OPINION: We need more ‘math people’ in our country. Let’s boost learning beyond the traditional school day  As a teacher, I heard it all the time: “I’m not a math person.” I would be in line at the grocery store, wearing a math T-shirt one of my students got for me, and I’d hear it: “Algebra? Who…

Fires, floods and other disasters are multiplying. Schools are adding training for workers to combat them      WATSONVILLE, Calif. — Gavin Abundis watched as firefighter Adrian Chairez demonstrated how he uses pulleys and harnesses to rappel down buildings. “You’ve probably seen it in the movies…

Congress exempted beauty schools from rules about how much graduates should earn Remiah Ward’s shift at the SmartStyle salon inside Walmart was almost over, and she’d barely made $30 in tips from the haircuts she’d done that day. It wasn’t unusual — a year after her graduation from beauty school,…

So you went to trade school. Do you out-earn high school grads in your state? Schools that train hairstylists, dental assistants and health aides will be able to keep getting federal student loan dollars even if the professionals they turn out don't end up earning any more than a high school…

What I learned about Head Start in rural America When Starr Dixon heard the Trump administration was floating a proposal last spring to eliminate Head Start, the 27-year-old parent in rural Michigan cried for a week. The free, federally funded early learning program has been life-changing for her…

Rural Americans rely on Head Start. Federal turmoil has them worried TROY, Ohio — For almost as long as she’s been a mother, Sara Laughlin has known where she could turn for help in this western Ohio town 20 miles north of Dayton. For years, the local Head Start program provided stability and care…

From Pony Soldier Inn to student housing: How an old hotel shows one solution to community college housing problems GRESHAM, Ore. — When Ken Perez was 24, he quit his construction job and moved back in with his parents so he could give college another try. He chipped in on some bills, but it was…

OPINION: Rural community colleges are uniquely positioned to tackle complex regional challenges and drive community transformation. Here’s how Every person deserves a place close to home where they can learn, grow and build a better future. In rural areas, that place is often a community college.…

OPINION: With students back on campus, schools need a broader approach for addressing their mental health needs  Many colleges are facing a steady surge in mental health crises, but their infrastructure hasn’t kept pace — even as the number of students reporting suicidal or self-injurious behavior…

Public school kids were already going missing. There’s even more to come For many Americans, the specter of missing children evokes forlorn images on milk cartons or Amber alerts on cell phones. But a new report from the Brookings Institution suggests that the pandemic may have created a new…

Schools confront a new reality: They can’t count on federal money ASHE COUNTY, N.C. — In the time it took to read an email, the federal money vanished before Superintendent Eisa Cox’s eyes: dollars that supported the Ashe County school district’s after-school program, training for its teachers,…

Helping kids learn how their brains work What if improving children’s mental health — and life outcomes — could be done by teaching kids how their brains work? That’s a key idea behind the approach of teachers at Momentous School in Dallas, a private elementary school that serves 225 students,…

STUDENT VOICE: What National Endowment for the Humanities cuts mean for high schoolers like me In April, the Trump administration announced drastic funding cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities. Those cuts are harming education groups that rely on NEH grants — and students like me.…

OPINION: Head Start ‘changed our lives’: A newly minted Ph.D. reflects on why this program must be saved  The first words I uttered after successfully defending my dissertation were, “Wow, what a ride. From Head Start to Ph.D.!” Saying them reminded me where it all began: sitting cross-legged with…

Behind the latest dismal NAEP scores The National Assessment for Educational Progress, called NAEP or the Nation’s Report Card, has long been considered the gold standard for understanding how American students are doing. So bad headlines were inevitable last week when the long-delayed 2024…

OPINION: The push to expand school choice is reshaping the landscape of American education, but leaving behind fundamental democratic values  From Texas to Florida to Arizona, school voucher policies are reshaping the landscape of American education. The Trump administration champions federal…

Football fantasy: Colleges add sports to bring men, but it doesn’t always work SALEM, Va. — On a hot and humid August morning in this southwestern Virginia town, football training camp is in full swing at Roanoke College. Players cheer as a receiver makes a leaping one-handed catch, and linemen…

Students, schools race to save clean energy projects in face of Trump deadline Tanish Doshi was in high school when he pushed the Tucson Unified School District to take on an ambitious plan to reduce its climate footprint. In Oct. 2024, the availability of federal tax credits encouraged the…

OPINION: Let’s move past bad report cards and toward new approaches to help students thrive in a rapidly changing world  America’s future is not made in factories or innovation labs — it’s forged in classrooms. We can’t bring good jobs back to U.S. shores if we don’t first educate a workforce…

OPINION: Higher education has been under attack. Here’s a new way to fight back and help today’s students   Today’s colleges face an uncertain future and need to be more relevant and more connected to the world of work to thrive. The liberal arts, which have evolved throughout history to meet the…

A window into America’s high schools slams shut This story was reported by and originally published by APM Reports in connection with its podcast Sold a Story: How Teach Kids to Read Went So Wrong. The choices you make as a teenager can shape the rest of your life. If you take high school classes…

Lawsuit saves massive reading experiment This story was reported by and originally published by APM Reports in connection with its podcast Sold a Story: How Teach Kids to Read Went So Wrong. The Zoom call was supposed to be a regular check-in for the team at Boston University. They’d wrapped up…

A researcher’s view on using AI to become a better writer Writing can be hard, equal parts heavy lifting and drudgery. No wonder so many students are turning to the time-saving allure of ChatGPT, which can crank out entire papers in seconds. It rescues them from procrastination jams and dreaded…

OPINION: Schools cannot teach AI literacy without a way to measure it Back to School with AI Read More on AI Everywhere you look, someone is telling students and workers to “learn AI.” It’s become the go-to advice for staying employable, relevant and prepared for the future. But here’s the…

OPINION: AI can be a great equalizer, but it remains out of reach for millions of Americans; we cannot let that continue Back to School with AI Read More on AI In an age defined by digital transformation, access to reliable, high-speed internet is not a luxury; it is the bedrock of opportunity. It…

OPINION: As they face conflicting messages about AI, some advice for educators on how to use it responsibly Back to School with AI Read More on AI When it comes to the rapid integration of artificial intelligence into K-12 classrooms, educators are being pulled in two very different directions.…

A gender gap in STEM widened during the pandemic. Schools are trying to make up lost ground IRVING, Texas — Crowded around a workshop table, four girls at de Zavala Middle School puzzled over a Lego machine they had built. As they flashed a purple card in front of a light sensor, nothing happened.…

Landmark free preschool program reaches too few kids In the 1980s, a public interest law group sued the state of New Jersey, saying that the way it funded education left its low-income, urban school districts at a disadvantage compared to wealthier, suburban districts. The lawsuit, Abbott v.…

Nation’s Report Card at risk, researchers say This story was reported by and originally published by APM Reports in connection with its podcast Sold a Story: How Teach Kids to Read Went So Wrong. When voters elected Donald Trump in November, most people who worked at the U.S. Department of…

State preschool program helps kids catch up — but many are missing out  This story about Abbott districts was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter. UNION CITY, N.J. — By…

Students can’t get into basic college courses, dragging out their time in school Ryan Arnoldy started community college with the goal of eventually transferring to a four-year university and getting a degree in chemical engineering. Soon Arnoldy started running up against the same exasperating…

OPINION: My students fulfill the promise of higher education every day, but their future is in jeopardy  As a college president, I see the promise of higher education fulfilled every day. Many students at my institution, Whittier College, are the first in their families to attend a university.…

A largely invisible role of international students: Fueling the innovation economy PITTSBURGH — Saisri Akondi had already started a company in her native India when she came to Carnegie Mellon University to get a master’s degree in biomedical engineering, business and design. Before she graduated,…

Colleges struggle to make manufacturing training hot again  ELYRIA, Ohio — Nolan Norman had no idea what microelectronic manufacturing entailed when his adviser at Midview High suggested he take the school’s new class on it last year.  Yet once he started fusing metal to circuit boards, he says he…

Texas fue pionero en dar matrículas estatales para los inmigrantes indocumentados. Ahora está dando marcha atrás. Read in English. SAN ANTONIO — Ximena tenía un plan. La joven de 18 años de Houston iba a comenzar clases este otoño en la Universidad de Texas en Tyler, donde le habían concedido una…

Tutoring was supposed to save American kids after the pandemic. The results? ‘Sobering’ Rigorous research rarely shows that any teaching approach produces large and consistent benefits for students. But tutoring seemed to be a rare exception. Before the pandemic, almost 100 studies pointed to…

OPINION: The resumption of student loan payments means students will need new policies — and our help  After a three-year pause prompted by the pandemic, the clock on student loan repayments suddenly started ticking again in September 2023, and forbearance ended last September. For millions of…

After Hechinger story, Illinois passes law requiring hospitals to connect parents of premature babies with life-changing therapies Illinois hospital staff will soon be required by law to refer parents of severely premature infants to services that can help prevent years of intensive and expensive…

These federal programs help low-income students get to and through college. Trump wants to pull the funding MOREHEAD, Ky. — The summer after ninth grade, Zoey Griffith found herself in an unfamiliar setting: a dorm on the Morehead State University campus. There, she’d spend the months before her…

What Trump’s education cuts mean for literacy This podcast, Sold a Story, was produced by APM Reports and reprinted with permission. There’s an idea about how children learn to read that’s held sway in schools for more than a generation – even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists…

What’s happened since Texas killed in-state tuition for undocumented students SAN ANTONIO — Ximena had a plan. The 18-year-old from Houston was going to start college in the fall at the University of Texas at Tyler, where she had been awarded $10,000 a year in scholarships. That, she hoped, would…

Taking on racial bias in early math lessons The early years are a critical time to teach the foundations of math. That’s when children learn to count, start identifying shapes and gain an early understanding of concepts like size and measurement. These years can also be a time when children are…

A ‘Great Defection’ threatens to empty universities and colleges of top teaching talent Paulina Cossette spent six years getting a doctoral degree with the goal of becoming a university professor. But it wasn’t long before she gave up on that path. With higher education under political assault,…

How this low-income school district outperformed wealthy districts in reading This podcast, Sold a Story, was produced by APM Reports and reprinted with permission. There’s an idea about how children learn to read that’s held sway in schools for more than a generation – even though it was proven…

This literacy approach works — but it’s never really caught on This podcast, Sold a Story, was produced by APM Reports and reprinted with permission. There’s an idea about how children learn to read that’s held sway in schools for more than a generation – even though it was proven wrong by…

A new law put a successful literacy approach at risk This podcast, Sold a Story, was produced by APM Reports and reprinted with permission. There’s an idea about how children learn to read that’s held sway in schools for more than a generation – even though it was proven wrong by cognitive…

Inaccurate, impossible: Experts knock new Trump plan to collect college admissions data President Donald Trump wants to collect more admissions data from colleges and universities to make sure they’re complying with a 2023 Supreme Court decision that ended race-conscious affirmative action. And he…

OPINION: Black fathers should not be perceived as a threat when they show up for their children  Across the country, Black fathers are too often seen as a threat when they speak up and advocate for their children. And it’s not just in courtrooms and on sidewalks — it’s happening in classrooms,…

How one state revamped high school to reflect reality: Not everyone goes to college This story is part of Hechinger’s ongoing coverage about rethinking high school. Read about high school apprenticeships in Indiana, a new diploma in Alabama that trades chemistry for carpentry, and “career…

OPINION: Tutoring can be a great training ground and a ready-made pipeline of future educators  After graduating from Knox College in Illinois with a bachelor’s degree, Stephanie Martinez-Calderon’s plans were upended by the pandemic. She hadn’t planned on becoming a teacher but found an…