From districts falling off the fiscal cliff and the crisis in STEM to COVID’s tragic lingering effects and the potential end of the U.S. Department of Education, some of the biggest education storylines of the year played out on the opinion pages of 蜜桃影视 in 2024. The essays we published informed, infuriated and inspired, shining a light on some of the thorniest issues facing America’s schools 鈥� and the young people most directly affected. Here, in no particular order, are our 15 most impactful op-eds of the year.

by Chad Aldeman

This macabre joke is all-too real for San Francisco, where a state panel took over budget decisions until the district balances its spending. In some ways, San Francisco is unique: It spent $40 million to try to fix its payroll system and, to avert a strike, gave teachers 19% raises. California’s school district financial oversight agency is also unusual. But in many ways, San Francisco is a canary in the coal mine for districts nationwide. From declining student enrollment to sustainable student-teacher ratios, contributor Chad Aldeman pointed out some important things to look for.

by Robert Pondiscio

In this eighth piece published in partnership with the Hoover Institution, looking at the state of American education in the 40 years since the publication of A Nation at Risk, American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Robert Pondiscio reflected on four decades of education reform and asked why most efforts have stopped at the classroom door. 鈥淐urriculum reform is the one approach that hasn鈥檛 yet been tried to break out of the exhausting cycle of education reforms that consistently fail to move the needle,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淩ather than hope that higher pay and merit-based rewards will eventually create a better teaching cohort, we should adopt high-quality instructional materials for all classrooms and train teachers on their effective implementation.鈥� 

by Jason Kamras & Taikein Cooper

After shutting down for 500 days during COVID, Richmond Public Schools administrators realized that a once-in-a-century pandemic required a once-in-a-century response. Simply returning to normal with the hope of a quick academic recovery was not going to work. So they did something revolutionary: made the school year longer. Ninety percent of families and 70% of teachers at two elementary schools opted into a pilot program, and at year’s end, literacy and attendance were up. Now, more schools are joining in. Contributors Jason Kamras and Taikein Cooper of Richmond Public Schools explained how it’s working.

by Robin Lake

New data from the Center on Reinventing Public Education’s 2024 State of the American Student report revealed that while some students were regaining ground after COVID, the youngest and most vulnerable were falling irreparably behind. In this call to action, CRPE Executive Director Robin Lake addressed COVID learning loss, absenteeism and teacher burnout, and wrote that if the current state of affairs continues, COVID-19 will leave its indelible mark on young people whose potential will go unrealized and whose futures will be constrained by the failures of adults to act.

by Mark Schneider

Closing the Department of Education is an evergreen goal for conservatives. The smallest Cabinet-level agency, it has accumulated a grab bag of functions that it doesn’t perform very well and that could 鈥� and should, wrote contributor Mark Schneider 鈥� be handled elsewhere. Even under a Republican administration, dissolving the department is difficult. But it鈥檚 not impossible. The former head of the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Center for Education Statistics suggested ways of rerouting its functions, from research to data management to FAFSA, to other agencies that could do things much better.

by Marguerite Roza & Maggie Cicco

Financial dysfunction is plaguing many city school districts, from Chicago, Seattle and Milwaukee to Cleveland, St. Louis and Providence, Rhode Island. From our friends at Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab, contributors Marguerite Roza and Maggie Cicco dug  into the crises spurred on by the fiscal cliff, union demands, falling enrollment and basic mismanagement, among other factors, and offered some things that districts and states can do. Continuing to look the other way will make things worse, they wrote; city kids need the adults to figure this out.

by Beth Fertig & Edward Montalvo

Alex Campbell asked his Tennessee high school students to solve a case involving a potential serial killer 鈥� responsible for at least six murders of redheaded white women 鈥� and they delivered. Over the course of the semester, the students spoke with professional investigators, gathered evidence and pieced together a nearly 40-year-old mystery to identify a suspect. Their work became the subject of a true-crime podcast series, Murder 101. Read XQ Institute鈥檚 eye-opening conversation with Campbell.

by David Steiner

An increasing number of districts are procuring high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) for their schools 鈥� a huge improvement, wrote contributor David Steiner, on the home-grown curricula many educators cobble together. But most teachers don’t use them, because they don鈥檛 believe their students can manage the rigor of grade-level instruction. They’re not wrong: If you had a class of 13-year-olds whose knowledge of math and English was one to three years below grade level, would you readily teach materials that assumed grade-level competence?  Steiner offered up one way to address that disconnect.

by Alina Adams

Students at one of New York City鈥檚 top screened public high schools recently protested how they were being taught pre-calculus/trigonometry. Not only did they win their case, but they taught some adults a lesson. Contributor Alina Adams’s daughter was one of the students 鈥� and Adams was one of the adults who required educating. Here, she described how the class took on an ineffective educator, escalating their complaints from the teacher to the guidance counselor to the principal 鈥� and getting a replacement who, 鈥淢akes sense when he talks!鈥�

by Chad Aldeman

When schools shifted online in spring 2020, it limited traditional teacher training. In response, states instituted short-term waivers allowing candidates to teach without fulfilling the normal requirements. This helped candidates who would have otherwise been prevented from teaching, while aiding school leaders in filling open positions. Were teachers worse for this lack of training? Contributor Chad Aldeman came upon research that suggested maybe not; educators who entered the profession during COVID without completing the full requirements performed about the same as their normally trained peers. So, Aldeman asked, why not make the waivers permanent?

by Conor P. Williams

For contributor Conor Williams, the pandemic shutdown was preceded by a sweet high note: His kid had just won the school鈥檚 bilingual spelling bee on March 13, 2020. Taking stock four years later, Williams found an unwillingness to reckon with COVID’s true cost or recognize its inevitable harm to learning. 鈥淭his anniversary should also be an invitation to extend a modicum of grace to ourselves, our peers and our schools,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淭hese were four punishing years. Pretending they can be quickly shaken off is yet another effort to shuffle the pandemic away without really grappling with it.鈥� 

by Larissa Phillips

鈥淚n my 15 years of working with adults who can鈥檛 read, I鈥檝e seen and heard countless examples of the limitations that low literacy skills impose on adults,鈥� wrote Larissa Phillips. 鈥淏ut while educators 鈥� bemoan the reading crisis and call for the heads of Balanced Literacy icons, the discourse entirely avoids the adult education world.鈥� The Volunteer Literacy Project founder reflected on her struggles in helping adults to read and the lack of support or materials to scale solutions for this growing population.

by Morgan Polikoff

When contributor Morgan Polikoff partnered with the Center on Reinventing Public Education to study how transparent state report cards are in reflecting COVID-19 learning loss and recovery, he expected they would contain broad information in user-friendly form. He was wrong; the vast majority of report cards from the 50 states and Washington, D.C., couldn’t answer even basic questions about the effects of COVID on student outcomes. Read Polikoff’s overview of the  report’s findings and recommendations for what states should consider moving forward.

Too Many Students Say School Isn鈥檛 Relevant. It鈥檚 Time to Listen to Them 

by Elisa Villanueva Beard

Students are telling us 鈥� in survey responses and in absenteeism rates 鈥� that they don鈥檛 believe school is preparing them for the future. Teach for America President Eliza Villanueva Beard offered three approaches to make school work for students: focus on reading and math achievement, reimagine the role of the teacher and double down on college and career preparation. 鈥淚t鈥檚 clear that our assignment as adults is this: Make sure our schools engage all kids, no matter their background or where they live,鈥� Beard wrote.

by Michele Cahill, Anne Mackinnon & Talia Milgrom-Elcott 

How can we get more young people to pursue careers in STEM? Our friends at Beyond100K and XQ laid out some solutions, including creating a sense of joy and belonging in the classroom and making the high school schedule less rigid so schools can collaborate with industry partners.

Correction: In an earlier version of this story, we incorrectly described Elisa Villanueva Beard’s essay. The piece is about how spiking absenteeism since the pandemic is a clear sign that education needs to be made more relevant for students.   

We asked 蜜桃影视 staff to offer up their latest recommendations, hoping that it might provide those looking for a good read during the cold winter months some engaging options. 

Here are 11 books we enjoyed this year:

1.

The best decision I ever made was to pursue my love of writing. Second to that is my love of art. I travel around the world with my sketchbook, inspired by architecture, sculptures and paintings from across the globe. 

That鈥檚 why I was so excited to read Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton. The opening pages of this incredible book were among the best written in the history of nonfiction books. It reads like a high-level master鈥檚 thesis 鈥� which sounds like an insult, but actually is not. It was so incredibly informative. 

Thornton takes the reader around the world to see where art is made and sold. It was fascinating. I鈥檝e never read a more detailed account of this behind-the-scenes activity than the one Thornton provided. I would love to read this book again. 鈥�Jo Napolitano, Senior Reporter

2.

When President Barack Obama his annual summer reading list, I pay very close attention 鈥� especially to the fiction he chooses. Just days before I found The God of the Woods by Liz Moore on Obama鈥檚 list, a friend had touted it as meeting my two book qualifications: it had to be an engaging page turner and it had to grab me on page one 鈥� a nod to all my years in New York City tabloid journalism!

The God of the Woods is a combo mystery, thriller and family story set in the summer of 1975 at a camp in upstate New York when Barbara Van Laar 鈥� the daughter of the wealthy family that owns the camp 鈥� has gone missing. This isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared 鈥� Barbara鈥檚 older brother, Bear, also vanished more than a decade before, never to be found.

The search for Barbara uncovers many secrets and sends shockwaves through the wealthy family, the camp, and the blue-collar community that serves them. The characters, particularly Barbara, her parents and camp director T.J., are well-developed and compelling. The plot is full of twists and turns, just like the upstate mountain range where the story is set. I don鈥檛 want to say too much other than what my friend said: 鈥淧robably a little too good a read if you鈥檝e got a kid at sleepaway camp!鈥� 鈥�JoAnne Wasserman, Executive Editor

3.

I am a huge fan of journalist and historian Garrett Graff and last summer, I spent a lot of warm evenings on my deck with his Watergate: A New History.

I have vivid memories of watching the 1973 hearings with my parents as a child and of going to see the film version of All the President鈥檚 Men a couple of years later. The journalism bug bit me early. 

Despite its heft, Graff鈥檚 book, published in February 2022, is a page-turner. A half-century after Richard Nixon鈥檚 resignation, co-conspirators have served their sentences, sold memoirs and died 鈥� freeing an avalanche of information that was unavailable to reporters at the time. 

Without the pressure of breaking news deadlines, Graff turns minor players in the conspiracies, cover-ups and investigations into compelling characters. One after another, they come to grips with the depth of the wrongdoing 鈥� only to be stunned by new evidence of the president鈥檚 involvement. 

Especially riveting is the last third of the book, where Congress, cabinet members and Nixon intimates wrestle with questions that are not so removed from today鈥檚 headlines: Whether a sitting president can withhold records from the highest courts in the land, how to orchestrate hearings so that they create a narrative understandable to the public and whether it was possible to shield the dignity of the office from the depravity of its occupant. 鈥�Beth Hawkins, Senior Writer and National Correspondent

4.

For 2024, I committed to reading only literature by Black authors and it has challenged me to explore new genres. As a first-time mystery reader, I found Brendan Slocumb鈥檚 2022 The Violin Conspiracy to be a captivating and accessible introduction.

The Violin Conspiracy focuses on main character Ray 鈥� an honest and passionate Black violinist who discovers a priceless violin connected to his enslaved ancestors. When he chooses to play the instrument during performances, Ray unexpectedly rises to fame as if the violin is a good luck charm. In the book, this is seen as a remarkable feat, reflecting the reality that Black musicians make up just 2.4% of American orchestra members, according to a . 

When Ray鈥檚 violin is stolen, his relentless search to recover it consumes his time and takes precedence over preparing for performances. As he navigates both the quest for his instrument and the systemic obstacles Black musicians face in a predominantly white field, Slocumb paints a vivid picture of the personal and professional challenges Ray endures. Though the book contains triggering elements, such as racial slurs and references to slavery, they can serve as crucial elements to understanding the racial issues Slocumb chooses to explore 鈥� adding depth to Ray鈥檚 struggle with his own identity in the classical music scene.

For those with a personal connection to music 鈥� like myself, having played instruments including the violin, for the majority of my life 鈥� the novel resonates on a profound level. It felt as though I was part of Ray鈥檚 global audience, with the power of his music transcending how I processed the racial tensions at play within the story. Slocumb鈥檚 seamless intertwinement of suspense, arts and culture has set a high bar for the rest of my literary journey. 鈥�Trinity Alicia, Digital Producer

5.

I deeply cherish the fact that the majority of my reading takes place with my children curled up around me, which on its own is pretty sweet. One of their most requested books is Shel Silverstein鈥檚 1981 A Light in the Attic, or what they like to call 鈥渇unny poem book.鈥� 

A Light in the Attic is not only filled with whimsical poetry but is also accompanied by illustrations drawn by Silverstein himself. 

A few of my children鈥檚 favorite snippets include 鈥渕ustard ice cream,鈥� 鈥減olar bears in Frigidaires,鈥� 鈥淢eehoos鈥� and 鈥淓xactlywatts.鈥� Some of the poems in the collection are pretty vicious like Who Ordered the Broiled Face? and Skin Stealer, but I think those tend to go over their heads. 

My daughter has been extremely interested in one poem called Ladies First! It features a character called Pamela Purse, whom my daughter calls Kamala Harris. Proclaiming 鈥渓adies first!鈥� does not always work out well for Pamela, but in some way I think it is inspiring my daughter to understand her own power and how to advocate for herself 鈥� except around cannibals. 

Their grandpa was a poet, who probably preferred Robert Frost to Silverstein, but I鈥檓 sure he would have been proud to witness their fascination with the art form. 鈥�Eamonn Fitzmaurice, Art and Technology Director

6.

Colson Whitehead was inspired to write The Nickel Boys after reading a news article about archaeology students at the University of South Florida unearthing the bodies of dozens of boys who had been tortured and raped and then buried in unmarked graves on the grounds of The Dozier School for Boys.  

His novel revolves around fictional character Elwood Curtis, a Black boy being raised by his grandmother in the Jim Crow-era South. Elwood is a good student and hard worker who gets selected to attend classes at a local college. But when he is unfairly arrested and sentenced to a juvenile reform school called the Nickel Academy in Tallahassee, Florida, his dreams are dashed and his life takes a decidedly dark turn. 

At the Nickel Academy, Ellwood is separated from the only family he knows and subjected to strict disciplinary actions and severe beatings. He forges a friendship during his time at the Nickel Academy, an alliance that helps both he and his companion endure the racism and abuse they experience at the hands of the school鈥檚 staff. 

Whitehead鈥檚 novel is gut-wrenching and beautifully written. It shines a light on one of America鈥檚 darkest periods and depicts the scars that are left on people who have endured one injustice after another. 鈥�Nicole Ridgway, Editor in Chief

7.

If you鈥檙e an Emily in Paris fan, you may have seen the multi-talented Ashley Park singing the song Beautiful Ruins in Rome this season. I can鈥檛 help but think it was a sly nod to one of my favorite recent reads, Jess Walter鈥檚 2012 bestseller by the same name that uses the filming of the epic 1960鈥檚 flop Cleopatra in Rome as a key plot device.

I am all there for books that satirize Hollywood. This one is a leading example of the insidery, delicious industry send-ups that make Beautiful Ruins such a fun, witty read 鈥� including an appearance by the beautiful ruin himself: Richard Burton. 

But the heart of the book is the enduring love and friendship between an American starlet and a wistful Italian innkeeper and what happens to them over the course of five decades after their forced parting. And speaking of multi-talented, Walter is also a former Spokane, Washington, newspaper reporter who wrote a definitive account of the 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge. 鈥�Kathy Moore, Executive Editor

8.

The Bee Sting was by far one of my favorite reads of this year. In Paul Murray’s tragicomic saga, the Barnes family is definitely in trouble. 

Dickie鈥檚 car business is going under and to cope, he鈥檚 spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker. His wife Imelda is engrossed in selling her jewelry on eBay while barely dodging the attention of a local farmer. Their teenage daughter Cass is binge drinking, and their 12-year-old son PJ is plotting an escape from home. 

As the Barnes family grapples with their mounting problems, they face the question of whether they can still rewrite their story and find a happy ending.

Murray is a master in plot with the ability to brilliantly weave together the narratives of seemingly unrelated characters and moments in time. The shifting perspectives brought depth and nuanced character development and the writing was simultaneously crisp and beautiful. This, paired with the surprising and complex ending, has kept the book on my mind since finishing it. 鈥�Amanda Geduld, Staff Writer

9.

The Earthseed series by one of my favorite authors, Octavia Butler, transcends the typical sci-fi label given by fans and literary experts. Butler鈥檚 work is genre blurring, dealing with race, sexism, religion and social commentary. 

Published in 1993, the first book Parable of the Sower is set in a post-apocalyptic America where climate change and a kind of civil war feels prescient in today鈥檚 politically divided landscape. And guess when this novel takes place? 2025!

The novel follows Lauren Olamina, a young Black woman who can feel the physical and emotional pain of others. After a violent attack on her town she leads survivors and other people they meet along the way to find a safe place to live. Over the course of the story, Olamina forms a religion called Earthseed, which teaches 鈥淕od is Change鈥� and that humanity must spread out into the Galaxy to seed new worlds.

Parable of the Sower has earned multiple accolades, including being named the . The book has since been adapted into an opera and a graphic novel. 

Its 1998 sequel Parable of the Talents follows Olimina and daughter Larkin Olamina/Asha Vere. Set in 2032, Olamina establishes an utopian community called Acorn, centered around Earthseed, but things take a dark and brutal turn.

While Butler published a ton of great short stories and novels, this series is one of her best. I can鈥檛 recommend it enough. 鈥�James Fields, Video Director

10. 

Victor LaValle鈥檚 taut, disturbing novella The Ballad of Black Tom begins with a curious dedication: 鈥淔or H.P. Lovecraft, with all my conflicted feelings.鈥� It suggests the book鈥檚 dual purpose: to pay homage to one of the fathers of modern horror while also holding a funhouse mirror up to the legacy of one of the more notorious racist authors in any genre.  

LaValle, who is Black, sets his mystery in Jazz Age New York. Charles Thomas Tester, a hustler who walks the streets of Harlem with an empty guitar case, is trying to make ends meet and care for his father, 鈥渁 man who鈥檇 been dying ever since his wife of twenty-one years expired.鈥� The call to deliver a mysterious yellow book to a shadowy woman in Queens ultimately brings him in contact with a conspiracy of wealthy families who are quite literally playing with the nature of reality.  

LaValle has a lot of fun turning Lovecraftian tropes on their head. For Lovecraft, New York, with its immigrants, vice and crime, was the epitome of everything wrong with the Modern Age. In setting his story there, viewed through the eyes of a Black man, LaValle lovingly evokes Harlem in the morning as being like 鈥渁 single drop of blood inside an enormous body that was waking up.鈥�

The book was recommended to me by a friend who knows I鈥檓 not a fan of horror. But with the exception of one exceptionally bloody (but necessary) scene, The Ballad of Black Tom plays more with eerie psychological suspense than cheap thrills and gore. 

While many other books grapple with Lovecraft鈥檚 tortured legacy 鈥� Matt Ruff鈥檚 Lovecraft Country was turned into an uneven series on HBO 鈥� LaValle鈥檚 work was justly lauded, the 2016 Shirley Jackson award for best novella. It deals with timeless themes of identity and the relationship between fathers and sons. But especially in this post-election season, its meditation on conspiratorial thinking, violence and xenophobia feels frighteningly fresh. 鈥�Andrew Brownstein, Executive Editor

11.

Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer was my favorite read of the year. Yes, it鈥檚 wonky and not exactly a beach read, but Dederer, a Seattle-area critic, has written what is probably the most complete exploration ever of the complex relationship between art, its creators and its consumers. 

She directly confronts the sometimes uncomfortable truths about our beloved artists (Woody Allen, Miles Davis, Roman Polanski, Pablo Picasso, Wagner 鈥� do I need to go on?) who have had messy, sometimes criminally messy, personal lives. While they鈥檙e mostly men, she also offers up a critique of women artists (Doris Lessing, Joni Mitchell) who have made problematic personal decisions for their art.

The key question: Can we still love the art but not the artist? 

Dederer navigates her own experiences as a fan and a writer while staring down our often contradictory relationship with problematic figures. She offers a helpful analogy, suggesting that we should see our favorite art, music, poetry, writing, etc., as a tapestry. If it鈥檚 visibly stained, do we still love it? Perhaps we love it 鈥� more?

The book is not just a commentary on specific artists but also an invitation to engage with our own values as consumers of culture. And Dederer’s vulnerability (she is honest about her own shortcomings as a mother in service to both her writing and, well, her drinking) makes the book a compelling read that changed how I think about problematic geniuses. 鈥�Greg Toppo, Senior Writer

Nearly five years after the emergence of COVID, the pandemic鈥檚 after-effects still ripple through schools and communities, with student learning persistently failing to reach levels seen in 2019. Just under $200 billion in federal assistance to states, which was used to keep districts afloat during the crisis, expired in September 鈥� with no further help visible on the horizon.

Increasingly, though, the kids filling American schools have only dim memories of quarantines or virtual instruction. Their experience is instead defined by a rash of trends and technologies that sprang up, or became much more common, during the period when schooling was scrambled: a massive build-out of tutoring programs; the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence as a tool of both academic achievement and academic dishonesty; a rise in student despair and anxiety, which some experts attribute to the spread of smartphones; and, for adolescents, soaring recreational marijuana use under newly permissive state laws.

Tomorrow is coming faster than ever, and its contours will be shaped by new leadership in Washington. After a fervid campaign season, President-elect Trump has already vowed to essentially terminate the federal government鈥檚 role in setting education policy by eliminating the U.S. Department of Education. 

But before turning to the future, 蜜桃影视 is taking a look back at 2024鈥檚 biggest discoveries from the world of education research. Welcome to the year in charts.

Federal Funds Lifted Learning 鈥� But Not Enough

Two papers released this summer by the Education Recovery Scorecard and the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research attempted to quantify the effects of the federal government鈥檚 , which channeled $190 billion to schools and districts over the last four years in response to the pandemic. Their findings showed that the money has helped, but came nowhere close to filling the academic hole left by COVID.

ESSER鈥檚 benefits were relatively modest (measured in math test scores, each $1,000 spent yielded about 10 percent of what is generally considered a medium-sized effect in education research) and distributed unequally, as different school districts received wildly divergent amounts from Washington. Assuming a similar bang for the buck, Congress would have to appropriate between $450 and $900 billion in further legislation in order to bring learning back to where it was in 2019, the researchers estimated.

That鈥檚 almost certainly not going to happen; ESSER funds officially dried up this September, and no effort has been made to renew them. If no further assistance is coming, the program鈥檚 legacy will have been helping to spur an incomplete learning recovery: According to released by the leaders of the Education Recovery Scorecard, students across the country had only made up one-quarter of their lost progress in reading, and one-third of their deficits in math, by the beginning of this year.

Students Are Still Hurting

The full picture of learning loss remains discouraging, particularly for those who were in their foundational years of schooling when the pandemic threw their education into chaos. 

According to by the testing group NWEA, eighth graders in 2024 were still a full school year behind in both math and reading compared with similar students from five years prior. Derived from the scores of 7.7 million students on the organization鈥檚 MAP Growth measure, that assessment also pointed to racial achievement gaps that have only grown wider in the 2020s, with Hispanic students falling the furthest behind in both elementary and middle school.

While academic damage has been especially scarring for those in middle and high school, even elementary schoolers are making slower academic progress today than in previous years. A separate report, released in March by the curriculum provider Amplify, showed that students from kindergarten through the second grade are making less progress toward literacy than they did during the 2021鈥�22 and 2022鈥�23 school years. In other words, growth has even slowed down since the immediate post-COVID period.

The Disappearing College Freshman

Colleges and universities face punishing demographic challenges in the years to come, as smaller birth cohorts and shrinking high school classes leave institutions to fight over a diminished applicant pool. Even more worrying, data suggests that rising numbers of potential college-goers are reconsidering their future plans and heading . 

The end result is a surprising erosion in the numbers of rising college students. According to by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, freshman enrollment has declined by 5 percent since last year, with 18-year-old freshmen falling by 6 percent. What鈥檚 more, that drop comes after a 3.6 percent decline just last year.

Much of the shrinkage was concentrated in particular student demographics and institutional types. For example, the number of white students 鈥� who constitute a healthy majority of all college attendees 鈥� fell by 0.6 percent this year, while their non-white peers continued to tick upwards. Most striking of all, both public and private colleges that enroll high percentages of Pell Grant recipients saw double-digit losses in freshman enrollment. 

Charter Schools Boost College-Going, If Not Test Scores

Charter schools have long enjoyed an uneven reputation based on geography. While those located in cities 鈥� often built on a 鈥渘o excuses鈥� framework that emphasizes high standards and tough discipline 鈥� can achieve incredible results, their suburban and rural counterparts traditional public schools.

But a paper authored by University of Michigan researcher Sarah Cohodes added a striking addendum. In an experiment based in Massachusetts, where Boston-based charters post anywhere in the country, she discovered that non-urban charters also manage to significantly increase students鈥� chances of enrolling and graduating from college. Paradoxically, however, they do so even as those same students perform worse on standardized tests than their peers in nearby public schools. 

It鈥檚 an open question how children鈥檚 achievement could decline even as post-secondary outcomes improve. Cohodes allowed for the possibility that families in suburban and rural school districts might enroll their kids in charters that focus heavily on areas like arts programming or social-emotional instruction, rather than elevating achievement in core subjects like math or English. 

鈥淭he whole premise of test-based accountability is that test-scores predict longer-term outcomes,鈥� Cohodes told 蜜桃影视. 鈥淏ut this situation shows it is not always the case, and other things are going on in schools.鈥� 

AI Could Get the Most out of Tutors

Tutoring programs exploded in the last five years as states and school districts searched for ways to counter plummeting achievement during COVID. But the cost of providing supplemental instruction to tens of millions of students can be eye-watering, even as the results seem to taper off as programs serve more students.  

That鈥檚 where artificial intelligence could prove a decisive advantage. circulated in October by the National Student Support Accelerator found that an AI-powered tutoring assistant significantly improved the performance of hundreds of tutors by prompting them with new ways to explain concepts to students. With the help of the tool, dubbed Tutor CoPilot, students assigned to the weakest tutors began posting academic results nearly equal to those assigned to the strongest. And the cost to run the program was just $20 per pupil. 

The paper suggests that tutoring initiatives may successfully adapt to the challenges of cost and scale. Another hopeful piece of evidence appeared this spring, when Stanford University researchers found that a 鈥渟mall burst鈥� program in Florida produced meaningful literacy gains for young learners through micro-interactions lasting just 5鈥�7 minutes at a time. If the success of such models can be replicated, there鈥檚 a chance that the benefits of tutoring could be enjoyed by millions more students.

Teachers Aren鈥檛 Happy

K鈥�12 educators have had a tough few years. While there鈥檚 strong disagreement about just how many of them actually walked off the job during the worst years of COVID, a combination of public health fears and worsening conditions in schools has led many to consider leaving the field since the pandemic began.

A published this fall by Brown University economist Matt Kraft put those fears into a much larger context. Using polling data going back decades, he found that public esteem for teaching 鈥� as measured by how many people called it a prestigious career, compared with other professions 鈥� is now at the lowest level seen in half a century. Fewer than half of all teachers said that the stress of their job was worth the effort, compared with over 80 percent in the 1970s.

Those numbers are bad enough, but they also appear to be turning off potential teaching candidates. The number of newly licensed teachers fell by one-third between 2006 and 2020, indicating that the reputational problems facing the K鈥�12 workforce came about long before the pandemic. Interest in teaching as a career path among high school seniors and college freshmen has also dropped substantially since 2010.

Even with a precipitously shrinking number of K鈥�12 students, schools will have a hard time coping if this generation of educators is replaced by a smaller, more demoralized cohort of successors.  

The Culture Wars Are Coming to a School Near You

One likely reason for lower job satisfaction among those toiling in the classroom? Disputes over politics and culture, which have recently grown far more contentious.

released by the RAND Corporation in February first publicized what many school employees have complained about for years. Lawmakers in 18 states passed legislation restricting classroom discussion of some topics, whether related to politics, history, race, gender, or sexuality, between 2021 and 2023. Those states are home to approximately one-third of all American teachers.

Strikingly, however, a full two-thirds of all teachers polled by RAND said that they self-censored or otherwise curtailed dialogue with students about hot-button issues. The authors dubbed that trend a 鈥渟pillover鈥� between school communities, often driven by groups of particularly vocal parents who may not reflect the attitudes of their neighbors. In the end, more than half of all teachers working in states with no statutory restrictions on classroom discussion still self-censored to one degree or another, the poll indicated. 

Notably, those findings dovetail neatly with other research showing that clashes over culture war issues can be and potentially harmful to student learning. 

Screentime Is On the Rise. So Is Depression

This year will likely be remembered as the period when concerns over children鈥檚 smartphone use, both inside schools and out, came under a microscope as never before. An increasing number of schools in the United States and around the world have moved to restrict the use of phones in the classroom, with many complaining of both disengagement during lessons and an atomized culture brought about by technological distraction.

But a growing scientific literature suggests that young people may be profoundly impacted by phones and social media during their hours at home and with friends. In , British academic Danny Blanchflower 鈥� a labor economist who has also specialized in the study of public happiness over decades 鈥� demonstrated a close correlation between the steep increase in youth exposure to screens and a concurrent upswell in self-described feelings of despair, worry and self-doubt. 

In 2022, Blanchflower and his colleagues found, over one-in-ten young women said they鈥檇 experienced a bad mental health day every day over the previous month, tripling the rate they鈥檇 reported in the early 1990s. At the same time, the percentage of young women who absorbed more than four hours of screen time each day jumped nearly eightfold.

Arguments about the effect of information technology on youth mental health are hotly contested, with skeptics observing that the evidence for a firm casual relationship between smartphones and depression is still quite tentative. But Blanchflower believes the downside risk of unfettered screentime is too great for policymakers not to act.  

鈥淲e could fart around about causality, but the potential cost of not doing something is so much greater than the cost of doing something and being wrong,鈥� he told 蜜桃影视.

Catholic Schools Might Need Vouchers to Survive

Since the beginning of the charter school explosion in the late 1990s, denizens of the policy world have speculated that the birth of a new educational model could escalate the decades-long decline in Catholic schooling. While increasing secularization has likely driven much of , the more recent emergence of free, easily accessible schools of choice in virtually every major American city seemed like the equivalent of throwing an anvil to a drowning man. 

In , Boston College professor Shaun Dougherty offered persuasive evidence that charter expansion had indeed come at the expense of the Catholic sector. Relying on data collected from over 25,000 K鈥�12 institutions, the study calculated that between 1998 and 2020, an average of 3.5 percent of Catholic school students disenrolled within two years of a charter opening in the vicinity. Given the thin margins in Catholic education, those declines made full-on closures significantly more likely. 

In a telling wrinkle, those trends were considerably muted in 10 jurisdictions that offered some form of private school choice, which provides families with money to spend on tuition or other educational expenses. That suggests that, with the spread of education savings accounts and similar policies, the multi-generational eclipse of Catholic schooling may begin to slow or even reverse. But, as Notre Dame law professor Nicole Stelle Garnett told 蜜桃影视, it could be too late for the Church to reverse its losses.

鈥淚f we鈥檇 gotten this much of private school choice in 1999, instead of 25 years later, we might have a lot more kids in Catholic schools today.鈥� 

School鈥檚 In, So Is Crime

As community hubs attracting large numbers of young people, schools are somewhat unavoidably linked to violence and antisocial behavior. Previous research has shown that when low-performing schools in Philadelphia were permanently closed in the early 2010s, the surrounding areas saw a pronounced reduction in violent crime.

But released this fall gave a much more sweeping overview of the link between schools and disorder. Using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, the authors found that criminal activity among children from the ages of 10 to 17 鈥� whether as perpetrators or victims 鈥� peaks during the school year, particularly during the autumn and spring. That鈥檚 an exact inversion of the pattern for older offenders, who are much more likely to commit crimes during the summer months.

Across more than 3,000 school districts, the school calendar was linked to a 41 percent increase in youth arrests and a 47 percent increase in reported crime, with the surge mostly occurring during school hours and during the week rather than the weekend. Much of the lawbreaking even occurs in schools themselves. 

鈥淚n poor and rich counties; well-resourced school districts and poorly resourced school districts; and rural and urban counties, schools are a primary driver of criminal activity involving children,鈥� the authors conclude.

For High Schoolers, Weed is Everywhere

One form of vice is particularly prevalent among older adolescents: marijuana use. According to published in March, over 30 percent of seniors reported using weed over the past year. 

That figure reflects a few coalescing trends, most importantly the legalization (or decriminalization) of weed . Three-quarters of Americans now live in a jurisdiction where the drug is available for either medicinal or recreational use, though age restrictions still make it illegal for almost any high schooler to do so legally. What鈥檚 more, the development of kid-friendly gummies and vape flavors makes marijuana more accessible to young people than in decades past. 

That鈥檚 especially concerning given the elevated potency of new cannabis items, which are far stronger on average than the common street product of even a few decades ago. Youth marijuana use to inhibited brain development and increased risk of psychological disorders in later life.

鈥淭he biggest consequence that we think about in the field of child development 鈥� is that using substances that are potentially psychoactive and addictive and have effects on development,鈥� Columbia psychiatrist Ryan Sultan told 蜜桃影视鈥檚 Amanda Geduld. 鈥淭he younger you are, the more problematic they might be.鈥�

Pre-K Helps Families’ Bottom Lines

Early childhood education has been shown to be an effective tool for improving students’ near-term academic performance, though research is unclear on can be sustained over time. In the hopes of reaching students before the K鈥�12 years and combatting gaps in readiness and achievement, a growing number of states and cities have their public pre-kindergarten offerings in recent years.

A paper released in October found that one such expansion brought considerable benefits to participating families 鈥� but for a somewhat surprising reason. When New Haven, Connecticut, established a pre-K program in the 1990s, enrolled students saw only ephemeral improvements to their test scores, school attendance, and likelihood of being held back in school, with effects essentially disappearing by the time they finished the eighth grade. But by participating in the program, which provided 10 hours of instruction and supplementary programs each day, those children allowed their parents to work more during the day. On average, caregivers earned 22 percent more, or nearly $5,500 per year for each year their kids remained in pre-K.

Even better, the same parents went on to earn 21 percent more in the six years after the program ended, likely because of their increased experience and job continuity, and their higher income dwarfed the costs of implementing the program. In other words, even if it contributes little in long-term academic gains, pre-K may generate huge value purely as a childcare benefit.

From the classroom to the ballot box to the dark web, we鈥檝e been tracking the key storylines of 2023. Here鈥檚 our most memorable and impactful journalism of the year: 

鈥楨ducation鈥檚 Long COVID鈥�: New Data Shows Recovery Stalled for Most Students

By Linda Jacobson

Data released this past July from NWEA showed that learning recovery had essentially stalled for most students, in the wake of the pandemic. The results from 6.7 million students showed that, on average, they need four additional months in school to catch up to pre-pandemic levels. Older and Black and Hispanic students need much more, and the gap between pre- and post-pandemic achievement for kids in fourth through eighth grade grew larger this year instead of smaller. Read Linda Jacobson鈥檚 report.

Exclusive Spending Data: Schools Still Pouring Money Into Reading Materials That Teach Kids to Guess

By Asher Lehrer-Small 

Districts across the country continue to pour money into expensive reading materials criticized for leaving many children without the basic ability to sound out words, an investigation by 蜜桃影视鈥檚 Asher Lehrer-Small revealed. Since the blockbuster Sold a Story podcast launched in October of 2022, opening the eyes of many to problematic reading instruction nationwide, at least 225 districts have spent over $1.5 million on new books, training and curriculums linked to the flawed 鈥渢hree-cueing鈥� method, according to a review of their purchase orders. Read our full report. 

Seizing on Parents鈥� Frustration, GOP Governors Push for Education Savings Accounts

By Linda Jacobson

Originally published in January: Republican governors across the country have put education savings accounts at the center of their 2023 legislative agendas. Many draw inspiration from states like Arizona, where almost 46,000 students use ESAs for private school, tutoring and homeschooling. 鈥淧arents want an all-of-the-above approach when it comes to how their kids are educated,鈥� said ExcelinEd鈥檚 Tom Greene. But Jessica Levin of the Education Law Center said there鈥檚 still 鈥渁 broad spectrum of groups that come out against them.鈥� Read the full story. 

Campus Road Trip Diary: 8 Things We Learned This Year About America鈥檚 Most Innovative High Schools

By 蜜桃影视

For months, 蜜桃影视’s  journalists crisscrossed the country visiting innovative high schools, both established and emerging, that are headed by educators seeking answers to one common question: What if we could start over and try something totally new? The 13 schools profiled in our High School Road Trip series represent just a small sample, but they offer a promising vision of what young people, freed from 200 years of tradition and offered freedom, guidance, opportunity and agency, can look forward to. Greg Toppo and Emmeline Zhao have eight key takeaways.

As Test Scores Crater, Debate Over Whether There鈥檚 a 鈥楽cience鈥� To Math Recovery

By Jo Napolitano

Are you team Fact Fluency or team Conceptual Understanding? That鈥檚 how one professor boiled down the debate over what鈥檚 being called the 鈥渟cience of math.鈥� That movement favors fact fluency, which says students need explicit, orderly instruction and must learn math鈥檚 vocabulary to understand it. Others argue that children are more likely to engage with math when they can explore its concepts and the reasoning behind them, and call the alternative approach failed and outdated. Jo Napolitano reports.

Sales Skyrocket for Phone Pouch Company as In-School Bans Spread

By Linda Jacobson

Yondr, a company that produces pouches for locking up students鈥� phones, has seen more than a tenfold increase in sales since 2021 鈥� a clear sign that the movement to keep phones out of classrooms is spreading across the U.S. A Senate bill that calls for $5 million to support such bans could send even more business Yondr鈥檚 way. One proponent called the system a game changer for improving students鈥� focus in school, but others say a complete ban goes too far. Linda Jacobson reports.

Due Process, Undue Delays: Families Trapped in NYC鈥檚 Decades-Long Special Ed Bottleneck

By Beth Hawkins

Twenty years ago, disabled children in the nation鈥檚 largest school system had their day in court and won. But today, even with fat files of documentation and legal orders in their favor, thousands of New York special education families can鈥檛 get the district to pay for services. Now, a backlog of children who went unevaluated and unserved during the pandemic threatens to further overwhelm the system. Beth Hawkins reported in June on a court-appointed overseer鈥檚 daunting list of recommendations and the struggles of one family caught in the dysfunction.

ChatGPT Is Landing Kids in the Principal鈥檚 Office, Survey Finds

By Mark Keierleber 

Ever since ChatGPT burst onto the scene last year, educators have worried that it could help kids plagiarize. While 50% of teachers say they know of a student being disciplined for using 鈥� or accused of using 鈥� generative artificial intelligence, students say they are more likely to access it for personal problems than homework. That鈥檚 a top finding from a Center for Democracy and Technology report released in September that also documents a surge in school-based digital privacy concerns among students and parents. Read Mark Keierleber鈥檚 report. 

The Mystery of Ryan Walters: How a Beloved History Teacher Became Oklahoma鈥檚 Culture-Warrior-in-Chief

By Linda Jacobson

Ryan Walters was one of the most well-liked teachers at McAlester High, known for skillfully explaining complex social and political movements in AP history class. But former students and colleagues barely recognize the man who last year was elected Oklahoma鈥檚 schools superintendent. Walters’s relentless crusade against 鈥渨oke ideology鈥� and attacks on educators have pushed the former small-town teacher into the national spotlight, alarming even some fellow Republicans. One lawmaker told reporter Linda Jacobson, 鈥淭his guy cares more about getting on Fox News than he does about doing his job.鈥� Read the full report. 

Why a New Brand of Cyberattack on Las Vegas Schools Should Worry Everyone

By Mark Keierleber

It was a Thursday morning when Las Vegas mom Brandi Hecht woke up to an unnerving email telling her that sensitive information about her daughters had been leaked and here were the PDFs to prove it. Hecht was being used as leverage in a new kind of cyberattack where the hackers went directly to parents and local media to issue threats and where they didn’t use sophisticated skills to infiltrate and extract data, but instead exploited weak student passwords and flimsy file-sharing practices in Google Workspace. With 鈥渧irtually every school in the U.S.鈥� relying on similar cloud-based suites, one K-12 cybersecurity expert said the breach methods used against Clark County Public Schools should set off alarm bells for educators nationwide. Read more. 

Six Hidden (and Not-So-Hidden) Factors Driving America鈥檚 Student Absenteeism Crisis

By Greg Toppo

As schools face record-setting chronic absenteeism nearly years after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, educators are looking for ways to bring students back into the fold of school. Here are six hidden and not-so-hidden possible reasons why so many young people are missing so much school 鈥� from worsening mental health to a higher minimum wage. 

Exclusive: Despite K-2 Reading Gains, Results Flat for 3rd Grade 鈥楥OVID Kids鈥�

By Linda Jacobson 

As of late February, the percentage of third graders on track in reading hadn鈥檛 budged since the same time in 2022, according to data provided by curriculum provider Amplify. The results, from 300,000 students in 43 states, was a reminder of the literacy setbacks experienced by those in kindergarten when schools shut down in 2020. But the data showed racial gaps had narrowed and K-2 students showed growth over the previous year, as skills among younger students slowly inched back to pre-pandemic levels. Linda Jacobson reports.

With More Teachers & Fewer Students, Districts Are Set up for Financial Trouble

By Chad Aldeman

To understand the teacher labor market, you have to hold two competing narratives in your head. On one hand, teacher turnover hit new highs, morale is low and schools are facing shortages. At the same time, public schools employ more teachers than before COVID, while serving 1.9 million fewer students. Student-teacher ratios are near all-time lows. Contributor Chad Aldeman and Eamonn Fitzmaurice, 蜜桃影视鈥檚 art and technology director, plotted these changes on an exclusive, interactive map 鈥� and explain how they’re putting districts in financial peril. Read the full story. 

鈥楿.S. Education Is a Challenged Space鈥�: In Exclusive 74 Interview, Bill Gates Talks Learning Recovery, AI and His Big Bet on Math

By Kevin Mahnken

Bill Gates may wield more influence over U.S. schools than any other figure outside the federal government. In the past 20 years, his massive philanthropic efforts have fostered a movement for small schools, fueled the spread of the Common Core standards and supported experimentation in teacher evaluations. Now, with student achievement still mired in the post-COVID doldrums, his foundation is making a billion-dollar commitment to revive math learning. 鈥淯.S. education is a challenged space,鈥� the Microsoft founder told 蜜桃影视鈥檚 Kevin Mahnken. Read our full interview. 

Go Deeper: See our complete archive of 74 Interviews

Stockton, California: What Happens When a Dysfunctional District Gets $241 Million

By Linda Jacobson

The Stockton school district in California鈥檚 Central Valley received $241 million in relief funds to help students recover from the pandemic. But, beset by dysfunction in its central office and deep mistrust among board members, it spent millions on two abandoned projects and six-figure salaries for its central office staff. Last winter, an independent auditor released the results of a long-awaited fraud investigation into the district鈥檚 finances. Linda Jacobson reports.

Explore Our Full Series: Following the COVID Money

New Study: Schools Prioritizing Social-Emotional Learning See Strong Academic Benefits

By Jo Napolitano

A recent study of Chicago Public Schools shows high schools that prioritized social-emotional development had double the positive long-term impact on students compared with those that focused solely on improving test scores. 鈥淗ow safe students feel 鈥�  physically, socially, psychologically 鈥� how deeply connected they are to others, how much they trust their teachers and their peers matters,鈥� University of Chicago senior research associate Shanette Porter told Jo Napolitano. Read our full story. 

They Stood Up to NYC Schools For Their Disabled Child. Then Child Protective Services Arrived

By Asher Lehrer-Small

After their autistic and nonverbal 7-year-old son came home from school with unexplained injuries, Luis and Michelle Diaz pressed for answers. But, to their surprise, the school pointed the finger back at the family, alleging neglect of their child. The response reveals a startling pattern: Across the nation鈥檚 largest district, parents who speak up on behalf of their special education children say they are accused of abuse 鈥� a tactic advocates say schools use to intimidate parents. Asher Lehrer-Small reports in this special 74 Investigation.

Teen Mental Health Crisis Pushes More School Districts to Sue Social Media Giants

By Marianna McMurdock

Teenagers’ mental health has so taxed and alarmed school districts that many are suing the social media giants they say helped cause the crisis. At least 11 districts, one county and one county system that oversees 23 districts have filed suits this year, representing roughly 469,000 students. Sources say more will follow. 鈥淪chools, states and Americans across the country are rightly pushing back against Big Tech putting profits over kids鈥� safety online,鈥� Sen. Richard Blumenthal told 蜜桃影视鈥檚 Marianna McMurdock. Read our full report. 

Amid the Pandemic, a Classical Education Boom: What if the Next Big School Trend Is 2,500 Years Old?

By Kevin Mahnken

Classical education, perhaps the oldest model of formal instruction in the Western world, is rapidly gaining adherents in the modern day. Sharing a focus on the liberal arts that can be traced back to the ancient world, classical schools have spread across the charter, private and homeschooling sectors in recent decades. Particularly since the pandemic, reports Kevin Mahnken, they鈥檝e been embraced by families seeking an alternative to traditional schools 鈥� and by politicians, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who see them as a check on progressive influences in the classroom. Read the full story. 

Exclusive: Virginia鈥檚 Fairfax Schools Expose Thousands of Sensitive Student Records

By Linda Jacobson

The Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, one of the nation鈥檚 largest, disclosed tens of thousands of sensitive, confidential student records, apparently by accident, to a parent advocate who has been an outspoken critic of its data privacy record. The files identify current and former special education students by name and include letter grades, disability status and mental health data. 鈥淚f they don’t have a system to respond in a protective, 鈥� efficient manner, that’s on them,鈥� said privacy expert Amelia Vance. Read our full report.

鈥楢 Bankrupt Concept of Math鈥�: Some Educators Argue Calculus Should Be Dethroned

By Jo Napolitano

Some in education say it鈥檚 time to reconsider calculus as an unofficial requirement for entrance to the nation鈥檚 top colleges. Many high schools 鈥� particularly those serving large numbers of Black, Hispanic or low-income students 鈥� don鈥檛 even offer the course. And even when they do, it鈥檚 of dubious value, critics say. 鈥淗igh school calculus is a complete waste of time and a form of torture,鈥� Alan Garfinkel, professor of integrative biology and physiology and medicine at UCLA, told 蜜桃影视鈥檚 Jo Napolitano.

Florida Just Became the Nation鈥檚 Biggest School Choice Laboratory

By Kevin Mahnken

With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Ron DeSantis made Florida the nation鈥檚 biggest K-12 marketplace. The March law makes every student in the state eligible to receive a private school voucher or education savings account. In the best-case scenario, said economist Krzysztof Karbownik, schools and families will be able to 鈥渓everage the power of competition鈥� to provide better options for kids. But he worries the new policy could create 鈥渁 whole market for relatively low-quality private schools.鈥� Kevin Mahnken reports.

Report: In 24 States, Using False Address to Get Into a Better School is a Crime

By Linda Jacobson

In nearly half the states in the country, parents risk criminal prosecution 鈥� and jail time 鈥� if they use a false address to get their children into a better school, according to a report from the nonprofits Available to All. The authors say enforcement largely targets minority families, and they want more states to follow Connecticut鈥檚 lead in decriminalizing so-called address sharing. But those tracking down offenders say residency fraud puts a strain on school budgets. .

Schools had one foot in the shutdown era, still struggling to restore a sense of normalcy that disappeared in 2020. A steep rise in behavioral and disciplinary issues, which many teachers hoped would be only the temporary product of COVID鈥檚 generational disruption to routines, stayed with us. Millions of kids have remained separated from their local schools 鈥� not because they鈥檙e prevented by public health measures from entering the building, but because they鈥檙e simply choosing not to attend classes. And across a whole range of academic subjects, actual student learning is lower and slower than it was before the pandemic.

Meanwhile, school systems are adapting to trends and technologies that have arisen just over the past few years. Districts are spending billions of dollars to establish or expand tutoring programs, which may be America鈥檚 best tool to combat learning loss, while AI platforms like ChatGPT are transforming the way instruction can be delivered (and challenging schools鈥� ability to keep ahead of cheating). 

And researchers continue to ask all the questions that have traditionally set the parameters of America鈥檚 K鈥�12 agenda: Why do student populations self-segregate? Is it better for kids to be assigned to tough or easy graders? How much do teacher training programs really help? Have charters caught up to traditional public schools?

As we do every year, 蜜桃影视 has compiled a year-end inventory of the most fascinating discoveries, insights, and ambiguities that came out of education research in 2023.

Welcome to the year in charts.

Student absenteeism is out of control

You could spend a lot of time simply tallying the aspects of student life that COVID made worse: significantly diminished achievement, lower odds of graduating on time, escalating behavioral challenges, and fewer applications to college. But the most dangerous consequence might be its effects on how often children came to school.

According to by Stanford University Professor Thomas Dee, the proportion of K鈥�12 students who were chronically absent 鈥� i.e., who missed 10 percent or more of the school year 鈥� nearly doubled during the pandemic, vaulting from 14.8 percent in 2019 to 28.3 percent in 2022. Extrapolated across all schools, that means an additional 6.5 million kids became chronically absent following COVID. Every state Dee studied saw an increase of at least 4 percentage points, but those with higher pre-pandemic rates of absence experienced the largest jumps.

The findings jibe with those of other alarming research on attendance. from Johns Hopkins University鈥檚 and the advocacy group Attendance Works, covered by 蜜桃影视鈥檚 Linda Jacobson in October, showed that in 2021鈥�22, two-thirds of American students attended a school where at least 20 percent of students were chronically absent. In over half of all high schools, chronic absenteeism rates topped 30 percent that year. 

Catch-up learning hit a wall last year

But are kids (at least, the ones actually showing up) regaining the ground they lost since 2020? According to much of the testing data that emerged this year, the answer is no 鈥� or at least, nowhere near quickly enough.

In , researchers from the nonprofit testing organization NWEA combed through nearly seven million children鈥檚 scores on the , which is administered both in the fall and the spring to measure how much students learn during the year. But test takers in the 2022鈥�23 academic year made markedly less progress in key subjects than comparable elementary and middle schoolers who sat for the exam before the pandemic, with growth in reading and math falling by as much as 19 percent and 15 percent, respectively. Only third-graders exceeded the pre-COVID learning averages. 

The stalled momentum was directly cited in on 鈥淪tate of the American Student,鈥� which distilled a host of worrying trends and warned that America has little time left to reset the trajectory for millions of adolescents. According to ongoing indicators like the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which released long-run scores for 13-year-olds this spring, average performance in math and reading has been set back to levels last seen decades ago.

Even if schools and families feel like they鈥檙e through with the pandemic, the pandemic 鈥� and the harsh blow it has dealt to kids 鈥� isn鈥檛 done with us. 

Virtual tutoring can work

Thankfully, states and districts aren鈥檛 sitting on their hands in the face of learning loss. Supported by billions of dollars of federal funds, many have invested heavily in tutoring programs that promise to help struggling children overcome the challenges imposed by past school closures and virtual instruction. The question is whether those efforts work for enough students to justify their cost 鈥� and according to data generated by , a Stanford initiative devoted to studying the effects of tutoring, there is reason for hope.

In October, the Accelerator circulated showing impressive results from , a fully virtual program provided to developing readers. The study found that among 1,000 students enrolled in Texas charter schools, participating in OnYourMark resulted in kindergartners gaining the equivalent of 26 extra days of learning in letter sounds and first graders receiving 55 additional days of sound decoding. The news is particularly encouraging in that it shows a path to success for virtual tutoring, which has often been shown to be far less effective than in-person instruction. 

Grade inflation got worse during the pandemic

As the chaotic transition to online learning got underway in 2020, schools had to decide how they would judge the work of students cut off from their teachers and classmates. Many opted for , including and granting credit for , out of a desire to avoid more punitive measures during a crisis. 

It鈥檚 difficult to chart the average impact of the shift across thousands of school districts, but the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) recently released focusing on a decade of student records in Washington State. The picture was stark: While the average middle and high school GPA for math rose by 0.11 points between 2011 and 2019, it got a boost three times that size 鈥� one-third of a GPA point, or about the difference between a C-plus and a B-minus 鈥� between 2019 and 2021. 

In general, wrote CALDER director and American Institutes for Research vice president Dan Goldhaber, the relationship between student grades and their scores on state standardized tests 鈥渉as diminished over time,鈥� particularly in math. A similar pattern is suggested by , which show scores remaining largely flat in recent years even as students鈥� self-reported high school grades have climbed. And just like with price inflation, GPAs that soared during the pandemic still haven鈥檛 fully come back to earth.

Tough grading has its advantages

So what are the effects of higher course marks? Several papers released this year indicate that they can be surprisingly negative.

In this fall, a trio of researchers explored the consequences of a statewide switch to more lenient grading standards undertaken in North Carolina  in 2014. The policy was meant to make grades more comparable between school districts, but in effect, it also lowered the threshold for each letter grade in high schools. It also seemed to affect various student groups quite differently. As expected, the highest-achieving kids received higher grades (though only in their freshman year), but disturbingly, struggling students didn鈥檛 receive a similar bump. They also seemed to disengage from school, accruing substantially more absences than students who weren鈥檛 exposed to the looser standards; over time, those absences likely hurt their learning, as measured by relatively lower scores on the ACT.

If easier grading holds the potential to hurt attendance and widen achievement gaps, the opposite may also be true. In a study that also focused on North Carolina schools, American University Professor Seth Gershenson discovered that eighth and ninth graders assigned to math teachers with relatively tougher grading standards later saw higher math scores throughout high school. And far from validating fears that hard classes make kids tune out, those students were also less likely to be absent from class than their peers. 

COVID hit social studies too

Much of the concern over learning loss is focused on weakened performance on the core disciplines of math and reading. In fact, the academic harm was widely dispersed. 

The National Assessment of Educational Progress 鈥� a federal standardized test often called the Nation鈥檚 Report Card 鈥� only measures proficiency in social studies every four years. The exam鈥檚 latest results, revealed in May, showed that eighth graders鈥� average history scores fell by five points; civics scores fell by two points, the first decline in the history of the test. All told, the results for both have fallen to levels last seen in the early 1990s, the latest evidence that COVID has triggered a generational reversal in knowledge acquisition.

The swoon came amid a national debate over how to teach about American history and government, with states like Virginia initiating significant overhauls of their academic standards. But the phenomenon appears to be international in scope: Results from , which tests over 80,000 eighth graders across 22 industrialized countries on civic knowledge, showed that large numbers of test takers couldn鈥檛 answer questions about election fairness or democratic governance. Only 55 percent of respondents said they felt their nation鈥檚 governmental system 鈥渨orks well.鈥�

Choice might be good for public schools

The explosive growth of school vouchers and education savings accounts, which allow families to spend public funds on private education, has dominated the school choice debate this year. Public school choice (i.e., charters and open enrollment policies), while also controversial, has receded somewhat from conversation.

But indicates that, in addition to providing more instructional options to families that want them, intra-choice can improve learning throughout wider communities. University of Chicago economist Christopher Campos and data scientist Caitlin Kearns scrutinized Los Angeles鈥檚 , which allows families within designated neighborhoods to select among multiple high schools rather than send their children to the one nearest their home. Participation in the program, they learned, significantly increases students鈥� English exam scores and boosts their enrollment rate at four-year colleges by 25 percent. Those gains were concentrated among schools exposed to the most competition and those that previously performed the worst, strongly hinting that inclusion in the Zones pushed them to hold onto students by improving their offerings. 

A in North Carolina yielded broadly similar results, though with caveats. Focusing on the state鈥檚 decision to lift its cap on charter schools in 2012, the paper鈥檚 authors revealed that the move incrementally improved public schools鈥� value-added scores as measured by state standardized tests; that improvement, while small in scale, generated huge value in the aggregate, as the study concluded that the average public high schooler鈥檚 lifetime wages were lifted by $1,500 by allowing more charters to open. As in the Los Angeles study, the promising effects seem to have come about through competition for students.

Dispiritingly, however, the impact on pupils who actually enrolled in the charter schools after the cap was lifted was negative, perhaps because the newly established schools tended to employ more 鈥渘on-traditional鈥� models (e.g., project-based or experiential learning, such as Montessori) that weren鈥檛 as successful as existing charter options.

No one said this stuff was simple. 

Charters aren鈥檛 underperforming anymore

Charter schools have been around for over 30 years. For most of that time, their advocates and detractors have argued passionately over just how effective they really are at improving academic achievement. The primary arbiter of those disputes, most often, has been Stanford鈥檚 (CREDO), which has released over more than a decade comparing the performance of charter students with those enrolled at district public schools.

In the first few editions, those reports showed the newer schools lagging behind their traditional counterparts 鈥� evidence that the sector鈥檚 opponents鈥� throughout the fierce school reform battles of the Obama era. But 鈥� CREDO鈥檚 first national evaluation in a decade, including data on 1.8 million students across 31 states and cities 鈥� calculated that charter students receive the equivalent of 16 extra days of learning in literacy, and six extra days of math, than students at the local public schools they would have otherwise attended. The edge, while decidedly slight, masks larger variation among subgroups: Black students gained an average of 35 extra days of reading growth and 29 extra days of math, equal to more than a month of supplemental instruction.

Not all charters are created equal, however. published last month in the journal Education Next, and covered by 蜜桃影视鈥檚 Greg Toppo, compared the performance of charter sectors in each state based on their students鈥� performance on NAEP. Somewhat surprisingly, the state with the top showing was Alaska, where charter students score an average of 32 points higher on the test than the national average for charter school students. Their peers in Pennsylvania, Oregon, Michigan, Tennessee, and Hawaii weren鈥檛 so fortunate, with each scoring at least 21 points lower than the national average.

Teacher prep can be rethought on the fly

Starting in spring 2020, Massachusetts launched a grand experiment: Concerned that the tumultuous working conditions of the pandemic would discourage young people from becoming teachers, the state began issuing emergency credentials to teaching candidates even if they hadn鈥檛 completed the necessary coursework to be licensed. Over the next three years, almost 20,000 such licenses were granted to instructors who worked full-time while simultaneously working to meet their licensure requirements.

Boston University鈥檚 Wheelock Education Policy Center has followed the progress of those early-career teachers. Their analysis, laid out , presents a quietly stunning observation: As measured through a combination of school-level performance evaluations, principal questionnaires, and student scores on standardized tests, the emergency-licensed teachers perform similarly to their colleagues who completed traditional teacher preparation programs. Students assigned to them were not disadvantaged in learning in spite of their unconventional path to the classroom. What鈥檚 more, by the program鈥檚 second year, one-quarter of emergency licensees 鈥� vastly more than the statewide average in Massachusetts.

The notion that aspiring educators can thrive in the profession without reaching it through the traditional channels isn鈥檛 a new one; Teach for America and other alternative credentialing programs have existed for decades, during that period. But the Massachusetts experience illustrates some of the specific benefits of dropping licensure requirements during a crisis. Namely, making entry more flexible (and shaving off the years of study and thousands of dollars in tuition that often act as a deterrent to otherwise qualified candidates) can produce a more diverse and no less effective workforce.

More good news on third-grade retention

Legislation around the science of reading has swept through dozens of states over the last decade. In part, the political success of the new literacy agenda is due to the popularity of most of its planks: evidence-backed curricula, teacher coaching, and additional resources for kids and schools that need them.

By contrast, third-grade retention 鈥� holding back students for a year if they’re not on track to succeed by the end of 鈥� plays the role of the bad cop. In spite of the existing evidence that struggling elementary schoolers in states like and can see large benefits from repeating a grade, many parents and teachers still consider that step too punitive.

But according to , the upsides of the approach extend in some unexpected directions. In a study of 12 large school districts in Florida, which has had a retention policy related to reading scores for over 20 years, researchers found that third graders made significant gains in scores for both math and reading after being held back. Even more promising, targeted students’ younger siblings also saw larger learning gains than the brothers and sisters of comparable students who weren’t retained. 

It’s unclear what feature of Florida’s law led to the positive “spillover effects,” but study co-author Umut 脰zek told 蜜桃影视 that families might be responding in an advantageous way to the experience of their older children. “When you get a signal that says, 鈥榊our kid is not performing at a level that will allow them to be promoted to fourth grade,鈥� that鈥檚 a very clear signal that will likely induce a response from parents.”

Asian students in, white families out

鈥淲hite flight,鈥� as it鈥檚 usually understood, refers to the phenomenon of working- and middle-class white families decamping from inner cities in the 1960s and 鈥�70s as a response to increased crime, deteriorating local economies, and growing numbers of African American residents. It鈥檚 a , but many in the education policy world blame it for contributing to school segregation and shrinking the tax base of urban school districts.

This year, applied the concept to a different setting. A at the city level, the Princeton economist studied the movement of Asian-American students into 152 California school districts, all of them suburban and relatively affluent. The sizable growth over the decades of the early 21st century appeared to generate its own version of white flight 鈥� more specifically, for every Asian student who enrolled in local schools, 1.5 white students left. 

The departures weren鈥檛 correlated with any other demographic changes. But accompanying survey evidence convinced Boustan and her collaborators that they also likely weren鈥檛 triggered by racial animus. Instead, they pointed to white parents鈥� wariness of academic competition with Asian-American kids, who in virtually every academic metric. 

鈥淪omeone is showing up in the district who scores better than they do,鈥� Boustan said in an interview with 蜜桃影视. 鈥淚n relative terms, the white kids are generally falling behind.鈥�

Extracurricular activities show large racial gaps

The most significant education development of 2023 may well have been the Supreme Court鈥檚 6-3 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the case that prohibited the use of racial preferences in college admissions. The end of affirmative action as we鈥檝e known it, occurring just as colleges like the SAT and ACT, means that admissions decisions will increasingly be made on the basis of other parts of the application package.

One of those will undoubtedly be extracurricular activities 鈥� the menu of clubs, productions, athletics, and volunteer opportunities that high schoolers have learned to embrace in order to be considered well-rounded. But if their aim is to foster diversity while adhering to new legal constraints, colleges might think twice before relying on them too heavily. drawing on nearly 6 million college applications from the 2018鈥�19 and 2019鈥�20 admissions cycles, participation in extracurriculars is surprisingly race-specific. White, Asian-American, and wealthy students, along with those attending private high schools, reported engaging in many more activities than their African American, Latino, American Indian, and low-income classmates. The activities they choose also tend to feature more leadership roles and confer more honors, both of which could help win a university slot.

If race, test scores, and extracurriculars are reduced in prominence, however, it鈥檚 difficult to say what will take their place. Separate campaigns have been waged against the use of admissions essays, to favor wealthier students, and , which often leverage social capital that disadvantaged kids don鈥檛 have. In the end, admissions officers might be left throwing darts at the wall.

Flexible pay has unintended consequences

The Act 10 legislation, by Wisconsin Republicans, ignited one of the most furious school reform controversies of its era. By stripping teachers of the right to collectively bargain over salary schedules and benefits, then-Gov. Scott Walker dealt a massive blow to teachers鈥� unions, perhaps the most influential progressive force in state politics. It was also a provocation that some credit with catalyzing the revived organizing movement of the last half-decade, which has seen a rash of teacher strikes and renewed hostility to other planks of the reform agenda.

In a study published in the education journal Education Next, Yale economist Barbara Biasi looked at the transformative effects of Act 10 on teacher labor markets, which suddenly became much more flexible as schools could opt to pay different salaries to teachers on the basis of either career tenure or classroom performance. That had some positive effects for individual districts: Younger, more effective teachers were able to win large pay increases by moving to areas where their lack of seniority wasn鈥檛 held against them.

But the state also saw an unpalatable side effect. In part because younger female teachers are more reluctant than their male counterparts to negotiate aggressively for higher pay, flexible-pay districts also saw a newfound gender wage gap begin to open. Though small on average, Biasi found that the cumulative effect over a teacher鈥檚 career could amount to an entire year鈥檚 pay.

Gifted education does little to increase segregation 

The last few years have brought a clash between advocates for educational equity and proponents of gifted education. That battle 鈥� over gifted programs鈥� place in the K鈥�12 portfolio, and whether all kids truly have access to them 鈥� has largely played out in major urban districts like New York and San Francisco, where both and have been criticized for their disproportionately tiny number of seats offered to Hispanic and African American pupils.

But several studies recently emerged that tell a different story. , published in Education Next by Williams College economist Owen Thompson, examines the effect of K鈥�6 gifted programs on the racial makeup of kindergarten and elementary classrooms. Examining enrollment information for nearly 47,000 public schools around the United States, Thompson found that the special sections are disproportionately made up of white and Asian students. But because they are so small in scope, they make a negligible impact on the overall demographics of the schools in which they are housed. In fact, eliminating every such program would not significantly change the exposure of different student groups to one another.

That doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean that gifted learning opportunities can鈥檛 be made available to more kids, however. And , by NWEA researchers, suggests that the key to welcoming more English learners and students with disabilities into accelerated classrooms is for states to enact formal mandates related to the provision of gifted services, require districts to maintain their own formal gifted plans, and regularly audit them for compliance. 

David Steiner

America’s Education System Is a Mess, and Students Are Paying the Price

COVID-19, the legacy of race-based redlining, the lack of support for health care, child care and parental leave, and other social and economic policies have taken a terrible toll on student learning. But the fundamental cause of poor outcomes, writes contributor David Steiner of the , is that policy leaders have eroded the instructional core and designed our education system for failure. As we have sown, so shall we reap. The challenges and rewards of learning are being washed away, and students are desperately the worse for the mess we have made. Read More

Margaret Raymond

The Terrible Truth 鈥� Current Solutions to COVID Learning Loss Are Doomed to Fail

Despite well-intended and rapid responses to COVID learning loss, solutions such as tutoring or summer school are doomed to fail, says contributor Margaret (Macke) Raymond of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University. How do we know? CREDO researchers looked at learning patterns for students at three levels of achievement in 16 states and found that even with five extra years of education, only about 75% will be at grade level by high school graduation. No school can offer that much. It is time to decide whether to make necessary changes or continue to support a system that will almost certainly fail. Read More

Mark Schneider

The Future is STEM 鈥� But Without Enough Students, the U.S. Will Be Left Behind

America no longer produces the most science and engineering research publications, patents or natural-science Ph.D.s, and these trends are unlikely to change anytime soon. The problem isn鈥檛 a lack of universities to train future scientists or an economy incapable of encouraging innovation. Rather, says contributor Mark Schneider of the Institute of Education Sciences, it originates much earlier in the supply chain, in elementary school. Congress has a chance to help turn this around, by passing the New Essential Education Discoveries (NEED) Act. Read More

John Bailey

The Promise of Personalized Learning Never Delivered. Today’s AI Is Different

Educators often encounter lofty promises of technology revolutionizing learning, only to find reality fails to meet expectations. But based on his experiences with the new generation of artificial intelligence tools, contributor John Bailey believes society may be in the early stages of a transformative moment. This may very well usher in an era of individualized learning, empowering all students to realize their full potential and fostering a more equitable and effective educational experience. Read his four reasons why this generation of AI tools is likely to succeed where other technologies have failed. Read More

Chad Aldeman

Interactive 鈥� With More Teachers & Fewer Students, Districts Are Set up for Financial Trouble

To understand the teacher labor market, you have to hold two competing narratives in your head. On one hand, teacher turnover hit new highs, morale is low and schools are facing shortages. At the same time, public schools employ more teachers than before COVID, while serving 1.9 million fewer students. Student-teacher ratios are near all-time lows. Contributor Chad Aldeman and Eamonn Fitzmaurice, 蜜桃影视鈥檚 art and technology director, plotted these changes on an exclusive, interactive map 鈥� and explain how they’re putting districts in financial peril. View the Map

Fascinating, right? But these are only the tip of the iceberg. Here’s a roundup of some of the hottest topics our op-ed contributors tackled, and what they had to say:

Future of High School

Credit Hours Are a Relic of the Past. How States Must Disrupt High School 鈥� Now

Russlynn Ali & Timothy Knowles

Back to School 鈥� 6 Tips from Students on How to Make High School Relevant

Beth Fertig

I Changed My Shoes, and It Revolutionized How I Was Able to Rethink High School

William Blake

Fiscal Cliff & School Funding

The 50 Very Different States of American Public Education

Chad Aldeman

It鈥檚 Time to Start Preparing Now for School Closures that Are Coming

Timothy Daly

Educators, Beware: As Budget Cuts Loom, Now Is NOT the Time to Quit Your Job

Katherine Silberstein & Marguerite Roza

Schools Could Lose 136,000 Teaching Jobs When Federal COVID Funds Run Out

Chad Aldeman

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence Will Not Transform K-12 Education Without Changes to 鈥榯he Grammar of School鈥�

Joel Rose

Schools Must Embrace the Looming Disruption of ChatGPT

Sarah Dillard

Personalized Education Is Not a Panacea. Neither Is Artificial Intelligence

Natalia Kucirkova

Tutoring

Done Right, Tutoring Can Greatly Boost Student Learning. How Do We Get There?

Kevin Huffman

As Virginia Rolls Out Ambitious Statewide High-Dosage Tutoring Effort This Week, 3 Keys to Success

Maureen Kelleher

Why This Tutoring 鈥楳oment鈥� Could Die If We Don鈥檛 Tighten Up the Models

Mike Goldstein

Learning Loss

New NAEP Scores Reveal the Failure of Pandemic Academic Recovery Efforts

Vladimir Kogan

Quarantines, Not School Closures, Led to Devastating Losses in Math and Reading

John Bailey

6 Teachers Tell Their Secrets for Getting Middle Schoolers up to Speed in Math

Alexandra Frost

Special Ed and Gifted & Talented

Bracing for a Tidal Wave of Unnecessary Special Education Referrals

Lauren Morando Rhim, Candace Cortiella, Lindsay Kubatzky & Laurie VanderPloeg

Why Are Schools Comfortable Accepting Failure for Students with Disabilities?

David Flink & Lauren Morando Rhim

NYC鈥檚 New Gifted & Talented Admissions Brings Chaos 鈥� and Disregards Research

Alina Adams

Here at 蜜桃影视, we鈥檙e also looking to celebrate the most memorable education coverage from the past year, and to champion the journalists who have helped us think a little differently about an array of issues 鈥� from COVID learning recovery to teen mental health, student trauma, school discipline and more. 

Coast to coast, our reporters have pored back over their bookmarks, tweets and browser histories, and revived the links that moved them most. Below, in no particular order, are 17 important articles we wish we had published in 2023. We hope you鈥檒l read the stories you might have missed and help share the standouts, so even more readers can benefit from their insights. 

Chalkbeat New York

Nearly four years after the emergence of COVID-19, too much uncertainty remains about what students actually learned while their schools adapted to pandemic conditions. At Chalkbeat New York, former English teacher Amanda Geduld explored one of the controversial measures that school authorities took to support struggling high schoolers in New York City: the so-called NX (or “course-in-progress”) grade, which was assigned to tens of thousands of kids who didn’t complete their coursework during the tumultuous era of remote instruction.

The NX designation was originally intended to replace failing marks for a small subset of children dealing with life crises. But by the end of the 2021-22 school year, 1 out of every 3 New York high schoolers received one 鈥� and they may help account for the city’s unusually high graduation rates during those years. According to the dozens of educators interviewed by Geduld, the NX marks were typically cleared, either by teachers or administrators, regardless of whether students ever finished the necessary make-up work. The story gives reason to doubt whether the “incomplete learning” of the early 2020s will ever be completed. . 

The New York Times 

Better test scores. A narrowed achievement gap. Solid wages for teachers. Higher standards for all students. It鈥檚 not the outcome of a plucky, one-off campus beating the odds, but of an entire school system, one spread all over the world, Sarah Mervosh explains. The Pentagon鈥檚 schools for children of military members and civilian employees, which serve some 66,000 students in the United States and abroad, have built a system seemingly impermeable to the outside forces that often keep children from success.

Pentagon schools boast low teacher turnover, the result perhaps, of far higher wages 鈥� plus a steady and reliable budget for supplies. They also have enacted meaningful curriculum improvements rolled out with consistency and over time, creating an enviable system, particularly for children who are often underserved: Defense Department schools yield far better outcomes for many Black, Hispanic and impoverished students as compared to their peers elsewhere. And while racial disparities remain, overall performance has continued to grow during the past decade, propelling students forward, even through the trauma of the pandemic.

ProPublica & InvestigateTV

I grew up by the railroad tracks. We loved watching the graffiti-covered cars, laying coins on the tracks to get smooshed and throwing snowballs at the Amtrak cars full of passengers as they whizzed by. But I also vividly remember those cold Minnesota mornings when my brother and I would have to climb over stalled train cars to reach our bus stop. As a child, I thought it was an adventure. Now, as a parent of two, I find the thought of my own children doing the same gives me shivers.

I felt that same shiver reading ProPublica and InvestigateTV鈥檚 investigation into blocked train crossings in Hammond, Indiana. The terrifying images of children who have to risk their lives climbing over or under trains to get to school reveal that stalled trains are not just a mere inconvenience, but a slow-motion accident waiting to happen 鈥� especially in the impoverished communities these trains bisect. The rail companies appear reluctant to act on their own, but, hopefully, the unforgettable scenes captured here will propel the government to force changes before it鈥檚 too late. . 

Rolling Stone

I鈥檓 a sucker for two things: heartbreaking accounts of the arts uplifting kids 鈥� and teachers with long commutes. This piece by Julyssa Lopez has both. Lopez, a senior music editor, takes her time telling the story of Uvalde High School鈥檚 varsity mariachi group and the dedicated teacher who drives his silver Nissan Sentra 140 miles round trip each day to lead the group. It goes without saying that you鈥檙e going to cry while reading the account of this scrappy group as it comes together, finds its voice and prepares for the state mariachi championships.

What鈥檚 surprising is how central to the community鈥檚 healing this group becomes. Its leader is a surprise too: Born in Puerto Rico but raised in El Paso, Albert Martinez originally thought he鈥檇 have a career as a jazz or merengue trumpeter, but plans changed. Then, after the shooting at Robb Elementary, they changed again. The result is a beautiful, restrained depiction of music bringing kids together, with exceptional portraits of the main players. . 

The Hechinger Report 

It鈥檚 no secret that schools are gearing up for a financial storm 鈥� pandemic relief funds are sunsetting; the Department of Education estimates a 5% decline in enrollment through 2031. As more districts weigh closures, Rebecca Redelmeier鈥檚 dive into Louisiana鈥檚 largest district serves as a cautionary tale. Weaving trends that reach back 30 years and family histories, Redelmeier unveils a troubling reality: Black and brown students are most likely to be the ones grieving their shuttered schools, forced into new communities, their friends and teachers scattered across town. Even when performance is comparable to that of predominantly white schools, those serving predominantly students of color are the ones on the chopping block, their students pushed into lower-performing schools. Experts fear that, should the trend continue, academic gaps across racial lines would grow even more. In this suburban New Orleans district, two top-performing high schools were closed, including the first to offer a high school education to Black students, built after community members pooled money in the 1930s for land and construction. The story begs the question: if closures have to be on the table, how can districts ensure the impact is felt equitably? . 

The New York Times Magazine

The New York Times Magazine took readers deep inside the story of an immigrant teen鈥檚 drive to support his family by working in a dangerous industry 鈥� one that is illegally depending on minors as young as middle school age to stay in business. At a time when some states are rolling back child labor laws, Hannah Dreier鈥檚 deeply reported feature called it 鈥渁 perfect match between the needs of the plants and the needs of the newcomers.鈥�

In heartbreaking detail, the article describes the life of 14-year-old Marcos, who nearly lost an arm in an accident at a poultry plant. Meridith Kohut鈥檚 photos depicted scenes of Marcos鈥檚 rural Virginia world 鈥� characters like the USDA inspector who said it鈥檚 not her responsibility to report child labor violations and scenes such as the trailer park Marcos shares with his cousin. While not specifically an education story, it delves into the way working impacts immigrant students鈥� ability to learn, and raises questions about the responsibility of educators when companies break the law.  . 

Houston Landing

From former 74 scribe Asher Lehrer-Small comes this  to the Houston Chronicle鈥檚 that revealed an illegal cap on the number of students with disabilities that schools could serve. The original investigation found that tens of thousands of students with profound needs were arbitrarily left without support. This failure is one of the reasons used to justify a state takeover of the sprawling Houston Independent School District that took place earlier this year. Now at Houston Landing, Lehrer-Small used public records to report 鈥淗ouston ISD still off-track on key fixes to special education,鈥� revealing the district鈥檚 continued struggle to improve special education for thousands of children. (and bonus reading: 蜜桃影视 reported on slow-to-nonexistent progress statewide in 2019.)

The New York Times

There was no shortage this year of reporting on teen mental health and the impact of social media on developing brains. But apart from some brief conversations with friends鈥� younger siblings, I鈥檝e heard little firsthand from teenagers themselves about what it鈥檚 like to live in a world that revolves around phones, apps and social platforms. 鈥淚 wanted to put a face to the alarming headlines about teens and social media 鈥� in particular, girls,鈥� Jessica Bennett writes in her year-in-the-making interactive Times feature, 鈥淏eing 13.鈥�

The thoroughness of the project 鈥� complete with real diary entries, texts, voice memos and photographs 鈥� brings into focus the harsh reality behind the mental health stats: One teen鈥檚 text says she feels more self-conscious than ever. Another reveals she has a 鈥渃lose connection鈥� with her phone. Lined with reminders of the proverbial adolescent struggle, the article also spotlights the unique pressures being faced by teens in 2023, from social media to growing up during a pandemic and a collective sense of doom that overshadows daily life. The three brave voices of Anna, London and Addi draw readers into their complicated worlds while unique visuals bring the storyline to life, transforming a web page into something fun, unique and a tad overwhelming, as texts and emojis flood the screen.  

USA Today 

Diversity, equity and inclusion. Add the word “training,” and you will have stepped on one of education politics鈥� third rails, along with how race in America is taught in classrooms and how LGBTQ+ students are treated in schools. While the arguments raged, Katherine Reynolds Lewis 鈥� with contributions from Rachel Ryan, Maureen Ojiambo and Andrew Hahndid 鈥� did a deep dive into the more than $20 billion a year public schools spend training teachers, the majority of whom are white, to teach more successfully across racial lines. They queried the country鈥檚 100 largest school districts and got responses from 42. Their reveal: None measured the training鈥檚 effectiveness against metrics or by conducting objective research studies. That may be a disappointment, and one that could fuel ever-ready criticism of DEI efforts, but it doesn鈥檛 dim the passion of many educators to banish low expectations, end the school-to-prison pipeline and develop a more diverse teacher workforce. 鈥淭he disease in education is the predictability of student achievement by race,鈥� says UnboundED鈥檚 CEO Lacey Robinson. .

The City

New York City鈥檚 education leaders had pledged for years to stop calling the cops on students in the midst of mental health crises, but as The City鈥檚 Abigail Kramer exposed in May, they鈥檝e failed to keep their word. Under a court settlement from nearly a decade ago, educators are supposed to call 911 only on students who pose an 鈥渋mminent and substantial risk of serious injury鈥� to themselves or others. Yet Kramer鈥檚 reporting revealed the practice remains commonplace, with police officers called thousands of times a year to intervene with children in mental distress. In response to behaviors that are often attributed to students鈥� disabilities, police routinely handcuff children 鈥� and Black students disproportionately 鈥� while they wait to be transported by ambulance to emergency rooms. The outcome, for many students, is further trauma.

Inside Higher Ed

In October, Inside Higher Ed鈥檚 Johanna Alonso took a closer look at colleges paying students to serve as mental health counselors 鈥� an increasingly difficult demand as schools nationwide struggle to meet students鈥� mental health needs. This includes having students lead educational workshops, on-campus programming and one-on-one coaching for their peers. California State University, Fullerton is one of many colleges offering these services 鈥� a responsibility that used to fall on traditional counseling centers. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really important to us that any intervention we offer is accessible 鈥� it鈥檚 quick and it鈥檚 free. When it comes to wellness, there鈥檚 a negative belief that you have to have money in order to take care of yourself,鈥� said Jessica Leone-Aldrich, a professional counselor and prevention education coordinator at Cal State Fullerton. .

The New York Times

Hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of times every school year, students with disabilities are taken out of their classrooms in what are known as off-the-book suspensions 鈥� informal actions that are not reported or tracked, but routinely violate students’ civil rights and are devastating to their academic and social well-being. In contrast to formal expulsions, these transfers allow schools to remove challenging students from class rather than provide special education supports and accommodations required under federal law. 鈥淭he reality is that there are children in this country who are still considered of insufficient quality to go to school,鈥� Diane Smith Howard, a lawyer with the National Disability Rights Network, told Erica Green. 鈥淭his would never be deemed acceptable for students without disabilities.鈥� .

The Washington Post

America鈥檚 ubiquitous culture wars pose a dilemma for any journalist. Tough to cover, impossible to ignore, such stories often devolve into the equivalent of grown people biting each other. Much heat, little light. Grounded in fine details and beautifully drawn scenes, this article by Greg Jaffe and Patrick Marley of The Washington Post offers a kind of antidote: the story of how the election of a majority far-right, Christian Board of Commissioners derailed one life in one Michigan town. Giving birth to a son at age 17 inspired Heather Alberda to pursue a career as a sex educator for the county鈥檚 health department. In her 21-year tenure, teen pregnancy in Ottawa County decreased 76%; the abortion rate fell 18%. But none of that appeared to matter after the 2022 election. Alberda’s work fell prey to an insidious brand of McCarthyism, one that linked support for LGBTQ children to completely unfounded allegations of 鈥済rooming.鈥� The article never takes its eye off what this political shift means in real terms: lost funding and, for Alberda, an inability to do her job. The story ends on a haunting note, as Alberda, mostly 鈥渃onfined to her office cubicle,鈥� performs bureaucratic tasks, her work as a sex educator 鈥渓argely shut down.鈥� . 

Scalawag Magazine

Scalawag Magazine鈥檚 series turned the pen over to young Southerners to reflect on the issues contributing to their declining mental health. This eye-opening read from students as young as 13 named issues ranging from racism to gun violence to the climate crisis as causes of major stress and loss of hope for the future. Many of the students, whose identities are multi-marginalized, explore how their queerness, Blackness or low-income statuses contribute to the disparate treatment they receive and the impact it has on their mental health. Their remarkable vulnerability in sharing their struggles with grief, anxiety and depression are paired with suggestions for mitigating the crisis, including free mental health care, legislation that properly tackles the climate crisis and having more than one counselor at school. . 

EdSurge

Outliers always make great news stories. EdSurge鈥檚 tells the tale of American Falls, a small Idaho farming town whose leaders have found a way to establish a nearly universal pre-K program in a deeply conservative state that provides no money for early childhood education. District leaders made early learning a priority, and the United Way followed up with scholarships for children who don鈥檛 qualify for Head Start or subsidized child care. Sullivan explains that advocates developed a simple message 鈥� 鈥渞ead, talk, play鈥� 鈥� that transcends politics and is attracting attention from larger districts. Their goal, she wrote, is to 鈥減rove to state lawmakers that early learning programs are good for all Idahoans and worthy of state money.鈥� . 

NBC News

We all remember NBC鈥檚 Peabody-winning 鈥淪outhlake,鈥� which chronicled a suburban school district racked by conflict after some residents pushed back against a plan to protect Black students. But what about 鈥淕rapevine鈥�? From the same reporting team, this and documentary series narrates 鈥� with gut-punching immediacy 鈥� what happens in a north Texas school district after a parent publicly accuses a teacher of persuading her child to change genders.

Mike Hixenbaugh and Antonia Hylton describe 鈥渁 transgender child desperately wanting to be heard [and] a mother determined to put God first,鈥� the prism through which the audio series investigates 鈥渁 fringe religious movement wielding newfound power.鈥� . 

The Washington Post 

As school shootings grow more frequent 鈥� and deadlier 鈥� an investigation by a team of reporters at The Washington Post used public records to provide a raw, behind-the-yellow-tape look at the carnage of American gun violence. The team made the extraordinary decision to publish crime scene photos from mass shootings, many of which had never been released publicly, to offer what it described as 鈥渢he most comprehensive account to date of the repeating pattern of destruction wrought by the AR-15 鈥� a weapon that was originally designed for military combat but has in recent years become one of the best-selling firearms on the U.S. market.鈥�

The reporting spans 11 years and includes visuals and first-hand accounts from the mass killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012; Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 and Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022. .