Each has implemented at least one of five strategies to boost student participation and success in the subject, according to in its recent report. 

Some, through these efforts, have reduced the need for remediation at the college level. This is particularly relevant for low-income students and those of color, who are more likely to be placed in these noncredit courses, which can derail their college trajectories. 

Concern over the issue has risen in recent years thanks to COVID: More than 900 students at the needed catch-up math classes in the fall of 2025 compared to just 32 five years earlier. And their lack of understanding wasn’t confined to high school: they were missing material they should have mastered in middle and Other universities reported similar problems.  

“Too often we spend a lot of energy discussing the challenges and constraints related to education or redesigning math,” said Shakiyya Bland, Just Equations’ director of educational partnerships. “This report highlights states that are doing the work, showing what’s possible — and showing results.” 

The report recognized efforts in other regions, too. The Virginia Community College System, for example, saw the need for remedial math plummet from 40% of incoming students to 4% between 2014 and 2021 after it changed how it judged college math readiness and how it teaches students who need additional help, Bland said. 

“Instead of a single placement test that pushed huge numbers into noncredit remedial tracks, colleges started using multiple measures like high school GPA and math coursework, expanding access for more students to go straight into college‑level math with added support,” she said. “That shift, from assuming students weren’t ready to assuming they could succeed with the right help, is what drove the big drop in ‘remedial’ placements.”

Just Equations cited five strategies states can implement to align mathematics from high school to college, including course co-design, where secondary and post-secondary instructors unite to craft high school math sequences.  

The organization said, too, universities should have transparent expectations for incoming freshmen so these students know what is expected of them for various college majors. 

Just Equations also touts the value of senior year transition or readiness courses for high school students: These classes, the organization observes, help ensure students can handle the challenge of college-level work. 

States might also offer dual enrollment courses which allow high school students to earn college credit, saving them time and money, Just Equations concluded. They can also work to ensure public universities recognize new high school mathematics offerings so students are properly credited for those classes. 

Georgia redesigned its math pathway through a partnership with K-12 and higher education math teachers to make sure new high school courses aligned with college entry requirements. The state also added several new courses for high school seniors, including Advanced Placement Statistics and Mathematics of Industry and Government. 

California had given students conflicting guidance about how many years of high school math they needed: State law demanded two while school districts often required three and some colleges recommended four. State universities are now more transparent about what is needed for college success in general and in specific majors.

Just Equations notes Tennessee’s efforts date back 18 years when its high school students were first required to complete four years of math, including Algebra II. The state’s mathematics offerings have been reworked numerous times since then and statistics has emerged as a valuable course for many.

Out West, Utah’s dual-enrollment program made college-level classes more accessible and affordable. The state also expanded the range of math pathways for high school students beyond college algebra, a course that relies heavily on algebraic procedures where students often struggle with the material and finding its relevancy.

Students may now opt for quantitative reasoning, focusing on practical numeracy skills such as personal finance and statistical reasoning or introductory statistics, geared toward life sciences, business and social sciences.

Mike Spencer, secondary mathematics specialist for the state board of education, said the change has been helpful to many students who might otherwise be kept out of college by their inability to pass a course that often had no bearing on their major or career aspiration. 

But, he said, students were reluctant to make the switch. 

“When it was first released, we saw a majority of our students were still taking college algebra, partly because of tradition,” Spencer said. “So, we made a significant effort to help inform students, families and counselors to understand why you would go into each of these.”

Just Equations noted, too, Utah’s university professors help craft high school syllabuses, screen high school teachers to teach college-level courses, and “verify grading consistency using common assessments.” It credits these and other changes for a massive increase in the rate of high school seniors completing four years of math, from 28% in 2012 to 87% in 2020. 

Bland of Just Equations said states should routinely bring together K–12, higher education, and workforce leaders to find the best math pathways for students. And, she said, they should invest in sustained professional development and K–16 longitudinal data to track students into the workforce to learn which math experiences best supported their success. 

Five years ago, Oregon adopted new mathematics standards intended to be “more modern and equitable,” moving away from the three-course sequence of Algebra I, geometry and Algebra II to a required two-year core curriculum focused on algebra, geometry and data/statistics. 

Students can now choose a course of study for a required third year — including mathematical modeling, data science and quantitative reasoning — and an optional fourth year. 

The changes required colleges to revisit their stated requirements. The University of Oregon, for example, mandated Algebra II for all incoming students, but now requires three or more years of high school math, which “could be satisfied by any math course with a primary focus on concepts in algebra, calculus, data science, discreet mathematics, geometry, mathematical analysis, probability or statistics.” 

In addition to the five core states at the heart of the study, Just Equations also lauded North Carolina’s automatic enrollment policy, adopted in 2018, which places students who score high on state assessments into advanced mathematics courses for the following year, eliminating subjective recommendations. More than 95% of the state’s eighth-grade students who scored at the highest level were placed in advanced math courses in 2022–23, up from 87% in 2017–18, before the policy was enacted. 

While these states have made noteworthy progress, critics note problems remain. 

A lack of longitudinal data in Tennessee makes it difficult to understand the impact of the changes that have taken shape there, state officials say. 

“One of the goals that I have over the next year or so is to better track the entire arc of the student journey,” said Juliette Biondi, who directs the state’s Seamless Alignment and Integrated Learning Support program, as documented in the report. “I want to understand how they do in their college math classes. Do they struggle? Does it influence graduation rates?”

Utah, too, can also improve: Rural areas find it hard to recruit and retain qualified teachers for college-level courses, leading them to rely on virtual instruction.

And Jo Boaler, the Stanford professor who helped California reshape its math program, said she regularly observes ineffective teaching practices that undermine K-12 learning.

“All I can see is that we have not built conceptual understanding or number sense well by the end of school,” Boaler told ����Ӱ��. “When I visit classrooms, I still see students going through uninspiring textbook math. Maybe there has been some improvement but I have not heard about it or seen it yet.”

Disclosure: The Gates Foundation provides financial support to Just Equations and ����Ӱ��.

Sometimes, however, Mother Nature creates a disruption so widespread that all they can do is sit back and wait for the storm to pass before jumping back into action.

In fall 2024, Georgia’s , where I served as superintendent, was hit by Hurricane Helene, which for almost four weeks during the first semester. With no electricity, internet access or safe running water, students were not in school mode — they were in survival mode. Minimizing the impending learning gap, especially for children with learning differences, would be a major challenge.

Through the collective commitment of teachers and families, the drive of dedicated students and a new inclusive instructional model to help those who were struggling, Appling County was able to maximize every minute of learning when its schools reopened. At the end of the year, students in Appling’s special education program were not only on track with their literacy, but many achieved a significant bump in their reading proficiency. 

In 2024 — just three weeks before the hurricane hit — the district launched a pilot program in remedial and special education classes in grades 6 to 9 to foster reading fluency and comprehension for English learners and students with dyslexia, autism and other learning differences. We didn’t know at the time how crucial, or effective, this system would be in addressing learning loss after the school closures. 

Emphasizing visual cues, Appling’s uses glyphs — diacritical marks — to simplify pronunciation. Teachers can paste any text or upload PDFs or Word documents into the platform, and it will embed a phonetic guide into every word.

For example, when students read the word “technique” on the screen, the silent letters — h and ue — are grayed out for them. A dot marks the division in syllables between “tech” and “nique,” while an accent above the i alerts students that the letter is pronounced differently from its usual sound. Rather than getting caught up in the , students understand the content more quickly and boost their vocabulary and comprehension. 

Because students in the pilot program were already making strides in their literacy before the storm hit, their transition back to the classroom was an easier one than it might have been. They had already started to build the skills needed to independently decode words, allowing them to focus on reading comprehension. This meant their teachers could dedicate less time to remediation and more to accelerated learning strategies that focused on reading comprehension, vocabulary and sentence structures across all content areas.

In addition, by reviewing the literacy platform’s dashboard, special education administrators and intervention specialists easily identified which students achieved excellent growth in reading and which needed additional help. They were also able to dig into the root causes of students’ struggles, such as attendance issues or housing instability, both of which intensified after the hurricane.

Because of Appling County teachers’ strong sense of urgency in helping their students regain lost instructional time — and their willingness to embrace new literacy strategies — the momentum following the return to in-school learning was more powerful than school leaders had expected. 

Of the students who participated in the new phonetics program, 157 had scores that could be compared from 2024 to 2025. Twenty-eight percent saw their scores increase 20 points or more, and 18% moved up to the next proficiency level. 

Teachers also watched their students become more confident and engaged — children who rarely spoke up in class started raising their hands to ask questions or volunteering to read aloud. This confidence in reading extended to other subjects and classes, where teachers saw increased participation as well. 

Throughout the implementation of the program, administrators participated in professional learning and classroom observations along with academic coaches to help teachers implement the new initiative. Based on the positive initial results from the pilot, the district is now expanding this phonics-forward approach to all remedial reading classrooms in grades 3 to 10 and all content area classrooms in grades 6 to 10.

Even in the face of overwhelming challenges, when teachers have the support of administrators, innovative tools that enhance engagement and the flexibility to meet students’ diverse needs, they can forge a path through the obstacles that stand in the way of children’s success. By prepping, pivoting and innovating, Appling teachers became a force of nature that even a hurricane couldn’t withstand.

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

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

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

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

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

Even so, she was pleased with the gains for women.  “I’m encouraged by the fact that we’re starting to see some meaningful progress.” 

Superintendent turnover happens for myriad reasons — from stagnant student performance to disagreements over salary. But it’s clear that COVID and the cultural debates that followed — embroiling districts in disputes over mask mandates, “anti-racist” curriculum and sexually explicit books —  transformed the nature of the position. 

“It’s always been political, but it’s never been so partisan,” said Gustavo Balderas, superintendent of the Beaverton School District in Oregon. Since 2011, he has led five districts in the Pacific Northwest and will leave next year to become of the Puget Sound Educational Service District, a regional agency in Washington.

On top of local concerns, today’s superintendents have the added weight of responding to threats of funding cuts and policy shifts from Washington, Balderas said. “I was just visiting a school … that had a family deported.”

‘Worn out’

Researchers who focus on the superintendency and school board politics echoed Balderas’ view. Rebecca Jacobsen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University, said district leaders are “worn out.”

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

The skills superintendents bring to the position sometimes don’t match the demands of the job, added Rachel White, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and founder of the Superintendent Lab, a source of research and data on district leaders. Most were teachers and principals before moving to the central office and spent years overseeing instruction, finance or teacher development. 

Now they’re responding to social media, and the “proliferation of misinformation and disinformation campaigns often rooted in ideology,” White said. “This has shifted what superintendents are increasingly spending their time on — debunking stories being told about what is happening in their schools and classrooms that simply are not true.”

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

Most leaders, however, leave on their , sometimes because they’re seeking a new challenge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The more successful superintendents that I saw were trying to be out in front, trying to create proactive communication,” he said.  

Newly hired as the superintendent in Horry County, South Carolina — with an unusually large 12-member board — he has work to do. He said he doesn’t want to just be a “911 guy,” contacting members when there’s an emergency. 

‘Priorities and values’

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

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

“People are just bypassing roles” instead of serving four to six years in a mid-level role where they might tackle some of the same challenges as the superintendent, Balderas said. Maybe, they’re “less prepared to understand the political navigation that’s needed” to stay in the position long enough to make lasting improvements. 

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

People active in those groups “see that you care about your community,” he said. That word “gets back to your board in one way or another.”

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

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

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

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

“I’ve never seen harmony as a requirement for effectiveness,” Davis said. 

The measure classifies devices as any piece of technology that can access the internet, data or media, including cell phones, tablets, headphones, smartwatches, and even e-readers. These devices can still be brought to school, but they must be put away in lockers, a classroom caddy, or a phone-locking pouch.

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As a rising high school senior, I recognize this is an important step. But I firmly believe this new law will add to each teacher’s workload rather than directly alleviating the technology crisis.

To understand the extent of the problem, I recently spoke with my English teacher’s fourth grade son. He told me that a handful of his classmates are actively on their phones during class, specifically “playing Minecraft or watching YouTube.” Although this may seem insignificant, his account is staggeringly different from my own fourth-grade experience just seven years ago. Neither my peers nor I ever brought a personal device to school.

What caused this increase in device usage? It may have something to do with the overall increase in children’s tech ownership.

Common Sense Media’s 2025 Census Report reveals that 51% of children under age 9 owned a personal mobile device in 2024, a more than fourfold increase from the 12% ownership rate in 2013.

The effects are obvious at my high school. I’m accustomed to seeing my peers sneak a look at their phones to search for answers, swipe-text on their Apple Watches, and watch movies on their personal computers, leading to minimal learning. Why pay attention in U.S. history when ChatGPT can tell you what détente is? Why learn the equation of a circle if Gauth can solve a geometry problem within seconds? And, with this level of exploitation in high schools, what’s preventing our elementary and middle school students from doing the same?

However, it’s not clear that a legislative ban will fix the problem. The bill leaves punishment up to local districts, suggesting a verbal warning or device confiscation. These proposed penalties leave one party responsible: teachers.

By passing the buck onto educators, a technology ban may be rendered useless. I saw this in my own high school this past school year. Our administration provided each classroom with a numbered phone caddy, requiring all students to put away their cell phones in their designated spot. Teachers followed the rule stringently in August then became increasingly lenient. By October, the policy was rarely obeyed; for the remaining school year, phones were only found in the caddy if an administrator was observing the classroom.

If phone bans aren’t going to be followed, how can we fix class disengagement?

One thought is creating engaging lectures. For example, my psychology class used a random popsicle-stick method. A cup has popsicle sticks, each with every student’s name. When our teacher asked a question, she pulled a stick and called on that student. This prompted us to pay attention, as we never knew who would be called.

A teacher could complement this with a weekly participation grade, compelling students to focus and give every question their best shot. During our conditioning unit, my psychology teacher gave us a star stamp if we answered a question correctly. With 16 stars, we could go into the treasure box, which included erasers, candy, and +10-point passes. Despite its simplicity, this method worked. Students were more attentive and eager to answer questions. By increasing student engagement, educators could see more motivated classes.

Aside from teaching methods, teachers could implement simple fixes for tests to prevent cheating. During test days, my Spanish teacher required all bookbags to be placed at the front of the classroom. On TikTok, I’ve heard some schools follow an “empty your pockets” policy, negating the need to worry about hidden notes or phones. Taking away cheating methods could motivate students to care more and actually learn class content.

The new Georgia law also urges districts to promote distraction-free learning and less personal device use to families, suggesting town halls and workshops. This is where I see the most benefit.

If our government used its bully pulpit to inform parents about device-free activities and methods to lessen tech use in the home, both families and the education system could see staggering benefits. As parents become more informed, their kids could become less reliant on devices, alleviating the need for a full ban in the first place. It is through educating the public that we could see improvements in technology use.

Of the nine states that have enacted technology restriction legislation in their public schools, only Virginia has incorporated a clause that advises districts to promote healthy device use. With Georgia becoming the second state to enact a law with such a provision, this could set a precedent and spark a movement in our nation to educate families about the dangers of technology reliance.

Educators and parents need to recognize the destruction personal technology has had on our educational system. Our privilege to learn is diminished when technology is easily accessible in the back of our pockets. Yet, creating legislation to ban devices only hinders our teachers from teaching. Instead, through some classroom changes and district initiatives that promote healthy technology use, we can make a dent in this crisis and get back to what really matters: learning.

In the Center on Reinventing Public Education’s , our researchers heard from dozens of district leaders working to strike the right balance, moving with urgency while staying grounded in equity, transparency and their core mission of educating students. According to those leaders, districts need to slow down and figure out what parents and families want in terms of preparing their children for the coming AI-based economy. They should also make sure AI efforts help marginalized students and track district progress to see if their plans are working.

This starts with understanding the risks and opportunities of AI, including dangers around bias and misinformation. Leaders must also partner with families, educators and students to learn about AI and set shared goals to make sure everyone has basic information about these tools and how they work. Districts are doing this through community conversations with their superintendents, school-based AI information sessions and task forces.

Gwinnett County Public Schools, a diverse district outside Atlanta, began broad community engagement in 2017 and learned that families prioritized future-of-work readiness. The district used this to guide conversations on AI’s role in education, consulting industry leaders and experts and ultimately creating a districtwide plan for how the technology should be used. This included new , an and to build literacy, address bias and privacy concerns and evaluate generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT.

CRPE research shows that AI adoption is most successful when carefully planned. While schools and districts ultimately decide whether students can use AI, and to what end, teachers decline to use the technology in the classroom if they don’t see how it can benefit students. This is true even though they may have access to apps and professional development. Early Adopter districts that have seen the widest use of these tools by teachers and students start by reviewing their strategic plan and identifying a specific need to address with AI-enabled strategies — such as giving multilingual learners ed tech apps that help with translation or automating lesson planning so teachers have more time to connect with students.

California’s Santa Ana Unified School District formed a task force to explore how AI can support its framework, instructional and equity goals, and mission of multicultural readiness. The result: an that ensures the technology is used in accordance with districtwide values, like academic integrity and student well-being. For example, the compass specifies that the district will develop an ai honor code and instruct students on how to use AI as a learning partner, rather than as a substitute for their own effort.

Alongside engaging the community and making sure AI use serves broader goals, districts can encourage safe practices by using quick, low-stakes trials that can be rolled back if they don’t work. They can test across a variety of schools to better understand the necessary and variable conditions required for successful implementation. Small-scale pilots that test different solutions and are easy to wind down to reduce risk. They also allow districts that are taking it slow to verify whether new AI tools actually reduce teacher workload or help students learn.

After all, AI won’t improve learning unless districts can track where it’s helping — and where it’s not. That means building data systems that connect tools, platforms and insights across schools, so educators can see what’s changing. Right now, too much valuable data tracking things like attendance, assessments and student interests is stored across multiple apps that can’t interact with one another. This means district leaders and educators can’t get a complete picture of how AI is helping, or hurting, students. This data is also often inaccessible to the people who need it. Without integration, AI strategies are just guesses.

Districts should have a clear data strategy grounded in making sure already disadvantaged students don’t fall further behind. Investing in AI without a plan to close gaps risks giving well-resourced students more opportunities to interact with the technology than those who are historically marginalized — reinforcing the very inequities districts hope to resolve.

Issaquah School District in Washington state employed AI to address persistent achievement gaps for students with disabilities, and those who identify as Latino or Hispanic and/or black or African American. Grounded in strategies, Issaquah uses AI-powered ed tech tools that enable students to complete assignments in different ways, whether through voice recordings, written answers, video slideshows or other modes of expression. Issaquah is pursuing a multi-year approach to use emerging technologies to help close persistent achievement gaps through both professional development and in the selection of AI resources and tools.

Used wisely, AI can help tackle entrenched challenges like supporting multilingual learners, students with disabilities and those below grade level — but only if leaders stay laser-focused on serving those students, not chasing flashy tools. That’s why, over the next two years, EdTrust has committed to hearing what stakeholders want and need to know to ensure . 

But districts shouldn’t have to do this work alone (and many can’t afford to). States and the federal government will need to play a leading role in helping districts adopt AI technologies. States should start by providing clear guidance on AI use to help districts protect student privacy and avoid unintended harm. They should also establish funding streams for AI readiness, including support for modernizing data infrastructure — ensuring all districts, not just the wealthiest, can build what they need — and hold vendors accountable for ensuring their tools do not reinforce bias or widen opportunity gaps. States and the federal government must also expand access to broadband and personal computers so that all students, regardless of geography or income, can benefit from AI-enhanced learning.

If the government and private sector can afford to invest trillions in AI-powered technology, they can invest millions to help ensure all students, not just the privileged few, are ready for a new, AI-driven future and economy.

Yet there are pockets of progress. Our new report, “),” identified 260 school districts in which early reading proficiency rates have grown by 3 to 4 percentage points a year for the last three years. What are they doing differently that the rest might learn from?

Three districts in particular merited a closer look, as they represent a mix of sizes and starting points: Marietta City in the Atlanta suburbs; Allegany County, at the edge of the Appalachian Mountains in Maryland; and DC Prep, a K-8 public charter school network.

The project to identify dynamic districts across the country began with this goal: To reignite growth, districts are going to need to move past generic advice about what makes “effective schools” and understand more about specific strategies to improve literacy. All three districts profiled had been deeply dissatisfied with their students’ performance in reading and writing, diagnosed their internal challenges and began implementing coherent responses over several years.

Leaders in these districts did not start their literacy initiatives by creating a vision. Instead, they asked themselves and their teachers a version of this question: “What’s our most important problem, and how do we solve it?” The answer: through no fault of their own, was that most teachers don’t have a deep enough grasp of all elements of evidence-based reading instruction.  

The districts launched deep, extended professional learning for all elementary teachers over two to three years.  Marietta City trained teachers with , a set of mini-courses on core elements of literacy and how to teach them, then added a year of training with , a set of courses on teaching expository writing. In 2020, Allegany County began a two-year engagement with , to help teachers master the basics of reading and writing instruction — phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.  

All three districts reconfigured and expanded time for literacy instruction. DC Prep extended its literacy period to 1 hour and 45 minutes and added a second teacher who provides targeted help at students’ desks instead of pulling them out of class for separate instruction. Allegany extended instruction to two hours and added 30 minutes for small-group interventions and enrichment. 

Marietta redesigned its daily schedule so every student now receives roughly two to three hours of literacy instruction every day. Ninety minutes is dedicated to whole-class reading that weaves in grade-level science and social studies texts. There’s also 20 to 30 minutes of explicit phonics and word-study practice, and 30 to 60 minutes of small-group work where teachers target the skills individual students still need to develop.  

The districts also changed how they staff schools. Marietta hired reading specialists who work with students in small groups of 10 across eight schools. Allegany redefined the role of literacy coach to provide teachers with more direct feedback about how well they deliver instruction to their classes. DC Prep converted the assistant principal position into a full-time instructional-coaching role. These leaders now run collaborative planning sessions and provide teachers with ongoing, in-class feedback.

Both Marietta and Allegany improved the quality of their K-5 language arts curricula.  Marietta dropped giving students books they could already read — a popular practice that — and switched to and a skills-based foundational class. Allegany stopped using and switched to . Both are and are designed to build a deep and wide knowledge base using grade-level texts in science, history, literature and the arts.  

Finally, they’ve refined assessments and how they use the results. While they dedicate time to phonics every day, these districts were clear that not every problem is a phonics problem. DC Prep’s data showed some small groups overemphasized foundational skills and needed more close reading, a technique of carefully analyzing a passage to understand what it means. In Allegany, test data pointed to a need to work more carefully on students’ reading fluency, not decoding.  

This summer, Upswing Labs will begin more intensive case study research in eight more of the dynamic districts. The actions summarized here — engaging educators in deep professional learning, expanding the amount of time for teaching reading, changing what literacy coaches do and improving the quality of curricula and diagnostic testing — clarify what to do. District instructional leaders also need insight on how to do it. 

The research will also examine three types of rural districts more closely, as they make up a large share of the 260 districts identified in the report. Researchers will focus on communities of African-American students in the South, Hispanic students in agricultural communities in California and Texas and evangelical churchgoers in Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Finally, the case studies will explore whether the best tactics shift as a district climbs the performance ladder — echoing that the moves that lift proficiency for students near the bottom are often different from those that propel midrange improvement.

With sharper insight into both what works and how to implement it, more districts will be able to chart a path to improved literacy achievement.

Among the biggest wins of her tenure, she counts increases in charter funding and twice electing Democrat and school reformer Gov. Jared Polis as governor. After serving as chief of staff for the Denver Public Schools, she fully expected to finish her career at DFER.

“We worked hard to build power in the Democratic Party specifically around accountability, choice and the role of public charter schools,” she said. “Everything had always been grounded 100% in public education.”

But last year, she said she “saw the writing on the wall” when the organization’s leader embraced Education Savings Accounts and other forms of private school choice. She is among several who have since left the group over the issue.

In a , DFER CEO Jorge Elorza, former two-term mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, suggested that instead of “rejecting them offhand,” his party should explore how ESAs can advance Democratic values like uplifting needy families and protecting civil rights. Eighteen Republican-led states now have such programs, which parents can use for private school tuition or homeschooling. Most Democrats say vouchers and ESAs lack accountability and threaten funding for public schools.

To Alisha Searcy, who just last year, Elorza’s about-face felt like a betrayal. 

“DFER has done extraordinary work to get courageous Democrats elected to push bold policies that would truly improve public education,” said the former Georgia state legislator. She was hired last year to expand the organization’s reach into her state, Alabama and Tennessee, but resigned in May. “We need a strong Democratic voice, now more than ever. This move to embrace vouchers and ESAs is the exact opposite.” 

The issue has brought bubbling to the surface a debate that was previously restricted to Democratic backrooms. Elorza took the helm of DFER at a time when polls began to show that voters were losing confidence in Democrats as the party they most trusted on education. Parents, the surveys suggested, were more preoccupied with whether their kids were recovering from pandemic learning loss than how schools were teaching issues of race or gender in the classroom. The only intensified in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s election.

Founded in 2007, DFER always advocated for . Leaders worked with the Obama administration and reform-minded Democrats to support like magnet schools, dual enrollment and lifting state . Now, Republicans and their push for parental rights are dominating the education conversation, including a recent to enact a national tax credit for private school choice. Elorza is among those who say the party needs to be open to more options for families if it’s going to regain its edge with voters, especially parents. But he recognizes the risks.

“There are a lot of Democrats who are choice curious,” he told ����Ӱ��. “They’ll say privately that they’re open to the idea of choice, including private school choice, but that the politics of it are just so darn challenging.”

In a , he pointed to Pennsylvania as the best opportunity for a swing state to pass an ESA program. Democratic came close to supporting such a bill in 2023.

Some observers say Shapiro and Elorza are outliers in the party. During the Obama years, DFER “nudged” the party toward school reform policies like and maintaining strong, said David Houston, an assistant education professor at George Mason University in Virginia. But now it’s “further from the center of Democratic politics.”

The recent departure of other DFER staff offers further evidence that Elorza’s position doesn’t reflect the Democratic mainstream.

Will Andras served as political director in Colorado for Education Reform Now, a think tank affiliated with DFER that Elorza also leads. Andras left last year, shortly after DFER joined the , a group of organizations that advocate for open enrollment and removing school attendance boundaries. 

The member organizations, funded largely by the conservative Koch network, also support vouchers and ESAs. In his resignation letter, Andras referenced the change in direction since Elorza came on board in 2023. 

“The last six months have shown that the organization I have devoted a substantial portion of my professional career to help build no longer aligns with my political or personal values,” he wrote.

Jessica Giles, who led the D.C. chapter, similar words when she walked away in May. It’s one of several chapters to close since Elorza became CEO. The Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts and DFER South chapters have also shut down. 

Elorza said he respects their stance.

“There are a lot of folks who put a great deal of stock into this public-private distinction, and I think it comes from a principled place,” he said. “But I truly believe that it is in the party’s political best interest to be open minded to any approach that moves the needle for kids and families.”

‘Political winds are shifting’ 

Backed by , the private school choice movement has been on a winning streak since 2022, when Arizona passed the first universal ESA.

“The political winds are shifting,” Corey DeAngelis, a self-described “school choice evangelist” and fellow at multiple think tanks, said at a conference in Atlanta in April. “If Democrats are smart, they’ll stop the Republicans from being able to pick up the football and win on this issue.”

He pointed to Louisiana, where six House Democrats — one-fifth of the party’s caucus — for the LA GATOR Scholarship, an ESA that starts this fall. One of them, Rep. Jason Hughes, passionately defended his vote on the House floor. 

“As I watch children in poverty, trapped in failing schools, who can hardly read, I’ll be damned if I will continue to defend the status quo,” he said. 

Rep. Marlene Terry, a Missouri Democrat, delivered an equally heartfelt speech in May after caucus leaders when she supported a $50 million increase to the state’s ESA program. 

“I will vote how I please, when I please and where I please,” she said. “No one can take away my voice. I will not be silent.”

While her own children attended public school, she said families in the St. Louis-area district she represents are frustrated that their schools have for 15 years. 

“That’s a long time for families to wait for improvement,” Terry told ����Ӱ��. Riverview Gardens, a majority Black, high-poverty district, regained local control from the state in 2023, but leaders are still working to make continued gains in . “That’s why I support giving families a range of high-quality public options, including public charter schools, and — when absolutely necessary — scholarships to attend other schools if no viable public options exist.”

Some Democrats agree with Elorza that the party shouldn’t distance legislators like Terry. In a , Virginia Board of Education Member Andy Rotherham, who served in the Clinton White House and co-founded Bellwether, a think tank, said Democrats need to welcome “a much wider range of perspectives on these questions,” given school choice’s surge in popularity since the pandemic.

“This is America — we like choice,” he wrote. “Being on the wrong side of that culturally and politically is not a great place to be.”

‘Solidly entrenched’ 

Using an ESA can be particularly uncomfortable for a lifelong Democrat — especially In Arizona, where Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has called the program a “” and wants to on families using it. Kathy Visser, who administers a ESA Facebook group for parents and vendors, knows some who left the forum because they felt that it was “not a safe space for Democrats.” 

“I hate election time because it’s always a mess in the group,” she said. “People think we should be able to talk about ESAs without talking about politics, but when you’ve got one party so solidly entrenched against it, it’s really hard.” 

Some Democrats who use ESAs say they hold their noses when it comes to other aspects of the Republican agenda. 

Christina Foster, whose daughter has used an ESA in the past, said she gets “heart palpitations” when she has to decide on a candidate. She’s board chair for Arizona’s , which runs microschools serving students using ESAs, and wants to protect the program. But in the 2024 election, she voted for Democrats. 

“Some of those Republicans were not supportive of minority rights, immigration rights, women’s rights. Those are very important to me,” she said. “I said ‘OK, unfortunately, I’m going to have to vote against the ESA.”

For those within the traditional K-12 system, the choice to use an ESA can be tricky. As a kindergarten teacher in Arizona’s Peoria district, Melanie Ford is familiar with about how the program undermines funding for traditional schools and is susceptible to waste and fraud. 

But she overlooked those arguments when public school no longer seemed like a safe place for her transgender son Ash. He avoided using the bathroom all day because students said he didn’t belong in the boys’ or the girls’ restroom.

For the 2023-24 school year, Ash used an ESA to attend the , a microschool for middle schoolers in Phoenix that incorporates into the curriculum. Ford told her colleagues that despite her support of public schools, she had to think first about her son. Ash has since returned to a public high school, where he plays on a drumline in the marching band and has straight A’s, his mother said. But using the ESA allowed him to transition in a more supportive setting.

“He didn’t have to deal with the comments from peers that slowly rip a person apart from the inside out,” she said. “He could grow into himself without judgement from others and this was so important for his mental health.”

While some Democrats, as Elorza suggested, may think an ESA is the best option for their children, that interest hasn’t risen to the national level. No Congressional Democrats, for example, have endorsed the federal Educational Choice for Children Act, the tax credit scholarship program tucked into the Republicans’ reconciliation bill.

In some states, vouchers remain unpopular, said Joshua Cowen, an education professor at Michigan State University and a strong opponent of directing public funds to private schools. 

He points to Kentucky, where a private school choice measure last November. Coloradans also defeated a school choice-related , and voters in Nebraska .

While the Democratic party may embrace vouchers in the future, that day is a long way off, said Ravi Gupta, a former Obama staffer who runs a nonprofit media company. On an intellectual level, he’s intrigued by ESAs. Democrats, he said, would never say Medicaid should only be used at a public hospital or Section 8 vouchers only in a housing project, so why doesn’t the same principle apply to education? 

“Twenty years from now, do I think that could be the reality?” he asked. “I think it’s very likely, but it will take some time.”

Disclosure: The Charles Koch Foundation funds Stand Together Trust, which provides funding to ����Ӱ��. Andy Rotherham sits on ����Ӱ��’s board of directors. 

And yet, systematic and regular use of data is at the heart of successful schools. In a from Education Reform Now, we surveyed 53 principals, assistant principals and superintendents across Colorado, Massachusetts, Texas and Georgia to understand the strategies central to the success of their high-performing, high-poverty spotlight schools. Despite a wide range of geographies and school models, all of them agreed: Data is key.

While DQC’s polling indicates that most teachers struggle to access and mobilize the data they need, 100% of the leaders from the “spotlight schools” we surveyed agreed that data and assessments are very important for professional development. This highlights how these schools have invested in building data literacy so that all their educators understand what the data means and how to use it to help students succeed. 

During follow-up interviews, “data” was the most frequently mentioned word, with administrators describing extensive use of both academic and non-academic data to shape a wide range of decision-making.

But what does effective data use actually look like in practice? Here are five ways schools are leveraging data:

1. Daily instruction

Quick and can be used to briefly assess students at the end of lessons to gauge their understanding of the material covered. This serves as live data to help teachers adjust instruction in real-time. At IDEA Carver Academy in San Antonio, Texas, administrators design end-of-lesson quizzes — exit tickets — to monitor content mastery consistently across classes. Teachers discuss the data with one another during daily “exit ticket huddles” to determine appropriate instructional adjustments.

2. Interventions

Implementing tests to evaluate student learning throughout the year allows educators to identify which children need extra help, inform how they are grouped, shape instructional priorities during intervention blocks and monitor progress.

Several spotlight schools in Massachusetts leverage data cycles to shape WIN (“What I Need”) time — a type of small-group instruction. Nicole Mack, executive director of Conservatory Lab Charter School in Boston, uses “June data to start the first round of interventions during the second week of school. …Then we do five intervention cycles across the course of the year, where our administrative team does the review of our data to identify the kids that should go into the different interventions,” such as tutoring or extended learning time.

In Texas, administrators are guided by Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (), which serve as specific, detailed standards that are aligned with the state’s standardized exams. At Ortiz Elementary in Brownsville, Principal Julie Peña says, “We monitor data on a regular basis to help identify the TEKS that have not yet been mastered and plan targeted instruction. … If students are missing a TEKS, then we regroup the students and we make sure that we’re giving them lessons that are geared toward learning those skills. So if a student is falling behind, they are asked to participate in tutorials, they are asked to come on Saturdays and they’re given the reviews targeted to what it is that they’re missing.”

3. Professional development

Both academic and non-academic data can be leveraged to pinpoint professional development sessions that address key shortcomings, evaluate the effectiveness of these sessions and identify educators who may benefit from further coaching or support. For example, at IDEA Carver Academy, administrators collect data through “cultural and instructional observations” each week using the — a benchmarked tool designed to objectively evaluate what teachers are doing well and how they can improve, Principal Laura Flack says. These rubrics, alongside classroom climate, exit ticket and disciplinary data, are then “reviewed, and professional development is created to address areas of need across the campus.”

4. Chronic absenteeism

As schools navigate unprecedented levels of chronic absenteeism, it is vital to collect detailed data to properly identify, diagnose and monitor the issue. For example, Rocky Mountain Prep charter schools in Denver have teams that collect attendance data each morning and call the families of each student who is absent. Teachers are notified of the total absences for the day, how many students came to school after their parents were called and who teachers should follow up with.

5. Student and family empowerment

Data isn’t just a tool for educators — it also empowers students to take an active role in their learning and helps parents better support their children’s academic growth. At Eastside Elementary School in Grady County, Georgia, Principal Chiquila Wright reports that students have one-on-one “data talks” with their teachers to discuss their interim test scores. Families are engaged through trainings that teach parents how to “understand their child’s assessment scores and how to support growth at home.”

Data is not a new concept. However, it is one that is too often underutilized in education. Children cannot learn and schools cannot thrive based on subjective observations and good intentions alone. The data revolution is already here, and it’s time students reaped the benefits.

Time and again, I have scoffed at such accusations, pointing out how public school choice policy is wildly different than private school choice policy. The two policies should never be conflated when discussing the merits of education reform policies with lawmakers, though many lazily place both in the same basket. It was easy for me to end that feckless argument by reminding lawmakers I was there to discuss public education reform policies only, dismissing any melding of public and private school choice policies. 

But with the U.S. Supreme Court taking up a in which the Oklahoma Supreme Court has already invalidated the approval of an application by the Catholic Church to open a religious based virtual charter school, I now find myself concerned we have crossed the Rubicon, forever merging public and private school policy while dismantling the foundational belief in the separation of church and state. A hearing is set for April 30.

The proposed charter school, which would be managed by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, proclaims in its application that it would carry out “the evangelizing mission of the [Catholic] Church” by fully embracing its religious teachings and incorporating those teachings “into every aspect of the School.” The school also acknowledged that it would discriminate in admissions, student discipline, and employment, as necessary to satisfy the Catholic Church’s religious doctrine, and that it would not accommodate a student’s disability if doing so would violate the school’s Catholic beliefs.

If one religious organization is allowed to operate a charter school under the umbrella of public funding, other groups will seek similar privileges, creating a patchwork of public schools, each with its own set of religious doctrines, prioritizing their religious mission over the educational needs of all students. 

The profound implications for the separation of church and state, public education, and the future of religious influence in the public sphere is in the balance. If the Court rules in favor of this school, it will not only shift the boundaries of constitutional law but also set a dangerous precedent that undermines the secular nature of our public education system.

Beyond the immediate risks of religious instruction and outright discrimination within a publicly funded space, the ramifications for the separation of church and state could be catastrophic. The Supreme Court has historically been tasked with interpreting the Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which serves as a safeguard against government interference in religious practices and vice versa. By permitting religiously affiliated institutions to receive state funding, this decision could pave the way for religious schools—ranging from the aforementioned Catholic virtual school to the Church of Satan and every religious belief in between. 

This would lead to disastrous consequences where states increasingly entangle themselves with religion, creating a de facto state-sponsored religious system, serving as gatekeepers of what religions are worthy of overseeing public schools and the children who attend them.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court must consider not only the legal questions of the case but also the broader social and political context. Allowing a religiously affiliated charter school to operate within the public education system would set a precedent that we are likely to regret. It is crucial that the Court uphold this principle and prevent the Catholic Virtual Charter School in Oklahoma from becoming the gateway drug I was warned about—before it opens the door to a much more divided and religiously entrenched education system.

This is not a matter of denying the right to religious expression; it’s about ensuring that the public education system remains a neutral space for all students, regardless of their faith or belief. Let’s not forget: The preservation of the separation between church and state is vital to the integrity of our democracy.

From abortion to taxes to private school choice, many issues divide along party lines. But as youth suicide, self-harm and related challenges remain at crisis levels, mental health can and must remain a bipartisan issue. 

The most recent from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paints a grim picture of the state of mental health among kids and teens in America. According to the survey, nearly all indicators of poor mental health, including suicidal thoughts and behaviors, worsened between 2013 and 2023. In fact, in 2023 alone, 20% of students seriously considered suicide and almost 10% made an attempt. These numbers are deeply concerning, particularly as mental health issues are affecting younger and younger children.

At , the mental health provider I co-founded to offer telehealth services to students, families and educators, more and more young people are being referred by their school counselors. The differ based on age, but common challenges include anxiety, coping, family and relationship issues, and depression. What is abundantly clear is that there are not enough targeted resources — whether in schools or communities — to address this crisis. 

In an era of ever-increasing political polarization at the federal level, state capitals are the most promising venues for sustained, rapid, bipartisan action on youth mental health that is tailored to local needs. Here are four state lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats, who are working to expand mental health resources with efficient, effective solutions:

Before being elected to the Indiana state Senate in 2012, Republican was the director of law enforcement for the state Department of Natural Resources. He witnessed firsthand how the challenges the department faced daily were directly connected to gaps in mental health services that have existed for years and been further amplified since COVID. Since then, Crider has pushed for mental health reform. In 2023, he led efforts to pass , which built out a system of for children and adults, and he is looking to expand these efforts next year in partnership with the Indiana Mental Health Roundtable.

State Sen. has been a mental health advocate since joining the Colorado State House in 2017. A Democrat, in 2018 she authored , which expanded access to youth suicide prevention programs and lowered the age of consent for minors to seek outpatient psychotherapy services. During the pandemic, she authorized legislation creating the program, which provides up to six free sessions of virtual or in-person therapy to all kids in Colorado. Last year, she was able to extend the funding for iMatter for another decade, and as the incoming president pro tem of the Colorado Senate, she is poised to continue her advocacy for youth behavioral health.

State Rep. , Republican of Georgia, has a deep personal connection that has inspired him to become a leading voice in mental health. After , his son was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, and while his family was able to afford care, he saw that most Georgians couldn’t. That led him to spearhead efforts to pass in 2022, the Mental Health Parity Act, which dramatically expanded mental health insurance coverage across the Peach State. More recently, Jones led the charge to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates for behavioral health coverage, which will increase the number of providers in the state. 

In his first budget session as chair of the Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery, Massachusetts Democratic state Sen. established a pilot program for school-based telehealth services. These are now available in the Somerville and Agawam school districts, in partnership with Cartwheel, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program.

Lawmakers all over the country from different backgrounds are supporting mental health legislation and advocating for solutions. Beyond the examples cited above, there has been bipartisan support for investment in school-based mental health solutions in Pennsylvania, with $100 million annually going toward a mental health and school safety fund; in Arizona, $2 million has been appropriated for a rural telehealth pilot; and Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida are creating a per-pupil mental health allotment. The work continues, across the aisle, to build out successful solutions to the ongoing mental health crisis.

Correction: The Colorado state senator’s last name is Michaelson-Jenet.

It’s once again a harrowing week in America, as the nation grapples with yet another mass school shooting — the campus gunfire incident this year, according to a tally by the folks at the K-12 School Shooting Database. 

Two students and two teachers were killed in Wednesday’s attack at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, the latest victims in a campus firearm death toll that’s surged in the last few years. 

During a campaign stop hours after the attack, Vice President Kamala Harris called the incident “a senseless tragedy, on top of so many senseless tragedies.” 

“We’ve got to stop it.” 

‘Building leaders for 2050’

Six and a half years after David Hogg survived one the nation’s deadliest campus shootings at his Parkland, Florida, high school, his latest campaign to bolster the country’s gun laws has drawn major support from deep-pocketed donors and Democratic Party bigwigs. 

Hogg co-founded Leaders We Deserve, a political action committee that’s raised more than $8 million in the past year to help elect young Democrats who support gun control, abortion and other progressive causes. 

My analysis of Federal Election Commission filings and the PAC’s digital ads offers insight into how Hogg has leveraged the trauma and lessons of surviving Parkland to create a well-connected operation to influence state and national elections across the country in November. Leaders We Deserve has already claimed some electoral wins for candidates in Virginia and deep-red Texas.

But the effort, former education secretary and PAC adviser Arne Duncan told me, is much bigger than the upcoming high-stakes presidential election. It’s about building the next generation of Democratic lawmakers. 

“That’s what David’s play is about,” Duncan said. “It’s not about, ‘We’re going to change the entire world tomorrow,’ but it’s, ‘Can we plant a whole bunch of amazing seeds, nurture them, develop them, support them and see what happens.’” 

Read the full analysis here

More on the Georgia shooting

They lost their lives: The victims are two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and math teachers Christina Irimie and Richard Aspinwall. |

The perp: A 14-year-old student accused of carrying out the attack was taken into custody and will be charged with murder as an adult. | 

The police response: Minutes after the shooting was reported, two school resource officers and other law enforcement arrived on scene. One of the school-based cops confronted the shooter, who was armed with an AR 15-style rifle, and forced his surrender. | 

An emergency alert system created by the security vendor Centegix was credited with alerting first responders to the shooting. The system includes a lanyard with a button that teachers can push to report danger. | 

Police interviewed the alleged gunman and his father more than a year ago, after the FBI received several tips about someone threatening to “shoot up a school” on the social media platform Discord. “The father stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them,” according to the federal agency. “The subject denied making the threats online.” |/

Just months after an unprecedented parental conviction in Michigan, Georgia prosecutors allege the father’s actions led to the mass school shooting | ����Ӱ��

The shooter purportedly had a keen interest in past school shootings, most notably the 2018 attack in Parkland. | 

The big picture: This Georgia school shooting was, in many ways, a repeat of past tragedies. The most common scenario is “a surprise attack during morning classes committed by a current student who is allowed to be inside the school.” | 

In other news

California lawmakers passed a first-in-the-nation bill that would prohibit schools from serving food with artificial color additives that officials have linked to hyperactivity and other behavioral effects in children. |

A 33-year-old Latvian hacker has been extradited to the U.S. on charges of being a key player in the cybercrime group Karakurt, which has launched wide-scale ransomware attacks on K-12 schools. |

Four states suing the Education Department over new rules to protect LGBTQ+ kids from discrimination have “a substantial likelihood that they will prevail on the merits,” according to a federal appeals court. |

Meanwhile, the Justice Department and 16 states have weighed in on a lawsuit that charges a Georgia book ban targeting LGBTQ+ literature is unconstitutional. |

Nearly 4,000 “dangerous instruments” — including almost 300 weapons — were seized at New York City’s public schools last year. “Dangerous instruments” is a weird way to say stuff like box cutters and pepper spray. |

Despite school discipline reform efforts, racial disparities in student suspensions persist. |

After six people were killed in a Nashville school shooting last year, Tennessee lawmakers passed zero-tolerance rules mandating a one-year expulsion for students who threaten mass violence at school. As a result, students are being expelled “for mildly disruptive behavior,” ProPublica reported, even when officials found “the threat was not credible.” |

ICYMI @The74

• Immigrant Advocates Call on Massachusetts AG to Probe Enrollment Discrimination

• One New York District’s Old-School Approach to Support Kids’ Well-Being

• Ohio School-to-Prison Pipeline Bolstered by ‘Exclusionary Discipline,’ Absenteeism

Emotional Support

Mika, ����Ӱ�� editor Nicole Ridgway’s pup companion, found a comfy spot on the beach to soak in some of summer’s final rays. 

The 54-year-old father Friday morning on second-degree murder charges that stem from allegations his 14-year-old son carried out the attack and later told investigators, “I did it.” 

The father, prosecutors allege, was the gun supplier. Gray bought his son an AR 15-style rifle as a holiday gift in December 2023 “with knowledge he was a threat to himself and others,” according to an arrest affidavit obtained by CNN. Then, the boy used that same gun, police allege, to kill his classmates and the two teachers and injure nine others. Like those before it, the shooting left a much wider swath of trauma that District Attorney Brad Smith referred to Friday.

“You don’t have to have been physically injured in this to be a victim,” Smith said “Everyone in this community is a victim. Every child in that school was a victim.”

The charges fall in line with a law enforcement strategy that’s emerged in the last year to thwart a record number of mass school shootings, which federal data show are most often carried out by aggrieved students with guns obtained — either as a gift or without permission — from close family members. 

Prosecutors have turned their focus to the killers’ parents. 

Just months ago, in early April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were each given decade-long prison sentences in first-of-their-kind convictions: They were held directly accountable for a school shooting that was carried out by their 15-year-old son in 2021 that killed four students. 

In both cases, according to prosecutors, parents gave gifts to their kids that were later used to commit mass murder despite knowing that their children were on the brink of acting violently. Still, legal experts said the Crumbley prosecution — which Georgia officials have set the groundwork to replicate — reverses a bedrock legal principle that people cannot be held liable for the actions of others. 

“Look, I thought this case could go either way and still when the result came out I was a bit stunned because it’s such a deep legal principle,” Ekow Yankah, a University of Michigan law professor, told ����Ӱ�� in February after Jennifer Crumbley’s landmark conviction. 

“Maybe this kind of case will have an effect,” he said. “Maybe parents will be more attentive.”

In Michigan, the shooter — to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty — was gifted a 9-millimeter pistol for Christmas that he later celebrated online as “my new beauty.” In Georgia, that Gray allegedly gave to prosecutors puts his gift weapon purchase just months after investigators questioned the father and son about reported online threats of a school shooting. 

Last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the then-13-year-old posted on the social media site Discord a threat to “shoot up a middle school.” Local police investigated the tip but failed to link the Discord comments to the teen, even though the account traced back to the boy’s email address. The boy denied making the threats and claimed he deleted the account because it kept getting hacked. Written in Russian, the translated to the last name of the shooter behind the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. 

The New York Times reported this week that police searching the teen’s room found evidence of his interest in , particularly the 2018 killings in Parkland, Florida. 

Meanwhile, Colin Gray acknowledged to police he had hunting rifles at home but that his son did not have “unfettered” access to them. 

Charges filed against Gray include four counts of involuntary manslaughter, eight counts of cruelty to children — and two counts of murder in the second degree. His son, whose age makes him ineligible for the death penalty, will be tried as an adult, prosecutors said, and faces life in prison on four counts of murder. Lawyers for the father and son did not seek bail and the two

Though the Crumbley case in Michigan presented a novel conviction, it wasn’t the first time a parent has been held legally responsible for crimes committed by their children —including in helping their child secure a firearm later used in a mass shooting. Last year, an Illinois father pleaded guilty to misdemeanor reckless conduct on charges stemming from a shooting that his son carried out in 2022 at an Independence Day parade in suburban Chicago. That case centered on how his son, who was 19 at the time, obtained a gun license. 

In Texas, meanwhile, survivors of the 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School to hold the gunman’s parents accountable for the carnage. In a civil case filed by survivors and victim’s family members, a jury found Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Marie Kosmetatos were not liable of negligence after being accused of failing to secure their guns at home and ignoring violent warning signs before their 17-year-old son opened fire at his high school and killed eight students and two teachers. 

Outside of courtrooms, other firearm measures passed at the state level in recent years have sought to tackle parents’ role in mass casualty events carried out by their offspring. now have laws requiring gun owners to keep their weapons locked up or that penalize them if a child gains access. 

Georgia lacks both secure storage and child-access laws, according to an . A new state law, however, seeks to incentivize parental responsibility. 

, the new law who purchase firearm safety devices like gun safes and trigger locks. A similar incentive was rolled out in Virginia in 2023, providing a tax break of up to $300. In its first year, accepted the deal.  

In a video posted to YouTube, 24-year-old school shooting survivor David Hogg points to a whiteboard and outlines a five-step plan to reshape America. 

Ever since Hogg survived the 2018 Valentine’s Day shooting at his Parkland, Florida, high school, which killed 17 of his classmates and educators, he’s become a national leader in the push for gun control and a formidable up-and-comer in Democratic politics. His latest effort is , a political action committee formed in 2023 that has raised nearly $8.5 million in the past year to elect Gen Z and millennial progressives to state and national office. 

The PAC aims to find young Democrats running for office, flood their campaigns with cash, offer strategic advice, provide a team of volunteers and work with the candidates to build a winning platform.

The strategy, Hogg explains in the YouTube advertisement designed to attract donors, has already met with success in Texas: “We just did this, electing the youngest person to the Texas state Senate, Molly Cook,” the state’s first openly LGBTQ+ senator. Leading up to the May election, Hogg’s PAC bolstered Cook’s campaign with $300,000 in financial backing, money used to blanket her district with mailings and digital ads.  

“With Molly, we found in our poll that she was behind by 2%, so we came in and we found that she was ahead by 5 after we informed voters about her background,” Hogg says, adding that his team knocked on the doors of more than 1,000 potential voters. “We got her on MSNBC as well and worked with her on her messaging and the result is that she ended up winning by 62 votes.” 

As Hogg works to “elect a ton more Mollys around the country,” an analysis by ����Ӱ�� of Federal Election Commission filings and the PAC’s digital ads offers insight into how he has leveraged the trauma and lessons learned from surviving one of America’s deadliest school shootings to build out a well-connected, generously funded operation to influence elections. 

The urgency of his key issue remains unabated: were killed and at least nine others injured Wednesday in a shooting at a Georgia high school. During a presidential campaign stop Wednesday afternoon in New Hampshire, Vice President Kamala Harris called the shooting outside Atlanta “a senseless tragedy, on top of so many senseless tragedies.”

“It’s just outrageous that everyday in our country — in the United States of America — that parents have to send their children to school worried about whether or not their child will come home alive. It’s senseless,” Harris said. “We’ve got to stop it.”

Leaders We Deserve has pumped millions of dollars — and resources from Democratic power players — into the campaigns of young candidates who support progressive causes like gun control, reproductive rights and protecting public school funding. Its efforts going into November will almost certainly be strengthened by Harris’s presence atop the ticket, an event that has .

Joining forces with Hogg, a recent Harvard graduate, is Kevin Lata, the former campaign manager of U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Democrat from Florida who, at 27, is the first member of Gen Z to serve in Congress. Hogg and Lata didn’t respond to interview requests.

“As a generation, we’ve collectively been told to run, hide and fight over and over during active shooting drills, and our generation has learned that along with our ABCs,” Hogg says in one ad. “I think it’s time that we repurpose the meaning of that. We need to start running for office. We need to stop hiding from the responsibility that we have to protect future generations.”

Cook has received the largest share of direct campaign cash from Leaders We Deserve, according to the PAC’s most recent federal financial disclosures, which cover the period from June 2023 to the end of July 2024. In that time, the group has helped finance the campaigns of 16 candidates, primarily at the state level, including in Pennsylvania, Alabama, Florida and Ohio. 

Funding has gone to the Georgia House race of a seventh-grade math teacher in Atlanta, a former Miss Texas vying for a state House seat on a gun control platform, a 28-year-old in Pennsylvania whose run for the state House is centered on , and a 28-year-old mother running for a House seat in Tennessee after the state .

‘Pain into purpose’

Though young candidates are underrepresented in public office across the country, and they tend to face steeper financial barriers than those from older generations, FEC data — and Hogg’s five-step plan — show the PAC offers more than money to its endorsed candidates. It has ties to some of the major players in Democratic campaign operations. 

Its 59-person advisory board encompasses education leaders, gun control proponents, youth activists and two former law enforcement officers — — who defended the U.S. Capitol during the January 6, 2021, attack by a mob of Donald Trump supporters. Democratic politicians, half of them 35 or younger, make up the largest share of advisors. 

Among the more seasoned advisors is Arne Duncan, the former education secretary for President Barack Obama. Duncan now has his own group — Chicago CRED — which provides job training and other resources in a bid to stem gun violence in his hometown. 

Duncan told ����Ӱ�� that he and Hogg communicate regularly to discuss their shared goal of thwarting gun violence. Duncan said that his “generation has failed” to confront the issue in a meaningful way, leaving young people — including the ones Hogg is working to elect — to devise solutions. 

“I hate the leadership that David has had to provide on this issue. I hate the trauma that he and his classmates and his school and his community have been through,” Duncan said. “But I so appreciate him turning that pain into purpose and really fighting to change things.” 

Hogg— who co-founded the gun control group in the Parkland shooting’s immediate aftermath and has campaigned in previous elections for candidates who support new gun laws— has garnered financial support for his political committee from marquee donors. The bulk of donations — more than $4.3 million — come from undisclosed individuals contributing less than $200, but the largest single contribution of $300,000 is from Ron Conway. The Silicon Valley venture capitalist and gun control proponent served on the advisory board of , which has sought to reduce campus gun violence in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting at the Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school. 

Other prominent donors include reproductive rights activist Phoebe Gates, the daughter of Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, who gave $75,000, and actress Kate Capshaw and her husband, the director Steven Spielberg, who donated a combined $25,000. 

That support, federal election data shows, has translated into significant spending, with nearly $3 million going to advertising via text messaging, digital ads and campaign mailers. Nearly $1 million — the PAC’s second-largest expense — was used to purchase lists with the contact information of potential voters. 

The PAC’s expenditures also reflect the web of influential players working behind the scenes. Leaders We Deserve paid nearly $130,000 in legal fees to the Elias Law Group, the firm of Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias, who and is now assisting with the party’s vote recount strategy for November. Other top payments were to prominent political fundraisers and strategists, including The Hooligans Agency, with using Hollywood tactics to make viral political ads.

PACs like Leaders We Deserve have faced criticism for injecting smaller races with big money from interest groups and out-of-state donors. Leaders We Deserve has found its greatest success raising money from donors in California, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York, federal data shows. The group hasn’t contributed to candidates in any of those states. 

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers and a Leaders We Deserve advisory board member, said the PAC offers Hogg a strategic advantage.

“He did this in a way so that he wasn’t constrained by party,” Weingarten said. “He understands and knits together policy and politics.” 

‘A big barrier’

Even with its list of established connections, Leaders We Deserve faces headwinds in driving change. 

Young people are “vastly underrepresented on the ballot” and run for public office at much lower rates than older adults, according to from the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning Engagement, or CIRCLE,  a nonpartisan youth-focused research organization at Tufts University.

As of 2021, millennials — those born between 1981 and 1996 — made up a quarter of the voting population yet  of lawmakers in Congress. Researchers found that financial insecurity and structural inequities — not apathy — were behind the divide. 

While more than 20% of young adults 18 to 25 said they would consider seeking public office — and an increasing number of them have followed through in the past decade — the encouragement they receive varies widely by race and gender. Younger candidates are more diverse than those from older generations, but while Black and Latino youth are more likely than their white counterparts to consider an election bid, they are less likely to actually run. 

The data drives home why groups like Leaders We Deserve are critical to improving civic engagement among young people, said Sara Suzuki, a senior researcher at CIRCLE.

“That gap between interest and actually running can be filled by organizations like Leaders We Deserve and other organizations across the spectrum because financial support is a big barrier,” Suzuki said, adding that the PAC’s explicit encouragement of young candidates could lead more of them to enter politics. 

Getting the necessary votes is another story. Suzuki said it’s plausible that a candidate’s age is one of the factors that young people consider at the ballot box, but that they are primarily driven by specific issues rather than individual candidates or parties. 

“They really vote as a way to make change happen on issues that they care about,” she said, “and those issues tend to be economic issues like cost of living, climate change is a big youth issue, gun violence and abortion.” 

‘Leaders for 2050’

The PAC’s went to the congressional campaign of Sarah McBride, a Democratic state senator in Delaware since 2021 who has been on transgender rights. If elected, the 34-year-old would be the first openly transgender member of Congress. 

“Everyone deserves to feel safe in their community, whether you are walking alone at night or going to school during the day,” McBride notes on her campaign website. “The truth is, when it comes to guns, our country has lost its common sense.” 

The PAC’s  “first elected candidate,” according to Hogg, was Nadarius Clark, the youngest member of the Virginia House of Delegates. Clark got $100,000 in support and beat his Republican opponent by 800 votes in 2023. Leaders We Deserve and the ideologically aligned nonprofit were Clark’s top campaign contributors, show.

The PAC stands to see another victory, where Bryce Berry — the 22-year-old Atlanta middle school math teacher — faces an incumbent from Democrat to Republican last year in order to support private school vouchers. The heavily Democratic district has never elected a Republican to the state House. 

Leaders We Deserve has also been handed defeats, including its failure last fall to help elect a 26-year-old transgender woman to the Alabama House of Representatives. The PAC spent $124,325 on the race, one that Hogg acknowledged would be tough. 

But the group is looking well beyond 2024’s high-stakes election cycle, a strategy that Duncan, the former education secretary, said is critical to the Democratic Party’s future. The state lawmakers elected today, he said, are one step closer to becoming the national leaders of tomorrow. 

“That’s what David’s play is about,” Duncan said. “It’s not about, ‘We’re going to change the entire world tomorrow,’ but it’s, ‘Can we plant a whole bunch of amazing seeds, nurture them, develop them, support them and see what happens.’” 

It’s a political mindset that the group hopes will propel progressive leaders beyond their Republican rivals.

“While MAGA plans for 2025,” one of the PACs ads states in reference to Trump’s ties to the to remake the federal government, “we’re building leaders for 2050.”

Four people were killed and nine others were taken to various hospitals after a shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, the GBI said Wednesday afternoon.

One person was in custody, the state agency confirmed.

Barrow Sheriff Jud Smith said early Wednesday afternoon that “every minute” the investigation was updating. Federal and state agencies were assisting with the investigation.

“First and foremost, I want to lift up our community,” Smith said. “I want to give our sympathies to our community, our school system, our kids, our parents that had to witness this today.”

Several law enforcement agencies responded around 10:20 a.m. to the school, which was placed on lockdown following reports of an active shooting, the Barrow sheriff’s office said.

At 10:23 a.m., 11th grader Henry van der Walt texted his mother: “I think there’s a school shooting.”

Minutes later, Becky van der Walt got another message.

“I love you,” Henry wrote.

The text exchange was likely repeated hundreds of times during several chaotic hours for both students and parents. Students were led from the school outside, where parents rushed to find them.

As the details were slowly confirmed during the day, the sheriff said he expected to have more information later Wednesday.

“This is going to take multiple days to get answers,” he said during a news conference near the school shortly after 1 p.m.

Barrow Coroner Kenneth Cooper said early Wednesday afternoon he could not confirm information about those killed.

One gunshot victim was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, the hospital confirmed Wednesday afternoon.Two other victims were taken to regional hospitals in Barrow and Gainesville, according to the Northeast Georgia Medical System. The Barrow hospital was also treating some who suffered anxiety or panic attacks.

NewsChopper 2 footage showed large crowds of students filtering into the high school’s stadium during the lockdown. Several ambulances were at the scene as well.By late morning, students were released to their families and school officials said buses would be running for those needing transportation home.

Frantic parents rushed to the school, with many forced to park and walk to reach the campus while searching for their children.

Apalachee sophomore Alexsandra Romero said she was in her second-period class when another student barged in yelling for everyone to get down.

“I wasn’t texting my family at first, because I thought it was just a drill,” Romero told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Since the school had prepared for this scenario, Romero said she and her classmates knew what to do.

“I can just remember my hands were shaking,” Romero said. “I felt bad because everybody was crying, everybody was trying to find their siblings.”

Romero caught glimpses of blood and guns lying on the ground as she was escorted from the building.

“I can still picture everything, like the blood, the shouting and everything,” Romero said.

Four people were killed and nine others were injured in a shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, the GBI said Wednesday afternoon.

Apalachee High was the only school cleared for dismissal as of midday Wednesday. Other Barrow County schools will remain in a soft lockdown “for the safety of everyone right now,” the school district said.

According to the White House, President Joe Biden was briefed on the shooting and his administration would coordinate with federal, state and local authorities. Gov. Brian Kemp said he directed all available state resources to respond to the high school, which is about 8 miles east of Dacula, southwest of Winder.

“(I) urge all Georgians to join my family in praying for the safety of those in our classrooms, both in Barrow County and across the state,” Kemp added. “We will continue to work with local, state and federal partners as we gather information and further respond to this situation.”

FBI Atlanta said it was aware of the shooting and that agents were on scene to coordinate and assist local authorities. GBI agents were also providing help, and the state agency urged everyone to stay clear of the area.

Apalachee High had an enrollment of just over 1,900 students as of March, according to the Georgia Department of Education. The department said it was also monitoring the situation.

“I am devastated by the news of the tragic shooting at Apalachee High School today,” Richard Woods, state school superintendent, said in a statement. “My heart and prayers are with the families and loved ones of those affected and the entire Barrow County community. This is an unimaginable loss for Barrow and for our entire educational community across the state.”

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens also issued a statement after the shooting.

“My prayers are with the high school students, staff and families affected by the senseless act of violence in Winder, Georgia,” he said. “I have been in contact with Chief (Darin) Schierbaum, and the Atlanta Police Department has been working with the Atlanta Public Schools Police Department to bolster patrols around our schools for the rest of the day out of an abundance of caution.

“APD has also been on standby in case law enforcement agencies need assistance with this incident. May God comfort the victims and their loved ones in the difficult days ahead.”

Atlanta Journal-Constitution staff writers Lexi Baker and Henri Hollis contributed to this article.

Advanced Placement African American studies will be offered in Georgia high schools with state funding, Superintendent Richard Woods said Tuesday, but some members of both political parties are still wondering why there was ever any question.

Woods, a Republican, said his reversal came after receiving a letter from Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, clarifying that , the state’s 2022 law banning so-called divisive concepts in the classroom, exempts AP, international baccalaureate and dual enrollment classes.

“Thus, any such course developed by its controlling entity will be automatically adopted within the state-approved course catalog. It will not have to receive a recommendation from either the State School Superintendent of Georgia or the Georgia State Board of Education. It will also not require a vote to approve or deny adoption into the state-approved course catalog,” Woods wrote in a .

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“As I have said, I will follow the law. In compliance with this opinion, the AP African American Studies course will be added to the state-funded course catalog effective immediately,” he added.

Woods said all AP courses will now come with a disclaimer in the state course catalog stating that they were not vetted by the state and that districts need to obey the law.

The school year has already begun for many Georgia students, and some districts, including Atlanta Public Schools and Cobb County Schools, said they are offering the course like any other AP class.

Georgia’s largest school district, Gwinnett County, previously said it would not offer the class, but county superintendent Calvin Watts said Wednesday that schools will work with students who signed up for the course last spring to allow them to change their schedules to add the class.

“While this is a victory in many ways, the State Superintendent’s actions caused undue burden on our schools and pain to many in our community, including our students,” he said. “However, I am grateful for the collective advocacy of our students, families, staff, and community to do what is right for our students. I am sorry that we went through this, but I am happy that in the end, our students can take this course and receive the full AP experience and rewards of completing the course successfully.”

Woods’ move is a reversal from , when he said he chose not to recommend state approval for the college-level class because of the divisive concepts law, although he said schools could still offer the class through a workaround. That didn’t satisfy many critics, who said treating a class on Black history and culture as separate and controversial appeared racist.

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp also evinced doubt about Woods’ decision, sending him a letter questioning aspects of the choice.

Last week, Woods said he was seeking to determine whether the law exempted AP and other advanced classes. That’s where Rep. Will Wade came in. The Dawsonville Republican who sits on the House Education Committee was the chief sponsor of the divisive concepts bill and said the bill absolutely exempts those classes.

“Once I understood that he was trying to find clarity, I felt obligated as the author of the bill to get clarification with the AG’s office, which he provided to me, and I shared it with the staff at the DOE to say, ‘Hey guys, I’m not sure why you are having confusion and what’s going on, but I want you to know that I’ve asked this question, and I’m happy to share it with you.’ And that occurred earlier this week,” Wade said.

The divisive concepts bill states that “Nothing in this Code section shall be construed or applied to …. Prohibit the full and rigorous implementation of curricula, or elements of a  curriculum, that are required as part of advanced placement, international baccalaureate,  or dual enrollment coursework; provided, however, that such implementation is done in a professionally and academically appropriate manner and without espousing personal  political beliefs.”

Wade said he and the House Education Committee decided to add that carve out to protect students’ opportunity to take challenging classes meant for college students and earn extra credit.

“I think that he understands that he made a mistake,” he said, referring to Woods. “I understand he apologized last week for how we got where we got, but I can’t tell you why. I don’t know his legal opinion or who is advising him in his office, and I’m a big believer in teamwork and learning from mistakes. I’m a son of two educators, and that’s part of learning, and so I hope that the superintendent uses this as a great learning experience to improve communication and gain better understanding in the future as it relates to laws that affect his department and his responsibilities.”

Education Department spokeswoman Meghan Frick said Woods had been in contact with Carr before receiving the letter from Wade.

“This, along with clarification he sought and received from the AG regarding the course adoption process, is the first formal legal opinion we’ve received on this issue,” she said.

The Georgia Attorney General’s office spokesperson Kara Murray confirmed the office provided legal advice but said they could not provide comment on it because of attorney-client privilege.

Powder Springs Democrat David Wilkerson, another House Education Committee member, said he’s relieved at the resolution, but he worries the divisive concepts bill creates more messes that lawmakers will need to decide how to tidy up.

“Even though the advanced placement was there you still get the risk of a teacher giving their political views, and that’s never been clarified on what that exactly means, your personal political views,” he said. “Is slavery wrong? Is it not wrong? I think we all agree at this point that it was wrong, but that still could be espoused as a political view. So I think as long as 1084 is around, I think you’re going to have that concern. Now instead of having it at the DOE level, you’re going to have it at the district level.”

The course has been a flashpoint in the culture wars nationwide, including in, where a lawsuit involving the course is underway, and in, where Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would ban the course because he said it represented an attempt to indoctrinate children.

The battle lines have been different in Georgia, with Republicans who speak on the record opposing Woods’ original decision not to support the class.

Emory University political science professor Andra Gillespie said Woods may have realized he was fighting a losing battle without any allies, and Kemp may have calculated that appearing to fight against African American studies may have presented a bad look ahead of this year’s election.

“It could be something about not sending off unnecessary salvos in the culture wars,” she said. “This could be viewed as excessive, and it’s also something that could be framed as denying children the type of educational advantage that’s going to make them competitive for college, right? There are content discussions that I think Kemp and Woods and other Republicans are comfortable having, but this particular issue of denying a class for which Georgia students could get college credit, which would save them money in the long term and help them achieve a college education, is something that looks like that you’re actually denying people more things than you are providing more advantages and opportunities. And the optics of it look bad in a state where 30% of the population is Black.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on and .

Gov. Brian Kemp signed a suite of education-related bills into law Tuesday, including a controversial measure that will allow parents of children in low-performing schools to claim $6,500 in state education funds to pull their children out of the public system and enroll them in private school or teach them at home.

Supporters say expanding school vouchers will help kids in schools that don’t meet their needs succeed academically. Opponents say they siphon needed dollars from underfunded public schools to private institutions with less oversight.

Kemp thanked the bill’s author, Cumming Republican Sen. Greg Dolezal, and House Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones for working on the bill for years before it finally passed this year.

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“I am grateful for that dedication because this legislation has always been about one thing, providing every Georgia child the opportunity to get the education that they deserve,” Kemp said. “To ensure that participating schools are living up to that promise, they must demonstrate their own sound financial footing and submit student performance data before enrolling students, and they must administer an education savings authority approved assessment to ensure quality student performance.”

Those additions Kemp mentioned were sweeteners added to help convince Republican holdouts in the House to support the measure. Other additions make temporary teacher pay raises approved over the last few years permanent and allow public schools to use state capital construction dollars to build or renovate Pre-K facilities.

The program is set to go into effect for next year’s fall semester and is limited to students zoned into the lowest 25% of Georgia schools. Except for kindergartners, participants must have been enrolled in public school for at least a year to qualify. The cost to the state is capped at 1% of the cost of the Quality Basic Education formula used to determine the state’s school funding share, which now equals more than $100 million.

Though some House members needed convincing, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones indicated the Senate is ready to move further.

“As a longtime proponent of school choice, I am proud of the General Assembly for passing the most substantive initiative in decades,” Jones said. “I want to thank Gov. Kemp for his support for school choice and education freedom within our state. Today’s signing of SB 233 is a great step in the right direction, however, there is still more work to be done to give parents the choice and resources that can meet their child’s unique educational needs. I look forward to working with Governor Kemp and my colleagues in the General Assembly to ensure educational freedom in Georgia.”

Many education leaders were not cheering as Kemp affixed his signature to the bill. Teachers and education lobbyists have long complained that the voucher bill will leave already cash-strapped schools with less money. In a virtual news conference hosted by the Intercultural Development Research Association Association following the bill’s signing, activists lamented what they called a rushed and non-transparent process that led to the bill’s passage and predicted that it will do little to help the families proponents say it will because $6,500 is not enough to pay for tuition at most Georgia private schools, which tend to be clustered around major metro areas.

Elijah Brawner, a divinity student at Emory University, said every private school in his area is Christian-based, which would further alienate some students.

“So if you can get a public school voucher and that lets you leave your supposedly terrible public schools and take your money with you, first of all, the voucher doesn’t cover the whole tuition,” he said. “So now you’re only letting people come through who can already afford to pay partial tuition through subsidizing students above a certain income level, and you’re not subsidizing any students that are of a diverse faith background.”

Tracey Nance, the 2022 Georgia Teacher of the Year, said she is concerned that families who take advantage of the program may be exposed to legal discrimination and give up rights that public school families would have.

“The private schools that accept these publicly funded vouchers are not held to the same standards as public schools, and they are in fact even legally allowed to discriminate,” she said. “They have little oversight students will not be required to take the same accountability test as the rest of Georgia students, they will not be held to the same instructional standards. Even more when parents use this voucher they waive all rights to federal protection and public education services, including services for students with disabilities and services such as transportation and school meals.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on and .

Kim, a 12th grade student at West Lafayette High School, discovered his dog, Joy, had heartworm disease and ordered medicine through an online pharmacy.

But the medicine Kim ordered would not only be ineffective but also aggravate Joy’s illness even more.

Motivated by his dog’s health scare, Kim designed a way for people to verify the authenticity of pharmaceutical products — by printing an edible QR code directly on the medicine.

Kim was one of in middle and high school who presented their inventions and research projects focused on solving key global issues at the in Washington, DC.  

“There have been countless tragedies and deaths caused by either substandard, falsified or diverted pharmaceutical products,” Kim told ����Ӱ��. “So I’m glad to have had this opportunity to raise more awareness of counterfeit medicine.”

Hosted by and the , student innovators were selected from an array of nationwide competitions, including the where more than 2,500 students submitted projects across six categories: Environmental Stewardship, Future Foods, Health & Medicine, Powering the Planet, Tech for Good and Space Innovation.

Here are five student innovators featured at the National STEM Festival:

Joshua Kim, 18

West Lafayette High School · West Lafayette, Indiana

Among more than 50,000 online pharmacies worldwide, Kim found only 3 percent operate and distribute medicine legally — contributing to the annual deaths of over one million people.

Kim said the measures most pharmacies use to reduce counterfeit concerns are “limited by low security,” such as only tracking medicine through its exterior packaging.

“It’s easy for medicine to be removed from their packaging…and dose level securities are either limited by the need for expensive technology or trained personnel,” Kim said.

“So this means patients at home do not have access to ways of verifying their medicine.”

Kim believes his edible QR code will allow people to ensure they are receiving genuine and legitimate medicine.

Ashley Valencia, 17

Harvest Preparatory Academy · Yuma, Arizona

Self-conscious about her crooked teeth, Arizona high schooler Ashley Valencia saw how expensive dental care can be growing up in a low-income family. But it wasn’t just her family that couldn’t afford dental care — many of her neighbors also struggled to afford it. 

Valencia, a 12th grade student at Harvest Preparatory Academy, channeled her insecurity to help students in developing countries who have even less access to proper oral hygiene products — by creating an affordable toothpaste and mouthwash using their native plants.

“I always knew I wanted to do something in medicine so when I thought about different [research] topics close to me, I started to think about my past experiences,” Valencia told ����Ӱ��.

“That’s why I created my own oral treatments that were easily accessible and affordable to people who might not have access to the things I had,” she added.

Valencia said she shared her research with public schools in the Philippines to address their students’ dental concerns.

At the festival, Valencia said she plans to travel to developing countries across South and Southeast Asia to share her oral hygiene products.

“Because I come from a school that doesn’t have a lot of resources…being able to attend the festival and present my research to all of the important people that were there was really exciting,” Valencia said.

Clarisse Telles Alvares Coelho, 18

New Mexico Military Institute · Roswell, New Mexico

From lion’s mane to king oyster, New Mexico high schooler and longtime vegetarian Clarisse Telles Alvares Coelho loves eating all types of mushrooms.

Coelho, a 12th grade student at the New Mexico Military Institute, said the misconceptions of mushrooms inspired her research project on their health benefits — particularly the abundance of a soluble fiber called beta-glucan.

“I knew many people didn’t like mushrooms…but what if I was able to make them change their minds,” Coelho told ����Ӱ��. “With beta-glucan acting in your immune system, our metabolism works faster.”

Coelho said she was “very surprised” to have the opportunity to present her project at the festival.

“It was such a great feeling because there was so much hard work and late nights put into researching this project…[so] it was so amazing to be recognized,” Coelho said.

Alicia Wright, 17

Rockdale Magnet School for Science and Technology · Conyers, Georgia

Concerned by our global carbon footprint, Georgia high schooler Alicia Wright discovered the majority of CO2 emissions come from the cement used in construction.

Wright, an 11th grade student at Rockdale Magnet School for Science and Technology, found a way to replace cement with mycelium — a type of fungi that can be transformed into a biodegradable construction material.

“I was inspired by the complexity of mycelium and how fungus works,” Wright told ����Ӱ��. “This will better the environment so that future generations can enjoy as we have.”

At the festival, Wright said the diversity of students presenting their projects with her felt “empowering.”

“It was very encouraging to see people with my skin color and gender presenting with me,” Wright said.

Haasini Mendu, 16

William Mason High School · Mason, Ohio

Ohio high schooler Haasini Mendu came up with a way to improve medication dosage for Parkinson’s disease — a disorder that causes involuntary body movement, often called tremors.

Mendu, an 11th grade student at William Mason High School, designed a wearable device that quantifies the number of tremors someone has and automatically sends the information to an app she created called “TremorSense.”

She said the information is processed through an “AI-based machine learning” filter to distinguish between tremor and non-tremor movements.

Mendu said the opportunity to meet other students and build connections was her favorite part of the festival.

“It was very easy to make some friends and also learn about their very cool inventions and ideas,” Mendu told ����Ӱ��.

“Having this recognition…feels motivating to continue working on my skills [because] there were so many people interested in what I’m trying to do with my research.”

Three third graders stepped up to the podium at a recent Cobb County Board of Education meeting. It was intimidating — they needed a step stool to reach the mic, and were facing a two-minute timer that seemed to move faster than a normal clock.

But Berkley Carter, Daphne Murray and June Simmons were on a mission. They had kids counting on them. They call themselves the Recess Rangers for a reason.

“Today we are here to tell you why kids should have longer recess,” they said. “Longer recess will help our and other schools grow.”

They told the school board about their research into the benefits of recess, the input they got from students and teachers at their school and the cost (free).

The experience was nerve-wracking for the 8- and 9-year-olds.

“We should have had a little recess break before that,” June said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

That’s what they like the most about recess. Playing kickball or tag is a chance to expel some energy or to get out their frustrations when they are having a hard time in class.

Daphne remembers a time when a teacher told her she should be more like her older brother, and how recess helped her get over her frustration from that. June remembers a time that she tried to draw something for an assignment over and over again, and recess helped her calm down after getting upset.

This all started as a class project. They had to research something that would help their school grow, and they chose longer recess times and gave the same speech to their class.

Recess is credited with helping students increase their level of physical activity, improve their memory, attention and concentration, stay on task, reduce disruptive behavior and improve their social and emotional development, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the early 2000s, when the federal No Child Left Behind Act was focused on improving student test scores, recess was shortened or cut entirely at schools across the U.S.

“Now I look at it as a very important part of the day,” Daphne said.

June agreed: “Before, it was just a time to be goofy and fun, but now I feel like it’s really serious. I have to have recess.”

Georgia started requiring daily recess for elementary students and unstructured break time for students through the eighth grade in 2022. In Cobb County, principals get to decide recess time for elementary students, and middle schoolers get their unstructured breaks during class changes.

Berkley, Daphne and June said they usually get about 15 minutes of recess time — but they noticed that some days were shorter than others, with no explanation. Several national organizations recommend at least 20 minutes of recess each day.

“It felt like they were lying to your face about recess and it was unfair to us,” Berkley said.

The AJC requested to speak with the principal of Smyrna Elementary and the students’ teacher, but a district spokesperson declined to facilitate any interviews. The spokesperson also did not answer questions about recess times.

After the trio spoke at the meeting, they heard back from board member Becky Sayler. She commended them for their presentation, but let them know the school board doesn’t control recess. The administrative rule related to break times in schools was last updated in July.

“I know, as a teacher myself, how difficult it can be to be sure we get through the necessary standards but still have enough time to give our brains the recharging time that unstructured play allows,” Sayler wrote to the students. “I urge you to make this same presentation to your principal. I’d love to hear how it goes!”

The students said they do want to talk to their principal, and possibly principals at other schools. But after their presentation in class and to the board, their teacher was very proud of them — and they’ve noticed their recess is closer to 25 minutes long these days.

The Recess Rangers said their research suggests 45 minutes would be the ideal amount of time.

“I didn’t want her to get lost,” Jenny said.

But private options fell short. A Montessori school she attended for kindergarten let her sleep all day. When she reached sixth grade, the Christian school she went to stopped providing extra help with schoolwork. The principal, Jenny said, explained that extra services weren’t important because “99% of our kids go [on to] higher education.”

That’s when the Balbaughs tried Streams of Hope Christian School, a smaller, unconventional program based in an Anglican church that lets students move at their own pace. Now in eighth grade, Ali can use a calculator for math problems and gets help with writing assignments.

“Every single child’s plan is individualized,” Jenny said, “and they don’t move on until they have mastered whatever they’re working on.”

Families like the Balbaughs, who have children with autism, ADHD and dyslexia, are seeking out small programs like Streams of Hope — part of a growing education sector known as microschools. Almost two-thirds of operators say their programs draw students considered neurodivergent, according to the latest snapshot of the movement from the National Microschooling Center, an advocacy organization. The survey of 400 microschool founders in 41 states also shows that children with other disabilities represent one of the next largest populations served, with 53% of school operators reporting that these students are enrolled in their schools. 

Like all private schools, however, microschools don’t have to accept students with disabilities or provide the same services as public schools, putting some parents who might otherwise take advantage of school choice in a tough spot.

The report, released Monday and provided exclusively to ����Ӱ��, is the center’s second since it launched in 2022. It shows that half of operators said they opened their programs to help students who are “systemically underserved.” The results also point to a sharp increase in microschools receiving public funds for tuition: A third of microschools now accept education savings account funds, according to the survey, up from 18% in . 

To Don Soifer, executive director of the Las Vegas-based center, the results show that the tight-knit settings microschools offer provide a better fit for some students. Educators launching microschools, he said, demonstrate a “deeper knowledge” of such needs and are responding to them in “deliberate, well-informed ways.”

‘Didn’t have the resources’

Jill Haskins, the executive director of Streams of Hope and a former teacher in the Fort Wayne public schools, said her program is flexible enough to provide some of the accommodations students couldn’t get in public schools. She recently accepted a student whose individualized education program required him to get one-on-one instruction in math, written lecture notes and help transitioning between classes — services his public school didn’t provide. 

“It wasn’t through any fault of the teachers. They didn’t have the resources,” she said. With tighter student-teacher ratios, she added, meeting students’ needs becomes easier. “A lot of what we do is just kind of natural.”

Other school leaders say needs or behaviors that might have been more pronounced in public school diminish in smaller settings. Kenisha Skaggs, who launched Soar Academy in Augusta, Georgia, in 2011, has accepted students who were suspended multiple times for incidents such as throwing a chair in class.

“When you change that environment, that stuff goes away,” said Skaggs, who ran a tutoring program out of her attic before launching the school. “Nine times out of 10, we do not have those behavior issues.” 

The national center’s data provides a view of the sector from the perspective of operators and potential school founders. But more complete data can be hard to come by as most states generally don’t count them as a separate type of school. They might be grouped with traditional private schools or with families that homeschool. Soifer estimates that there are anywhere from 95,000 to 125,000 microschools nationally. He described the sector as “very much a growing and evolving movement,” and one that is attracting a more diverse mix of families and educators. 

The median number of students in each microschool is 16, up from 12 when Soifer began tracking the movement. Forty percent of microschools operate in commercial spaces, a quarter in churches and 20% in private homes. 

According to the operators surveyed, about a third of families using microschools earn below the average income in their area. Fifteen percent of students they serve are in foster care, and 21% have unstable housing situations or don’t have enough to eat.

The largest segment of students attending microschools, 40%, attended public schools before they made the switch. A third were homeschooled, and only 4% previously attended charter schools, according to the report.

But there’s been little change in the demographics of microschool founders. About 65% are white, and almost three-fourths are current or former educators. 

Some teachers — 41% according to the survey — drew their inspiration to start a school from their own children’s struggles to learn. That’s why Haskins, who homeschooled her three children, enrolled her son in the microschool she now runs. When he turned 7, she realized he wasn’t learning to read at the same pace as her two older children. As a teacher, she was stumped. 

“I’ve taught in public school. I know how to teach reading, but I wasn’t making progress with him,” she said. A doctor diagnosed him as “profoundly” dyslexic. “He’s doing really well, but I think he would drown in a public school.”

Public funds for tuition

While microschools are private, some parents of children who attend them are able to for tuition through state scholarship programs and education savings accounts.

Some of those programs are only available to students with disabilities, like , which provides an average of about $6,600 toward tuition. Mary Gorlich, whose daughter Cora has learning disabilities and severe hearing loss, uses the scholarship to attend Soar Academy. 

“She was just so lost in her previous school. She’s not a problem and doesn’t make any noise, but they ignored her,” Gorlich said about the Catholic school Cora attended. “I used to pick her up crying every day … because of just how miserable she was. Now I pick her up smiling and she tells me about the math she understood.”

Indiana’s ESA program is also restricted to students with disabilities. Currently, two Streams of Hope students, including Ali, use the program to pay tuition. Another five were recently evaluated for special education services, which would qualify them for the ESA. 

But even though some microschools specialize in serving students with disabilities, as private schools they have to do so. Critics of ESAs and other voucher-type programs stress that students’ rights under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act aren’t guaranteed once they leave the public schools. 

A on Georgia’s scholarship program, for example, states: “If you choose to remove your child from the public school — even if the state is providing some funds for the private school — then you are refusing parental consent to services under IDEA.”

Denise Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, an organization that works to protect the rights of students with disabilities, noted that even if microschools provide some services, parents might not have any recourse if there’s a conflict. In most cases, she said, there is no right to due process.

“This still leaves families unable to push back if they disagree with the IEP or it is not followed,” she said. 

That’s why many West Virginia families opt to stay in the public schools even though the state has the Hope Scholarship, a universal ESA program, said Jamie Buckland, who leads West Virginia Families United for Education. She advises both families and providers on school choice.

She has no doubt that some children with dyslexia and sensory needs could benefit from attending a microschool. But she said there are “so many families whose kids’ accommodations prevent them from choosing private options.”

Southeast Florida has a thriving microschool community that includes , led by Susan Safra, who previously taught in a large Broward County high school. Now she teaches about 50 students through field trips, farm work and surfing lessons. But she said her program is not equipped to serve students with behavior issues, major learning disabilities or “any kind of impulsivity.”

“It’s not because we don’t want them. Our teachers are not trained,” she said. 

Skaggs, with Soar Academy, said she can only accept a few students who need one-on-one support throughout the day. But there’s still strong demand for her program. With an enrollment of 100, Soar is larger than most microschools; another 200 students are on a waiting list. 

With Republican-led states continuing to advance ESA legislation, some leaders in the microschool community are also strong proponents for expanding eligibility to all families. 

In Indiana, Haskins hopes lawmakers are successful next year. If that happens, she said she’s going to “desperately push” families to apply for it.

“Then we can raise tuition to become sustainable,” she said. Tuition ranges from $2,500 to $5,000 annually, with additional fees for curriculum and “à la carte” offerings like a Lego club, Pickleball and Bible classes. The rates are as much as she can charge “without completely breaking our families.”

And in Georgia, Soar students and staff lobbied for passage of the state’s , which will provide students in the lowest-performing 25% of public schools with $6,500 to attend private schools. 

“We’re super excited about bridging that gap for students that just can’t afford to attend a private school but don’t qualify [for the special needs scholarship],” Skaggs said.

Gorlich’s daughter, now a sophomore, made the trip to Atlanta to of the bill. 

Attending Soar has given Cora a “mad confidence boost,” she said. “This is my extremely miserable, won’t-talk-to-anybody, very closed-off kid who now testifies in front of the state Senate for educational rights.”

Rather than thinking about bipartisanship in the traditional sense, advocates should consider a cross-partisan approach. This means achieving policy success despite support across the political divide, not because of it. Advocates who seek cross-partisan success will need to think of ways to communicate and motivate policymakers based on what these political actors care about most — animating their core constituencies. Initiatives that offer wins for all involved, even from different ideological perspectives, can unite stakeholders around shared progress.

While achieving cross-partisan agreement in a divided political environment may seem daunting, there are .

Take civics education: a significant focus for both political parties, given that 80% of likely voters value it highly. States are rolling out , like Indiana’s requirement for a and Utah’s grants for that promote innovation in teaching and learning. By signaling a renewed focus on civics and allowing for local control within state standards, these efforts gained broad appeal, promoting both national pride (an important value on the right) and civic engagement (an important value on the left).

Civics initiatives and other successful policies are characterized by several key practices: 

Clear Communication and Broad Appeal: Policy initiatives must be easy to communicate in order to build a broad base of support. The success of the science of reading, for example, demonstrates the power of simplicity and relatability in communication. This initiative gained widespread traction when advocates articulated a clear, compelling message about the failures of reading curricula then in place and the importance of evidence-based literacy instruction. The problem and solutions were easy to understand and resonated deeply among voters spanning the political spectrum. With parents and teachers aligned, policymakers eagerly followed, resulting in swift legislative changes in .

Responsiveness to Local Concerns: It has been famously said that all politics is local. Policy solutions tailored to specific local problems can transcend political polarization. The , for example, allows teachers’ licenses to be recognized in all 11 member states. This is of particular concern to military families, who relocate frequently, often . By responding directly to their unique needs, the compact earned cross-partisan support by solving a universally recognized, and highly local, problem.

Political Cover: When a change in policy is new or potentially controversial, it helps for there to be support or a mandate from a higher political or legal power. In the overhaul of , for example, political cover was provided by an immovable deadline required by law, the support of the governor and a significant commitment to a public feedback process. After the bipartisan state Board of Education rejected the first draft, several months of work by board members, school officials and advocacy organizations produced a new version. The board held six public meetings around the state and took a leadership role in driving the process. Despite what began as a highly politicized process, new standards emerged because of the board’s mandate — members didn’t have the option to argue about their opinions, were required to act and had to do it together. While the undertaking was long and messy, it ultimately led to standards that were accepted by the board, the governor and the community, reflecting a compromise across differing viewpoints that was hailed in the as a .

Mutual Wins: In politics, everyone is trying to achieve a win for their side. A key to cross-partisan success is finding a path for each side to claim victory. Efforts to , in states such as Arkansas, and , as in and , demonstrate the potential for policies to deliver wins for all stakeholders. By identifying shared goals such as educational quality and civic responsibility, but allowing each side to prioritize those goals differently, these initiatives allow for political independence but ultimately arrive at the same policy destination.

Strategic Use of Media: It is undeniable that media is powerful in shaping public policy — for example, the influence of the “Sold a Story” podcast on reading instruction reforms. This piece of investigative journalism catalyzed a wave of legislation focused on evidence-based reading practices, showcasing how media can effectively accelerate educational reforms by highlighting research-backed solutions, elevating the voices of parents and teachers, and mobilizing public and legislative support.

A cross-partisan approach could be the new strategic imperative for success in education policy, both for legislative wins and the long-term benefit of children and communities. Different political actors may need to take different roads to the ultimate destination of a common-ground solution. But the success of all students, and the country, depends on getting there together.

Georgia State University is blaming federal rules for the return of Pell Grants as a primary reason for its decision to close its this summer.

The program won’t admit any new students but the university said it has a plan to help currently enrolled students at two state prisons finish their programs, which could take up to two years.

Officials cited the administrative challenges of securing federal financial aid, as well as a $24 million budget shortfall, as factors leading to the university’s decision to halt classes at three correctional facilities, according to a statement sent to Open Campus. The program has been operating since 2016.

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Pell Grants are the federal financial aid for low-income students. In July 2023, for the grants for the first time since the 1994 crime bill, which banned federal financial aid for prison education. More than 750,000 students are now eligible for aid, but they must be at a correctional facility that offers a college program approved by the federal Education Department.

Georgia State’s decision means that around 60 current students, according to numbers provided by faculty, at two state prisons and one federal facility may have to postpone their dreams of earning a degree inside. Incarcerated college students already face significant challenges in completing their degrees because of course disruptions and other interruptions outside of their control.

“These students have been disappointed in their lives over and over and over again,” said Katherine Perry, an English professor at Perimeter College, which is part of Georgia State. She was one of the three faculty members who co-founded the prison education program in 2016.

“For me, it’s so important that they not put education in that bucket of things that let them down because that’s why most of them didn’t get their education before.”

Perry felt blindsided when faculty and staff received an email at the end of November from Cynthia Lester, interim dean of Perimeter College, announcing the decision. The email cited “financial constraints and the substantial administrative demands” of seeking Pell approval from the federal Education Department.

“The decision was not made lightly, but it does reflect the university’s commitment to responsible fiscal management and ensuring existing educational initiatives receive the necessary support and resources,” Lester wrote in the email.

Perry said the program has faced financial challenges in the past but they have always been allowed to fundraise. “In this case, when we went back to say, ‘Can we just raise the difference?’ they said no,” she said. “And that makes me scratch my head.”

The program has received at least $700,000 in grants since 2022, which may help fund the program for continuing students. In 2023, Georgia State from the Mellon Foundation to fund a literary journal through the prison education program.

Students at the two state prisons have also been able to use Pell Grants since 2020.

According to the statement, Georgia State faced a substantial budget cut of $24.4 million in fiscal year 2024 and anticipates another shortfall next year. The university estimated that the instructional and administrative costs of operating its prison education program across three correctional facilities would be around $180,000 in addition to money that they have received from donors.

The university also noted the challenges of meeting the “complex requirements” and “ongoing commitments” of the Pell application process, including navigating the paperwork for the federal Education Department, the accreditation process, and meeting key indicators such as job placement, expected earnings, recidivism rates, and completion rates. The spokesperson also expressed concerns about Georgia State’s ability to commit to providing services such as tutoring, counseling, and career guidance to incarcerated students.

Georgia State is exploring alternative avenues to recognize “the importance of supporting the educational needs of individuals impacted by incarceration,” including discussions with donors to establish a new program catering to students who have a personal experience with incarceration, according to the statement.

Big questions about the future

Last week, Georgia State students calling on the university to reverse the decision. As of Wednesday, 46 faculty members had also signed a asking Provost Nicolle Parsons-Pollard to continue the program.

Some experts in the field are also concerned about what Georgia State’s decision to shutter its program might foreshadow for other college-in-prison programs across the state and country.

“We have the fourth largest prison system in the country and we have a really underserved population here,” said Stacy Bell, an English professor at Emory University and board member of the Georgia Coalition for Higher Education in Prison. “And without Georgia State, it raises really big questions about what’s happening to the higher education-in-prison movement here in Georgia.”

There are currently around 50,000 people incarcerated in the state. The Georgia Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment.

Ruth Delaney, director of the Unlocking Potential initiative at the Vera Institute, a nonprofit that provides technical assistance to prison education programs, expressed disappointment at the decision.

“The federal regulations for Pell-funded prison education program require colleges to deliver postsecondary educational programming that is of comparable quality to that which the students at the other location of the college receive,” she wrote in an email. “Many of the services, reporting, and processes GSU describes are standard practices that accredited colleges already follow to serve their non-incarcerated student bodies.”

Last May, nine men at Walker State Prison in Rock Springs from Georgia State, becoming the university’s first class to graduate inside. Three more incarcerated students at Phillips State Prison in Buford graduated in December.

Around 19 students at the federal United States Penitentiary Atlantain September through Georgia State. In January, university officials announced they would no longer be continuing to offer classes at the penitentiary. Georgia State then asked the University of West Georgia, which is planning to launch a Pell-funded bachelor’s program at the federal facility in the fall, if they would accept the associate’s students, according to Tiffany Parsons, a sociologist and director of West Georgia’s prison education program.

West Georgia currently offers classes toward a bachelor’s degree to one cohort at Hays State Prison, a maximum security men’s prison. It’s one of two prison bachelor’s programs in the state, Parsons said.

The other four-year program is offered at Lee Arrendale, a women’s prison, through Life University. That program is also in flux after corrections officials they were downsizing the prison.

Faculty have been working with the students at the penitentiary to help with the transition, Parsons said. She will be going into the federal facility to better understand what the students’ needs are and what kinds of support services West Georgia can provide going forward. “We will have to be there a while and earn those students’ trust,” she said.

The incarcerated students were informed about the decision in mid-February. Perry, the English professor, said her students at Walker seemed fearful that they wouldn’t be able to finish their degrees, despite assurances that Georgia State had a “teachout plan,” including the possibility of another college picking up the program in the state prisons.

“Maybe it’s because they’re so used to systems letting them down,” Perry said.

A teachout plan outlines how an institution will help its students graduate if it stops operating before all students have completed their programs. Georgia State did not respond to follow-up questions about the details of its plan.

Many of the students who graduated in 2023 began their associate’s program when the program started in 2016, so it’s unclear how the current students, most of whom started last fall, will finish within two years.

Perry said the students asked her to quantify the odds that they’d be able to finish with Georgia State. One student felt particularly strongly about graduating from the same college because his kids were also enrolled at the university.

Just like on the outside, incarcerated students feel that being at a particular college is part of their identity as a student. “That’s what it means to be a proud Panther,” Perry said.

This story is published in partnership with , a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education. Subscribe to , an Open Campus newsletter on the future of postsecondary education in prison.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on and .

Following five years of unsuccessful attempts by Georgia Republican lawmakers to expand the state’s school voucher program, GOP Senators on Wednesday cast enough votes to send the latest version of the controversial plan to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk to be signed into law.

On Wednesday, several Republican House Majority Caucus members joined their colleagues in the Senate chamber to celebrate the so-called Georgia Promise Schools Act’s passage by a 33-21 party-line vote. The measure allows families with students enrolled in Georgia’s K-12 public schools to remove $6,500 of state funding provided to local school districts in order to attend private schools or to homeschool.

Critics of the vouchers continued the debate on Wednesday whether $6,500 would be enough for o afford cost of tuition at many of the state’s better private schools.

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Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Cumming Republican, said that $6,500 is close to the state’s median private school cost, which should entice parents of students attending low-performing schools to send their children to a private school.

According to , the average private school tuition in Georgia is $11,893 per year, and tuition in the state ranges from $1,042 to $57,500.

Dolezal praised the GOP leadership in the House and Senate as well as Kemp for fighting to get across the finish line ahead of the March 29 deadline for this year’s Legislative session.

“I remember my freshman year 2019 when this bill failed on the floor of the Senate,” Dolezal said. “It means the world to me that five years later we united around this tailored bill that we can all agree is a step in the right direction.”

Different versions of so-called school choice proposals as a number of Republican legislators joined the majority Democratic lawmakers to block a plan they contend would divert taxpayer funding crucial to public schools to cover private schools.Several conservative state lawmakers from rural areas in the past have frequently criticized the expansion of a voucher program that local school officials contend will cost them funding that will be hard to cover with local money.

Senate Bill 233’s notable changes this year are intended to address recurring criticisms of voucher programs by attempting to ensure vouchers are available to students from low income families and hold private schools accountable by reporting to the state how those students are performing academically.

According to the bill, private schools must administer standardized tests to students enrolled in the program. In addition, vouchers will be prioritized for families with household incomes under 400% of the poverty level, amounting to $120,000 for a family of four.

If signed into law, the promise scholarship vouchers would first be available in the fall 2025 school year. Gov. Brian Kemp said earlier this year that the voucher program was a top legislative priority this year.

The bill caps the states’ investment into the program at 1% of the state’s Quality Basic Education formula budgeted for K-12 public education, which now comes out to $141 million annually to cover tuition for about 21,500 students.

The program would have a 10-year window before it expires. Any student enrolled in the program when it ends will keep receiving the payments until they graduate from high school.

Sen. Elena Parent, an Atlanta Democrat, compared the $6,500 voucher to a shiny object to misdirect attention away from how the Legislature has failed to provide many school districts across the state with the financial resources they need to succeed.

“The reality is that a $6,500 voucher doesn’t go nearly far enough to afford any quality, private education,” she said. “The state spends more than that on public schools.

“If you want to talk about real school choice, let’s put our money where our mouth is,” Parent said. “Give every kid $20,000, give $25,000, then we’d actually be talking about real school choice.”

Cobb County Republican Sen. Ed Setzler said the notion of school choice is often exercised by his fellow legislators and many other Georgians who have enough money to attend a strong academically performing public school or be able to afford homeschooling or private school tuition.

“Senate Bill 233 is for those single moms out there working two jobs to keep the lights on who wants school choice for their kids,” he said. “They can’t afford to move to a neighborhood in an area that has a successful public school. They can’t afford to move and sell their house because they’re upside down in their mortgage.”

Sen Nabilah Islam-Parkes said private schools’ autonomy in choosing which types of students they want to accept likely means many students who might benefit most from being in a new environment would be left behind.

“This bill is a thinly veiled effort to segregate and discriminate, under the guise of choice, private institutions free to pick their students will inevitably leave behind those who perhaps need the most support like our special needs kids, our struggling learners,” said the Duluth Democrat.

The nonprofit IDRA, which focuses on equal education opportunities, and the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition labeled it a harmful bill that diverts resources away from the state’s 1.7 million students in public schools.

The legislation was applauded by the conservative-leaning Americans for Prosperity-Georgia’s state director Tony West.

“Every yes vote today was a vote to empower families and students with the choices and resources they need to chart bright futures for Georgia’s students,” West said in a statement. “We applaud the lawmakers who heard from their constituents and made the right choice to expand educational opportunity in the Peach State. This unlocks so much potential for Georgia’s students.”

Georgia Recorder reporter Ross Williams contributed to this report.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on and .

Microschooling is an education model that is small by design — typically with 15 or fewer students of varying ages per class. It fosters a personalized and community-centric approach to learning that is especially effective in addressing the unique educational needs of diverse student populations. Programs like are helping to fuel these microschools.

ESAs are instrumental in democratizing education. By providing direct funding to parents, they empower families with the financial means to make educational decisions that best suit their children while helping schools outside the conventional system truly flourish.

For example , a growing network in Arizona that focuses on culturally nuanced and inclusive education, is thriving in large part because of the state’s . It serves over 70,000 students statewide in nearly 400 learning environments and makes innovative schools like Black Mothers Forum Microschools far more accessible to families, while inspiring parents to explore the full breadth of education options available for their children.

Opening doors for such exploration is at the heart of the school choice ethos. Whether for a microschool, traditional public school, public magnet school, public charter school, private school, online school or home school, the more options a family can pursue, the better. These will be on full display during , an annual nationwide celebration hosted by the in collaboration with Navigate — The National School Choice Resource Center.

For National School Choice Week, our team is partnering with microschools and organizations across the country to celebrate these new options. For example, Microschool will host a school fair in Nevada to showcase microschools and other choice options. Meanwhile, will host a fun-filled microschool/hybrid/homeschool showcase event with guest speakers, vendors and activities. And in Georgia, will recognize the work parents and volunteers do to make these options possible.

National School Choice Week is, however, far more than just a packed calendar of unique events and activities. The week serves a vital dual purpose: raising awareness about the critical need for increased educational options and providing practical, jargon-free online resources for parents. With saying they will likely be searching for new schools for their children in 2024 and 64% wanting more information about how to exercise their choices, the week acts as a crucial juncture for empowering parents with the knowledge and tools to make informed decisions.

A fundamental shift is taking place in education, and National School Choice Week is shining light on every possible option. As schools and organizations celebrate all that has been accomplished in school choice this past year and embrace this new era of educational innovation in microschooling, ESAs and other school choice programs, the future beams bright with promise. Everyone who supports greater opportunity in education – –from parents to grandparents, educators, advocates, organizational and community leaders to state policymakers– – should recommit to doing all they can to keep this momentum going in 2024 so that, one day, all families will have the full breadth of educational freedom they so rightfully deserve.

Every weekday morning and afternoon, a fleet of yellow buses rolls out all over the state, picking up and dropping off Georgia students.

Keeping all those wheels turning isn’t cheap – Georgia’s school districts combined spend more than $1.2 billion to safely shuttle kids between school and home – and costs are only getting higher as more students enroll and the costs of buses, fuel and labor rise.

For more than two decades, local districts have been stuck footing those bills. According to the Georgia Budget Policy Institute, the amount of money the state pitches in for transportation has been basically stagnant since the early 2000s. Those state dollars used to fund over half of the districts’ transportation costs, but now only cover about 17%.

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Gov. Brian Kemp’s proposed 2025 budget, which he unveiled Thursday, aims to pick up an additional $205 million of that, accounting for 40% of operational costs. The new spending is part of a planned $1.4 billion in new education spending, which also includes teacher raises and grants for school safety.

“Meeting our obligations as a fiscally conservative state means meeting our obligations to our local school systems,” Kemp wrote.

New money for yellow buses may not be as attention-grabbing as raises for teachers or a grant to hire school resource officers, but those dollars will go a long way, said Stephen Owens, director of education at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.

“Unlike in the past where it’s been this one time funding, this forever sets the baseline higher,” he said. “This is a huge step forward for these districts. And when you pair that with other formula changes like the $100 million for school security grants, for that to be a continued line item for schools, the impact is going to be amazing for districts.”

The amount is not set to change with inflation, Owens added, so if costs continue to rise in the years to come, a future governor and legislators will need to take action to keep funding at the same level. But for now, reducing the costs of buses will free up schools to pay for all the other things they need.

“They’re going to see a lot of these funds that come down from the state just as a whole pot of money because of the vast amount of flexibility we provide districts on how to spend dollars from the state,” Owens said. “So that will open up dollars for better pay for substitutes, up to date curriculum, maybe continuing some of the programs that they started during the pandemic with federal dollars now with local dollars.”

Federal pandemic relief funds are set to dry up in September for schools nationwide, and districts, especially those in lower-wealth areas, will likely face cuts to staff, programs and extracurriculars.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on and .

The latest federal data on the public education workforce, released Tuesday, shows 45% of leaders said they were understaffed as the new school year began. That’s down from just over half last year. But the vast majority of schools say they’re still struggling to hire enough teachers and other staff, including classroom aides, bus drivers and mental health professionals. 

In the latest results from the School Pulse Panel — a National Center for Education Statistics survey — over 1,300 administrators reported having the hardest time hiring enough elementary and special education teachers as well as classroom aides and custodial staff. 

“You used to have thousands of applicants for every one vacancy. You don’t have that anymore,” said Mary Elizabeth Davis, superintendent of the Henry County Schools, outside Atlanta. Her team tried to attract candidates this year at local fairs, festivals and civic events, but still has about 100 vacancies districtwide. “We actually had recruiting tables at our high school graduations.” 

While conditions vary from district to district, the overall uptick in since the pandemic has forced district and school leaders to rely on substitutes, contract with virtual teaching companies and offer attractive incentives to lure new hires. Meanwhile, temporary federal relief funds offered the chance to create new positions to help with academic recovery efforts, but there haven’t always been enough candidates to fill those roles. Whether job seekers are leaving for other districts or finding positions outside of education, they clearly have the upper hand in this current market.

“It is harder to hire than it was pre-pandemic,” said Chad Aldeman, a researcher who focuses on the teacher job market. “The labor force participation rate is really high, unemployment is really low and basically anyone of working age who wants a job can find it.” 

Recent confirms that what many have called a crisis in teacher employment is slightly less severe this year. Compared to last fall, there’s a 2% increase in the number of public school employees — or about 150,000 more. But districts have to work harder to win over those sought-after candidates and get creative when they can’t. 

To fill the gaps, the Henry district has hired more teachers from overseas and attracted 25 new college graduates through a “retention scholarship.” In exchange for a two-year commitment, the district covers the cost of their teaching credential program. 

Henry has also joined the growing number of districts across the country using virtual teaching companies. While a substitute or aide supervises students in the classroom, licensed teachers provide instruction remotely — sometimes from several states away. Davis tells parents the remote arrangement is far better than using a substitute. Without it, she added, their children might not be able to take Spanish III or A.P. Calculus.

“This is what kids are going to need to be able to do in college, so we actually see this as a good thing,” she said. 

‘Double-edged sword’

Even districts with traditionally stable workforces have had to take unusual measures to ensure students have teachers. The 5,600-student Rush-Henrietta Central School District, south of Rochester, New York, typically loses no more than five teachers a year. This past summer, Superintendent Barbara Mullen saw 28 leave, mostly to neighboring districts that offer more money. She organized a job fair — something the district has never had to do.

“We issued a press release. I went on the news,” she said. “People were walking in off the street.” 

When that effort only filled 12 positions, she gave educators an unexpected pay raise — a minimum of $1,600 for veteran teachers and up to $5,000 for newer teachers. Non-teaching staff also received raises. With federal relief funds expiring next year, she said staff members recognize there could be leaner years ahead.

“I needed to send a strategic message that compensation is important and working conditions are important,” she said.

Like many districts, Rush-Henrietta uses a grow-your-own approach to address staff shortages. Parents can work as interns in the district’s Cub Care Zone afterschool program and then take the exam to become a teaching assistant.

Other districts offer an accelerated route to a teaching job to classroom aides, professionals changing careers and even those . States were long before the pandemic, but have expanded those policies to address the current emergency. 

But such actions can also leave holes to fill. 

Kimberly Winterbottom, principal of Marley Middle School in Glen Burnie, Maryland, said her state offers so many to become a teacher that it can be harder to find candidates still willing to work as substitutes and classroom assistants — the staff members schools have been relying on to give students extra support. 

“It’s like a double-edged sword,” she said.

Her school had 35 open positions this year. She was able to fill them, but candidates, she said, weighed offers between multiple districts and have grown choosy about which grade levels they want to teach. 

“The candidate holds the cards,” she said.

As the numbers show, however, leaders say this fall feels like more of a return to earlier years when it was tough to find teachers in areas such as science and special education, but shortages didn’t overwhelm the system. In several cases last year, districts even had to because there weren’t enough teachers.

Davis, in Henry County, said one sign of progress is that 89% of substitute positions have been filled this fall, compared to 40% last year. 

“Part of the retention challenge was exhaustion. People were doing multiple people’s jobs,” she said. “We’ve not arrived, but we’re on a path to people being able to do their job most of the day and to start feeling effective at it. That will turn the corner for us.”