not to organize as a private school. In addition to the microschool, which serves 36 students, she offers afterschool tutoring and a monthly science workshop. Becoming a more formal private school, she said, might require them to find a different facility and add testing requirements

As a former second grade teacher and mother of two boys, she knows how students can have vastly different learning needs. Her older son, she said, is the 鈥渃ompliant one,鈥� while her younger son wasn鈥檛 motivated by public school routines like earning points for reading books. She launched her own school in 2021 to break out of a 鈥渃ookie cutter鈥� approach to education. 

The families who signed up for her microschool were looking for the same thing.

鈥淭hey like the flexibility of being able to just be here for academics from 8 to 11:30 and then join us for field trips if they want to,鈥� she said. While many in her program already use Florida鈥檚 various private school choice options, she said the federal program could allow them to 鈥渄ouble up鈥� on tutoring, buy more supplies or add other supplemental programs.

Large microschool networks, like KaiPod Learning, are preparing for a patchwork approach across the country.

With locations in 21 states, KaiPod has 91 affiliated schools, about half of them private schools. The others operate as less-formal learning pods or co-ops, said CEO Amar Kumar. 

Kaipod will add about 40 more schools next school year, a third of them in Texas, where the state鈥檚 new Education Freedom Accounts program launches this fall. With that growth, he thinks the percentage of private schools in the network will likely climb to 65%.

Microschools, he said, are moving toward 鈥渕ore formalized structures鈥� as public funding for private school choice expands. 

鈥淥ur view is that this is healthy for the microschool movement,鈥� he said. 鈥淔amilies want flexibility and personalization, but they also want confidence that the school is stable, accountable and able to access available funding.鈥�

With roughly 1,000 microschools , the Prenda network helped introduce the public to the model during the pandemic when sites began to pop up . While there are Prenda microschools in nearly every state, founder Kelly Smith said the organization has focused on expanding sites, like those in Texas, where they qualify as private schools and families can apply for public funds.

鈥淲ealthy families already participate in microschools by paying out of pocket,鈥� he said. But the federal program 鈥渉as the potential of allowing lower and middle class families to send their kids to microschools.鈥� 

He said he was 鈥渂affled鈥� that some states were saying no to additional federal funds.

鈥淭hat is something governors almost never do,鈥� he said.

In a 6-3 decision, the conservative court said that West Virginia and Idaho did not break the law when they passed legislation prohibiting trans athletes from competing against biological women and girls. 

Becky-Pepper Jackson, a transgender 10th grader and track athlete in West Virginia, argued that such regulations are 鈥渦nreasonable.鈥� 

鈥淲e disagree,鈥� Justice Brett Kavanaugh , bringing his perspective as a girls鈥� to the case. 鈥淪eparate sports teams for biological males and biological females are reasonable: Given the inherent physical differences between the sexes, allowing only biological females to play on women鈥檚 and girls鈥� teams can reduce the risk of physical injury and ensure fair competition.鈥�

Attorneys who represented Jackson and Boise State University transgender student Lindsay Hecox called the opinion a 鈥渉eartbreaking ruling鈥� and 鈥渄eeply harmful.鈥� The decision, however, doesn鈥檛 settle an ongoing legal debate over whether Title IX requires that participation in sports be based on biological sex determined at birth. 

鈥淚’m not terribly surprised by the outcome, given the court鈥檚 opinions in the last year,鈥� said Jenny Denny, a specializing in education and Title IX compliance. 鈥淚 think we could read the writing on the wall.鈥�

Last year, the court upheld a Tennessee law prohibiting gender affirming care for minors, and in April, conservatives sided with California parents who argued that districts should alert parents if their child wants to change their gender identity.

But she said the court鈥檚 opinion did not redefine Title IX to suit the administration. 

鈥淯sing a sports analogy, which is fitting for today, it’s not a slam dunk for the U.S. Department of Education,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think we’ll see the Department of Education cherry pick some language from the opinion today, but it still doesn’t give a clear answer.鈥�

The decision doesn鈥檛 prevent states like California from maintaining policies that allow trans athletes to compete in line with their gender identity. But it also means the administration will likely continue its to prevent trans-inclusive policies through and threats to strip federal education funds from districts. 

Education Secretary Linda McMahon suggested as much in her comments on the ruling.

鈥淭his is a tremendous victory,鈥� she said, 鈥渁nd we look forward to ensuring that every educational institution in America abides by the law of the land.鈥� 

The department鈥檚 enforcement actions have been based on an President Donald Trump signed last year, but now officials will likely apply the court鈥檚 opinion to any future effort to rewrite the Title IX rule, said Joshua Dunn, executive director of the Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He frequently writes legal commentary for EdNext. 

He agreed that whether Title IX allows schools to include trans athletes in girls鈥� sports is still 鈥渁n open question.鈥�

Beth Parlato, senior legal counsel for the conservative Independent Women鈥檚 Law Center, called the opinion a 鈥渉uge win,鈥� but added, 鈥淭here鈥檚 more work to do.鈥�

Congress, she said, needs to 鈥渄o its job鈥� and pass legislation that would apply to all states.

In a partial dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the other two liberals on the court, agreed with Kavanaugh on Title IX. But she said the majority should have sent Jackson鈥檚 case back to the lower courts for further 鈥渇actual findings about the state of the scientific debate鈥� under the equal protection claim. 

鈥淎 restrained approach, based on all relevant facts, is particularly necessary when the court is faced with a consequential decision of constitutional dimension,鈥� she wrote.

While Jackson will likely not be able to compete in track this fall, Andrew Ortiz, senior policy attorney at the Transgender Law Center, said Tuesday鈥檚 decision won鈥檛 have a major impact. because there were already so few trans students participating in sports in the 28 states that tried to ban their participation. In those states, intramural sports and private schools, 鈥渃ould still be options,鈥� he said. While the cases now go back to the lower courts, he expects the states to 鈥減retty quickly鈥� prevail in their efforts to enforce their laws.

鈥楤ack of the pack鈥�

As is often the pattern, the justices released opinions with the most nationwide impact at the end of their term, one in which Trump鈥檚 agenda, from immigration reform to voting laws, has . While Hecox and Jackson challenged the laws in their states before Trump took office, the administration took part in the case, arguing that states shouldn鈥檛 have to carve out a special exception for transgender athletes even if, as their attorneys argued, their physical advantages have been diminished by puberty blockers or drugs to suppress testosterone.

In fact, several months after the oral arguments, Michael R. Williams, West Virginia鈥檚 solicitor general, argued that the opposite is happening. In May, he that Jackson finished fourth in discus and first in shot put in a statewide track and field competition. 

鈥淎s a high-school sophomore, B.P.J. is not finishing 鈥榥ear the back of the back,鈥� 鈥� , referencing the from Jackson鈥檚 legal team in the case. Jackson 鈥渋s instead defeating every 鈥� or nearly every 鈥� female in the state in these events.鈥�

But LGBTQ advocates, like the , argue that because transgender athletes represent such of students participating in sports, it鈥檚 misleading to say they are dominating competitions or 鈥渟tealing鈥� first place medals from women and girls. 

The debate continued at the appeals court level even while the Supreme Court deliberated in the West Virginia and Idaho cases.

In April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit an advocacy group, , in their argument that a Minnesota policy is discriminatory because it allows trans athletes to compete in sports consistent with their gender identity. 

The court said that Trump鈥檚 executive order and the administration鈥檚 actions against states and districts didn鈥檛 settle the legal dispute over the issue. 

鈥淭he executive branch鈥檚 views on that question may guide its own enforcement approach,鈥� wrote Raymond Gruender, a George W. Bush appointee. 鈥淏ut they cannot independently establish a 鈥榮trong likelihood鈥� that [the athlete鈥檚] participation violated Title IX or its implementing regulations.鈥�

As Petersburg鈥檚 once-booming manufacturing base hollowed out, crime and residents鈥� health . Along the way, places for kids to be kids disappeared, and many of them stopped coming to school.

Over the last year, about a quarter of students haven鈥檛 shown up for at least 10 days of class, even as Virginia overall that had spiked because of the pandemic. While chronic absenteeism is high, state tests show students鈥� academic performance . Most campuses weren鈥檛 accredited until a few . The whole school division and its 4,500 students has essentially been for decades. 

It鈥檚 a cycle that seemed unbreakable. Yet for almost four years, something quite extraordinary has been happening here. 

鈥淧etersburg has the worst outcomes of anyone on everything,鈥� said Aimee Guidera, Virginia鈥檚  secretary of education during former Gov. Glenn Youngkin鈥檚 term. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we went in.鈥� 

Guidera is referring to a 2022 encounter at a community meeting between Youngkin, a Republican, and Petersburg鈥檚 longtime Democratic mayor, Samuel Parham, which led to a yearslong relationship, . The partnership drew $447 million in state, federal and private sector investment to this city just south of Virginia鈥檚 capital, plus $2 billion in commitments to develop the area. It also helped fast track the city鈥檚 grant applications and approval for projects like , which will bring jobs and revenue, and supported small businesses , like the expansion of a Montessori-style childcare center.

In the schools, there is more before- and after-school childcare, more summer programs for kids and a new playground at the YMCA. There鈥檚 also more staff to help intervene when students and families are struggling, a new mentoring program for girls and more.聽

Despite the intervention and attention, however, Petersburg schools are still floundering and remain under close watch by the state. But there is hope that as the city changes, its schools will keep changing too. 

Parent Lakeshia Tinsley, who leads the school division鈥檚 Parent Advisory Committee and can rattle off a list of concerns about the city schools, summed it up this way: 鈥淧etersburg has been on the move, slowly but surely.鈥�

鈥業t鈥檚 all connected鈥�

That鈥檚 quite different from how Tinsley felt when she first moved here, lured by Petersburg鈥檚 low cost of living. The schools were thought to be so bad, she recalled being told that she鈥檇 need to move again once her daughter grew to school-age. 

At the time, just one of the city鈥檚 four elementary schools offered childcare before and after hours 鈥� care that, for many parents, makes working full-time possible.聽

In the early days of the partnership, Guidera said members of the community frequently complained about that lack of care, along with the dearth of summer camps and activities for kids in general. 

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 just deal with crime without dealing with health, with poverty, with education,鈥� Guidera said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 all connected.鈥�

In response, the commonwealth leveraged grants and federal dollars to expand care provided by the YMCA, before and after school at every city elementary school. 

For free. 

鈥淏efore, I was having to pay daycare at an actual daycare. That鈥檚 another bill that you have,鈥� said Tinsley, who is now running for a seat on the Petersburg school board. 鈥淚t鈥檚 more convenient to drop off at school,鈥� she added, recalling that the bus taking children from the private childcare center to her daughter鈥檚 elementary school in the mornings sometimes ran late.

A related endeavor led to and giving kids a hand in designing it. 

Girls with Pearls

Those kinds of spaces to play and gather are essential for kids, said Wanda Stewart, who grew up in Petersburg during the boom times in the ’70s and ’80s.

鈥淭here were baseball games at the park, Little League games, city events in the parks for families,鈥� she remembered. She attended college in North Carolina and later settled there with her husband. But phone calls home with nieces and nephews distressed her. 

The thriving city where Stewart grew up had gone.

Petersburg, a transportation hub that hugs the Appomattox River and a city , . The mall closed. So did the skating rink and movie theater. Even the bowling alley shut down.聽

Family who remained wondered if it wouldn鈥檛 be better for Stewart, with her experience in dropout prevention, to use her talents supporting children back home in Petersburg. When a job running Petersburg鈥檚 opened up, she seized the opportunity to return.

And because of the Partnership for Petersburg, she had the chance to tell then-first lady Suzanne Youngkin about her organization, which works to keep kids in school, in part by taking stock of needs like food, clothing and mental health. Many Petersburg students鈥� parents or underemployed compared to those in other parts of Virginia and the country as a whole.

Stewart got Youngkin鈥檚 attention. The partnership three of Petersburg鈥檚 eight schools to hire its own CIS site coordinator. A dedicated staff member in school meant getting early warnings about students鈥� and families鈥� needs and handling them in real time.

Stewart also told Youngkin about 鈥淕irls with Pearls,鈥� one facet of Communities in Schools she brought with her from North Carolina. Each participating student is paired with an adult mentor, who works with them on issues like leadership, self-care, etiquette and navigating conflict. The name comes from how the year ends: Selected girls at every Petersburg school are presented with a strand of pearls they鈥檝e earned for their monthly sessions. 

Youngkin attended a sixth-grade center as a child in Texas and took a special interest in working with the Girls in Pearls at Blandford Academy, the Petersburg school for sixth graders. Sixth grade centers can : the year between the safe space of elementary school and the more daunting middle school years, when some students drop out. 

鈥淚 have a sweet spot for sixth-grade girls,鈥� said Youngkin, who recruited members of her staff to mentor Blandford students.

Stewart said Communities in Schools staff and other school employees nominate girls they think would benefit from the monthly conversations and mentoring.

They are girls like Lakeshia Tinsley鈥檚 daughter, Serenity, and her classmate Zoey Williams, a fellow Blandford sixth grader who was Suzanne Youngkin鈥檚 mentee. At the group鈥檚 April gathering, Zoey and Youngkin chatted for a few minutes before getting into an ask-me-anything style conversation with a local OB/GYN who was there to explain menstruation. Many girls in Petersburg may be skipping school because they don鈥檛 have the menstrual supplies they need. The girls and their mentors filled 145 backpacks with pads and wipes 鈥� a two-month supply 鈥� so every Blandford girl would be outfitted with what they might need.

Before the Youngkins left the governor鈥檚 mansion in January, the girls got to visit. At the end of the school year, each received a strand of pearls as a parting gift. They were also given a journal and a binder filled with lessons to look back on. But 鈥渋t鈥檚 not about gifts,鈥� Youngkin said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about time.鈥�

鈥淚 got to learn stuff I didn鈥檛 really know about,鈥� Zoey said, citing sessions on anxiety and how to deal with emotions gone haywire. 鈥淚 got to meet new people.鈥�

鈥楴ot 鈥� a finger snap鈥�

Though the Partnership for Petersburg is over, and the Youngkins moved some 120 miles north, Youngkin said she plans to return when the next group of Girls with Pearls participants is selected in the fall. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 just sort of gotten to be what we do,鈥� she said.

Like Tinsley, Stewart said she鈥檚 noticed positive differences in Petersburg, even if there鈥檚 a long way to go on the school system鈥檚 biggest concern, student performance in math and reading.

The school division offers a glimpse of the changes: Several schools are now accredited. The division has had , offering a sense of stability at the top, after running through several others in the last few years. Brown has for every student to be ready for college, the military or a career upon graduation.

But getting them to show up to school, every day, remains one of Brown鈥檚 top priorities. For example, absences are now tracked by a school division website , and Brown to the school that cuts down the most on absences every month. Still, chronic absenteeism remains above 20% at every Petersburg public school and is greater than 30% at a few.聽

The school board and superintendent also adopted to guide how it will improve student achievement and hiring qualified teachers, among other goals. At the same time, , its first in 50 years. 

A Petersburg City Public Schools spokeswoman said neither the superintendent nor any of the division鈥檚 five board members would answer questions for this article.

Before- and after-school options grew because of the partnership. Girls with Pearls and the broader services afforded by Communities in Schools remain. But another effort directly tied to helping Petersburg students academically was short-lived.

Guidera helped hash out an agreement with the school division to bring in a surge of tutors, including students from nearby colleges, to work with students in person. Done right, it鈥檚 the kind of strategy can effectively address learning loss 鈥� 鈥渉uge in Petersburg even before COVID,鈥� she said 鈥� and something Virginia throughout the commonwealth.聽

But the arrangement, started under a superintendent who has long since left, lasted just a single school year. Another tutoring program hasn鈥檛 gotten off the ground, though talks with the current schools chief are ongoing. 

Guidera also said the commonwealth’s oversight of schools in Petersburg, and elsewhere, was revamped so it is supportive, not punitive. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not shaming and blaming. It鈥檚 very much focused on what works, and how do we use data 鈥� as a flashlight rather than as a hammer to identify what鈥檚 working, and learn from that.鈥�

For Guidera, however, the truth is that Petersburg schools have not improved enough 鈥� 鈥渘ot as much as I want,鈥� she said. But she recognizes it will take time: 鈥淚t鈥檚 not going to be a finger snap.鈥� 

Nevertheless, she thinks the intense investment of time and money was worthwhile.

鈥淭his is about partnership, community, relationships and building hope and using data.鈥�