EdSurge Articles

What to Do About AI? Begin by Talking About It

Aleta Margolis — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:09:48 GMT

For over 30 years I’ve been teaching teachers to engage in meaningful conversations with their students about real things. Strong teachers know how to pose thoughtful questions, elicit questions from students, and listen and engage respectfully with students.

And yet, 30 years in, there are still a shocking number of schools where adults and children fail to discuss important issues. For instance, according to findings recently released by RAND’s American Youth Panel, only about 1 in 3 students say their school has a school-wide policy on the use of AI. Many students say AI policy in their school varies by teacher, and 67 percent of students endorsed the statement, “The more students use AI for their schoolwork, the more it will harm their critical thinking skills.”

The RAND report recommends “direct conversations” with students about the use of AI. So let’s talk about how to do that.

Talking Directly About AI in Schools

According to the Center for Democracy and Technology, approximately 85 percent of teachers and students report using AI for schoolwork. If your school has a clear policy on AI use, great! Discuss it with your students. Ask them how they feel about it; what’s clear and what needs more explanation; what feels fair and what they might want to advocate to change.

If your school does not have a clear policy on AI, talk with your colleagues, and talk with your students. Here are some questions to get those conversations started.

With colleagues, including teachers and school leaders:

Is it our goal to make things easier for students? For teachers? AI can simplify, increase efficiency, and in other ways do the work for us. Is this what we want?
If so, when is this a good thing?
In what types of situations might we want to avoid making things easier?
How can we implement AI and LLM tools in a way that benefits our learning community, i.e. increased efficiency, time savings, ability to gather and analyze more data, etc.?
What guardrails can we put in place to ensure we maintain the learning experiences we value, such as engaging in productive struggle; working through complex problems and devising, testing, and refining solutions?
How are we going to teach students to critically analyze information and “answers” provided by AI tools?
How skillful are our students at identifying bias? Will our students ask, “What’s the source for this information?” “What perspective does this source have?” Can they distinguish fact (i.e. the distance between the Earth and the sun) from opinion (i.e. the filibuster as a tool for promoting democracy)?
What skills do they – and we – need to strengthen in order to ensure that we are the drivers of AI innovation?
Are there other schools or people we trust, admire, and respect who have implemented AI policies? What can we learn from them?
What processes do we have in place (or can we put into place) to include student voice in determining when and how to use AI in our school?

With students:

What is valuable about the work we do together in school? How might AI tools increase this value? How might AI undermine it?
What does integrity mean to us, as individuals and as a school? How can we implement AI in a way that supports integrity in our school?
What do you know about AI? What do you want to know about it?
What are some ways we might use AI in our school? What are the potential benefits and drawbacks?

Aligning AI with School Values

If this seems like a lot of work, and a lot to talk about, that’s because it is. An AI policy isn’t something to overlay on a school, and then continue with business as usual. AI is a powerful tool. It has the power to disrupt. That disruption can be beneficial, such as disrupting inequitable access to information and learning tools. It can also be harmful: AI can fuel complacency and undermine critical thinking and curiosity. So a school’s AI policy needs to be deeply aligned with the school’s values. And that requires thoughtful, school-wide conversations about those values.

During these conversations, make liberal use of the phrase, “I don’t know.” Because we don’t have all the answers. There is so much we don’t yet know about what AI can, or should, do. How it might support, or undermine, critical thinking and curiosity.

When you engage in conversations based on the questions above, you are modeling to your students – and your colleagues – how to puzzle through complex issues. You’re building uncertainty tolerance. You’re teaching problem solving at the highest level.

And isn’t that what we teachers are here to do in the first place?

I’m Trying to Teach Humanity Before It Disappears

Amanda Rosas — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT

To be an educator and a writer is to inhabit a rollercoaster world of hope; at times, you are filled with the excitement and power of possibilities, and at others, you are terrified of losing it.

During the Voices of Change fellowship, I not only grew as a writer but was also inspired by educators who gave me the gift of “freedom dreaming.” I’ve since sought opportunities to practice freedom dreaming daily in the classroom. Embedding joy and equity into the curriculum and building authentic relationships with students are my north stars. I refer to my students as family, and to highlight that, I have a banner with a quote by Gwendolyn Brooks on my door. It reads, “We are each other’s magnitude and bond.” I’ve placed photos of the students in my classes all around the banner.

I’ve also begun teaching world history. This class energizes me and makes me want to revolutionize and freedom-dream the way history is taught and explore people and stories that matter.” Facing History and Ourselves” and the “Remedial Herstory Project” have been instrumental in helping me find my way and voice as a history teacher.

Despite teaching a new subject that gives me joy, this particular school year has been one of the most emotionally exhausting and difficult for me. I live in Minneapolis, where our 2025-26 school year began with the mass shooting at Annunciation School, a community with close ties to my school. Then, in December, the havoc of ICE removing neighbors and family members from our communities began and culminated in the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. On the hardest days, I held back tears as I tried to instruct my classes. The students and I were scared; our mental health was tested and we were often distracted by everything outside of our school.

I can’t help but feel that one of the first steps to legitimizing the brutal and dehumanizing treatment of Brown and Black people and those protesting against ICE was creating a narrative that DEI is antithetical to academic learning. However, as a Spanish and history teacher, I know that DEI pumps life into the themes and lessons I teach. I believe it is necessary to center women’s voices and Indigenous histories and to honor Black and Afrolatine lives in our curriculum, creating dynamic lessons with more complex, richer perspectives.

Most inspiring to me has been watching neighbors and friends rise up to protect the safety, integrity and heartbeat of our city as we experience the violence and injustice of ICE. Seeing the strength of my community motivates me to eliminate the idea that hope is lost and inspires me to do my part in the classroom.

The students and I work to banish the hate and inequity infiltrating our lives, and freedom dreaming has pushed me to channel the world I want to live in into the curriculum. For example, I built a lesson for my Spanish class entitled “In Times of Crisis, Humanitarian Help.” We learned about the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa in many Caribbean countries, but focused on World Central Kitchen and humanitarian José Andrés’s work to restore people’s dignity and ability to live after natural disasters by preparing meals for them.

In world history, we spent longer than necessary on the Mauryan Empire and Ashoka’s legacy in Buddhism, highlighting principles of peace, nonviolence, and respect for all creation. One student told me this lesson made her strongly consider converting to Buddhism. For me, it is crucial for students to know that even though politics and society seem rife with conflict, it is possible to lead with peace, love and fierce empathy.

My life as a writer and educator has continued to evolve. After the fellowship, I earned a Pushcart Prize nomination for poetry in 2024. Receiving the Voices of Change fellowship and then the poetry honor gave me the confidence to apply for and receive a summer writers’ residency this year. I’m excited by the opportunity to continue exploring the part of me that wants to write about my experiences in and out of the classroom, no matter how challenging they may be.

Yet, after over 20 years of teaching, what’s remained constant is creating moments of joy, humor and connection in the classroom. Don’t get me wrong, we still build competencies — not just for school, but for life.

My goal is for each school day to be permeated by the unwritten hope of freedom dreaming, so that the students and I — and, by extension, our wider community — believe in the barrier-breaking power of unity and a world thriving on dignity and respect for all.

Report: School IT Officials Worried About AI Adoption, Cybersecurity

Lauren Coffey — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 22:25:54 GMT

While schools have made progress in technology adoption — from artificial intelligence guidelines to vetting education technology — they still struggle with the lack of resources, funding and expertise, according to a new report.

The annual State of EdTech report from the Consortium for School Networking polled roughly 600 chief technology officers for K-12 schools. One of the biggest takeaways, according to CoSN CEO Keith Krueger: AI adoption is higher than ever. According to the report, nearly three-quarters (79%) of school districts have AI guidelines in place, up from 57% in 2025.

“Given how many school districts we have, given how many small and rural ones there are, it’s shocking at how quickly at least the guidance around responsible use of AI is,” Krueger says. “As a foundational step, we’re seeing movement.”

But respondents repeatedly stated they are running into roadblocks of insufficient staffing and funding.

“There’s never going to be enough training, and we have to make sure the training is quality and meeting administrators with what they want and need,” Krueger says, adding it’s not just about training on a specific tool, but “helping them think in new ways how to use the tools.”

Most of the districts polled are in favor of AI guidelines, either set by the districts themselves or state education agencies, but do not want state or federal mandates. Typically, mandates are formed, then approved, by a board — something that is time-consuming and does not lend itself well in the fast-moving world of AI.

“This week, this month, this year is changing rapidly,” Krueger says. “It doesn’t mean we change fundamental beliefs of what’s cheating (with AI), for example, but things are moving rapidly. You don’t want to have too many solidly, board-approved things which can get locked in when you need to evolve.”

The most common AI initiative among districts is training staff on the use of instruction-focused generative AI tools, with 7 out of 10 respondents saying they do so. Productivity-focused measures focused on instructional staff and teachers followed, with 54% and 53%, respectively, deploying those initiatives. One of the largest jumps was the amount of districts having initiatives focused on AI’s operational purposes, from 37% in 2025, to 64% in 2026.

Less than half (41%) of initiatives focus on using AI for teaching and learning.

“I would say the low hanging fruit is on the operational and teacher productivity side,” Krueger says. “We should continue to explore and think through the great uses that are in the classroom. But, overnight we shouldn’t just wildly go trying to do those things when it's going to take time to figure out the instructional piece.”

Cybersecurity

The largest concern about AI use: cybersecurity attacks. According to the report, nearly all respondents (98%) are concerned that AI can bring in new forms of cyber attacks, with just 2% stating they are “not at all concerned.” That same percentage also has concerns on student data and AI’s effect on its privacy.

While the concern over cybersecurity is strong, two-thirds of respondents state they have insufficient staffing and budget to address those challenges.

Cybersecurity concerns continue to cause schools woe, most recently with the Instructure attack in May that caused several schools to pay a ransom and shut down one of the world’s largest digital education platforms.

“The high visibility breaches and attacks that we’ve seen underscore the real cost to our school system by not investing in better cybersecurity,” Krueger says.

After 17 years of utilizing the State of EdTech report, Krueger says he believes a tipping point may have finally been reached on addressing cyber concerns.

“Certainly those in charge of technology have been yelling loudly that cybersecurity is a problem,” he says, adding the issue has become more well-known among superintendents and school board members. “I think they will start to say, ‘We can’t just have these broadband networks and not have them safe and secure.’ But it’s a huge challenge, given the lack of human capacity in schools for cybersecurity.”

EdTech

Another major finding from the report is an issue that has been bubbling beneath the surface in both tech evangelist and oppositional circles: vetting educational technology.

Edtech vetting has been under consideration amid the screen-time backlash in classrooms, with some states pushing for better review of the vetting process. Oftentimes, schools rely on the vendors’ own data and are unequipped to review the software themselves to ensure children’s safety.

“There is nobody right now that is confirming these products are safe, effective and legal,” Kim Whitman, co-lead for Smartphone Free Childhood US, said in a previous interview with EdSurge. “It should not fall on the district’s IT director; it would be impossible for them to do it. And the companies should not be tasked with doing it — that would be like nicotine companies vetting their own cigarettes.”

According to the report, most schools now have a process for vetting free edtech tools before they’re used in schools, either through IT or a list of approved vendors.

But that process still has some gaps: only 29 percent require information about if the product is inclusive and accessible for all learners. That is particularly worrisome for accessibility advocates who already fear they are being left out of the conversation.

“Parents with children who have a disability must have a seat at the table,” Sambhavi Chandrashekar, global accessibility lead for D2L, an online learning platform, said in a previous EdSurge interview. “Blanket rules that are blind to fundamental human differences will do more disservice than good to students at the margins.”

And while more than half (55%) of the edtech processes require vendors to provide information about safety, that leaves roughly 45% not addressing safety concerns.

“It’s a huge warning sign; there’s a whole lot of progress and work that has to happen in this area,” Krueger says.

He suggested reviewing the five quality indicators for edtech and AI products, with districts benchmarking their current status and set it as a priority to push forward.

“One of the biggest powers we have is procurement, so getting serious about how we buy them, and when,” Krueger says. “Whether or not we move forward will depend on if we set it as a priority and get serious about the awareness, the training and the policies.”

Why College Degrees Matter in the Age of AI

Rita Finkel — Thu, 28 May 2026 21:26:59 GMT

For the past few years, our nation has been flooded with headlines declaring the demise of the college degree. This trend was exacerbated by COVID-19, which accelerated a decline in college interest.

I understand, really, I do. Tuition costs are rising. Student debt is real.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is also reshaping white-collar work by automating routine cognitive tasks, changing hiring patterns and increasing the use of AI tools in professional occupations. A 2025 Gallup survey found that AI use at work among U.S. employees nearly doubled from 21% in 2023 to 40% in 2025.

This is drawing many to a simple conclusion: a four-year college degree is no longer worth the time or money.

But the data, and the broader reality of how careers and life actually unfold, tell a different story.

Yes, the labor market for recent graduates has become more competitive. Yet college graduates still consistently outperform non-graduates in employment, earnings and long-term career resilience, according to new national data from the College Board Education Pays 2026 report.

But more importantly, a degree from a competitive college with a high graduation rate cultivates the ultimate asset in a rapidly changing economy: the ability to think critically. This includes being able to understand AI, as those who do will be better positioned to shape how it’s used ethically and responsibly.

That matters now more than ever.

Recent analysis from the Federal Reserve and labor economists shows that while the wage gap between graduates and non-graduates has narrowed, college graduates still maintain lower unemployment rates overall and stronger long-term job stability. A 2025 analysis from the St. Louis Fed found that from 2000 to 2025, workers with only a high school diploma consistently faced unemployment rates at least 2.3 percentage points higher than workers with bachelor’s degrees.

Even amid a softer hiring market, the advantage remains clear. Data cited by Goldman Sachs and other labor researchers showed unemployment for young non-college workers hovering around 7% in 2025, compared with roughly 4.6% for recent college graduates.

That is not a meaningless difference. In a large economy, a few percentage points represent millions of jobs.

Critics often focus narrowly on whether college guarantees a job immediately after graduation. That framing misrepresents the real purpose of higher education. College is not merely vocational training. It is preparation for a lifetime of economic and intellectual change.

The modern workforce is evolving too quickly for any technical skill to remain permanent. Entire industries now transform within a decade. Many students entering college today will eventually work in jobs that do not yet exist. In this environment, being able to think critically becomes the ultimate career skill.

A strong college education teaches students how to analyze information, communicate clearly, solve unfamiliar problems, conduct research, collaborate with different kinds of people, and learn independently. Those capacities transfer across different industries and technologies.

Ironically, the rise of AI may make these human skills even more important. Employers increasingly value workers who can think critically, interpret nuance and make judgments machines cannot easily replicate, according to Western Governors University, which surveyed more than 3,000 employers. Technical skills may evolve every few years; the ability to learn and think critically endures. According to McKinsey, “Human skills will matter more in the age of AI.”

The ability to think and process information is also why college graduates tend to weather recessions better over the course of their careers. Historically, workers with higher educational attainment have experienced lower unemployment during recessions and often recover faster in labor market recoveries, though this advantage varies by industry, age, and economic cycle. In 2024, unemployment for bachelor’s degree holders was 2.5%, compared with 4.3% for high school graduates and 6.1% for people without a diploma, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Of course, higher education must confront legitimate concerns about affordability and workforce alignment. There’s nothing wrong with questioning college directly after high school if a student is interested in pursuing a low-demand degree with high debt or if the student has yet to define a clear career goal.

But seeing college as only a trade school, in my opinion, is the wrong way to look at it. There are tremendous educations available where financial aid is available to help those who need it to meet the demands of higher education costs. There are wonderful State Schools and City Schools that are great choices for students.

This is an endorsement of a 4-year college degree, at a competitive school, to learn how to think critically, for a lifelong ability to learn new things. One thing we do know about the future is that we will need a population that has the ability to synthesize information quickly and accurately.

The real question is not whether college guarantees success. Nothing does.

The question is whether developing analytical ability, communication skills, flexibility, and intellectual independence still matters in an uncertain economy.

I am here to say they do. Perhaps more than ever.

The future will belong not simply to people who know things, but to people who can keep learning new things. College, at its best, remains one of the strongest environments for building that habit.

A college degree and a stable career can benefit generations. Earning a college degree is linked to longer, healthier lives, higher incomes, greater civic participation and better career alignment. While economic benefits are substantial, the lifestyle advantages extend to health, social engagement and personal fulfillment.

And that is why it is still worth it.

Recess Took a Break in Some Schools. A Push is On to Bring It Back.

Lauren Coffey — Wed, 27 May 2026 20:01:57 GMT

Increased attendance, better attention in classrooms, stronger friendships, and more engaged citizens – these are not a long wishlist of preferred traits in an elementary school student. They are what some advocates believe are a direct impact from recess.

Recess, long a staple in children’s school days, has been put on the back burner or cut entirely by some districts as the push for more class time, higher academic performance, and increased test scores take center stage.

Recess advocates are pushing back in their efforts to guarantee a playtime each day. They argue adding in more structured play time benefits children’s academic, social and emotional well-being.

“It’s not that we don’t need hard work and concentrated effort, but when you hit a wall, you take a break,” says Catherine Ramstetter, who co-authored a new report for the American Academy of Pediatrics touting the importance of structured play. “That’s where I think, systematically, we’re kind of broken; that we expect little kids to be like little robots.”

The Push for Play

The AAP recently affirmed its 2013 stance that not only is recess important for children’s cognitive, physical and emotional well-being but expanded the recommendations to include middle and high school students too.

“I don’t know many high school teachers that are studying or deep into play,” Ramstetter says, pointing out early childhood teachers typically receive training in structured play. “Also, culturally in older grades, rigor is somehow equated with your nose to the grindstone –- when in reality, when we want to attain rigor, we have to have breaks.”

Similar to a push against screentime – specifically cell phones – in the classroom, grassroots efforts have formed to bring back recess. More than a dozen states, largely led by the nonprofit Yes to Recess Movement, are pushing for 60 minutes of play per day and ensuring it is not used as a bargaining chip for good or bad behavior.

“There has been a lot of evolution of the understanding of the value of recess over 30 years,” says Elizabeth Cushing, CEO of PlayWorks, a nonprofit that helps schools implement evidence-based play tactics.

“What might have been perceived as a ‘break’ is now seen as a critical part of the school day,” she adds. “It’s enabling kids to be in connection with each other in a way that’s fun, with low stakes, to build a community.”

Pushing for state or federal bills have yielded mixed reactions. Each advocate interviewed points out that they have never come with an allocation of funding to help facilitate the implementation, and also had concerns with a lack of other resources, namely helping teachers find time to accommodate the recess breaks. Deborah Rhea, founder of the Let’s inspire innovation ‘N Kids (LiinK) Project, suggests each local district tackles it by deciding what is best for its own schools and students.

“I think we have made more strides than I ever thought possible,” says Rhea, who also serves as a professor of kinesiology at Texas Christian University. “But at the same time, we’re limping along. We’re not being successful with momentum. Doing this propels them forward academically.”

But Ramstetter says introducing those minutes alone is not enough.

“I think policy can help support practice, but to make it quality playtime — something that doesn’t feel like an onerous task on a school — you have to spend some time planning,” she says. “Similar to introducing a new curriculum on English. It’s treating it like the crucial instructional time that it is.”

The Benefits of Play

In addition to benefiting younger students, the boost in social skills like teamwork and inclusion, along with physical benefits can be particularly important as students get older, Cushing says.

“The opportunities and skill building that happens in elementary school around cooperation, teamwork and how to include everyone in a game are easily done at that age,” she says. “They follow into middle and high schools where technology and social pressures require they have those skills already. If we want to develop citizens who work in a team and make friends, we have to start early.”

Experts added that recess can also boost attendance, a particularly important factor given high rates of chronic absenteeism sweeping the nation. Massachusetts-based Bedford High School offered “movement breaks” during lunch and saw chronic absenteeism decrease from 35% to 23% within its first year alone.

“There’s a lot of focus on recess to help with belonging and source of positive, joyful feelings about school,” Cushing says, adding schools with the PlayWorks framework saw lower chronic absenteeism rates than those without it.

Rhea of LiiNK listed multiple benefits she’s seen across the roughly 25,000 students that underwent her programming: cortisol levels (tested by hair samples) went down; academic assessment scores went up; off-task behavior in the classroom dropped 40 percent, and schools found offering the programming could be used as a recruitment tactic.

“The only time I had to convince parents was the first year I started this,” she says. “After that, word of mouth spread.”

There still is the uphill battle of convincing schools to find time in their day. Not every district can afford to roll out a system similar to Rhea’s or Cushing’s, either financially or with spare time.

The Future of Play

However, Cushing pointed out even with little resources, children tend to thrive with simple, structured play.

“Recess is the only time in the school day where children naturally know they have mastery,” she says. “The beauty of recess is that kids will play everywhere. Despite all the complexity there’s a real beauty in the universality of it.”

However, students do need some resources, like a jump rope and designated play areas, otherwise they may not receive the full benefits of recess even if they are outside.

“If you look at a playground where there’s no frame for it, you’ll see a majority of kids standing around the outside of the playground,” Cushing says. “They’re too afraid or shy to jump in and don’t know if it’s going to be fun or not. It’s not that they don’t want to play, they just need the conditions created to do it.”

While cell phones are less common in elementary school settings, experts added a lack of screens could improve play conditions.

Schools have pushed for more tech-free time, specifically with “bell to bell” bans that require cell phones remain untouched for the entirety of the school day, including during lunch, recess and passing periods.

The AAP study did not explicitly mention the use of technology. However, Ramstetter says the implication was “yeah, get it out of the way,” she adds.

“Don’t give them to kids at recess: Encourage them to connect, give them quiet places to sit. to run around, to dig in the dirt,” she says, comparing the ban to other forms of consent. “If I tell you I don’t want to play anymore, I need to mean it. Otherwise it gets muddy.”

She adds sometimes simple is best, pointing toward schools that just have a jump rope, chalk, and Four Square – things that allow children to make their own rules. “Everyone agrees recess is beneficial, but you have to do it well to reap the benefits,” Ramstetter says. “If we all believe it's beneficial, let’s take a step back to see how can we better tap into some of this time, preparing to do it well.”

Surgeon General Advisory Wants Kids to Live ‘Beyond the Confines of Screens’

Nadia Tamez-Robledo — Thu, 21 May 2026 20:34:04 GMT

The U.S. Surgeon General’s office issued a warning yesterday about the harms of extended uses of screens on children, raising concerns about its impact on academic performance, physical health and mental well-being.

The advisory follows a contentious debate over screen time that has been fraught in recent years as schools that implemented 1-to-1 device ratios amid the pandemic now struggle with student attention, behavioral and mental health issues that took root around the same time.

The latest advisory urges kids to pursue — and for the adults in their lives to encourage — a “broader world, beyond the confines of screens,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in an opening letter. The role of U.S. surgeon general has been vacant since January 2025, but the advisory was issued by a committee led by Kennedy Jr.

The report encapsulates what researchers and education experts have been long saying: Excessive time in front of devices like smartphones and tablets can worsen mental health and academic outcomes for students.

The American Academy of Pediatrics took a more nuanced approach to a similar report it released, Whitney Raglin Bignall, associate clinical director of The Kids Mental Health Foundation, tells EdSurge. Researchers rolled back their specific limits on screen time in favor of “family media plans” that set boundaries for media consumption.

The Surgeon General’s advisory calls on schools to implement plans that many districts are already adopting or considering: bell-to-bell cellphone bans, or bans that do not allow the use of phones during the entirety of the school day, including passing periods and lunchtime. It also proposes screen time limits. The advisory specifies that screen time limit exceptions should be made for students who have individualized education programs or other needs for assistive devices — something about which disability advocates have expressed worry.

It also urges schools to teach digital citizenship and digital literacy along with offering students social and physical activities that don’t involve screens.

The report hits back against tech companies, like those that recently lost a California civil case over social media addiction. They were called by the advisory to eschew designing their apps for engagement in favor of user well-being by incorporating warnings about harmful screen use every time a user opens the app. The advisory also calls for tech companies to encourage children to socialize with friends and play outside, and get rid of features like recommendation algorithms and notifications.

Correlation, Not Causation

Raglin Bignall, associate clinical director of The Kids Mental Health Foundation, cautions that while research has found a correlation between screen time and poor mental health, there’s not yet cause-and-effect evidence.

“There might be kids who need less [screen time], or those who are doing lots of different types of things with that content that's interactive that is not harmful,” Raglin Bignall says. “Nevertheless, it should be monitored. By doing that, we make sure that we're not doing too much [with screens], and that whatever we are doing is beneficial.”

Teachers might notice students being distracted, not listening, being irritable or having a hard time being away from screens, Raglin Bignall says. Fatigue or lack of sleep among students may also be signs of too much screen time. She adds that screen time should especially be monitored for children who have attention or hyperactivity disorders.

Not all screen time or content is equal, Raglin Bignall says. Teachers don’t need to rush to boot quality, evidence-based education apps from their lesson plans.

The warning calls attention to harmful online behaviors like bullying and gambling. The content children encounter on these platforms can encourage risky behaviors like self-harm and substance use, the advisory claims, or put them in the path of exploitative strangers.

In general, good content is educational, slow-paced and isn’t trying to market any products, Raglin Bignall says. Adults should pay special attention to what teens and tweens are seeing online, as those who struggle with confidence could be particularly vulnerable to harmful content like accounts that promote eating disorders.

“I wouldn't want to make it seem that all screen time is bad,” Raglin Bignall says. “I often recommend co-watching with adults during those younger ages. As kids get older, it's still important for adults to monitor the level of content and what is being offered to them.”

VR Gives North Dakota Kids an Early Career Jump Start

Lauren Coffey — Wed, 20 May 2026 19:35:36 GMT

As one fourth grader peers over the top of a 300-foot-tall wind turbine, a classmate stands next to surgeons operating in an emergency room. Nearby, another fourth grader shuffles through an autobody shop.

They are not visiting high-risk job sites, at least not in real life.

These experiences are the result of a series of investments into virtual reality in North Dakota.

The state hopes that putting VR headsets with career-focused software in classrooms will eventually boost local employment. While many schools across the country are looking to limit screen time, North Dakota is pushing for increasingly younger students to use these digital tools.

Because North Dakota is largely rural, students’ face significant travel hurdles to visit job sites that could be several hours away, says Mackenzie Tadych, director of Northern Cass School’s college career and readiness program.

The VR investment "was an attempt to engage students at an earlier age and develop an awareness of [the careers] the state has to offer,” says Wayde Sick, state director for the Department of Career and Technical Education. “This is the first glance to show what is out there without throwing a bunch of students on a bus where you drive two hours for a field trip and two hours back.”

Tech to Supplement Lower Resourced Areas

In North Dakota, the virtual reality program works directly with employers in the state in an effort to bring awareness to careers and fields students may be unfamiliar with or have misconceptions about, such as manufacturing.

The statewide program first started in 2023, after the North Dakota state legislature passed a bill that allotted a half-million dollars to the state's Department of Career and Technical Education to purchase virtual reality headsets that would be used by middle and high schools. Late last year, that was expanded to all elementary schools in the state.

While more traditional career exploration modes – like career aptitude tests – are still used, VR is a way for more children to literally visualize potential new careers. The initiative, which is an expansion on the RUReady ND career exploration program, offers 118 different modules for students through Fargo-based CareerViewXR.

Ann Pollert, a career exploration coach, has a mobile van that visits schools at every level throughout six counties in the northeastern part of the state. Her bus is outfitted with seven headsets and she works on average with five students at a time, helping find their interests and guiding them through the modules.

“I would go into classroom after classroom and give a 50-minute spiel, but they had no visual,” Pollert, a former diesel technician recruiter, says. “With this, I could take it to the school and show those kids what it means to replace an excavator. It helps me identify the students I need to further encourage.”

She says the headsets as a whole are not meant to replace guidance or career counselors, particularly in high schools. As those counselors find themselves with increasingly higher workloads and less time, this is seen as a supplement.

“We still need career counselors, work-based learning counselors and great teachers that notice something about a student, saying, ‘You would be good at this,’” Pollert says, adding that some smaller schools do not have the resources for those counselors. “It’s everything together to make it work. It’s not the van that’s solving the problem.”

So, is it working?

Future Tech — And Potential

Sick, the state director, says it’s too early to measure the impact of these programs, including whether it’s increased the number of students staying in the state to work post-graduation.

Most of the efforts are focused on students who have yet to graduate high school, he points out. But he does believe this program serves as a starting place for younger students to explore their interests at an early age.

“In my eyes, this content is most important for elementary and middle school-aged kids, so the high school students have seen those experiences, have an idea of what they want to pursue and can do so in a series of courses based on what they have seen in virtual reality as a fifth or sixth grader,” he says.

Sometimes in VR, the students find what they dislike.

Tadych, of Northern Cass School, recalls a student vehemently reacting to a virtual reality module that placed them in a high-stress operating room.

“It’s just as beneficial being able to find what you don’t want to do,” she says, adding that the district also requires students to job shadow before graduation, following around professionals as they go through their work day.

And as the VR experiences get more lifelike, students will get more useful information about possible careers.

For example, Sick believes the technology could evolve down the road to include augmented reality, where students would be able to more fully interact with their environment. He believes the interactions will not only alert children of more local career opportunities, but keep them in the state upon graduating.

“We’re a rural state, and my goal is to make sure every student has the best experience they [can] have, to find what they should become, and try to help them figure it out sooner,” he says. He adds that the only way to do that is to provide a rich variety of experiences that start at the elementary level.

Amid School Techlash, Accessibility Advocates Worry About Exclusion

Daniel Mollenkamp — Tue, 19 May 2026 16:50:41 GMT

Keri Rodrigues, a mother of five boys, knows the value of screens.

For her boys, four of whom receive school accommodations, screens serve a practical purpose at school.

“When you get a kid who's got [a learning plan] for anxiety and a substitute teacher that hasn't read his 504 [plan] and there's nobody there to de-escalate him, he's got to use his phone to call mom so I can FaceTime with him and do a breathing exercise,” Rodrigues says.

But this use of screens bumps against a new concern. Fueled by distress over the mental health impacts of too much screen time, lawmakers have begun to pass device bans and other restrictions for schools, in a rising “techlash” across state capitols.

Now, as the country wrestles with restricting screens, some parents and disability advocates are beginning to express concerns about whether students who rely on accessibility tools are being excluded from the rulemaking process. Some of these advocates say they agree that new tech restrictions are necessary, but they are calling for careful consideration in how these rules are written.

Many neurodiverse students need assistive technologies for learning, and it’s common for digital tools to be prescribed in the plans schools use for these students. Assistive technologies support functional and social needs for these students’ daily lives, argued Sambhavi Chandrashekar, global accessibility lead for D2L, an online learning platform, in a series of emails to EdSurge.

Chandrashekar and others worry that lawmakers aren’t consulting families with neurodiverse students enough when crafting new restrictions, and that screen time laws could impinge on accessibility tools. They worry that the gains these students have made are becoming swept up in larger political battles.

Advocates are calling for a proactive approach to avoid potential problems down the road, and EdSurge has not yet found an example of a student blocked from using an assistive device because of these new bans.

Students with ADHD might use screens for reminders, alarms, timers, or even medical alerts, says Rodrigues, the mom. Students with autism use it for self-regulation, and students with anxiety, epilepsy, asthma, or vision and hearing differences rely on specific accessibility features on their phones. One of her own sons, a senior in high school, uses a meditation app to de-escalate, she says.

In her position as president of the advocacy group National Parents Union, Rodrigues wants caution from lawmakers. The new legislation is “really well intended,” she says. But: “We've got to make sure we're not stomping on kids that are actually utilizing these devices for really important reasons.”

“Phones aren't just toys for kids,” Rodigues says.

Inclusion as the Norm

Disability laws such as the Individual with Disabilities Education Act guarantee students the right to assistive technologies, sometimes including screens.

But the new restrictions occur at a particularly tense time for these families.

Mass firings and funding cuts under the Trump administration have cast doubt on the reliability of federal civil rights protections and processes, some argue, leading to an increase in accessibility-related lawsuits, as families look to protect their rights. For instance, according to a nonpartisan government watchdog report, the Trump administration’s cuts to the office which reviews civil rights complaints contributed to a 90 percent dismissal of student civil rights complaints in the later months of 2025.

Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice delayed a long-anticipated deadline that required schools and vendors to meet widely accepted accessibility guidelines, after it became clear that schools and governments were not ready.

And advocates have already called attention to bills that would subject students with disabilities to surveillance cameras in classrooms, in the hopes of curbing physical restrains against these students, as EdSurge has reported.

‘Unintentional Segregation’

As for the latest screen restrictions, many of the bills note that they do not apply to students with disabilities under law. For example, laws from Alabama and Tennessee carve out blanket exemptions for students with disability plans. And Tennessee’s bill also includes an explicit exception for literacy and dyslexia screenings.

Still, advocates are concerned.

Local and regional policies can limit access to tools like screen readers and predictive text software even if they don’t mean to, argues Andrew Kahn, an associate director for Understood, a support organization for people with learning differences. But these tools can be necessary for those students to keep up in class. It’s not obvious to everyone that these tools can help students, even some who don’t have formal plans, Kahn says.

Typically, when these rules mention students with disabilities, they will exclude anyone covered by disability law, says Lindsay Jones, CEO of CAST, a nonprofit focused on assistive technology and learning. But they are still relying on local school districts or other agencies within the state to provide guidance about how to implement the law, she adds.

Without sufficient guidance, a concern is that teachers might become uncomfortable working with students who need screens for accessibility reasons and might restrict these tools because of that, Jones says. For instance, advocates fear that a teacher, wary of breaking the new law, might tell a student not to use a screen, even though it was prescribed by an individualized education program, or IEP.

“It’s not typical that a student [with disabilities] is sitting alone at a screen, which I think is what seems to be driving much of the concern,” Jones says.

But even if students with disabilities aren’t prevented from using the screens, there’s unease about whether these new rules will contribute to shaming or separation.

Reading some of these laws without guidance, it’s unclear how to implement them without banning screens in the classroom, Jones says. In order to follow these rules, it’s possible that students who are exempt from the bans could be moved into another room, she worries.

“That's immediately going to bring — or raises our concerns about — stigma for these kids,” Jones says. “One of the beautiful things is when technology is built into systems that we're all using, and we can use them together, and it reduces the feeling that you're separate and different in a way that can be especially harmful.”

It's an apprehension that others in the space share.

“You would be restricting [students with disabilities] because the access to technology is creating that stigma and that segregation,” says Kahn of Understood. “Anything that leads to difference between kids, that accentuates and magnifies, has the really strong potential to further stigmatize and make these kids feel singled out.”

Education should always take place in the least restrictive environment possible, he adds.

Rodrigues says that she and other parents also worry about whether students will become reluctant to use their disability tools because of the stigma. “Kids might actually choose to suffer rather than being singled out socially,” she says.

But ultimately, for some proponents of accessibility tech, the disquiet is largely about who gets consulted for new rules and how they get enforced.

It’s not that these restrictions shouldn’t be pursued, but that families of students with disabilities should be more thoroughly included in the rulemaking process, these advocates argue.

“Parents with children who have a disability must have a seat at the table,” Chandrashekar wrote: “Blanket rules that are blind to fundamental human differences will do more disservice than good to students at the margins.”

The Pandemic Hindered English Learners' Literacy. This Ohio District Is Turning the Tide.

Nadia Tamez-Robledo — Thu, 14 May 2026 00:43:32 GMT

Elementary school is tough.

There are playground politics, multiplication tables and learning to read.

Imagine dealing with all that in a new language — or even a whole new country.

That’s the added challenge for kids who are learning English at the same time they’re learning everything else as their peers.

It’s an issue that Sarah Walters and her colleagues were determined to tackle in Troy City Schools, a public school district made up of nine campuses roughly an hour north of Cincinnati. The area is home to an automotive manufacturer that brings some employees — and their families — over from Japan.

Roughly 3 percent of the 4,000 students have primary languages like Spanish, Ukrainian and Japanese, a relatively small population compared to the most recent national average of 11 percent.

But that small group is making big gains. Looking to close the literacy gaps that have plagued schools since the pandemic, the district took a big swing to increase literacy among its English learners. It trained 116 staff members — including every elementary teacher, intervention specialist, paraprofessional and principal — in the Orton-Gillingham approach, which folds movement and touch into reading instruction.

They say it’s paying off.

Walters, a literacy instructional support specialist, says that helping multilingual students master their grasp on English is vital. Like any other student, the foundation that they lay in reading and math will affect their learning from that point on.

“We want to help the students continue to thrive, and really everything that we're thinking about with our student services is equitable learning opportunities,” Walters says.

Moving Toward Equity

Federal data shows that English learners' achievement scores lag far behind their peers on average, and have made little improvement over the past two decades.

Troy City Schools was eager to close widening literacy gaps that surfaced after the onset of the pandemic, Walters says, which was particularly hard on English learners like those at Concord Elementary. A big hurdle was phonics, the letter sounds that make up words.

“We were seeing a lot of student frustration and wanting to give up,” Walters recalls. “Students being very withdrawn, those social-emotional impacts.”

Back in 2020, English-language instruction was inconsistent and fragmented across classrooms.

Yet, even with the desire to boost English learner scores, the program took some time.

Following the pandemic, Troy City Schools mulled over the changes for three years before it had enough funding to deliver on it, according to Danielle Romine, director of elementary teaching and learning for the district. The effort was funded through post-COVID relief grants and budget allocations made by the district’s leaders.

As a literacy specialist, Walters became certified in the Orton-Gillingham method through the Institute for Multi-Sensory Education. She’s now responsible for supporting and training staff to successfully use the techniques.

Walters says teachers and staff were trained to utilize drills that connect literacy concepts through visuals, sound and movement. Students might use flash cards as a visual element or tap their fingers to each letter as they spell out a word. Students also learn the origin and history of words to strengthen their ability to decode them. For example, a “red word” is one that does not follow phonics rules.

“Our multilingual learners love it because no longer are they being told, ‘That's just the way it is,'” Walters says.

After an initial summer training on the Orton-Gillingham approach, teachers spoke so highly of the method that requests for training grew among staff.

Initial Promise

“In a school district, if you want to get something out, just tell a teacher, because it [will] spread like wildfire,” Romine says.

And the data are showing promising results, Walter says. The district-wide third grade reading proficiency had plummeted to 56 percent in 2021-22 but had risen to 81 percent by 2023-24 — slightly higher than its pre-COVID achievement rate. The most recent state data shows Concord Elementary far surpassed its target goal for English proficiency among multilingual students.

Walters has heard from teachers who say that the approach has helped some English learner students make lightning-fast gains in reading. One educator told her that two students from Japan who joined the elementary school in the fall were conversing in English by December. Another student’s phonics diagnostic score shot up by 38 points in the same timeframe.

Now, the district is working to spread the method beyond its own campuses.

“Eventually, our goal is to support the entire community, or the entire county because Sarah having that training [enables her] to support teachers from other districts, as well,” Romine says.

But for English learners, ensuring they’re on grade level in reading goes beyond measuring their success in the classroom.

Walters says that the district is thinking about long-term learning for children who, for example, may be in the U.S. for a few years before returning to Japan.

Now, the district is working to spread the method beyond its own campuses.

“Eventually, our goal is to support the entire community, or the entire county because Sarah having that training [enables her] to support teachers from other districts, as well,” Romine says.

But for English learners, ensuring they’re on grade level in reading goes beyond measuring their success in the classroom.

Walters says that the district is thinking about long-term learning for children who, for example, may be in the U.S. for a few years before returning to Japan.

“We want students to have success across math, science, everything,” Walters says. “So it's important that we get them up to speed as quickly as possible, because those long-term impacts could really be harmful for them. That early literacy is key.”

Latest Canvas Attack Shows Schools Still Struggle With Cybersecurity

EdSurge Staff — Tue, 12 May 2026 18:29:33 GMT

A cyberattack against one of the world’s largest digital education platforms has forced attention onto the vulnerability of U.S. schools’ data.

Instructure, the company behind Canvas, a learning management system used by thousands of schools which has 30 million active users, had its service interrupted late last week. According to a company statement, hackers breached Instructure’s “free for teacher” account, or those specifically offered to give teachers access to Canvas courses.

The criminal hacking group ShinyHunters claims to have stolen 275 million records from roughly 9,000 educational institutions around the world, per reporting from Security Week.

In the latest, at the beginning of this week, Instructure published a note saying that it had reached a deal with the hackers to return the stolen data and had received digital confirmation of data destruction, along with assurance that none of its customers would be extorted. The note did not mention what Instructure gave in return. But the note announced a webinar with “Instructure leadership” scheduled for Wednesday.

According to Instructure, this is the second data breach within the year. The latest included a breach of customer — including teacher and students’ — email addresses, usernames, enrollment information and course names.

The attacks happened around finals for many colleges. Canvas was back online as of Saturday, according to a note about the incident on Instructure’s website. But at least six universities and school districts in a dozen states sent out alerts noting they had been impacted by the attack, according to reporting from CNN. Prior to Instructure's deal, CNN noted that ShinyHunters had set a Tuesday deadline for schools to “negotiate a settlement.”

The education sector is an attractive target for hackers, with experts describing it as “target rich, resource poor.”

The breach comes amid immense frustration and legislative pushback against the extent schools have become reliant on edtech since pandemic closures forced schools to rush to embrace digital instruction and tools. Some wonder whether the attacks raise thorny questions about trust and the ability of schools to respond when outside vendors are targeted.

While this latest incident has renewed attention, cyber attacks against schools are not a new concern. Cybersecurity was even identified as a top concern in EdSurge’s 2025 trends forecast.

Indeed, the frequency of attacks has increased dramatically in recent years against both higher ed and K-12 schools, and some experts worry that AI is making attacks more sophisticated.

The figures are startling. For example, 82 percent of K-12 organizations reported a cyber security incident, according to a 2025 report from the Center for Internet Security, which noted 9,300 confirmed incidents.

Schools have struggled to figure out how to respond to new cybersecurity threats. Here are some notable highlights from the past few years:

2022: A cyberattack against Illuminate Education made the rounds. In 2018, the European Union passed the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, providing clarity into what data protection parents, teachers and students should get. But a few years later, during the Illuminate attack, experts noted that the U.S. lacked a national consensus, though states were beginning to pass legislation.
2022: Later that year, after a major attack against Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the largest in the country, experts warned EdSurge that schools represent “honey pots of highly sensitive information.” In that attack, a ransomware gang dumped 500 GB of files, including sensitive student and teacher information, on the dark web when the district refused to pay.
2025: Early into the Trump administration’s second term, experts noted that coordinated federal attacks had been impacted by cuts, weakening federal support for schools. At the time, districts noted that they were operating “in the dark” with an uncertain future around cybersecurity issues.
2025: In a two-part EdSurge series, “Under Siege: How Schools Are Fighting Back Against Rising Cyber Threats,” reporter Ellen Ullman tracked how districts around the country are responding to AI’s rise in cyber incidents. Ullman’s reporting found that many schools remain weak on the fundamentals of cybersecurity, with small schools becoming attractive targets for cyber criminals. Schools are having to learn that the first line of defense against scams is humans, Ullman notes.

Some argue that the latest attacks are a sign that institutions need more meaningful expectations around cybersecurity, since the audits and certifications they currently rely on are failing to safeguard student data.

“Too often they serve as compliance theater and as weak shields against liability,” wrote Douglas Levin, national director of K12 Security Exchange Information, on social media.

Over the years, cybersecurity experts have shared a range of tips for schools to stay secure — from educating staff and students to seeking outside help to deal with the mounting threat.

With increasingly sophisticated attacks, there’s more than ever pressure for schools to secure student data despite all the challenges.

LGBTQ+ Youth Mental Health Is Suffering, but Schools Are Poised to Help

Nadia Tamez-Robledo — Fri, 08 May 2026 23:30:50 GMT

Bullying. Isolation. Stress.

Everyone experiences these on the journey from adolescence to adulthood, but new data on the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth shows the additional pressures they face increases their risk of suicide compared to their peers.

The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ youth, has released its most recent survey of 16,000 LGBTQ+ young people 13 to 24. Among the most concerning figures was one in 10 participants reporting that they had attempted suicide during the previous year. And more than one-third seriously considered suicide.

Experts also tell EdSurge that the strain of mental health issues and unwelcoming school settings directly harm students’ ability to thrive in, or even attend, their classes.

Despite the sobering results of the survey, the data also reveals solutions — including a role for schools.

“One of the most important findings is that when adults, institutions, and communities become more affirming, the suicide risk of LGBTQ+ young people goes down,” Ronita Nath, the Trevor Project’s vice president of research, says. “Schools play a life-saving support by creating environments where LGBTQ+ young people feel safe, accepted and supported.”

Feeling the Pressure

With 2026 on track to be another record-breaking year for anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced at the state and federal levels, a vast majority of survey respondents said they felt stressed, anxious or unsafe due to the policies and the debates surrounding them.

When those young people are caught in the crossfire of heated political debates, Nath says the negative rhetoric that trickles down has real consequences. Youth who reported experiencing victimization due to their gender identity or sexual orientation — like bullying, physical harm or exposure to conversion therapy — were three times as likely to attempt suicide as their peers.

Those risks dropped among survey participants who said their school affirmed their identity. Support can look like adopting curriculum that counters anti-LGBTQ+ bias and increasing access to mental health services.

Forty-four percent of survey participants said they couldn’t access the mental health services they needed. Some of the barriers to those services were tangible, like not being able to afford transportation to see a counselor. But many were not: they cited fear of their mental health problems not being taken seriously, not being understood by a mental healthcare provider, or past negative experiences that made young people hesitant to seek services again.

Nath encouraged schools to offer gender and sexuality alliances (GSAs), ensure anti-harassment policies were in place and provide professional development for educators to help ease students’ discomfort. “We know [that] not only improves mental health and well-being for LGBTQ+ youth, but for all their peers,” she says.

Strain on School Success

Research shows that well-being, engagement and a sense of belonging go hand-in-hand with students’ ability to thrive in school, according to Megan Pacheco, executive director of Challenge Success. The group is a nonprofit focused on increasing student well-being, engagement and belonging that’s based in Stanford’s Graduate School of Education.

The stress that gender-diverse students — including transgender, non-binary and gender-queer youth — experience can become an obstacle to their academic success. If they feel their identity is threatened or lack a sense of belonging, Pacheco says, they’re less likely to reach out for help.

“It's going to affect their participation, how they show up in the classroom, and it's going to affect their well-being,” she says.

Challenge Success’ large trove of survey data on the school experiences of middle and high school students reveals that students who identify as transgender, non-binary or gender diverse report more stress than their peers who identify as boys and girls, says Sarah Miles, director of research for Challenge Success.

“Instead of two or three sources of stress — family pressure, or peer relationships, or social media — it is just all the above,” Miles says. “In order to be able to function, use your working memory, be present, be engaged … if you have all those things on board that you're worrying about, you're just not able to attend to school in the same way.”

Among LGBTQ+ youth who are in school, about 85 percent said they had at least one adult at school who is affirming of their identity, according to the Trevor Project data. More than half of respondents said school was an affirming place, second to online spaces.

Matthew Rice, who chairs the science department at a New Jersey high school, tells EdSurge that students don’t judge safety by a school’s mission statement — they judge it by how adults respond to situations like harassing comments made in the hallway, classroom jokes, pronoun use and whether discipline is applied consistently among varying groups of students.

Rice has published research on the experiences of transgender and nonbinary educators, but the overall lessons gleaned from his work apply to students as well.

“Students notice who is allowed to exist authentically in schools,” Rice said via email. “Representation is not symbolic: It changes students’ perception of what futures are possible and who belongs in intellectual spaces. For many students, the first openly LGBTQ+ adult they meet is an adult at school.”

When it comes to supporting gender-diverse students, Miles of Challenge Success says she wants to dispel the belief that helping them thrive is a zero-sum game.

“I think there's sometimes a misconception that if we give these students support, then other students aren't getting support,” she says. “What's really important is that, by giving students who identify as gender diverse support, everyone benefits, because all students then feel safe to show up — whatever their identities.”

Screen Time Concerns Lead to Backlash Against Edtech Vetting Process

Lauren Coffey — Thu, 07 May 2026 20:07:40 GMT

Among the increasing concern about screen time in school comes a new culprit: the vetting process for school software.

A growing group of parents and teachers has spent the last few years fighting against cellphones in the classroom, with some extending that to all digital devices. But the school-issued laptops, and the software accompanying them, have been left largely unscathed.

“A lot of the issues with personal devices can move to the district-issued devices,” said Kim Whitman, co-lead for Smartphone Free Childhood US, in a previous interview with EdSurge. Whitman explained that when students do not have cellphones, they can still message with friends on their Chromebooks, or through tools like Google Docs. “There are definitely issues with school-issued devices as well.”

Proposals in three states – Rhode Island, Utah and Vermont – are now tackling these concerns.

Better Vetting Processes

At the start of this year’s legislative session, all three states concurrently proposed reviewing the vetting process of education software.

In most districts, school boards, IT personnel and administrators choose vendors, often relying on the vendors’ own data to prove the products' safety and efficacy.

“There is nobody right now that is confirming these products are safe, effective and legal,” Whitman said in a previous interview. “It should not fall on the district’s IT director; it would be impossible for them to do it. And the companies should not be tasked with doing it — that would be like nicotine companies vetting their own cigarettes.”

The proposed legislation is looking to change that.

Vermont

Bill: An act relating to educational technology products

Status: Passed by the House March 27; currently before the Senate Committee on Education

This bill proposes to require that providers of educational technology products register annually with the state. It also requires the secretary of state to create a certification standard and review process for these products before schools can use them.

Any provider of an educational technology product — specifically student-facing tools that are used for teaching and learning in schools — must register with the secretary of state, pay a registration fee of $100 and provide its most up-to-date terms and conditions and privacy policy.

The secretary of state would work with the Vermont Agency of Education to review registrations.

Criteria for certification include:

The product’s compliance with state curriculum standards
Advantages of using it versus non-digital methods
Whether it was explicitly designed for educational purposes
Design features, including artificial intelligence, geotracking and targeted advertising

While the initial bill proposed that any edtech provider not certified by the state, but continues to operate, could be liable for fines of $50 a day up to $10,000, that language was struck by the final bill passed from the House.

If passed by the Senate, the bill would go into effect July 1, 2026. By November 2027, the Agency of Education would submit a written report on which state entities should be involved in the edtech certification and any other recommendations for certification.

Utah

Bill: Software in Education

Status: Signed into law on March 18

The bill requires the Utah Board of Education to study the use of software and digital practices in public schools, review best practices and provide guidance for responsible use.

The state also passed a Classroom Technology Amendments bill tackling screen time at every grade level, banning it entirely from kindergarten through third grade, except for computer science and assessments. Middle school students must have their parents "opt-in" to taking devices home and high school students will be allowed to bring home devices unless parents "opt-out."

“We’re not anti-technology,” Rep. Ariel Defay (R-UT) said in a statement. She is a sponsor of the Classroom Technology Amendments bill. “We just want to ensure that education technology is used intentionally and actually helps students to learn.”

Rhode Island

Bill: The Safe School Technology Act of 2026

Status: Passed by the House April 14; currently in the Senate Education Committee

This bill, proposed by three Rhode Island representatives who are also mothers, is part of a six-bill package focused on protecting children from social media, artificial intelligence and digital platforms.

The Safe School Technology Act bill would be enacted this August if approved, banning software providers from activating or accessing any audio or video functions on a device outside of school-related activities. It also bans the use of location data.

The initial bill lists a litany of concerns that the “lack of regulation” caused, including increased screen time, and “marketing commercial products as educational with no accountability; children being given devices without proof of developmental appropriateness and parents being excluded from decisions about their child’s digital exposure.”

But the main concern, argued by state Representative June Speakman (D-RI), who sponsored the bill, is that a majority of school districts’ technology policies do not have limits on tracking student devices. She added roughly two-thirds of districts also do not limit school-issued device's ability to activate audio and video.

“Passing this bill will provide clear, consistent protection across all schools in the state that assures students and their families that their devices cannot be used to invade their privacy or track their activities,” Speakman said in a statement.

“They deserve to feel confident that their privacy is protected when they use technology that is required for school,” she added.

Tech Pushback

Several technology proponents have pushed back.

The Software and Information Industry Association spoke out against the Rhode Island bill in March, saying if the bill passed it would make the state be one of the most restrictive in the nation.

In an open letter to Joseph McNamara, chair of the Rhode Island House Education Committee, Abigail Wilson, director of state policy at the Software and Information Industry Association, said the bill “proposes an overly restrictive regulatory framework that will severely disrupt classroom instruction, impose massive unfunded administrative burdens on local schools, and deprive Rhode Island students of critical, evidence-based learning tools.”

Keith Krueger, CEO of the nonprofit Consortium for School Networking, told NBC News that the proposed legislation “does keep me up at night.”

“I think some well-intentioned policymakers ... are rushing so quickly that they haven’t thought through the implications,” he said.

ISTE+ASCD Names 2026-27 Voices of Change Fellows

Cobretti Williams — Wed, 06 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

AI and technology are fundamentally changing what it means to teach and learn, and schools across the country are reimagining their instructional approaches, roles and systems to ensure students receive an education that meets the demands of today — and tomorrow.

To navigate this shift, the ISTE+ASCD Voices of Change Fellowship empowers the people closest to the classroom to lead the conversation. By highlighting first-person essays and multimedia stories on EdSurge, the program provides a platform for K-12 educators and school leaders to share how they are tackling these challenges in real-time. During the application process for the 2026-27 cohort, we heard from countless applicants who are already guiding their communities toward innovative practices that will define the future of learning.

That vision is reflected in the educators selected for this year’s fellowship. As the program editor, I am thrilled to announce our sixth cohort: six exceptional educators who will share their expertise and insights throughout the 2026-27 academic year.

Meet the Fellows

Educators: Why Are You Thinking of Leaving the Field?

Nadia Tamez-Robledo — Tue, 05 May 2026 18:47:02 GMT

School’s (almost) out for summer.

When it comes time to throw open campus doors for the new school year in the fall, research tells us one out of every seven teachers won’t be returning — either because they moved schools or left the profession entirely.

But when the going gets tough, teachers don’t necessarily want to leave. Even when they’re burned out, they still love what they do.

So, the concerning data throughout the country tells a story about how stark the conditions of the teacher workforce are. In Wisconsin, for instance, teachers say they are exiting the profession at the highest rate in 25 years thanks to a range of issues, from poor leadership to safety concerns like students bringing guns to school.

Worse, shrinking student populations and rising costs have forced school districts like Portland Public Schools to make staff cuts in the face of astronomically high budget gaps. Early career teachers are thinking hard about whether they even want to continue in their chosen field.

That’s why we at EdSurge want to hear from educators who have recently left or plan to leave their jobs for another sector: What was the deciding factor? What could your school (or district or state-level leaders) have done differently to change your mind?

Your responses will help shape our coverage, and we may be in contact for an interview.

Global Math Gains for Girls Are Slipping, Report Finds

Nadia Tamez-Robledo — Fri, 01 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Global data on math achievement is revealing a dismaying trend: Girls are doing worse than boys — and the margins are huge.

In 2023, fourth-grade boys outperformed their female peers in a vast majority of schools, growing the gender gap that existed prior to the pandemic, according to an international study released last week.

Among eighth-graders, the rate of boys scoring higher than girls increased exponentially since 2019, rolling back gains in math equity that had been shaping up for more than a decade. Matthias Eck, a program specialist for UNESCO’s Section of Education for Inclusion and Gender Equality, tells EdSurge that prior data showed girls were catching up with boys in math achievement.

“But in the latest data, we see that the gap is widening again between girls and boys, and that's at the detriment of girls, which is quite concerning,” he says.

This international trend echoes what U.S. analysts saw when data from the Nation’s Report Card was released last year.

The latest analysis is based on data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), a global study published every four years that measures math and science achievement among fourth- and eighth-grade students. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement performed the analysis in partnership with UNESCO.

Widening Achievement Gaps

The new data is part of the first set of TIMSS results that measure student performance following the onset of the pandemic. The analysis shows that among top performers in fourth grade, 85 percent of counties’ results skewed toward boys. Slightly over half of the countries and territories from which data was collected have an advanced math achievement gap that favors eighth-grade boys, while none are lopsided toward girls in either grade.

Eck, one of the report’s authors, argues the data shows a correlation between longer school closures and higher rates of learning loss in math, with some variation among countries and territories. “One of the hypotheses is really that those disruptions during the pandemic may have exacerbated existing disparities and have reduced learning opportunities for girls, and potentially those that were at risk of low achievement have been more affected,” Eck says. “The fact that girls were out of school and were not in the learning environment, it could have impacted their confidence, but that's just the hypothesis.”

But the numbers contain other alarming signals.

For example, the share of regions with a gender gap among fourth-grade students who are failing to reach basic math proficiency is on the rise, and most of them have a higher proportion of struggling girls, according to the report. And while the gender gap in underperformance among eighth-graders is shrinking, the proportion of countries and territories where girls have a higher failure rate spiked.

Researchers are being cautious when it comes to drawing conclusions about the causes behind the results, but girls’ experience of gender stereotypes and confidence in their math abilities can play a role.

“Boys and girls are equally able in mathematics, but these learning outcomes can be shaped by a range of factors,” Eck explains, “and that can be persistent gender stereotypes, but also teacher expectations — and they're based, of course, on those gender stereotypes.”

Targeted Solutions

UNESCO is pushing education systems across the globe to take a hard look at whether their gender equity strategies are working, especially efforts aimed at younger students.

Eck notes that the consequences of girls' achievement in math can have far-reaching effects in their lives — and very real consequences in societies writ large. “We know that mathematics is quite foundational to learning across the school subjects, it's also critical for pathways into science, technology, engineering, mathematics careers,” he says. “These sectors are at the center of innovation, technology advancement, inclusive growth and sustainable development, so that's quite concerning in terms of those sectors.”

But there’s no widely accepted solution to this problem.

Increasing girls’ math performance will take work at the national policy level, local communities, within families and the culture of classrooms, Eck says. And changes have to include challenging gender stereotypes that limit how far girls think they can go in mathematics, he adds.

“I think what is really critical is that we see those large gaps emerging early, at the fourth grade level when students usually are around 9 or 10 years old,” he says. “That means that whatever we do, the action we take to address the issue must start quite early and must be very targeted.”

Quality Concerns Remain as States Invest More Than Ever in Preschool Programs

Lauren Coffey — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 16:21:04 GMT

More four-year-olds are enrolled in state-funded preschools than ever before, but the quality and availability of preschool programs have experts concerned about creating a system of haves and have-nots.

“If providing high-quality preschool education to all 3- and 4-year-olds were a race, some states are nearing the finish line, others have stumbled and fallen behind, and a few have yet to leave the starting line,” an annual report from the National Institute of Early Education Research states.

With the amount of funding and quality varying by state, it means that access for families in states that aren't investing still widely varies.

The report, titled “State of Preschool: 2025 Yearbook,” breaks down the annual spending, quality and enrollment numbers across early childhood education programs in the U.S. The latest found states hit an all-time high for both spending and enrollment, but the quality of the programs remains a concern.

“We’re trying to make sure states are also thinking about quality,” Allison Friedman-Krauss, an associate research professor at NIEER, says. “Right now, it’s more about access. And we don't want them to forget about quality.”

More Funding – But Not Always More Quality

The report found funding peaked at nearly $14.4 billion, though that was largely driven by a handful of states: $4.1 billion in California alone, along with $1.2 billion in New Jersey and $1 billion in New York. Those three states accounted for nearly half (45 percent) of all state pre-K spending.

More than two dozen states also increased their preschool spending, which can go toward things like improving teacher-to-student rations and improving teacher compensation, the latter which has long been a concern.

While states still increased their spending on pre-K this year, the rate at which states are investing is slowing down. Adjusted for inflation, each state spent an average of $45 more per child than the 2023-2024 year. However, last year’s increase in spending was 16 times as large.

New Jersey, Oregon and the District of Columbia gave more than $15,000 in state funding per child enrolled in preschool. Six other states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, New Mexico, and Washington) spent more than $10,000 per child enrolled in pre-K. Twenty eight states overall spent more funding per child, adjusted for inflation, than past years.

Seventeen states spent less on preschool in 2024-2025 than they did in 2023-2024, when adjusted for inflation. The researchers attributed the spending decline in part to overall state deficits and falling enrollment across many states.

However, that’s not always the case. New Jersey had a budget deficit but invested an additional $100 million into expanding preschool programs for all.

Pointing toward this, Steve Barnett, director of NIEER, argues that it’s all about state priorities: “That’s a conscious decision to say we’re going to spend less,” he says. “And you have to ask if the declining enrollment – even if not intentional – is a way to reduce spending [in the sector]. As opposed to, ‘Maybe we should work on getting parents to enroll their kid.’”

The boost in funding did not always correlate to better early childhood education programs. Only six states met all of NIEER’s 10 quality standards benchmarks, which includes a maximum class size of 20 students, a requirement that teachers have bachelor’s degrees and a classroom ratio of at least one staff member for every 10 students.

States looking to enhance preschool quality should focus on class size and teacher pay, Barnett argues.

Teacher pay and class sizes account for most of the money, and once states have improved those, other metrics, like curriculum supports and health screenings, are easier to pay for later, he adds.

But changes won’t happen overnight.

“It does take time. You can’t just wave a magic wand and have classroom size and teachers’ pay magically fixed,” Barnett says.

NIEER's Friedman-Krauss, pointed to Alabama and Georgia as examples of slowly, but surely, increasing preschool quality. Georgia hit all 10 quality benchmarks this year. Friedman-Krauss credits the improvement to a $97.6 million investment by the state, which helped lower classroom size from 22 to 20 and increased teacher pay.

“We make a big deal of it because it’s serving most of the 4-year-old [children] and hitting all the benchmarks,” Barnett says. “It’s a state that lost them and came back even stronger; that’s a good sign.”

Lion’s Share of Enrollment Only in a Few States

Enrollment, similarly to funding, reached an all-time high nationally last year, with 1.8 million children during the 2024-2025 school year. But roughly half of that comes from four states: California, Texas, New York and Florida.

Notably, a dozen states had more than half of their four-year-olds in state-funded preschool programs, with the District of Columbia topping the list: 94 percent of four-year-olds were enrolled in their state programs. California’s enrollment gains were buoyed in part due to the state’s universal pre-K promise.

However, twenty states enrolled fewer preschoolers in 2024-2025 than the prior year. Some could blame the dip on declining birth rates. But when adjusted by population percentage, 21 states still saw a dip.

For some states, the enrollment decline was steep. Indeed, six states (Arizona, Florida, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin) decreased enrollment by more than 1,000 children.

Three-year-old students made up only 9 percent enrollment across the nation, up from 5 percent a decade earlier. Some states are acting to counter this. For example, Illinois and New Jersey are both focusing on expanding preschool programs for three-year-olds, Friedman-Krauss says. However, she and Barnett expect a slow mass adoption of three-year-olds in state-funded programs.

“I think there will be more attention paid to that group – how much more, that’s the hard part,” Barnett says. “Nine percent is better than when we started, but it’s very lumpy. It’s still 0 percent in lots of places.”

I Built Radical Possibility in Schools — and It Nearly Broke Me

Deaunna Watson — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:00:00 GMT

In my application to the Voices of Change Fellowship, I quoted musician Olu Dara’s words to his son, the rapper Nas:

These words stunned me as an educator and student who understands the stakes confronting Black youth in education. Nas’ conversation with his father did not feel unfamiliar, nor did it feel cavalier; it carried the audacity Black folks have had to nurture and maintain to survive.

Before I began writing for the fellowship, I reflected on the roots of my educational lineage. What led my father to leave school before graduating? What pushed my mother out of the schoolhouse? What was the quality of education for my grandparents and great-grandparents, and who said it was fit for their learning needs? I wondered if, maybe for them, quitting school was saving their own lives, too, so that future generations would not have to endure the challenges they faced.

I’ve had similar questions that have followed me throughout my education journey. I’ve climbed through the tacks and splinters of multiple presidencies that mocked the humanity of anyone not born white, able-bodied, heterosexual, male, wealthy or a citizen. I’ve climbed through the torn-up boards of heart-wrenching grief after laying every elder in my immediate lineage to rest. I’ve climbed through the dark of a global pandemic that exposed the violent systems Black and Brown folks have been screaming about for centuries — systems engulfed in flames.

As a Voices of Change fellow, I sought to present the classroom as a radical space of possibility. In August 2023, I published my first essay, which explored the freedom-dreaming power of Black literature. In my second essay, I reflected on the emancipatory power of radical Black joy. For my third essay, I tackled the impact of discriminatory school policies targeting natural hair textures on Black students. And last, for my fourth and final essay, I settled into my role as director of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging at a preK-8 Catholic Montessori school in Cincinnati. I shared the collaborative goals that outlined my school's strategic plan to embrace DEI and the work taking place to meet those goals.

But there is a price to be paid for bringing radical possibility to life. All too often, Black women in education and leadership ignore the signs of burnout until it is too late. I am in community with these women: I coach these women; I am one of these women.

One day, I woke up and realized I hadn't taken a full week off from work in three years. I woke up mourning the deep misalignment I felt in my attempt to transform systems designed to resist me at every turn. I woke up wishing that I could remain asleep, unhappy and unfulfilled with my life. Though I was celebrated for my accomplishments with awards, I was tired. I am tired.

I was paying the price for radical possibility with my mental health and my life.

Nas once said, “I didn’t care about America. I didn’t believe that [America] believed in me.”

In a radical act of self-preservation, Nas crossed the threshold of his liminal space and walked into the promise of his own freedom dreams. He did not wait for the permission of a society that did not believe in him.

As I navigate my own liminal space, I am granting myself the permission to set myself free and save my own life. With a pocket full of freedom dreams, healing-centered entrepreneurship and the audacity to claim rest and renewal as an enduring freedom practice, I am trusting myself to boldly claim ownership of my life.

Districts Relying More on Data to Identify Gifted Students

Lauren Coffey — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 08:02:00 GMT

A group of third grade students gather around a board game on a Wednesday afternoon in a Charleston classroom, grabbing game pieces, discussing potential moves and reading out playing cards. The games are not Monopoly, Sorry, or any others of yore – they’re focused on identifying, and boosting, students’ strengths and weaknesses.

It’s part of a shift in school districts’ gifted and talented programs. While many programs focused on a small group of high achieving students, instructors across the nation are now focusing more on inclusion, using data to help them zero in on students’ talents, a method that has the potential of capturing more students for advanced instruction.

For Vanessa Hill, the gifted education coordinator for Amphitheater Public School District in Tucson, Arizona, focusing on strengths and weaknesses helps to solve what she sees as a universal problem with gifted identification.

“Something I’ve been thinking deeply about that tends to be a universal problem is that gifted identification does not match the metrics of your district,” says Vanessa Hill, the gifted education coordinator for Amphitheater Public School District in Tucson, Arizona. “I’m constantly thinking of that, so our demographics can get closer. This new tactic is about exposure to critical thinking and reasoning – what does that look like, how to reason through a problem?”

Re-assessing the methods and ultimately changing the definition of “gifted” comes as some question the value of standardized tests and a push-and-pull to diversify programs.

The Shift In Gifted and Talented

The gifted and talented programs run the gamut of names and acronyms depending on the district, including advanced learning program, TAG (talented and gifted), LEAP (Learning Enrichment Alternative Program) or REACH (Realizing Excellence through Academic and Creative Help), among others.

Regardless of the name, the program has undergone several major shifts over the last few decades. Schools previously often only selectively tested students, often at the behest of involved parents or by a teacher recommendation. That brought a large amount of inequity in the programs, with many moving to a universal screening practice. Some states, including Washington and Missouri, made it a state mandate to test all students while in elementary school. The screening practice itself evolved from an IQ test to aptitude and ability tests, though how accurate those are is up for debate.

“Society is really unequal along socioeconomic and racial and ethnic lines, and these tests are just reflecting that,” says Scott Peters, director of research consulting at NWEA, a nonprofit education assessment organization. “You can change tests all day long, but at the end of the day, you can't give some kids three years of $40,000-a-year preschool and also wonder why this kid that's never been to school until first grade doesn't do as well.”

Often, schools’ gifted and talented programs do not represent their overall school population and instead skew heavily toward white and Asian students. Zohran Mamdani, the widely-watched mayor of New York City, made it part of his platform to phase out gifted and talented programs because of the inequity.

“Ultimately, my administration would aim to make sure that every child receives a high-quality early education that nurtures their curiosity and learning,” he said in a 2025 statement to the New York Times.

There is no silver bullet test that accounts for inequality and a child’s upbringing, although Peters said when factors such as income, race and other equity gaps are controlled in tests, most inequities disappear.

“This isn't a factor of, ‘Oh, there are students of color scoring high, but they're still not getting in,’” he says. “It's that there's not enough students of color scoring high because of that larger societal inequality issue.”

Because of the often-skewed gifted and talented population, schools are shifting toward “talent development” with all students, versus focusing on strengthening some students’ already solid skills.

“Because of the baggage of the past, we’re moving toward a new perspective where we’re identifying the strengths of students — whether academic, social or emotional — versus people for a program,” says Kristen Seward, clinical professor in gifted, talented and creative studies at Purdue University. “And I think this twist in how we approach education as gifted researchers is going to benefit everybody.”

Using Data for ‘Talent Development’

Developing talent for gifted programs, much like the name itself, varies depending on the district. Seward says many teachers have enriched curriculums, which enhance things like vocabulary, science and social studies — topics that have been put on the back burner over the years in favor of standardized testing. Teachers are trained to spot students’ strengths and respond to those, which in turn, helps with students’ weaknesses.

For example, if a student has a strong vocabulary but struggles in math, the teacher might focus on math vocabulary during math class to put the lesson on a level the child understands.

“I don’t want it to turn into a thing where the teacher is the gate, and if they don’t open the gate, then the students don’t get identified – which has been a problem,” Seward says. “We have to train teachers to be talent scouts, presenting the enriched curriculum. Hopefully it's not something additional, but something they’d naturally do in their role.”

Elizabeth McLaurin Uptegrove, now the assistant academic director in Charleston County School District, created a “stretch or support” system that involves the games the students played in the aforementioned classroom. When Uptegrove first arrived in Charleston’s school district, South Carolina used to require all second grade students be tested for the gifted and talented program. But after that year, selection changed to a nomination system.

“Which sounds elitist, and it is,” she says, adding white, affluent children were three times more likely to be in the programs.

She pushed for universal testing again for all fourth grade students, which yielded three times as many students identified as gifted, jumping from 40 fourth graders to 150 across the district. Several schools across the country have adopted similar stretch-or-support systems.

But Uptegrove’s efforts go beyond identifying candidates for gifted programs through teacher observation: her game-based system uses data. With the aptitude test, there are verbal, quantitative and nonverbal subsections. The tests indicate if a child is low or high achieving in those areas. Then the children are placed in groups with those of similar abilities to play games that can enhance those skills.

“Typically a teacher is not very well-equipped to come up with activities or lessons that can actually reach their level of thinking ability and games do that really quickly, in a way that's not as boring for children as a typical worksheet,” Uptegrove says. “That’s where the magic of the games comes in. We’re making rigorous, hard thinking almost irresistible so students are willing to do the activity for longer.”

Hill, the Arizona-based education coordinator, initially implemented Uptegrove’s game strategy across third grade classrooms in five schools: three Title 1 schools and two non-Title 1. She says the schools that have the strength or stretch program in place have higher passing rates of “proficient” or “highly proficient” scores than those who do not.

“To me, it’s the difference between being a passive learner and active learner; by being able to engage in the games, it’s more active learning,” Hill says. “You raise the exposure to critical thinking and are taught to apply those skills to any situation, whether it’s on an achievement test or on the playground with a friend.”

The Future of the Program

Both researchers and teachers acknowledge the “talent development” approach to gifted and talented programs is far from perfect. It is often costly, whether it is buying the games, instilling teacher training or taking out time from testing. Hill pointed to four schools within her district that are closing this year because of financial constraints.

“Ordering the games is no small cost; I feel so blessed it’s that level of importance that we will find the funds,” she says. “As far as critical thinking games, yes that was missing. It is a hole we were filling. I think that while the core curriculum is doing its best, it can oftentimes be a bit surface level.”

Uptegrove agrees, saying she believes the talent development method is becoming more popular, but “there’s a long way to go in belief and funding for it.”

Peters, who has long studied the best educational methods and practices, believes the shift in gifted and talented is a good step. But he has concerns about the larger moves needed for lasting impact.

“It’s easy to have a 30-minute gifted program; it’s hard to have a second through eighth grade math development pipeline involving everyone in the school,” he says. “And advanced learning isn’t enough of a priority for most schools.”

Returning to What it Means to Make School Human Again

Jennifer Yoo-Brannon — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 08:00:00 GMT

In 2021, I was a demoralized educator: not burnt out, but demoralized. As I shared in my first article for EdSurge, demoralization occurs when teachers “encounter consistent and pervasive challenges to enacting the values that motivate their work.”

That year, the pervasive challenges seemed obvious and communal. We were all navigating online platforms, figuring out how to replicate student services virtually and struggling to make up for lost time in instruction, social-skill development and relationship-building for when students returned to in-person schooling.

When I think about what feels most pressing now, it seems those challenges persist but are perhaps less obvious to society at large. As the authors of “Going the Distance: The Teaching Profession in a Post-COVID World (2024)” wrote:

Right now, I believe teaching is the most important thing we can do. When the world is on fire, what feels most pressing is teaching students to claim their humanity and helping educators understand how much the communal learning experience matters. Five years later, I have come full circle.

This time, I return to that same claim with a broader and deeper understanding of what makes a school. We use that old adage, “It takes a village…” More and more, I see that we, as school communities, are the village and the villagers that we need right now. What really makes a school more human is not just the principals and teachers, but the child welfare staff, paraeducators, campus supervisors, guidance counselors, cafeteria workers, coaches, librarians, custodians and secretaries. The list is long, but it feels necessary to name the people on campus who make students feel like they belong, support them and have their backs when students need it. These are the colleagues who have shown me what it is like to truly model humanity to our students.

The truth is that the onus is on all of us to create an environment in which mutual respect and empathy are the baseline expectations. So, as an instructional coach, as a leader and as a voice of change in this context, what can I do? How do I communicate to teachers that, while they have been beaten down and blamed for society’s ills, they also have the herculean task of helping students learn how to be human together?

In 2021, I said that I was demoralized. In 2026, I am revitalized and committed to my role as an educator, instructional coach and teacher advocate.

Since participating in the inaugural cohort of the Voices of Change fellowship, I have contributed essays to The California Educator, Edutopia and EdSurge. I have joined podcast panels to talk about social-emotional learning, culturally responsive teaching and civil discourse in the classroom.

This fellowship showed me the power of personal writing for representation and advocacy. I have started to write children's books about my own neurodivergent children. I have presented at local and state conferences and will continue to use my voice and my words to advocate for students, for educators, for quality professional development and schools that model the best of humanity. Writing for the Voices of Change fellowship has helped me claim my voice, my humanity and my power.

DOJ Extends Website Accessibility Deadline. Will It Help Schools Get Ready?

Daniel Mollenkamp — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 08:00:00 GMT

As the clock ticked down, schools were simply unprepared to be graded on their assignment.

Federal disability law has required local governments to make their websites accessible for decades.

Two years ago, during the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Justice published a “final rule” spelling out how schools could measure whether their websites and mobile apps were accessible for students with disabilities, relying on widely accepted guidelines. The agency also set enforcement dates based on population size. For states and local governments with a population over 50,000, the first date would have taken effect later this week.

Experts told EdSurge at the time that it was an important milestone that shifted the burden of responsibility from families of students with disabilities — who often have to labor to even access class materials — and onto schools and the vendors that work with them. In the years after the pandemic’s forced switch to remote learning, it seemed even more vital.

But Monday, the DOJ published an “interim final rule” that postpones the compliance date to next year.

Disability advocates and policy experts had expected an extension. The federal government had been holding meetings about the rule, as EdSurge recently reported. Testimony revealed that governments were not going to be able to meet well-advertised deadlines, as EdSurge noted.

The extension will “ensure that covered entities better understand the rule's substance to achieve compliance to the benefit of persons with disabilities,” according to a notice from the Justice Department.

To disability experts, that’s crucial.

The extra time is “not an invitation to pause” attempts to make sure websites and mobile applications are accessible to all, but rather a chance to get accessibility right, argues Glenda Sims, chief information accessibility officer at Deque Systems, a digital accessibility company.

Digital accessibility is in a different cultural moment than when the original enforcement deadlines were issued.

Schools are facing widespread fatigue and skepticism over their reliance on tech.

Plus, under the Trump administration, shredded grants, mass firings and shifting priorities mean that students with disabilities cannot rely on federal support. For instance, a nonpartisan government watchdog group noted federal actions have led to the dismissal of 90 percent of student civil rights complaints, including from students with disabilities.

Lately, accessibility lawsuits have surged, with more than 3,000 filed last year.

For schools and vendors, there’s still pressure to be proactive, experts argue.

Taking the next year to invest in accessibility will set institutions up to avoid an endless cycle of accessibility audits and remediation, according to Sambhavi Chandrashekar, global accessibility lead at D2L, which operates a learning management system. That means putting money into procurement systems, training for those who create course content, and tools that produce accessible content by default, she explained in a note to EdSurge. But that could prove useful. For example, a U.S. district court recently dismissed an accessibility lawsuit against a website for an eyeglasses vendor, which Chandrashekar attributes to the company’s ability to show it had a documented and ongoing accessibility program.

Right now, most schools are not accessible because they started too late, argued Sims of Deque, in a note to EdSurge. If schools interpret the DOJ’s extension as permission to delay accessibility efforts, they will fall farther behind, she added.

Schools that use this time to build resilient systems and treat accessibility like other responsibilities, such as security and privacy, will fare the best, Sims said.

The Digital Accessibility Deadline Is Here. Schools Aren’t Ready.

Daniel Mollenkamp — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 11:00:00 GMT

A big civil rights deadline that impacts schools and vendors will hit this month.

Federal law has required accessibility for people with disabilities for decades, says Glenda Sims, chief information accessibility officer at Deque Systems, a company that specializes in digital accessibility.

But two years ago, the federal government finally gave schools a way to measure whether their websites, mobile apps and digital content were accessible under law when it released a “final rule.”

In essence, the final rule updated 2024 Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law concerning equal opportunity, setting out standards for public institutions around website and mobile app accessibility. When the deadline was put in place, disability experts told EdSurge that the rules provided clarity for schools and edtech vendors, and also set a ticking clock for when they would have to make changes. The rule set varying deadlines for school districts and state and local governments — in April 2026 or April 2027, based on population size.

On April 24, the first deadline will hit. By then, institutions have to make their web content and mobile apps comply with Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, a widely recognized accessibility standard that includes accommodations such as a minimum contrast ratio and a requirement for audio descriptions.

But with the well-advertised deadline just days away, schools are well behind schedule.

Some advocates worry that digital accessibility is being swept up in broader political trends. So, what happens when the deadline hits?

Not Ready for Prime Time

Only 14 percent of districts had completed the accessibility updates required by law, according to a survey from the National School Public Relations Association released last December. The survey also found fewer than half of districts prioritized digital accessibility or had procedures for vetting vendor accessibility, which is required by the rule.

It's not just about course content, but also the apps that a school may use, says Sambhavi Chandrashekar, global accessibility lead at D2L, a company that runs a widely used learning management system. “I doubt if a single K-12 district in the U.S. or anywhere else has an inventory today of all the web apps and forms and content that they have that are not accessible,” Chandrashekar says.

Figuring that out requires performing an audit, which most schools likely haven’t done and which can be expensive, she adds.

At EdSurge’s request, AAAtraq, a company that sells disability-related legal compliance services, surveyed around 20 of the largest schools across a number of states — in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New York, Texas and Washington state. Many school websites and online PDFs failed along “basic accessibility fundamentals,” based on a benchmark the company uses to assess legal exposure. Alt text was missing, there was not enough color contrast and many websites didn’t have an accessibility statement, the company reports. The company found that 88 percent received an “F,” the lowest possible grade.

The company uses AI in its assessments, which do not cover all of the WCAG technical guidelines, and its assessment was meant only as rough barometer. In some cases, the use of AI in accessibility is controversial.

“Title II should have been a wake up call,” said AAAtraq CEO Lawrence Shaw in an emailed comment, referring to the major disability law behind the “final rule.” Yet many schools, including some of the largest in the country, have left themselves open to legal action.

Digital Exhaustion

Schools’ relationship to technology has also changed since two years ago, from rushing to embrace it to trying to limit it.

These days, beset by digital exhaustion and regret over the reach of tech into children’s lives, schools have sought to restrict screens in schools.

But it’s important for schools and lawmakers to distinguish between meaningful tech and doomscrolling on social media, says Luis Pérez, senior director of disability and accessibility for CAST, a digital access advocacy group. Students are under more pressure to manage their own attention, Pérez says, but those with disabilities and multilingual learners rely on certain digital tools, such as text-to-speech and adjustable text sizing to navigate daily learning. When used correctly, digital tools that expand accessibility can foster a sense of belonging, especially for underrepresented groups.

He worries that screen time laws that lump all screens together could make digital accessibility harder.

K-12 schools may be having the toughest time. Universities are usually more prepared for digital accessibility than state or local governments, which run K-12 public schools, says Sims of Deque. That’s partly because students with disabilities represent a more identifiable group in universities and that allows them to advocate for accommodation, she says.

These schools are heavily reliant on vendors for accessibility, Sims says.

It doesn’t help that there’s uncertainty at the moment.

Old Rules, New Rulers

While the accessibility deadline is still in place, the intentions of the federal government have become murky.

Last year, the Department of Justice signaled that it might issue a new “interim final rule” that would impact the deadline. And recently, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs — a federal agency that is usually not involved with accessibility — has been holding meetings on the rule, as “credible rumors” have circulated that the rule is in danger of getting delayed or scrapped.

Yet, the federal government has not publicly released information about its intentions, according to Jarret Cummings, senior adviser for policy and public relations at Educause.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs did not immediately respond to a question from EdSurge about whether a delay is expected.

However, some documents related to the meetings are publicly accessible, giving a glimpse into what they are hearing.

A group representing more than 800 Minnesota cities argued in written testimony that none of the Minnesota cities that would be impacted by the rule are fully compliant with the law. The letter states that the cost of compliance would squeeze small government budgets. In a similar argument, testimony from the National Association of Counties estimated that it would cost small counties about $32,000 to fix problems with accessibility on their sites, and large counties as much as $700,000.

Cummings’ organization, Educause, has also argued that two years was not enough time for most higher-ed institutions to make changes. It suggested that the government alter the timeline.

In contrast, Mark Riccobono, president of the National Federation of the Blind, testified that the rulemaking process has been ongoing for decades, with ample time for comment. The bill represents a compromise that clarifies rules, while reducing the burden of those under the law by providing exceptions and generous timelines, Riccobono argued.

Politically, the national mood has changed since the rule was issued a couple of years ago.

The affiliation of accessibility with diversity, equity and inclusion has politically backfired under the Trump administration. The administration has shredded grants it has identified with “radical” DEI ideology, and mass firings have gutted agencies like the Education Department, which the administration is actively trying to dismantle.

For students with disabilities, it means that there’s no guarantee of federal support, even when a federal complaint is filed.

“I would say that so many of the places that were reasonably staffed… have been reduced to almost bare bones, nothing. And so even if there are complaints coming in, there's no way to truly handle them,” says Sims, of Deque.

Indeed, mass firings have led to 90 percent of all student civil rights complaints, including from students with disabilities, being dismissed by the federal government in the second half of last year, according to a nonpartisan government watchdog report published in January.

In the absence of federal help, people with disabilities have turned to the courts. There were more than 3,000 accessibility lawsuits filed in federal court last year, according to legal analysis of court data.

Long-term Goals

Pérez of CAST maintains that advocates should keep on track, focusing on long-term strategy, no matter what happens at the federal level. Accessibility benefits everyone, regardless of their background or disability status, he says.

Sims, of Deque, has also made a “business case” for considering accessibility during the design of products, suggesting that as schools embrace accessibility, the vendors that can show they build accessibility into their products will be rewarded.

Some hope that artificial intelligence tools will help students with disabilities access information on their own, and point toward tools like Aira, an AI tool that aids in remote video interpretation for people with visual impairment.

But even there, disability law experts insist that the federal rule hasn’t actually changed. “The rule is the rule until it isn’t,” wrote Lainey Feingold in early March.

What Makes Edtech Work for Students [Infographic]

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:55:00 GMT

Even the most well-intentioned edtech can fall short if it does not meet students where they are. After several years studying the usability of edtech for teachers, the research team at ISTE+ASCD turned its attention to students — examining how the technical and pedagogical design of digital tools shapes their learning experiences.

In partnership with In Tandem and Sesame Workshop, researchers spoke with high school students across the United States to understand how they actually use edtech in real learning contexts. The findings identify five areas that matter most to students and offer guidance for educators and product designers seeking tools that are intuitive, meaningful and engaging.

A full framework and guidance for edtech buyers and product providers will be released in 2026.

Teaching Showed Me Education Isn’t the Great Equalizer

Avery Thrush — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 12:55:09 GMT

Reading my articles from the fellowship feels like reading diary entries. They’re raw, honest and they reflect how much I was struggling with teaching at the time. Overwhelm is apparent. So is frustration. As a teacher who was impacted by COVID-19 and the year of fully remote learning for students, the Voices of Change fellowship gave me the space to reflect and name the questions that had brought me to teaching in the first place. Since leaving the classroom almost two years ago, I’ve returned to writing frequently to work through the questions teaching left me with.

Having attended Title I public schools myself, I entered the classroom seeking a lens through which to understand my school experiences. As I became more interested in education as an engine of social mobility, I wanted to understand why some kids learned to read and some did not. I wanted to understand why some schools had more resources than others. I wanted to understand why some kids went to college, and some did not. Teaching felt like a way to move closer to those answers.

The process of learning these answers was swift and painful. The stark reality was playing out in front of me every day as I taught at a public charter school during the day and then drove to the suburbs in the evenings to tutor for extra cash. I quickly saw how rarely student success is the product of a single school or teacher, but rather an aligned system of supports that begins at birth.

So here’s what I learned: some kids can read because their schools taught phonics and screened for reading disabilities in kindergarten. Some schools have more resources because housing policy and decades of segregation shaped property values and neighborhood composition. Some kids go to college because they benefited from networks of financial and familial stability, giving them resilience through challenges like the SAT, the Common App and FAFSA. The questions I began with spun out into winding tangles of policy choices, zip codes, race and class.

I’ve come to understand that the grief I felt at leaving the classroom was more than being overwhelmed and overworked — it was the undoing of my belief that education was society’s great equalizer. It was also the realization that I had been lucky; my graduation from high school and matriculation to a four-year college was as much a function of my family’s assumption from birth that I would go to college as it was my academic performance or the opportunities my schools offered.

Achieving academically was easy because I had stable housing, good health care and a network of loving and supportive adults. Had I experienced any learning challenges, they would have been swiftly addressed by my white-collar parents, who are comfortable speaking with educated professionals. Students spend the vast majority of their lives before the age of 18 outside of school. Teaching revealed how profoundly the promise of education depends on systems beyond the classroom.

That isn’t to say that schools and teachers cannot move the needle for students. Teachers grow their students every day in ways that feel nothing short of miraculous. You’d be hard-pressed to find an adult who cannot name a teacher who made a difference in their life. But the biggest gains for students occur when the systems around schools align to support the work teachers are doing — when children arrive at school healthier, safer and more secure in their lives outside the classroom.

On this front, there are two movements I’ve been paying attention to, one that brings me hope and one that makes me nervous. In graduate school, I learned about place-based partnerships, initiatives that bring stakeholders in health care, housing, education, youth services, local government and philanthropy into alignment around shared goals for supporting children and families. The most famous example is the Harlem Children’s Zone, but the model has spread widely. Organizations like StriveTogether now support networks of communities working toward cradle-to-career outcomes. Partners for Rural Impact is helping rural communities coordinate services for children across schools and social supports. Here in Boston, the Boston Children’s Council is bringing together city agencies, nonprofits and schools to think more holistically about the conditions shaping children’s lives.

What gives me hope about these efforts is that they acknowledge something teachers already know: students do not arrive at school as blank slates each morning. They arrive carrying the cumulative effects of housing stability, health-care access, nutrition, family income and community safety. Place-based partnerships represent a policy approach that supports teachers by strengthening the ecosystems around them rather than asking schools to solve poverty alone.

What makes me more uneasy is the direction some of the frustration with public education has taken. If we spent decades telling ourselves that schools were the great equalizer, then the persistence of large racial and economic achievement gaps, especially in the wake of COVID frustrations, can feel like a failure of the institution itself.

In my home state of West Virginia, that frustration has helped fuel support for the Hope Scholarship, the nation’s only universal education savings account program, which has deleterious impacts on the public education system most students rely on. Policies like this are often framed as empowering families with choice, but I worry they also reflect a disillusionment with the project of public schools as engines of democracy. It is my belief that many of the inequities in public education were never fully within schools' control to address.

My experience as a teacher, and now as a policy practitioner, has convinced me that the path forward is not to abandon public schools, but to surround them with stronger systems of support for children and families. The question I find myself paying closest attention to now is how policy can help build those systems: partnerships that allow teachers to do what they already do best, while ensuring the conditions outside the classroom make their work possible.

More California 4-Year-Olds Are in Publicly Funded Preschool Than Ever

Yuxuan Xie, EdSource — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 08:00:00 GMT

When it comes to universal pre-kindergarten, California has made significant progress — 62 percent of 4-year-olds were enrolled in publicly funded early childhood programs in 2024–25, up from 42% in 2019–20, according to a new Learning Policy Institute report.

Transitional kindergarten (TK) alone enrolled 55 percent of 4-year-olds, or about 177,000 children. But access remains uneven: nearly 4 in 10 4-year-olds still aren’t enrolled, and the share of eligible children actually signing up has declined. Families may be unaware that transitional kindergarten is an option for their children, or they face other barriers to enrolling. This school year marks the first time every 4-year-old in California was guaranteed a transitional kindergarten spot.

Why the Social Media Addiction Case Isn’t Over Yet

Nadia Tamez-Robledo — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 20:39:22 GMT

Algorithms. Beauty filters. Endless scrolling.

The case over “social media addiction” against Meta and Google in a California courtroom ultimately came down to these elements, legal experts say, and what a jury found was negligence on social media companies’ part when designing apps where tweens and teens would come to spend roughly one-fifth of their day.

Joseph McNally, former federal prosecutor and director of Emerging Torts and Litigation at McNicholas & McNicholas in California, says jurors agreed with the novel legal argument that Meta and Google were negligent in their design of Instagram and YouTube, respectively, contributing to the mental health problems of the plaintiff. Parent companies of Snapchat and TikTok settled with the plaintiffs before the trial.

McNally and other experts tell EdSurge the verdict will affect thousands of similar cases and influence how tech companies roll out their features — and that the legal tussle over where liability falls when it comes to youth mental health isn’t over yet. With the social media giants vowing to appeal, the case could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Email Evidence

The impact left by the presentation of internal company emails was undeniable, McNally says. Internal Meta communications showed that employees raised alarms about the potential harm to teen girls posed by a beauty filter. Documents also showed they knew that users much younger than 13 — the minimum age required for sign up — were on their platforms, he adds.

“They looked the other way because — the plaintiffs argued — they had a long-term benefit, long-term value of hooking those users early,” McNally says. “I think that the emails painted a picture of a company whose own employees were raising concerns about features in the product, and the plaintiff effectively used those emails to show that they knew about the risk of the product.”

“Addictive” Design

If Meta and Google had settled, the court wouldn’t have had cause to grapple with the legal question of whether social media companies can be held liable for harm caused by their design. But from the defense’s perspective, tech companies had been solidly protected by Section 230 in the past, explains Princess Uchekwe, corporate attorney and founder of The Chief Counsel in New York. That’s the part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that shields websites and online platforms from being sued over content posted by users.

Just one day before the California verdict, a New Mexico jury found Meta liable in a $375 million consumer protection lawsuit over its failure to protect children from social media harm on its platforms.

“What the lawyers for the plaintiffs were arguing is, essentially, it's not the content that we have a problem with,” Uchekwe says, “It's the fact that when people use your platform, you have implemented certain features that make it almost impossible for people to leave. You can scroll into the bottomless pit of hell on Instagram, and nothing ever tells you, ‘Maybe you should pause.’”

The Appeal of an Appeal

The $6 million in damages is a drop in the bucket for the two social media giants, but McNally says there are potential benefits to appealing the ruling anyway. There are thousands more consumer lawsuits against social media companies around the country, with school districts joining as plaintiffs.

One is that an appellate court might find that the long-time protections that social media companies have relied on should have come into play. The verdict barreled through the defenses raised by Section 230, which protects platforms from claims of harm caused by third-party content. It’s a policy that makes a free and open internet possible.

“[Section] 230 has resulted in the dismissal of hundreds of lawsuits over the years where they would've otherwise faced hundreds of millions of dollars in liability,” McNally says. “An appeal [based on] Section 230, which is a federal statute, could make its way up to the Supreme Court, who would have the final word on the scope. [If the] court of appeals remanded it back to the trial court and said, ‘Look, Section 230 applies,’ it would essentially bar these claims [of harm caused by the design].”

Uchekwe says failure to win an appeal could be “almost devastating” for tech companies due to the sheer amount of damages they could have to pay across thousands of similar lawsuits, along with the cost of restructuring how their apps function. That could mean rethinking features like targeted algorithms, the ability to endlessly scroll and notifications that draw users back into the app.

“Not only social media companies,” Uchekwe says, “all tech companies that have implemented things like that, especially if they have children as a base, are going to have to start reconsidering.”

First Amendment Question

There’s also a First Amendment case to be made, McNally adds. Some legal experts, including UC Berkeley law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, argue that the “addictive” algorithms that came under fire during the trial are protected free speech. If that argument succeeds on appeal, it could stop the legal cases arguing product liability in their tracks.

“If the Supreme Court overturned it based on Section 230 and the First Amendment, it’s unlikely there's going to be a new trial. It would likely be dismissed,” McNally says. “I won't say that with certainty, but the prospects of dismissal would be pretty good for the defendants.”

Ripple Effect

McNally says the fact that a jury ruled Meta and Google’s app features were “unreasonably unsafe for its users” creates challenges for them in the swaths of similar lawsuits they’re facing. Plaintiffs in those cases still must prove a direct link between the social media companies and the harm they’re alleging.

“I think it's going to result in some cases probably moving closer to settlement, but in all those cases, I think that the defendants are going to be looking closely at the causation issue,” McNally says. “There's probably other cases out there where the evidence of causation is not as strong, and those cases may be harder for a plaintiff to get across the finish line.”

Uchekwe predicts that if the verdict sticks, tech companies — especially those with users who are under 18 — will be forced to retool their app features to encourage users to spend less time on their platforms. That could hurt the companies’ ad revenue and their ability to gather data on users.

“Undoing some of those things may decrease their bottom line, but I'm not sure it will do it to the extent that it's detrimental to their revenue,” Uchekwe says. “If you weigh the benefits of putting these safeguards in for children versus your revenue, I never think that your profit should come at the expense of a generation of people.”

How Teachers Make Writing Achievable Without Lowering Standards

Nina Berler — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:55:00 GMT

“I’m just not a good writer.”

It’s a phrase teachers hear too often, usually at the exact moment a writing task is assigned. For many students, the leap from understanding a concept to putting it on paper feels like an impossible hurdle. Writing is often treated as a final “reveal” of learning at the end of a unit — potentially a high-pressure task that can feel overwhelming for students who haven’t been given a clear roadmap.

Educators are increasingly recognizing that to help students succeed, they have to move beyond simply assigning writing and start explicitly teaching it.

To explore how to make this shift, EdSurge caught up with Dr. Barrie Olson, vice president of reading curriculum and instruction at Curriculum Associates. Drawing on her experience as a literacy designer and former college professor, Olson discusses why students struggle with the demands of writing and how a “backward design” approach can transform writing instruction in the classroom.

EdSurge: We’ve seen a major shift toward research-based, explicit reading instruction over the past decade. Is writing on a similar trajectory? What does strong instruction look like in practice?

Olson: The research base around writing is clear: Students become stronger writers when instruction is explicit, structured and grounded in knowledge-building content. So when we think about strong writing instruction, it is not about assigning more essays; it’s really about directly teaching the craft of writing.

We have to clarify the final product to bring that necessary focus and coherence to instruction. Each lesson across a unit should move students incrementally closer to that final writing task.

What are the most common reasons students struggle with writing, and what do those challenges look like in real classrooms?

It’s important to remember that writing is one of the most cognitively demanding things that students do in a classroom. Writing asks students to generate ideas, organize those ideas, select evidence, construct sentences and monitor conventions — all at the same time. For many students, that cognitive load can feel overwhelming.

I think a lot of writing struggles stem from gaps in foundational writing skills. So students may not have had enough structured practice to organize their thinking, or they may struggle to express ideas orally, which, if you think about it, is just going to make it that much harder for them to then get it down on paper.

For teachers looking to strengthen writing instruction, what first step makes the biggest difference?

The most powerful starting point is backward design. It starts not with “What is the teacher doing with the student?” but with the teacher asking, “What do I want students to be able to produce at the end of this unit? Is it a literary analysis? Is it an evidence-based argument? Is it an explanatory essay? And then what kind of thinking do I want to see from my students?” Once that endpoint is clear, teachers can plan a coherent sequence of lessons that build the necessary skills step by step.

Writing prompts play a central role in instruction. What makes a writing prompt truly effective for students?

What I always tell people is that the quality of student writing is determined by the quality of the prompt. Are we giving them the information they need to be successful at this task? We see people who want to use shorter prompts or less complex ones. They think it’s easier when, in fact, vague prompts increase the cognitive load for students because they are left guessing.

Clear prompts make instruction and assessment stronger because they can be aligned with explicit teaching. A well-designed prompt might feel hard, but it sets these students up for success because it is transparent about expectations. Any writing prompt should require students to return to the text, to quote, analyze and explain, which reinforces close reading skills while strengthening writing.

Even with strong prompts, writing can feel overwhelming. How can teachers scaffold tasks without oversimplifying?

When we talk about scaffolding writing, the key is chunking complexity. It is also starting much earlier than most people realize. Work doesn’t begin the day that students are told, “Hey, start your essay.” It begins on the first day of the unit. The key is not lowering the bar. The scaffolds and progression make rigorous writing achievable for all students.

These scaffolds not only help students get where they need to be and give them a clear sense of purpose, but they also send a really important message: Learning involves collecting information, layering it onto what we already know and then communicating what we’ve learned.

Why is it important to teach reading and writing together, and how can teachers integrate them in daily instruction?

Reading and writing are reciprocal processes. When students analyze a text’s structure, an author’s argument or use of evidence, they’re building a blueprint for their own writing. Teaching reading and writing together makes literacy instruction more efficient and impactful because writing becomes a tool for thinking. It’s a cycle: Stronger reading leads to stronger writing, and stronger writing helps students defend their thinking and deepen comprehension.

I want to walk into a classroom that’s loud because kids are so excited about what they’re learning that they can’t keep it in. Writing gives them a way to leave a permanent record of their thinking.

Some Advocates Concerned as States Push for Cameras in Special Education Classrooms

Lauren Coffey — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 09:27:00 GMT

As federal and state legislation swirls over the usage of cellphones and personal devices in classrooms, there is a renewed push for another form of technology: surveillance cameras.

Legislators in Florida, Iowa, Maryland, South Carolina and Tennessee introduced video surveillance bills this year, proposing placing cameras into self-contained special education classrooms, which are rooms solely for students with special needs.

The move comes as a handful of states – Louisiana, West Virginia, Georgia and Alabama – adopted the legislation over the last decade in an attempt to curb harmful physical practices. That includes teachers using restraints on students with behavioral issues and, in some cases, placing them in seclusion rooms or resorting to physical violence.

“There’s usually an impetus for why these pieces of legislation are being introduced, and it's often because something happened where an educator probably felt overwhelmed, or didn't quite know what to do in a situation,” says Lindsay Kubatzky, director of policy and advocacy at the National Center for Learning Disabilities.

The latest surge of legislation comes amid a wave of technology crowding in — and getting pushed out — of the classroom. Districts are busy banning cellphones in classrooms as parents and experts debate the ethical use of education technology. Installing cameras, however, is something many parents of children in special education support.

“This protects everyone; this is your eyewitness in the room, that no one can say [someone] got it wrong,” says Jacqui Luscombe, who leads the Exceptional Student Education advisory board in Broward County School District.

But the move is controversial, even among disability advocates. Some believe it poses a privacy risk for both students and teachers, and further alienates an already “othered” population.

“What the big struggle seems to come down to is the tension of invading privacy versus the benefit of stronger accountability,” Denise Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, says.

The Controversy

The push for cameras in special education classrooms is not new. Texas was the first to pass legislation in 2015, and four other states (Louisiana, West Virginia, Georgia and Alabama) eventually followed.

But as technology use of all kinds has grown in classrooms, there’s been a surge recently to include classroom cameras. “I do think we’re in the technology age where it’s not as cost-prohibitive as it used to be, and there’s all these apps that lend [themselves] to greater use,” Marshall says.

The Broward County School District in Florida had a three-year pilot program beginning in 2021. Under the pilot program, a parent could request a camera be placed in any classroom serving students solely with special needs. As the program neared its end in 2024, Luscombe urged the school board to make it permanent.

“The feedback I received was never anything other than, ‘Let’s have cameras,’” she says. “I’m sure there were plenty of parents saying, ‘We don’t need that,’ but for those who wanted it, it was empowering.”

The board approved a permanent version of the program, and the district has installed cameras in 80 of its more than 1,000 Exceptional Student Education classrooms.

Florida legislators attempted to make it a statewide move, but the measure failed to make it out of the Senate committee.

Tennessee, Maryland, South Carolina and Iowa are in the process of reviewing legislation. Tennessee is the only state of the bunch that would require a majority of parents to sign off on the cameras. The latter three propose placing cameras in all special education classrooms.

Louisiana recently expanded its existing law. Initially, it allowed cameras to be installed at a parent’s request. Now the law requires cameras in all self-contained special education classrooms – rooms dedicated to special education students.

West Virginia also requires all self-contained special education classrooms to have cameras, while Texas requires it only by parental request. Georgia allows schools to use their own discretion for placing cameras in self-contained special education classrooms, while Alabama requires cameras in classrooms where over half the students have special education needs.

Some of the legislation proposed, and Louisiana’s recently expanded law, explicitly ban restraints and seclusion rooms. Broward County’s does not, although the district requires teachers to learn de-escalation training. Luscombe acknowledges the district could do more training, particularly in under resourced schools.

“I personally have had conversations with the superintendent about more professional training, of, let’s not shove someone in a classroom, say ‘In you go,’ and then it becomes an exercise for survival,” Luscombe says.

Each state also has its own methods for reviewing footage, with some including footage leading up to and after a disputed incident. Others allow only administrators – not parents – to review footage.

It plays into the concern of student privacy. All states with current laws, except South Carolina, reference the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, better known as FERPA, in their legislation. That was passed in 1974 and serves as the standard for student privacy.

Most advocacy groups – including the Council of Parents Attorneys and Advocates and the National Center for Learning Disabilities – have not taken an official stance on the issue. “[In 2015] was the first time we’ve started to really debate even how we felt about it,” COPAA’s Marshall says, adding that opinions in the group are mixed. “I think it’s too early to tell with the research what the effects are, and I don’t think the states are collecting the data to help understand.”

TASH, a Nashville-based disability advocacy group, condemned the decision when it was first up for debate after Texas passed its law. The group declared in a statement at the time that the video surveillance has become “an easy substitute for and distraction from the ongoing hard work of cultivating schoolwide inclusion, communication, trust and community. What is needed instead is a systemic framework from which to approach a culture shift around issues of safety.”

Necessity or Distraction?

There is no hard data, for Broward County or others, about whether the cameras have a direct impact on the number or intensity of incidents in classrooms.

There are also concerns mandatory cameras in classrooms could discourage people from entering the profession of special education – worsening an already depleted workforce. According to federal data from the 2024-25 school year, special education had the most reported teacher shortages, affecting 45 states.

But Jacquelie Rodriguez, CEO of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, says she believes that argument is a distraction.

“The fact that we have what is considered a leaky bucket pipeline, where we have more people coming into the field and yet, we still don't have enough to fill the vacancies, that's not a product of video cameras,” she says. “I think that when people say that, they're addressing a symptom, not the root cause of the concern.”

Rodriguez says instead of focusing on recording incidents, districts should concentrate on training teachers better to handle high-stress situations.

“I don't even think [cameras are] a Band-Aid; I think [they’re] a red herring,” Rodriguez says. “I think it's the ability for someone to check a box and say they did something about it, when either they do know that they're not doing anything about it, or they don't realize that this is not going to solve the problem that they're actually trying to address.”

The Fellowship That Taught Me Good Teaching Doesn’t Require Perfection

Fatema Elbakoury — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Becoming a Voices of Change fellow empowered me to believe I could be a teacher with all my flaws — that “perfection” is not necessary. In fact, it is antithetical to good teaching. I remember sitting in our first workshop where we learned how to write a pitch and discussed what successful pitching looks like.

My takeaway from that workshop was that this fellowship was going to push me in ways I’d always been afraid of, that I’d have to practice a kind of vulnerability that went deeper than what I modeled for my students. I’d have to face myself.

The fellowship taught me that what makes me unique is what makes me the best teacher I can be. My individual voice and reflections were what I had to offer, and not just the restatement of well-researched best practices. During my fellowship, I learned that the more vulnerable and specific I was in telling my story as a classroom teacher, the more my voice as a writer would shine through. This sense of authenticity translated into my teaching, as I felt empowered to be myself and to see my differences as gifts.

My essay describing the time when two birds flew into my classroom taught me that play is education, and to this day, I can breathe when things go awry because, through writing that essay, I reaffirmed to myself that it’s okay for curriculum to slow down, for community building to be at the center.

My essay exploring the power of neurodivergence led me to connect with other neurodivergent teachers and reminded me that my experiences are what make me the best teacher I can be. I used to be sad that my brain was built differently, but both the process and the outcome of that essay taught me that being different is a gift to share with others. I was most afraid to write that essay, but now I am most proud of it. I was once again reminded of the power in speaking my truth, especially when I’m most afraid to.

Overall, my essays taught me to pay attention to every moment of teaching, that sometimes the most mundane days of instruction offer kernels of truth and exploration. Topics such as boredom, artificial intelligence and allyship have been explored ad nauseam, but my editor empowered me to see that despite this, I still have a voice worth sharing, even when I didn’t think so.

As a result, I developed a confidence in myself that I carry with me to this day. I became more embodied as a human being, more present, because I realized that what made me me was actually what would allow me to connect more meaningfully with my students and the world. In extending that expansiveness and empathy towards myself, I had more empathy to give my students on their off days and more encouragement to give them on their better days. Ultimately, realizing that the most important stories I had to tell were topics I was too afraid to address publicly made me see that the core of education will always be about courage. Courage to be all of myself, to try new activities outside of and inside the classroom. I had to be ready to share myself to have the biggest impact as a writer. Similarly, I would have to do the same to be the best teacher I could be.

Since completing this fellowship, my identity as a human being has expanded. I now see myself not just as a teacher, but as a writer, a thinker, and an observer who has something to say. I feel more comfortable being me, and even empowered to do so. With each essay, I chipped away at my fears and accepted that the joy was in the process itself. Now, I tell my students something I have had to tell myself repeatedly during this fellowship: trust your voice.

As a Tool of Productivity, AI Can Make the Effort to Learn More Meaningful

Joseph South — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:00:00 GMT

I want to share a story of struggle. Actually, two kinds of struggle.

My father completed his doctorate at the University of Utah in the early 1970s. For his dissertation, he ran a statistical analysis on genealogical records to determine the impact of certain economic conditions on family size.

He accomplished this on one of the most advanced computers of the time. His method? Literally punching out little rectangles in dozens of stiff paper cards, and feeding the stack into the computer.

My father was a lowly graduate student, and because the demand for computing time at the university was sky high, he had to run his analysis in the middle of the night. He spent many nights punching cards and running them through the machine. Even a single mispunch would cause the entire program to stop running and require painstaking troubleshooting, re-punching, and another night at the computer lab.

Unproductive vs. Productive Struggle

The soul-sapping sleep deprivation and endless paper punching that stood between my father and his goals represents the first kind of struggle in my story: unproductive struggle — the challenging, unavoidable tasks we must perform toward a learning goal, but which add no value to the intellectual outcome.

The real intellectual challenge in my father’s work was in deciding which variables belonged in the model, determining how to represent economic conditions over time, and interpreting the data. This is the second kind of struggle: productive struggle. That is, the effort a learner expends to make sense of concepts, to figure something out that is not immediately apparent. This struggle leads to growth and insight. It builds judgment, expertise and understanding.

What is frustrating about my father’s story in hindsight is that so much of his time and cognitive energy were consumed by the unproductive struggle of punching cards and managing the computer. Without those barriers, he would have had more capacity for the productive struggle that leads to meaningful learning.

Thinking About What Matters

When it comes to AI in schools, some educators fear that it will lead to learning becoming too easy. This is referred to as “cognitive laziness.” The assumption is that we will offload our thinking to AI and eventually lose our ability to think critically. This is a risk with any technology that makes our mental work more efficient, and AI is uniquely adept at taking on cognitively demanding tasks. But ceding our reasoning power to AI isn’t a foregone conclusion. And simply not using AI in learning settings doesn’t have to be our solution for preserving our mental capacities.

Just as better computing tools would have freed my father from punching cards without removing the intellectual rigor of his work, today’s tools, including AI, have the potential to offload unproductive struggle, while preserving, and even amplifying, the productive struggle that is central to learning.

Here’s an example: When reading comprehension is not the goal of a lesson but a necessary prerequisite — a student having to read an article to understand the causes of the French Revolution, for example — AI tools can adjust reading levels on the fly to assist learners who are below grade level or for whom English is not their first language. This allows them to focus on the history rather than on decoding the text.

Refining Rigor

So what does this mean for educators who are grappling with how to help students use AI effectively?

First, we need to remind ourselves and help our students understand that the goal of learning has never been to make learning easy. It is to make it meaningful. We must ensure that learners are spending their time wrestling with big ideas, not battling logistics or bogged down by rote tasks.

Second, educators need to face a hard truth about the assignments we give students. Many assignments contain a mix of productive and unproductive struggle, and we are not always very intentional about which is which. Under crushing time and resource pressure, we can become unreflective about the distinction between productive and unproductive work. We inherit assignments, reuse problem sets, and value rigor without always asking where the rigor actually lies.

If AI forces us to confront that, it may be one of the most useful disruptions education has experienced in decades.

For instance, requiring students to write citations according to a set format may feel rigorous, but the cognitive work of formatting has little to do with the intellectual work of evaluating sources and integrating evidence into an argument. This shift requires us to redesign tasks, rethink assessments and, if necessary, let go of practices that feel rigorous but don’t meaningfully deepen understanding.

Sharpening Learning

If we do this well, AI won’t hollow out learning; it will sharpen it. It will give students more space to wrestle with ideas instead of mechanics, more time to interpret instead of transcribe, and more opportunity to make active sense of the world. It will give us a chance to be far more intentional about the kind of struggle we ask students to engage in.

In the end, AI won’t decide whether our students experience cognitive laziness or cognitive growth. We will decide that by how we design assignments and assessments, and by the choices we make about which AI tools to adopt and how we choose to use them.

This is our chance to weed out the punch cards and open up more time for students to struggle over things that truly matter.

Too Many Tools, Not Enough Impact: Districts Rethink Their Edtech Stacks

Ellen Ullman — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 08:34:00 GMT

On a recent evening in suburban Chicago, a group of parents, teachers and administrators gathered to talk about something that, until recently, rarely drew this level of public scrutiny: the role of technology in their schools.

The meeting was part of a three-session tech and learning focus group organized by Mary Jane (MJ) Warden, chief technology officer of Community Consolidated School District 15, in conjunction with the Teaching, Learning and Assessments Department.

The district, which serves 11,000 preK-8 students, spent the past several years — like so many others — adding digital tools. Now, with budgets tightening and concerns about screen time rising, it was time to take stock.

A re-examination of digital tools was already happening with curriculum reviews and tightening budgets after the pandemic. And then the screen time concerns arose.

Participants discussed everything from screen time to what district technology use looks like at home. Out of those conversations came something new: a “Portrait of a Digital Learner,” derived from the district’s Portrait of a Graduate, meant to develop clear expectations around what skills students need and, by extension, which technologies are worth keeping and how technology would be used by students toward positive learning outcomes.

“We’re trying to get much [clearer] about what this is going to address,” says Warden. “What do we need students to learn, and which tools will help us understand where they are?”

Across the country, district leaders are asking similar questions. After years of rapid expansion, many are now engaged in a quieter but more consequential phase: reassessing what stays, what goes and how to decide.

From Buying Tools To Proving Value

For much of the past decade, edtech decisions often began with the product. A new platform promised to boost engagement or personalize learning; districts piloted it, added it to an already crowded ecosystem and moved on.

That approach is no longer sustainable, says Erin Mote, CEO of InnovateEDU, a nonprofit focused on systems change in special education, talent development and data modernization in schools.

“We’re seeing a shift from ‘Does this look cool?’ to ‘Does this work?’” she says. “Districts have less money now; they have to be smarter.”

The end of pandemic-era federal funding has intensified that pressure. Technology leaders are now expected not only to manage infrastructure and compliance, but also to demonstrate what Mote calls a return on instructional impact.

In practice, that is changing how districts approach procurement. Instead of starting with vendor demos, many are beginning with specific learning needs.

“If you need to improve third-grade reading comprehension, you start there,” Mote says. “Then you ask: Which tool can move that needle?”

New Playbook For Evaluation

As districts rethink their approach, a more structured and more skeptical evaluation process is emerging.

One major shift is toward tracking actual usage. Platforms like ClassLink and Clever now give districts detailed analytics on which tools students and teachers are accessing, how often they’re used and, in some cases, how much time is spent in each application. That data has helped uncover what some leaders call “zombie licenses,” products that continue to be renewed despite minimal use.

At Joliet Public Schools in Illinois, technology leaders review usage data each spring alongside feedback from a districtwide technology committee.

“If we’re not getting usage or we have another product that does it better, we start asking hard questions,” says John Armstrong, chief officer for technology and innovation.

But usage alone is not enough. Districts are also weighing cost, redundancy and alignment with instructional goals.

During the pandemic, many schools layered new tools on top of existing ones. Now, leaders are working to simplify.

“We had so many products that teachers were going to four different places to run a lesson,” says Kelly Ronnebeck, associate superintendent for student achievement in East Moline School District 37 in Illinois. “We’re trying to get back to a slower, more intentional process.”

That often means replacing several standalone tools with a single platform that can do multiple jobs — even if it means giving up some features teachers value. In some cases, a newer system can replace several standalone tools at a lower cost but may not match each one’s individual strengths.

“It’s not always a perfect swap,” admits Armstrong. “Someone gives up something.”

At the same time, districts are placing greater emphasis on interoperability and data privacy. Tools must integrate with existing systems like learning management platforms and single sign-on tools, and vendors have to be willing to sign increasingly stringent data privacy agreements.

“If a company can’t meet those requirements, that’s a red flag right away,” says Phil Hintz, CTO of Niles Township District 219 in Illinois.

The Challenge Of Proving What Works

Even as districts adopt more rigorous processes, it remains stubbornly difficult to determine whether edtech tools actually improve learning.

“It’s such a huge challenge,” says Naomi Hupert, director of the Center for Children & Technology at the Education Development Center. “We see so much that doesn’t seem to make a difference but costs a lot of money.”

Part of the difficulty lies in the sheer breadth of what “edtech” encompasses, everything from learning management systems to specialized math platforms to communication tools. Each category has different goals, users and measures of success.

“It’s like asking whether ‘books’ work,” says Hupert. “It depends on the book, the context and how it’s used.”

District leaders have to piece together evidence from multiple sources: vendor-provided analytics, small pilot studies, teacher feedback and, occasionally, external research. But those data points don’t always align.

Jason Schmidt, director of technology in Oshkosh Area School District in Wisconsin, describes his approach as “trust but verify.”

“I know vendors are collecting tons of data, and they have to, but I still need to talk to teachers and understand how the tool is actually being used,” he says.

Even then, results can be uneven. A platform might show strong engagement overall but fail to support certain groups of students — or vice versa.

In Alexandria City Public Schools in Virginia, leaders are developing a formal framework to evaluate both edtech and nontech programs. But defining “value” has proven complex.

“It’s not just usage and cost,” says CIO Emily Dillard. In a district with a high number of English learners, some tools play a critical role for students who need targeted or specialized support.

“You might have a tool that isn’t working for most students — or takes time to show results — but for a small group, it’s the best thing we have. We have to think about what’s best for them, too,” says Dillard.

Building Systems for Quality

Recognizing these challenges, a growing coalition of organizations is working to create clearer signals of quality in the edtech marketplace.

Through the Edtech Quality Collaborative, 1EdTech, CAST, CoSN, Digital Promise, InnovateEDU, ISTE, and SETDA are developing a shared framework built around five indicators: safety, evidence, inclusivity, interoperability and usability.

The goal, says Korah Wiley, senior director of edtech R&D at Digital Promise, is to reduce the noise.

“Right now, there are a lot of certifications and labels, and it’s hard for districts to know what to trust,” says Wiley. “We want to brighten the signal of what quality looks like.”

The initiative includes a planned directory of vetted validators, an implementation guide for districts and a central hub to connect educators with high-quality tools. Leaders hope it will help districts make decisions more confidently and push developers to meet clearer standards.

“This is the cost of doing business in education,” says Mote. “If you want to be in classrooms, you need to be building evidence and demonstrating impact.”

What Happens When Tools Are Cut

For all the talk of frameworks and data, the hardest part of reassessment often comes when districts decide to let a tool go.

Those decisions can affect classroom routines, teacher preferences and even student outcomes. And they are rarely straightforward.

In some cases, tools are phased out because of cost or low usage. In others, they are replaced by more comprehensive platforms. Sometimes, they no longer align with district priorities.

But even when the rationale is clear, the transition can be difficult.

“Teachers build practices around these tools,” says Warden. “We have to be thoughtful about how we support them through change.”

Districts are increasingly pairing those decisions with professional development, clearer communication and, in some cases, community engagement. In Warden’s district, the focus groups that helped define the “Portrait of a Digital Learner” are also shaping how the district explains its choices to families.

“We want to be transparent about what we’re using and why,” she says.

A More Intentional Future

As districts move into this new phase, many leaders describe it as a reset that is forcing them to be more deliberate about how technology fits into teaching and learning.

That includes pushing back on broader narratives that treat all screen time as equal.

“There’s a big difference between passive consumption and purposeful edtech and we need to be clear about this,” says Mote.

It also requires clearer alignment between technology decisions and instructional goals. Without that, even the best tools can fall short.

“If you don’t know what you want teaching and learning to look like, it’s very hard to decide what tools you need,” says Keith Krueger, CEO of CoSN.

Back in District 15, Warden and her colleagues are trying to build that alignment. The conversations sparked by their focus groups are informing not just which tools they keep, but how they define success.

“We’re still digging out from COVID, when we had to move fast and add a lot. Now we have an opportunity to be more strategic.”

For district leaders across the country, that shift may be the most important change of all. The future of edtech, they suggest, will not be defined by the number of tools schools use, but by how thoughtfully they choose them.

I Tell My Students Writing Is Hard. I Still Ask Them to Do It Anyway.

katie wills evans — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:49:49 GMT

My life has changed so much since my time as a Voices of Change fellow during the 2023 school year. As I wrote in my final essay of the fellowship, the beautiful, imperfect school I loved and helped build had closed. With the support of my fellowship editor, Cobretti Williams, I applied and was admitted to the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans, where I am taking graduate classes and teaching a freshman English composition course.

In deciding what to write as a reflection on my time since the fellowship, I started three different essays and hated all of them. I did a lot of cursing, went on a couple of brooding walks and wondered why I agreed to write this in the first place. During the similarly maddening process of designing the syllabus for the first college course I taught, I took a break to write my students a letter. Here is an excerpt:

This excerpt reminds me that writing is much more difficult than most of the things we do in a world that commodifies ease and comfort, upholds them as desirable and makes us feel we are entitled to them while simultaneously less and less able to tolerate their lack.

There is a common misconception that my students come to me with that manifests most often in the statement “I don’t know what to write.” They think this means they are not ready to begin, because they believe that writing is putting what you already know onto paper. I understand why this misconception exists. So often in life, we only see finished products. The published novel, the final cut, the social media post depicting the outcome and not the process and the struggle. It’s easy to think that everyone else has things figured out, that what you see is how something was from the beginning. This can trick us into believing that if something isn’t good right away, we should abandon it. Drafting insists that we try before we feel sure, finish something even if it is not yet “good.” Revision insists that what we have can be something different, something better, and teaches us to hold multiple things in our heads at the same time. Throughout this process, we gain clarity.

Each time we give or receive feedback and assess whether it moves us closer to or further from our vision, we get better at articulating what we want and closer to achieving it. When teachers and students do this work together and commit to improvement, even when we both have moments of uncertainty about what to do next, we are practicing true collaboration. We both grow. What a way to become more skillful at building the world we want.

It is a strange time to be devoting so much of my life to writing, to be telling students that they should care about writing too. Just this week, an article came out detailing pervasive, undisclosed AI use to grade and give feedback to student writing in some New Orleans schools. A study conducted in May of 2025 showed that 84 percent of high school students used generative AI to complete their school work. I understand intimately the overwhelm of educators and students, and the temporary relief that cognitive offloading with AI can provide.

However, what we lose in the long term by not engaging deeply in the writing process, the practice of giving and receiving feedback, of watching revision unfold, is so much greater than the gains we feel in accepting AI’s “help” in our moments of overwhelm. What world are we building when we delegate the human work of communication through writing to machines? We would do better to engage in a process of re-evaluating our priorities, taking on fewer assignments for longer and working collaboratively as educators and administrators to redesign curricula and systems so that teachers have the capacity to get to know their students through repeated contact with their written work.

Sometimes, it feels like we are already living in a completely different world from the one in which I grew up and was educated. Luckily, these times, despite how often folks like to say they are not, are precedented. In these times, I have been turning to Black women writers like Toni Morrison, Toni Cade Bambara, Audre Lorde and June Jordan for guidance, and they all insist writing only becomes more urgent the more dire the times. In facing what Toni Morrison described in 2004 as “a burgeoning ménage a trois of political interests, corporate interests and military interests” working to “literally annihilate an inhabitable, humane future,” I have been especially steeled by Audre Lorde’s words, “In this way alone we can survive, by taking part in a process of life that is creative and continuing, that is growth.”

In the face of a world that would automate us right out of existence, I intend for us to survive, and so I insist we write.

From “Hello, World!” to AI: What Skills Actually Prepare Students for the Future?

Mi Aniefuna — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 08:00:00 GMT

This article is part of the collection: Teaching Tech: Navigating Learning and AI in the Industrial Revolution.

A little over a decade ago, schools were swept into what many described as a movement to prepare students for the future of work. That work was coding — “Hello, world!”

Districts introduced new courses, nonprofits expanded access to computer science education and a growing ecosystem of programs promised to teach students the skills needed to enter the tech workforce. For many, it felt like a necessary correction to a rapidly digitizing world. But over time, a more complicated picture emerged.

While access to computer science education expanded, the relationship between early coding exposure and long-term workforce outcomes became uneven. The “learn to code” movement raised an important question that still lingers today: Which skills actually endure when technologies change? That question has resurfaced in a new form.

Today, generative AI is driving a similar wave of urgency. Schools are once again being encouraged to adapt quickly, often with the same underlying rationale that teachers must prepare students for a future shaped by emerging technologies.

But if the instructional role of AI remains unclear, and if the tools themselves are likely to evolve rapidly, the more persistent challenge may lie elsewhere.

After conducting a two-year research project alongside teachers, who are adapting and are open to integrating AI, we found that uptake is still minimal. Most of our participants, including those who are engineering or computer science teachers, still struggle to identify a clear or universal instructional use case for widespread AI integration.

So, what should students learn to help them adapt to whatever comes next?

A growing body of research suggests that the answer may lie not in teaching students how to use a particular AI system, but in helping them understand the computational ideas that make those systems possible.

The Limits of Teaching the Tool

In recent years, many discussions about AI education have centered on teaching students how to use generative tools effectively. Prompt engineering, for example, has become a common topic in professional development workshops and online tutorials.

Yet, focusing heavily on tool-specific skills can create a familiar educational problem, because technology changes faster than curricula.

Teaching students how to interact with a specific interface risks becoming the equivalent of teaching to standardized tests, rather than teaching students important lessons that don’t appear on state exams.

The history of computing education offers a useful example. In the early 2010s, a wave of coding initiatives encouraged schools to teach programming skills broadly. While many of those programs expanded access to computer science education, subsequent analysis showed that workforce pipelines in technology remained uneven, and many students learned tool-specific skills without developing deeper computational reasoning abilities.

That experience offers a cautionary lesson for the current AI moment. If the goal of integrating AI into education is long-term preparation for technological change, focusing narrowly on how to use today’s tools may not be the most durable strategy.

The Skill That Outlasts the Tool

A growing body of research suggests that computational thinking is a more durable educational objective.

Computational thinking refers to a set of problem-solving practices used in computer science and other analytical disciplines. These include:

breaking complex problems into smaller components
recognizing patterns
designing step-by-step processes
evaluating the outputs of automated systems

These skills apply not only to programming but also to fields ranging from engineering to public policy.

Importantly, they also help students understand how algorithmic systems operate.

When students learn computational thinking, they gain the ability to analyze how technologies like AI produce results rather than simply accepting those results as authoritative.

In this sense, computational thinking provides a conceptual bridge between traditional academic skills and emerging digital systems.

What Teachers Are Already Doing

Many teachers in our study were already moving in this direction, often without using the term computational thinking.

When teachers asked students to analyze chatbot errors, they were encouraging students to examine how algorithmic systems produce outputs. When they designed exercises comparing training data and algorithms to everyday processes, they were helping students reason about how automated systems work.

These approaches do not require students to rely heavily on AI tools themselves. Instead, they position AI as a case study for examining how technology shapes information.

That framing aligns with longstanding educational goals around critical thinking, media literacy and problem-solving.

Implications for Educators

If the instructional use case for generative AI remains uncertain, educators may benefit from focusing on skills that remain valuable regardless of which tools dominate in the future.

Several practical approaches are already emerging in classrooms. Teachers can use AI systems as objects of analysis, asking students to evaluate outputs, identify errors and investigate how models generate responses.

Lessons can connect AI to broader topics such as data quality, algorithmic bias and information reliability.

Assignments that emphasize reasoning, structured problem solving and evidence evaluation continue to support the kinds of cognitive work that remain central to learning.

These approaches allow students to engage with AI without allowing the technology to replace the thinking process itself.

Implications for EdTech Developers

The experiences teachers described also highlight an opportunity for edtech companies.

Many current AI tools were developed as general-purpose language systems and later introduced into education contexts. As a result, teachers are often left to determine whether and how those tools align with classroom learning goals. Future products may benefit from deeper collaboration with educators during the design process.

Teachers in our conversations were already experimenting with small classroom applications, designing AI literacy lessons and building course-specific chatbots.

These experiments resemble early-stage product development.

Partnerships between educators, edtech developers and product managers could help identify instructional problems that AI systems could realistically address.

The Next Phase of the Research

The conversations described in this series represent an early attempt to document how teachers are navigating the arrival of generative AI.

As schools continue experimenting with these tools, the next challenge will be to develop governance frameworks that help educators evaluate when and how AI should be used in learning environments.

Our research team is beginning the next phase of this work by partnering with school districts to develop guidance for AI governance and inviting edtech companies interested in exploring these questions collaboratively.

Rather than assuming that AI will inevitably transform classrooms, this phase of the project will focus on identifying the conditions under which AI tools actually support teaching and learning and how to reduce harm when they don’t.

The fourth grade teacher’s question remains a useful guide: What can I actually use this for in math?

Until the answer becomes clearer, many teachers will likely continue doing what professionals in any field do when new technologies appear: experimenting cautiously, adopting what works and relying on their judgment to decide where or if the tool belongs.

If your school, district, organization, or edtech company is interested in learning more about joining our next project on AI governance, contact our research team at research@edsurge.com.

The AI Use Case Question Teachers Are Still Asking

Mi Aniefuna — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:50:18 GMT

This article is part of the collection: Teaching Tech: Navigating Learning and AI in the Industrial Revolution.

A fourth-grade teacher asked a simple question:

“What can I actually use this for in math?”

This teacher captured the broader moment in education. Over the past several years, schools have been urged to respond to the rapid emergence of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT with limited information and a lot of hype and horror stories. Some have framed the technology as potentially transformative for teaching and learning, while others claim the opposite. Yet in many classrooms, adoption has been slower and more selective than the surrounding hype might suggest.

That hesitation is often interpreted as resistance to innovation, but conversations with educators suggest a different interpretation. In many cases, teachers behave as experts in most fields do when encountering a new technology, evaluating whether it solves a real problem. When professionals encounter a tool that is widely marketed but still evolving, they ask a basic question: What does this actually help me do better?

For many educators, that question remains unresolved when it comes to classroom instruction, and that’s what our research project aimed to answer: What are teachers experiencing with generative AI in their classrooms?

In fall 2024, EdSurge researchers facilitated discussions between a group of 17 teachers from around the world. We convened a group of third to 12th grade teachers, and some of them designed and delivered their own lesson plans, either teaching with or about AI.

Overall, our participants’ responses reflect a few major themes, with the most prominent sentiment being an air of indifference. In particular, a fourth grade math teacher participant attempted to use generative AI in her instruction. However, before adoption, she asked how AI could help her elementary students learn math. Her question captured what several participants were thinking, aligning with 2024 data from the Pew Research Center that shows educators were split on whether student AI use was more harmful than helpful.

A Technology Arriving Faster Than Schools Can Unpack

A high school computer science teacher from Georgia describes her fears about generative AI’s widespread push into classrooms:

A high school library media specialist from New York described the same tension from a different angle:

Schools typically adopt new technologies through deliberate cycles of experimentation, professional development and evaluation. Generative AI has entered classrooms through a different pathway. Consumer tools became available to teachers and students simultaneously, often before schools had developed policies or instructional frameworks for using them.

The result is a situation in which educators encounter the technology while they are still trying to understand its implications.

Where AI Is Already Providing Value

In conversations with teachers, the pattern that appears consistently is a classic user design case. The most immediate use cases for generative AI have little to do with student learning. Instead, an engineering and computer science teacher in New Jersey addressed workload:

Another teacher described similar experimentation among colleagues:

These examples reflect a pattern seen across many professions: Generative AI is particularly effective at drafting, summarizing and generating text. In contexts where professionals face time pressure and administrative demands, those capabilities can be immediately useful.

Teachers experience those same pressures. Beyond instruction, many juggle grading, lesson planning, parent communication, extracurricular supervision and administrative reporting. In that environment, a chatbot that helps compress routine tasks can feel genuinely helpful.

Recent research, as well as national survey data from RAND’s American Educator Panels, suggests that teachers are adopting generative AI primarily as a productivity tool rather than a core instructional technology, a pattern that mirrors how educators in this study described their own early experimentation.

However, instructional discretion is different from a teacher’s administrative workload.

The Instructional Use Case Remains Unclear

When teachers consider introducing AI tools to students during class time, the calculations they make change. The relevant question becomes: What student learning problem does this tool solve? Many educators are still trying to answer this question, even after several years of exposure to generative AI in some capacity.

Some teachers are experimenting with AI in limited ways, such as using it as a revision partner in writing. A science teacher from Guam said:

Others are designing lessons where the technology itself becomes the subject of inquiry. A high school special education teacher in New York shared how she removes the veil from the magic of chatbots.

Learning science research suggests that students benefit most when technology supports reflection and revision, rather than replacing the productive struggle of critical thinking and problem solving, a principle that many teachers in this study have applied. In these cases, AI becomes a tool that students analyze and critique. The participants do not attribute AI as a source of authoritative knowledge.

AI Literacy as a Practical Classroom Entry Point

Many teachers see the most promising instructional opportunity in AI literacy, as it may feel most appropriate to teach students about the tools they’re hearing about and encountering daily. International guidance from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) increasingly frames AI literacy as a foundational skill for students, encouraging schools to help young people understand how algorithmic systems generate information, rather than incorporating AI tools into everyday classroom tasks.

Students already live in environments shaped by algorithmically designed systems, from social media feeds to recommendation engines. Generative AI introduces another layer to that ecosystem.

An elementary teacher from New York state describes focusing on helping students understand how these systems produce information and where they fail:

A middle school teacher from New York uses simple analogies to illustrate how machine learning systems work:

These lessons treat AI less as a productivity tool and more as a window into how digital systems generate knowledge.

Hallucinations, Bias and the Question of Trust

Teachers also raised consistent concerns about the reliability of generative AI outputs. An elementary library media specialist from New York said:

To illustrate the risks, some educators point to real-world examples. A high school French teacher shared:

Others connect these issues to broader discussions about algorithmic bias, explaining why they fear that students will become reliant on these tools. A high school computer science teacher in New Jersey shares her concerns about the increased use of AI by students. She works at a school with large populations of African American, Latino and Black newcomer families from African and Caribbean countries:

In these contexts, AI becomes less a tool for answering questions and more a case study of how technological systems shape information.

The “Air of Indifference”

Taken together, these conversations reveal a stance that is not often captured in public discussions of AI in schools. What initially appeared to be an insignificant factor in keeping teachers interested in robust discussions about AI turned out to be a prominent theme aligned with both existing and emerging research.

By and large, teachers are not rejecting the technology. But they are also not reorganizing their classrooms around AI.

Instead, many are adopting a posture that might be described as pragmatic indifference:

“I use it for lesson planning… but I don’t really use the lessons.”

“I push students not to use it for research.”

In other words, teachers are using AI where it clearly saves time while maintaining boundaries around core learning tasks. This posture reflects professional judgment, rather than resistance to inevitable technological innovation.

Schools exist partly to create conditions in which students practice complex cognitive work, such as deep reading, methodical writing, reasoning through problems and evaluating evidence. If a tool primarily reduces the need to perform that work, teachers have reason to question whether it advances or undermines learning.

And that brings us back to the fourth-grade teacher’s question: What can I use this for with fourth-grade math?

If the instructional use case for AI remains unclear, what should students be learning instead?

That question leads to a deeper conversation about the kinds of skills that remain valuable even as technologies change.

Which Education Jobs Are Growing the Fastest? Mostly Non-Classroom Roles.

Nadia Tamez-Robledo — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 08:00:00 GMT

The approach of a new school year conjures images of teachers preparing their classrooms and principals greeting students as they walk through the doors on the first day of classes.

But federal data shows that the education jobs that will see the most growth over a decade are supporting roles like substitute teachers, therapists and technologists.

The findings are bracketed by changes in student enrollment and the ending of federal school emergency funds, which are reshaping school districts’ staffing outlooks. School districts across the country continue to grapple with millions in budget deficits, leading to hundreds of job cuts in some cases.

Recent reports show that schools are likely to struggle to fill the most in-demand roles.

Highest-Growth Areas

Looking at 10 education roles that will gain the most net jobs by 2034, short-term substitute teachers top the overall rankings with an increase of more than 10,000.

Malia Hite says that Utah is among the states that will see an increase in jobs for teacher assistants and paraeducators, who will specifically support student behavior and early literacy, thanks to an infusion of state and federal funds. Hite serves as the Utah State Board of Education’s executive coordinator of education licensing.

She adds the caveat that it’s tough to attract candidates to those roles, particularly in early childhood education — a problem felt strongly around the country.

“However, I will say that those positions, because those positions are typically an entry-level position with a low wage or part-time, they’re hard positions to fill,” Hite says. “Even in the current job market, [where] it’s hard to find positions, we're still seeing openings in our paraeducator job market statewide. Some of them are making $9 an hour, so why would I do that when I can go somewhere else and make $15 in an entry-level position?”

Hite is cautious when talking about education growth overall because it’s not equal among sectors. Increased demand is expected for non-teacher and non-administrator staff like speech language pathologists, social workers and occupational therapists, she says.

“This is now our second year that we've seen a decrease of student enrollment, and so that means we need fewer teachers, there's less funding, and so we're seeing a lot of things like schools close,” she explains. “So in that way, there's no way that education jobs are going to grow.”

A report from the Consortium for School Networking, a professional organization for K-12 tech leaders, found that schools struggle to retain IT staff across all specialities and levels. Among school leaders that it polled, 16 percent said they were in danger of losing IT staff due to the winding down of federal relief money that was allocated to schools during the pandemic.

Health Workers In Demand

The rest of the list, however, is filled by health therapy roles and technology roles. A recent analysis by staffing company ProTherapy predicts physical therapist assistants, speech-language pathologists and physical therapists will be the most in-demand education jobs of 2026 and continue to see double-digit percentage growth.

Schools employ physical therapists and assistants to ensure that students with disabilities can participate in school activities to the fullest extent, while speech language pathologists help students with communication disorders.

Dakota Long, who headed ProTherapy’s 2026 School Workforce Demand Index, says these jobs are growing in demand because schools are aiming to identify students with disabilities and set up interventions as early as possible, as early as age 3 in some schools.

But another factor in the demand for these specialists – physical therapist assistants, in particular – is the job market they are graduating into.

While teacher graduates are overwhelmingly likely to work in the classroom, newly minted health care workers can be wooed by jobs in hospitals, clinics and home health agencies in addition to schools.

“From my perspective in working with schools, they're wanting to identify those things early on,” Long says, “that way they can provide the best services for these kiddos before it gets to age 7, 8, and then they realize, ‘Oh gosh, we could have been supplying these services earlier.’ So you have early intervention, more kiddos needing these services, but then employees that could be taking on these roles have a lot of different options, as well.”

Hite says that while non-teacher jobs are expected to increase in Utah, though realistically not by as much as ProTherapy’s projections, some nuance is required when looking at what the growth rates mean.

“If I look at the subsector of audiologist, we had two [full-time employees] six years ago, and now we have 11,” she says, an increase of more than five-fold. “We’re talking about 10 people.”

Study: Delaying Kindergarten Has Few Longterm Benefits

Lauren Coffey — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 21:20:33 GMT

In addition to screen time, the type of school to attend, the content children consume and the food they eat, a new concern cropped up for parents over the last few years: Whether to keep their children back a year from entering kindergarten.

“Redshirting,” a reference to collegiate sports in which the athlete sits out a year to boost their skills, has crept into the decision making process for parents with children on the cusp of the age cut-off in kindergarten, usually age 6 in most states. Parents can either have the student as one of the oldest in their grade or among the youngest, with some believing holding their child back can help academic achievement.

But according to a new report, the practice is not becoming more widespread. It has hovered steady at around 5 percent, since the the 1990s and 2010s, The number reached 6.4 percent during the pandemic.

“One of the reasons we wanted to look into it is because we felt like everyone talks about it, but only 1 in 20 students actually do it,” says Megan Kuhfeld, director of modeling and data analytics at NWEA, an education research firm. “So why does it feel like everyone was considering it for their children?”

Kuhfeld hypothesizes the smaller, more vocal group of parents considering redshirting was amplified on social media, but when it came time to make the decision, outside factors – like paying for an extra year of child care, which is becoming more costly than ever — played a large role.

“It might seem that this is a good idea but it’s, ‘We’re on the hook for an extra $15,000 in child-care costs,’ which may not be practical for a lot of families,” Kuhfeld says, adding she expects redshirting to stay steady. “The types to consider it will likely continue to, but a lot of people consider it then decide it’s not practical for a lot of reasons.”

The NWEA study did find more young boys were likely to be kept back than girls, with white students more often than nonwhite students. In the 2021 year, there were also upticks in rural areas, jumping from 6.2 percent to 9 percent, and high poverty areas, jumping from 2.2 to 4.7 percent. That could be because child care is more affordable in smaller towns, or easier to find with a friend, family or neighbor.

Proponents of redshirting say it gives the child an academic and social advantage being an older kindergartner. However, the benefits generally are short-lived, according to the NWEA report. While children initially saw higher reading and math scores, equating to about 20 percent to 30 percent of a year of learning, those results evened out by third grade, when the children who entered kindergarten early catch up to the redshirters.

There is at least one strong reason not to redshirt, according to the American Economic Association: Children who started kindergarten after 5 years old are more likely to drop out later on.

“People often focus on the short-term gains, but it’s important to keep in mind the perspective of what it means to be the older kid in class, where you turn 18 your junior year of high school,” Kuhfeld says. “It’s just keeping in mind these longer term outcomes and making the best decision for your child.”

Some states have begun pushing toward a forced redshirting of sorts. North Carolina public schools shifted its age cut off in 2007, requiring students to be 5 years old or older on Aug. 31, upping the date from a previous mid-October cut off.

Jade Jenkins, an associate professor of education at University of California, Irvine, found in a report that forced redshirting brought pros and cons. It helped math and reading scores in third through fifth grades, and students with forced delays into kindergarten also had a 4 percent increase of being identified as academically gifted. However, the same report found students had a 6 percent drop in disability identification. According to Jenkins’ research, it benefitted lower-income, white students but brought no benefit to Hispanic students.

“Is the valuation of the academic benefits of delayed entry higher than the costs of the hold-out year and the public costs of increased racial-ethnic achievement gaps? Future research can provide a more precise estimate of this calculation, but we find this unlikely,” Jenkins says in the report.

The latest redshirt debate is one of several parents surrounding kindergarten. Some state legislators are pushing for it to become mandatory across the nation, with others concerned about the dipping levels for kindergarten readiness. It has also become more academic-focused than ever, which in part spurred the latest NWEA study.

“We wanted to get this information out in an accessible way to have both the advantages and disadvantages, and not get caught up in blanket guidance,” Kuhfeld says.

“Especially in high socio-economic status schools and districts, there’s already an arms race by preschool to get situated for college, which is where a lot of this comes from,” she adds. “There’s this attitude of, ‘We have to take every avenue to get ahead’ and I don’t think that is healthy.”

National Survey of Parents Identifies Barriers to Family Well-Being

Katie Dukes, EdNC.org — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 19:49:00 GMT

A new survey shows households with children under age 18 are experiencing economic strain, with parents suffering from depression, burnout and hopelessness.

Capita launched the new national survey, Quarterly Insights from American Families, in partnership with YouGov. The survey will be conducted quarterly.

“This is the baseline,” said Elliot Haspel, a senior fellow with Capita. “We really want to be able to ask questions that serve as an early warning system for family well-being.”

Haspel said what stood out to him from the survey is “how much parents are facing precarity right now… I think that it tells us that families are really struggling and they really need support.”

The questions

YouGov, on behalf of Capita, surveyed 1,000 parents with children under age 18 between Feb. 2 and Feb. 16, 2026. North Carolina is one of four states that were oversampled in the survey, meaning the results are especially representative of those facing parents in those states. (The others are Colorado, Michigan and New Jersey.)

The survey consists of 69 questions (available here) designed to track families across three dimensions: stability, predictability, and quality of life. Capita defines the question underlying each dimension:

Stability: Can families meet basic needs without falling into crisis?
Predictability: Can they plan their lives without constant disruption?
Quality of life: Do they have the time, health, and connection to flourish, not just survive?

Haspel explained that this survey is meant to fill the gap between surveys such as RAPID, which focuses on parents and caregivers of young children, and surveys of all Americans more broadly.

He said two-thirds of the survey questions will remain the same each time, and another third will shift based on Capita’s specific areas of interest at a given moment.

Haspel pointed out that for all Americans, life can be stressful, and parenting in particular will always come with its own stressors.

“The issue is, what are the artificial, unnecessary stressors that we put on families as a result of policy choices?” Haspel said.

The answers

One of the main findings from the survey revolves around the economic pressure that families are facing. As the Capita report puts it: “Multiple indicators point to significant and widespread financial stress.”

Here are some of those indicators:

More than a third were worried at some point in the last year that food would run out before they had money to buy more — and almost as many actually had that happen.
One in 5 reported skipping out on needed medical care due to costs in the last year, and 15 percent skipped filling a prescription for the same reason.
In the last three months, 20 percent of households reported a member losing a job or having their hours cut.
In the last month, 25 percent of respondents said they had a shift canceled, shortened, or extended with less than 24 hours’ notice. The same percentage were required to be “on call” — available without guaranteed hours — during that period.

Financial stress can be a leading driver of “toxic stress.” This compounding, long-term stress can do permanent damage to the health of parents and the development of children — and can sometimes lead to adverse childhood experiences.

Evidence shows that safe, stable and nurturing relationships with adults can protect children from the negative outcomes of adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress. But the survey suggests most parents are struggling to maintain that kind of relationship with their children.

Two-thirds of respondents said that in the last month, stress made it hard to be as patient with their children as they wanted to be. And half of parents reported feeling down, depressed or hopeless in the last two weeks.

There are several questions in the survey that pertain specifically to work and child care. Here are some related findings:

More than 70 percent of respondents describe their job as family friendly.
Almost two-thirds said family life is a top priority, and they want their job to fit around it.
In the last year, 27 percent of respondents missed work or lost pay because of child care problems.
One in 5 parents regularly supervise their children while working.

Despite the challenges presented by scheduling, about 70 percent of parents report being satisfied with their existing child care situation, whether they have children who are school age or below. And 81 percent said their communities are welcoming to families with minor children.

But 43 percent said their work schedules made it hard to keep consistent routines for their children, and that matters.

“That lack of control over one’s schedule contributes to lack of control over one’s life more broadly, and it can affect parenting relationships,” Haspel said.

As the Capita report explains:

“Job quality or schedule quality is often thought of as labor policy, it’s not thought of as a family policy,” Haspel said. “If you care about having strong, healthy families, this is a contributing factor.”

The meaning

While this first set of survey results represents the baseline of what Capita plans to measure over time, there are still significant takeaways from this early warning system.

“A lot of what we’ve been hearing around the issues with affordability, the issues with being able to navigate all the extra challenges of parenting in 2020s America is showing up in family well-being,” Haspel said.

Here’s what Capita has to say about the initial survey results:

The report goes on to point out that policies supporting the well-being of children and families are most likely to succeed if they address multiple aspects of family hardship and reach all families who are affected.

Screens in Schools: What the New Screen-Time Debate Means for Educators

Mi Aniefuna — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:39:00 GMT

The screen-time debate is no longer confined to parenting advice. As states introduce legislation limiting devices in schools, and pediatric researchers rethink how digital environments affect development, educators are confronting a difficult question: when does technology support learning, and when does it undermine it?

In the first part of this series, I examined the American Academy of Pediatrics’ updated guidance on children’s digital ecosystems and how screens can shape early development at home. The same principles now apply in another place where children spend much of their day: school.

Screens are already a routine part of early childhood classrooms. In a 2025 RAND survey of pre-K teachers, roughly two-thirds reported using games on electronic devices in their classrooms. At the same time, a growing body of research is raising new questions about how different types of digital media affect children’s developing brains.

One frequently cited Canadian longitudinal study followed nearly 2,500 children between 24 and 36 months old and found that higher levels of screen time were associated with missed developmental milestones on screening tests at ages 36 to 60 months. That means that we’re seeing the developmental effects of increased toddler screen time as early as one year later.

Other studies suggest that certain types of media may be particularly overstimulating for young children. Fast-paced content designed to capture attention usually features rapid scene changes, constant motion, bright colors and loud sound effects. I love shows like Netflix’s “Word Party” for the language acquisition skills it teaches, but its features can overwhelm developing brains and temporarily disrupt executive functions such as attention, emotional regulation and self-control (ask me how I know).

These design features are meant to hold viewers’ attention, but the result can sometimes be what many parents recognize instantly: the moment when their sweet child suddenly turns into what I jokingly call a “screen monster.” I have three of them. I can’t imagine a classroom full of screen monsters.

As new technology becomes even more embedded in our lives, screens have become more pervasive in both homes and classrooms. And because technology changes so frequently, it’s helpful for educators to understand how instructional technology choices can either support or disrupt healthy digital environments for students.

I know this tension well, both as a parent and as a behavioral science and public health researcher. In the first part of this column series, I wrote about how screens have both helped and challenged my own family as we navigated parenting during the pandemic. Like most parents and teachers, we are still figuring it out. I’ve written previously about how short-form video addiction has made its way to Gen Z and Gen Alpha. And I recently reported the results of a research project we did at EdSurge that showed that prohibiting devices doesn’t really meet its intended goal.

Devices, screens, algorithms and technology in general have mutated from a household question to an education policy issue.

The Emerging Landscape of Technology Regulation

From a public health perspective, digital media is becoming part of the broader developmental environment shaping childhood development.

In education, conversations about technology traditionally have focused on the digital divide and ensuring equitable access to devices and internet connectivity. That conversation is shifting.

Researchers are now examining how digital environments affect sleep, attention, emotion regulation and social development. Population-level research suggests that heavy or poorly designed media exposure can contribute to sleep disruption, emotional dysregulation and difficulty disengaging from devices. Remember, screen monsters are lurking with their snotty noses and sippy cups.

Now, these concerns are beginning to influence policy.

Across several states, lawmakers are proposing restrictions on student device usage during the school day, including bans on smartphones and new scrutiny of edtech that uses personalized algorithms to maximize engagement. Since many edtech companies have enhanced or marketed their AI-powered features, the competition to capture and hold students’ attention has likely stiffened.

This is a significant shift. Historically, digital technology, social media and the Internet has been one of the least regulated environments with, arguably, among the greatest effects on both children’s and adults’ lives. Technological change often moves faster than public policy and data, leaving lawmakers and educators to respond after new tools become widespread.

Now the regulatory landscape appears to be catching up and entering the environments children already inhabit.

So What Should Educators Do?

What started as a deeply personal parenting dilemma has become a much larger question for schools. As pediatric researchers update guidance on children’s digital environments, and states debate limits on student screen exposure, educators are being asked to reconsider how technology shapes the cognitive environments where children learn.

The debate often falls into extremes. Some people argue that screens are ruining learning. Others claim that technology is the future of education.

The research suggests that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

This is one of those test questions where “all of the above” fits best. How screens affect children depends heavily on context, content and duration of use. A passive, fast-paced digital experience is very different from an interactive lesson where students discuss ideas, solve problems or collaborate with peers.

It can be tempting to respond to uncertainty by rejecting technology altogether. And I don’t fault that perspective, because I believe that response comes from a desire to protect kids from unpredictable harm. But the reality is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for every child, classroom, school or community.

Public health offers a useful framework for thinking about this challenge: harm reduction.

When an exposure is widespread and difficult to eliminate, reducing risk is often more effective than banning it outright. Seatbelts and car seats made riding in cars and buses safer, instead of banning vehicles to reduce vehicular accidents. That’s a classic harm-reduction strategy.

Similarly, screens are unlikely to disappear from classrooms. The more productive question is how educators can create guardrails that reduce potential harms while preserving the benefits of digital tools. I think students would keep using devices, anyway. What’s school without TikTok dances nowadays?

That means choosing technology that supports interaction rather than passive consumption, and balancing digital activities with discussion and hands-on learning. The personalized algorithms in edtech are becoming more common, but the science suggests that it’s best to avoid tools designed primarily to maximize screen engagement.

As states debate new regulations on student screen exposure, educators and school leaders will increasingly be asked to make decisions about how technology shapes the environments where children learn.

The research offers a useful starting point: children’s brains learn best through interaction, conversation, manageable stimulation, productive struggle, and moments of curiosity that make ideas stick.

Technology can support those experiences. But it cannot and will not replace the relationships between students and the adults who teach and care for them.

The real question for schools is not whether screens belong in classrooms, but whether they help students think, or simply keep them clicking and scrolling.

What Happens When Employers Co-Design the Cybersecurity Classroom

Kim Richards — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:55:00 GMT

When high school students step into a cybersecurity internship, they enter a field where the stakes are real. The tools, threats and responsibilities extend well beyond the classroom. In rural communities, such opportunities can be transformative — for both learners and the regions working to build a future-ready workforce.

In eastern Alabama, cybersecurity pathways are creating new opportunities for collaboration between educators and employers, reflecting a broader lesson: Workforce development is more impactful when industry helps shape learning early. As cybersecurity threats grow more complex, many employers say preparing future talent does not begin at the point of hiring — it starts earlier, through partnerships connecting classrooms, credentials and real-world experience.

For district leaders and career and technical education (CTE) directors designing career-connected learning, these partnerships can help align instruction with workforce realities while expanding students’ access to high-demand careers.

Industry as a Co-Designer

Cybersecurity is a field that depends on industry insights. The tools and threats defining the work often evolve faster than traditional curriculum cycles, and employers see firsthand how quickly skill requirements change.

Scott Ross, director of information technology at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, has seen how quickly the field changes throughout his career. While professional credentials such as Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) can signal readiness, Ross points to internships and applied experience as equally critical.

“Credentials matter, but they only tell part of the story,” Ross said. “What really prepares students for cybersecurity work is exposure — seeing how systems operate in the real world and understanding the responsibility that comes with protecting them.”

That perspective shapes HudsonAlpha’s engagement with regional education partners. As cybersecurity roles expand across sectors, from defense and healthcare to biotechnology and agriculture, employers are increasingly invested in helping students understand the range of opportunities available and the expectations that come with them.

A Regional Effort Takes Shape

In eastern Alabama, those connections are coordinated through the East Alabama Regional Cybersecurity Alliance (EARCA), a collaboration among K-12 districts, postsecondary institutions and industry partners focused on growing local cybersecurity talent. Rather than operating in isolation, schools and employers are aligning around shared goals: relevant curriculum, meaningful credentials and work-based learning opportunities tied to workforce needs.

Ross sees this regional approach as essential. “Cybersecurity isn’t limited to one industry,” he said. “When education and employers collaborate across sectors, students gain a clearer picture of where these skills apply, and regions build stronger, more adaptable talent pipelines.”

With thousands of unfilled cybersecurity roles in the state, that alignment helps keep learning connected to opportunity.

How Industry Partnerships Shape Learning

For educators, industry engagement can change what is possible inside schools. Tanner Gamble, the computer science and cybersecurity teacher at Childersburg High School in Talladega County, has seen how employer involvement reshapes student motivation and confidence.

“When students know their learning connects directly to real jobs, it changes how they approach the work,” Gamble said. “They’re not just completing assignments; they’re preparing for environments they know they’ll encounter.”

Preparing teachers for industry-aligned instruction is also central to the effort, said Ira Lacy, who trains educators and connects them with employers to support cybersecurity pathways across Alabama.

“When you train teachers using industry practices and give students access to authentic experiences, you start building a pipeline that lasts,” Lacy said. “We’ve seen graduates in North Alabama come back to mentor younger students and invest in their hometowns, and now we’re applying the same approach in eastern Alabama.”

Internships and industry-aligned credentials help validate pathways at the school level by demonstrating clear connections between classroom instruction and real workforce needs.

“Internships and credentials act as the ‘proof of work’ for school cybersecurity programs,” said Hillary Rogers, principal of Childersburg High School. “They bridge the gap between theory and real-world practice, ensuring students aren’t just learning about the digital front lines — they’re equipped to operate in them.”

Learning That Changes Trajectories

That impact is evident in Gavin's experience, a junior at Childersburg High School who participated in a summer internship with the IT department at Heritage South Credit Union. During the internship, Gavin worked alongside IT staff, troubleshooting real systems, building and maintaining network infrastructure, and learning how access and risk are managed in real-world settings.

The experience opened the door to continued applied learning. Gavin now supports the IT department at Childersburg High School and earned his CompTIA Tech+ certification, an early milestone in a pathway focused on technical skill development and professional responsibility.

“The internship allowed me to start dreaming for myself and what I want my future to look like,” Gavin said. “I’ve always been interested in space, and now I can see different paths, like working in aerospace or eventually leading an IT department near Huntsville.”

For employers and educators, helping students see concrete future pathways is a powerful outcome of early work-based learning.

Why Employers Invest

While not every employer is positioned to host interns, those who engage early gain clearer insight into student readiness and stronger workforce alignment. Early exposure helps employers identify motivated learners and reduce uncertainty in later hiring decisions.

“If we wait until graduation to connect with talent, we’ve missed an opportunity,” Ross said. “Early exposure helps students prepare, and it helps employers build a workforce that understands their needs.”

At a regional level, these investments can contribute to rural economic stability by increasing the likelihood that students will pursue and remain in local careers.

A Blueprint for Other Regions

EARCA is part of broader efforts led by Digital Promise’s Center for Learner Pathway Innovations to develop statewide cybersecurity pathways that connect education and workforce systems. Pathways are strongest when learning, work and community are connected early. For students like Gavin, that collaboration opens doors. For employers, it helps ensure the next generation is ready to meet that demand.

Beyond the Classroom: How School Districts Are Building Real-World Career Pathways

Ellen Ullman — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:00:00 GMT

When a water-treatment plant outside Denver discovered an algae problem in its pipes, it did not call an engineering firm. It called the students.

The aquatic robotics team at the Innovation Center at St. Vrain Valley Schools in Longmont, Colorado, sent underwater robots into the facility, collected data, identified the algae species and helped eradicate it. The plant now contracts with the student team for quarterly checkups. Neighboring towns have started calling, too.

This is not a simulation or a classroom exercise conjured up to look like real work. It is real work, and it reflects a broader shift underway in districts. Increasingly, schools are building career learning pathways that connect students directly with professional challenges, industry mentors and, in some cases, a paycheck.

The Case for Real Work

The urgency behind these efforts is hard to ignore. A 2023 review from the American Institutes for Research, drawing on two decades of studies, found that career and technical education participation has statistically significant positive impacts on academic achievement, high school completion, employability skills and college readiness.

The question districts are now wrestling with is not whether to offer career pathways, but whether those pathways lead anywhere real.

Policy leaders are paying attention. The Education Commission of the States has identified building aligned career pathways and removing barriers to economic opportunity as one of its top priorities through 2027.

At St. Vrain, Assistant Superintendent of Innovation Joe McBreen has spent years trying to answer that question through a program known as project teams.

After school each day, roughly 264 students log in at the district’s Innovation Center and begin work as paid district employees, billing hours against accounts for actual clients. Students can join a drone show team, a cybersecurity unit, an AI development group or a dozen other teams, rotating among them as their interests evolve.

“It’s low threat, high reward,” says McBreen. “Students get paid, grow their network, develop soft skills and test drive careers. And if they get into a team and realize it’s not for them, there’s real value in that, too.”

The model relies heavily on industry mentors who bring in real work rather than invented classroom projects. Damon Brown, a senior cybersecurity adviser for the U.S. Department of State focused on Ecuador, mentored seven St. Vrain students on a complex assignment.

He asked them to design the architecture for a cyber intelligence fusion center using open-source tools — work that could have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars if contracted from a professional firm.

“The students knocked it out of the park,” says Brown.

They built the system architecture, wrote user manuals, recommended equipment and conducted a threat analysis of countries surrounding Ecuador. Brown was so impressed he is now hiring six St. Vrain interns.

“This experience binds people together,” he says.

The program also has a way of growing in unexpected directions. After one student’s grandparent was victimized by a cybercrime, the cybersecurity team created an awareness curriculum for senior citizens. They taught five classes to 24 senior citizens in the first year; the second session was standing room only. Senior facilities now pay the students to come in and teach.

Meanwhile, the drone team flies commercial shows for companies across the country on Friday afternoons, billing clients at rates few drone pilots in the country can match. One former member is now studying aerospace engineering and using money from drone flying to help pay for college.

Taking the Model Out West

St. Vrain’s work has drawn attention from educators around the country, some of whom are adapting pieces of the model to fit their own communities.

Kris Hagel, chief information officer of Peninsula School District in Washington state, visited the Innovation Center and came away convinced he could build something similar.

Two years ago, Peninsula launched a paid drone internship program, starting with seven students and gradually expanding. Students work alongside industry partners while learning how to navigate FAA regulations, program autonomous flight paths and repair drones.

“When you’re willing to look at what’s cutting edge and think innovatively without being constrained by traditional systems, you can create opportunities for kids that transcend what we think of as traditional education,” says Hagel. “This program has become so much more than I thought was possible.”

The district partnered with Firefly Drone Systems, one of the few American drone manufacturers, to train students and help them operate drone shows.

The program also includes multiple roles beyond piloting, including marketing, animation design and equipment maintenance. Hagel envisions a future where students studying business management hire other students to operate the program.

A skilled drone operator who leaves high school with the capital to purchase equipment can enter a six-figure career almost immediately, says Hagel.

Finding the Problem First

Not every district is building toward robotics contracts or drone shows. For Michele Davis, CTE department chair at Metropolitan School District of Steuben County in Indiana, the real-world pathway is entrepreneurship.

Working with the StartED Up Foundation, Davis guides students through a three-year sequence: identifying an actual problem, developing a solution, building out the business model and presenting it to real audiences.

Students take “opportunity walks” around the school, documenting everyday frustrations and brainstorming solutions. They learn how to market their ideas professionally by practicing elevator pitches, presenting case studies to various audiences and explaining their ideas to elementary school students.

“Opportunities are everywhere,” says Davis.

The ideas that emerge can be surprisingly practical. One student designed a reversible outfit to solve a quick-change problem in theater productions. Another class developed a mobile trailer concept that could help unhoused people access hygiene services.

Beyond the business concepts themselves, Davis says the program focuses heavily on communication skills and confidence. “We get students comfortable doing things that are normally uncomfortable,” she says.

A Credential, Not Just a Class

At Suffern Central School District in Rockland County, New York, Superintendent P. Erik Gundersen has taken yet another approach.

Through a partnership with the League of Innovative Schools and curriculum provider Paradigm, the district launched a three-year cybersecurity certification pathway embedded directly into the high school. About 60 students are currently enrolled.

The program was designed to reach students who might not otherwise see themselves in a cybersecurity career. The district actively recruited students from immigrant communities and others who are new to the U.S.

Students work in a “sandbox” environment that simulates real cyber incidents, allowing them to practice identifying threats and responding to attacks.

“The means to send a kid to college is not as great as it was, and a lot of what we’re reading questions the importance of a college education,” says Gundersen.

Those economic realities, he says, are pushing districts to rethink how they prepare students for the workforce.

Career credentials embedded with traditional high schools can open doors for students who may not otherwise have clear pathways into high-skill industries.

Education That Looks Like Life

Across these programs, the details vary widely, but the philosophy is the same: Authentic experience is not a supplement to education. It is education.

As McBreen says, “I encourage districts to expand their vision. Anyone can do this. Start small.”

When a Box Is No Longer a Castle: Restoring Wonder in a Screen-Filled World

Hema Khatri — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Recently I placed an empty cardboard box in the center of my preschool classroom of 4-year-olds. No label. No instructions. No purpose given. A few years ago, that simple box would have instantly transformed into something magical — a castle, a race car, a pirate ship, a cozy home for tiny animals. Instead, my students stood around it, waiting. One finally asked, “What is it supposed to be?”

In that moment, I realized something deeper than a simple change in play had occurred. When a box is no longer a castle, it isn’t just imagination that is missing, it is wonder. And in a world filled with screens, schedules and endless stimulation, wonder no longer appears on its own. It must now be intentionally restored.

Children today are just as bright, curious and capable as ever. What has changed is the way they engage with the world. Many of my students now hesitate to begin open-ended play without direct instruction. They wait for something to be defined for them instead of defining it themselves.

I often see children repeating lines from television shows or mimicking characters from online videos instead of creating their own stories. The pause before pretend play is longer. The ideas come slower. The confidence to imagine feels weaker.

This is not a sign of laziness or lack of intelligence. It is simply a reflection of the environment they are growing up in, one that is fast paced, highly structured and heavily influenced by screens. When children spend more time consuming content than creating it, the part of the brain responsible for imagination gets less opportunity to grow. Like any skill, imagination weakens when it is not practiced regularly.

Ready-Made Creations

Technology is not the enemy. Screens can teach, connect, entertain and inform. Many children learn letters, numbers, languages and songs through digital tools. But when screens begin to replace play instead of supporting it, something essential begins to disappear.

Screens provide ready-made worlds: characters, voices, sounds, colors and stories are already created. There is nothing left for the child to imagine. They move from being creators to being viewers.

In the past, boredom often led to creativity. A child with “nothing to do” would invent something. A stick became a wand. A blanket became a cape. A cardboard box became a castle. Today, even a few seconds of boredom is quickly filled with a device.

The silence that once gave birth to imagination is replaced by noise, movement and constant stimulation. Over time, children become more comfortable being entertained than entertaining themselves. Wonder does not disappear; it simply falls asleep.

Why Wonder Matters

Imagination is not just child’s play. It is essential to development. When children pretend, they practice:

communication and language
emotional expression
empathy and understanding
planning and problem-solving
cooperation and negotiation
confidence and independence

Wonder teaches children how to think, not just what to think. In a world that demands creativity, adaptability and emotional intelligence, imagination is not optional. It is foundational.

Restoring Wonder — Together

The responsibility to protect imagination does not belong to teachers alone. Nor does it belong only to parents. It lives in the space between them.

Restoring wonder in children requires partnership. When home and school move with the same intention, magic begins to return. Children feel safe enough to imagine freely again. Imagination does not return because we demand it. It returns when the adults in a child’s life agree to protect the space for it together. Here are simple yet powerful ways families and educators can work together:

Make space for unstructured play. Children need time with no agenda, no instructions, and no screen. Even thirty minutes a day can make a difference.
Offer open-ended materials. Boxes, fabric, paper, paint, blocks, tape, water, and natural items invite imagination far more than expensive, pre-designed toys.
Let boredom exist. When a child says “I’m bored,” it is not a problem to fix. It is an invitation to imagine. Instead of offering a screen, try asking: “What could you do?”
Ask open-ended questions. Instead of correcting, wonder with them: “What is this becoming?” Who lives here?” “What happens next in your story?”
Create screen-free moments. Choose a time each day when screens are put away. Protect it as imagination time.
Communicate across home and school. A simple conversation with the teacher helps: “What is my child interested in lately?” “What do you see them creating in class?” “How can we support that at home?”

A Quiet Call Back to Wonder

The world is louder now. Faster. More digital than ever before. But a box is still a box. A child is still a child. And inside every child, a castle is still waiting to be built.

Wonder is not gone. It is waiting.

Waiting for silence. Waiting for time. Waiting for trust. Waiting for space.

Perhaps the real question is not what children have lost, but what we, as adults, are willing to return to them. And maybe the moment we choose to slow down, to listen, and to leave a box unlabeled, we will begin to see castles rising again.

Why NYC Schools Invested in Coaching for Staff Outside the Classroom

Ben Weinstein — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:55:00 GMT

In a system serving nearly 1 million students across more than 1,800 schools, the distance between a central office cubicle and a second grade classroom in New York City Public Schools can feel immense — yet they are inextricably linked. When the central office works, schools get the resources and support they need. When it does not, the friction and challenges can ripple directly into classrooms.

Supporting that system requires thousands of central office staff whose work rarely makes headlines but directly shapes how schools function, from budgets to policies to resource allocation. Recently, the district tried something unusual: offering executive coaching — including human- and AI-powered options — to those behind-the-scenes employees.

The move came as staff navigated shifting priorities and persistent uncertainty in the years after the pandemic, raising questions about how best to provide a stable foundation for schools. Through a partnership with the digital coaching and workforce development company BetterUp, central office staff are developing skills such as agency, agility and clarity — capabilities district leaders see as essential to sustaining and stabilizing the nation’s largest school system.

EdSurge spoke with Tracie Benjamin-Van Lierop, New York City Public Schools’ executive director of organizational development, talent and culture, about what this coaching looks like in practice and why investing in the people outside the classroom supports the success of the people inside it.

EdSurge: What was the climate like for central staff before coaching began?

Benjamin-Van Lierop: Coming out of the pandemic, there was a lot of uncertainty. I would say the biggest challenge was feeling seen.

A lot of focus is rightfully on supporting school-based staff, but the people behind the scenes — the ones making sure schools run smoothly — also need development and support.

How did you view coaching at first?

At first, my schedule was just crazy, and I thought, “This is just one more thing I have to do.” One colleague attended the orientation, came back excited and said, “I think this is something we should really look into.” I tried one session, then a second, and three years later, I’m with the same coach.

Sometimes coaching can be seen as punitive — maybe that isn't the right word — but it’s like it’s there to fix something, and that’s not what I wanted. I wanted us to see coaching as a lever to improve the culture in the organization. We want people who want to work here, and if the environment has room for improvement, we want to hear that.

What shifts have you seen in how people approach coaching?

One person’s story was very similar to mine. They kept hearing colleagues talk about their positive experiences with coaching and said, “Let me try it out.”

They tried it and ended up getting a promotion because they learned to speak up in a respectful way. A lot of that newfound confidence and professionalism came from role-playing with their coach. Role-playing felt like a safe way to prepare for difficult conversations. That person said, “I don't know that my supervisor would have seen me in the light that they see me in now had I not been able to do those role-play activities with my coach.”

Other signs of success are easy to see: People vote with their feet. If they did not want to continue, they wouldn’t. We’ve gone from “This is something that I have to do,” to “This is something I want to do.”

This affects the work itself. We’re seeing stronger work products and stronger connections between offices and schools as we develop a clearer understanding of why we do this work.

Employee Resource Group (ERG) leaders were among the first central-office staff invited into the coaching pilot. Several describe it as an important source of support as they work to amplify employee voice and strengthen culture across the system. Because ERG leadership is layered on top of full-time roles, coaching has offered space for reflection and skill-building in a complex and demanding environment. The benefits carry into the teams and schools they serve.

How does AI coaching fit in alongside human coaching?

It depends on comfort level and sometimes generation. I’ve tried my AI coach and thought, “No, thanks. I need a human.” But some of our [younger] leaders choose AI because that’s their comfort level. One colleague will only do role-plays with their AI coach because they feel it’s a safe, nonjudgmental space.

At the end of the day, if that tool is supporting what is happening in schools, then it’s helpful. I see that as an area that will continue to grow.

How has coaching shaped your own leadership?

It has changed me — or I would say transformed me — in a holistic way. It’s not just at work; it has transformed my whole approach to decision-making, my sense of impact and my intentionality.

It has also made me a more curious leader. Sometimes I make judgments based on a story I’ve created in my head, and that story may not be true. I’ve learned to recognize that tendency and ask, “How am I getting to the heart of the matter?” Nine times out of ten, when I take that curious stance, it elevates the work in ways I wasn’t able to three and a half years ago.

What advice would you give to districts thinking about coaching?

First, make it voluntary. Coaching can be seen as, “You're getting a coach because you’re not doing your job well,” but that's not what it is. People who opt in often become the biggest supporters later.

Second, coaching requires effort. It’s not just about meeting for 45 minutes. It’s a partnership — a two-way street — and you have to put in the work. It won’t work if you don’t.

Third, really use the data from your coaching partner to track progress and refine your approach.

Coaching is often seen as a nice-to-have, and I understand that, especially with all the demands right now. But this is an investment in your people. If your people are going to do the job well, they need to feel invested in, and this is one of the best investments I’ve experienced in my career.

The First Screen My Daughter Ever Saw

Mi Aniefuna — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 07:43:00 GMT

Within the first 24 hours of my daughter’s life, I put a screen in her face.

I know. That’s the opposite of all the research I had highlighted and annotated while my wife was pregnant. But it wasn’t by choice. That screen was the only way my wife could meet our newborn.

As soon as our daughter was born, she was rushed to the NICU, tubes and cords draped across her swaddle while clinicians moved quickly around her. My wife was rolled out of the operating room in the opposite direction to receive intravenous magnesium for suspected preeclampsia.

She couldn’t hold our baby for the first 24 hours of her life. So I held up a phone.

Through FaceTime, my wife met the tiny fighter she had just brought into the world. I still have the screenshot from that moment. When we finally brought our baby home, we tried to avoid screens altogether. We had read the guidance: infants should have little to no screen exposure. But screens were everywhere.

We became parents at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when every new virus variant seemed to appear just as we were finally ready to walk into a grocery store again. So our daughter met grandparents, cousins and friends through screens.

As parents of a premature baby, we watched her like hawks. Every eye movement. Every babble. Every head lift. Our developmental pediatrician warned us about possible delays, so we studied every tiny milestone. Ironically, it was a screen that gave us one of our most reassuring moments.

During the 2020 Summer Olympics, our barely 60-day-old preemie tracked a ping-pong rally across the television. Her head moved side to side, and her tiny eyes followed that tiny ball. Another time, she would instantly stop crying or giggle when the catchy theme song from the ’90s sitcom Smart Guy came on. (Yes, we are those nostalgic millennials rewatching childhood shows.)

Because we weren’t around many other people during lockdown, the sounds and visuals in our home became strange little markers of development.

When our daughter grew into toddlerhood, we cautiously experimented with a few children’s programs.

Our rotation included Ms. Monica’s Circle Time and Ada Twist, Scientist for culturally relevant and playful introductions to phonics, object identification, and scientific thinking. Word Party was great for reinforcing vocabulary and early language exposure.

But we rarely just pressed play. Most of the time, we were watching with her, singing along, repeating sounds and asking questions.

Researchers call this co-viewing: when adults watch and interact with media alongside children. Studies show that when caregivers talk with children during media use, repeating words, asking questions or connecting what’s on screen to real life, children process and remember more of what they see.

In other words, the screen isn’t doing the teaching by itself. Much of the learning happens in the conversation around it.

But I’ll be clear: we have not figured this out. Parenting and technology evolve at about the same pace, and that pace is quick.

We’ve had our share of “Here, take the tablet and sit still while I finish this” moments. And we learned quickly how counterproductive that can be. Because when screen time stretches too long, the cognitive overload monster shows up.

Young children’s brains are still developing the executive functions that regulate attention, emotion and self-control. These skills rely heavily on the prefrontal cortex and develop gradually throughout childhood. Highly stimulating digital media that includes features like fast pacing, constant motion, bright colors, and rapid scene changes can overwhelm children’s brains. Experimental studies have found that exposure to fast-paced media can temporarily disrupt executive function in preschool children.

In other words, the same design features that capture children’s attention can also overstimulate their developing brains. That complexity is part of why pediatric guidance around screen time is evolving.

For years, the conversation focused on how many minutes children spent in front of screens. But newer research suggests the question isn’t just how much screen time children get. A major update in science shows that what also matters is what kind of digital environment surrounds them.

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ updated guidance reflects this shift. Instead of focusing only on minutes, the organization encourages adults to think about children’s digital ecosystems, which are the broader environment of devices, content, digital algorithms, and interactions shaping how children experience media.

Their recommendations still include familiar guidance:

avoid screen exposure for children under 18 months, except for video calls
ensure media does not interfere with sleep, physical activity or social interaction
prioritize high-quality programming
co-view whenever possible

The updated framework recognizes what many families already know: screens are not disappearing from children’s lives. In fact, they’re becoming ubiquitous earlier in children’s lives. The goal is not to pretend they don’t exist. Guidance from pediatricians suggests we carefully curate how the environments surrounding them influence children’s development.

For my family, that realization started with a phone screen glowing in a hospital room. That moment reminds me that screens themselves are not inherently problematic. What matters is the environment we build around them.

In my next column, I’ll look at how this research is shaping debates over screen use in schools and what educators should consider as states begin regulating instructional technology. In the meantime, let me know what you think about screens in schools.

Screen-Free Schools? Some Legislators Push for a New Normal

Lauren Coffey — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 08:20:00 GMT

When Kim Whitman’s son was in kindergarten in 2015, it was the first time their school district rolled out a one-to-one device program, assigning an electronic device to every child. Beyond using it in the classroom, the children were required to bring it home each night to charge it — but with that came the temptation to use the device after hours.

“My children never had a device and suddenly they had these iPads at home I had to manage,” Whitman, now the co-lead for the Distraction-Free Schools Policy Project, says.

Over a decade later, personal devices are more ubiquitous in some classrooms than mechanical pencils. Device adoption catapulted during the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to an influx of federal dollars and to usher children into virtual schooling. But that adoption rush created what some experts deemed as a bit of toothpaste-out-of-the-tube moment, where decisions were made without fully thinking through the ramifications.

“For a lot of logistical reasons and necessity through the pandemic, we sort of went all in — we had to,” says Kate Blocker, director of research and programs at Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development. “Digital programs and edtech broadly has come with a lot of promise, including improving student learning and improving teacher and administration efficiency. The question people are starting to ask themselves is, ‘Are we seeing those benefits?’”

Some legislators and advocates are pushing to roll back the reliance on devices, particularly at a younger level when children are more susceptible to distractions.

“You don’t tell smokers to sit next to a pack of cigarettes,” Angela Duckworth, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and leader in the educational psychology sector, says. “You tell them to remove yourself from temptation.”

What Brought Us Here

With many parents thinking more critically about their children’s relationships with screen time comes a new swell of concern about personal devices, especially in learning environments. According to federal data, 9 in 10 public schools had a one-to-one program giving every student a school-issued device for the 2024–25 school year.

While research is sparse on the overall effects of personal devices like laptops and iPads in school, they are becoming a proven distraction in the classroom. Duckworth served as the lead investigator for a newly released study that found teachers estimate 1 in 3 students used laptops during class for non-academic purposes, including texting and social media scrolling.

“It was becoming clear to us, from our previous open-ended responses to the survey, that phones are not the only digital distraction in the classroom,” she says.

Duckworth herself has a “no technology” rule in her lecture hall, put in place after finding many of her students were using their laptops to watch movies, online shop or study for other classes.

“If you see a kid with a phone, you know they're not supposed to be doing something,” she says. “With a laptop, kids become Oscar-winning actors and actresses: They look up and down and seem like they’re doing something they’re supposed to be doing.”

There is also the concern of data collection for unknowing students.

“I’m aware of pressure around data and data management, with questions around appropriate guardrails in place,” Blocker says. “So many companies hold an immense amount of student data. Is that being managed properly and held to the same standards as the curriculum?”

And the rise — and rising fear — of artificial intelligence may have also fueled this hard look at education technology and its devices.

“There’s the larger techno-panic happening around devices in schools especially now that AI has arrived,” says Carrie James, co-director of the Center for the Center for Digital Thriving at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “In the past, schools have been very intentional: They have a school committee meeting and make very clear decisions about which pieces of technology they’re going to adopt. The challenge around generative AI is it arrived on everyone's devices, and now schools have to reckon with it. I think that piece is exacerbating it.”

Reining in Tech

Whitman says roughly nine states have presented some form of “Safe Schools Technology” legislation, following the lobbying of the Distraction-Free Schools Policy Project.

She is quick to point out the legislation is not seeking to ban technology entirely, but instead will require schools to limit it so that students don’t have “unsafe, ineffective or inappropriate experiences.”

“We believe in tech education,” Whitman says. “You need education on technology — how to use Excel, how to type — these are all really important skills for students to have. But it doesn’t mean we have to teach everything through the device.”

State policymakers are trying a few different methods of regulating edtech through legislation. There’s limiting screen time, but keeping the technology – a strategy particularly popular in elementary schools – and has been introduced in bills in Oklahoma, West Virginia and Missouri. Vermont introduced a bill earlier this year allowing parents to opt their kids out of using electronic devices in the classroom.

And some leaders in Kansas are attempting to ban hardware devices in elementary schools, but allow a shared-device model — like a computer lab — in middle schools, and limit classroom screen time to one hour a day. For high school students, that would be bumped up to 90 minutes a day.

There is also a focus on the edtech itself, with state efforts attempting to ensure it is certified in the same way other curricula are certified, outlining steps for evaluating and choosing products and communicating about that process to parents.

That is a particularly tricky conversation, with questions swirling around the onus of verification: if it is the school’s job or the company’s responsibility, or if that task belongs to a third party. Experts say there is no national, catch-all system that easily shows if an edtech company does what it claims to do, though the Internet Safety Lab and American Academy of Pediatrics have given some guidelines that can help.

Whitman pushed for third-party intervention.

“There is nobody right now that is confirming these products are safe, effective and legal,” she says. “It should not fall on the district’s IT director; it would be impossible for them to do it. And the companies should not be tasked with doing it — that would be like nicotine companies vetting their own cigarettes.”

But many districts, particularly those that serve low-income and minority populations, are in a tough spot with mitigating edtech usage and implementations. They often do not have the funds to purchase new textbooks, which typically cost more than their digital counterparts. They have also invested heavily — often through grants or federal funds — in digital devices.

“That is in fact the conundrum: School administrators are in a tug of war,” Blocker says. “They’ve invested in so much, and a lot of the products came with promise. It’s not like they grabbed a brick and said, ‘I’m going to make this work.’ They were told they were going to have all these benefits.”

And James, of the Center for the Center for Digital Thriving, said it is important to remember some student populations, such as her neurodivergent child, benefit greatly from the expanded access digital products can provide.

“Edtech and assistant technology are key for her learning,” James says, pushing against a sweeping blanket ban. “That’s where the decision has to be school-community specific. Educators know their community best, and these regulations have to be designed for their students.”

Widespread Adoption?

The new efforts targeting laptops and edtech tools follow a swell of states banning student cellphones in the classroom, with many restricting them in between class periods and lunch time as well. While that has been one of the rare successful bipartisan efforts at the state and federal levels, experts say going entirely device-free in schools is a much more nuanced conversation.

“School phone bans are less about technology for learning’s sake and more about technology interfering with learning,” Blocker says. “I think it was clearer for everyone to see why [banning phones] might have a good outcome. It is much harder with edtech; there is evidence, particularly for older students, that when used well it can be beneficial.”

Whitman disagrees, though, saying while it may be a slower uptick than phone bans, she does believe edtech bans will eventually reach that same level.

“Parents are becoming aware and coming together with collective action,” she says. “I think this will be similar to phone-free schools eventually. It will, but we’re on the cusp of it right now.”

James urges schools and districts to focus less on silver-bullet solutions like total bans and more on multifaceted approaches to integrating technology well.

“Bans might feel like they can be a starting point for better learning, but they can’t really be the finish line,” she says.

For the sake of children and teens, James adds, “we have to build agency and intentionality for using technology well, because as soon as they walk out of school, you typically have pretty incredible access to technology.”

Schools Keep Facing the Same Challenges. Students and Educators Know What Needs to Change.

Viki M. Young — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 17:55:00 GMT

Educators have seen wave after wave of “innovative” solutions promise to address long-standing challenges — from personalization and engagement to college- and career-readiness — yet many issues remain stubbornly unresolved. Too often, solutions are developed and scaled without a clear understanding of how challenges show up in daily classroom experiences or how students, families and educators define the problems.

Understanding the everyday barriers that students, families, practitioners and administrators identify ensures that potential solutions — whether technological, instructional or relational — are grounded in real needs rather than assumptions.

What These Challenges Look Like in Classrooms and Systems

In Digital Promise’s co-research and co-design work with communities across the country, students and educators describe challenges that are neither new nor isolated, but reflect enduring gaps in how learning environments are designed and supported. Looking closely at how these challenges surface through our Challenge Map reveals the deep connections between instructional practice, student engagement and systems-level supports — and why tackling one without the others often falls short.

Together, these experiences shape whether students feel their learning opportunities are future-forward, adaptable to their goals, needs and circumstances, and equip them to exercise agency in their education and career journeys.

Supporting individualized learning, for example, requires systems that give educators the time, tools and structures to understand and respond to each learner’s growth. Without those conditions, personalization requires extraordinary effort — making it difficult to sustain as a routine part of instructional practice.

Similar structural challenges constrain college- and career-readiness efforts. Educators consistently pointed to the need for more holistic, student-centered pathways. One educator described the importance of a “multi-tiered career program in which students engage in self-exploration of their skills, abilities and interests” to connect learning to concrete opportunities and transferable skills they can use after high school.

Engagement, Agency and the Conditions for Learning

At the crux of learning lies student engagement — shaped by both classroom practices and the broader systems in which learning occurs. Community members and educators both highlighted that academic success depends on students’ well-being.

Students shared that learning is most meaningful when it connects to their interests and allows them to have a voice in shaping their educational experiences. Educators echoed this perspective, underscoring the importance of agency in fostering meaningful learning. As one educator reflected, ensuring educational excellence requires continually redefining educational systems in ways that “give every student access to their own version of success.”

Engagement is not simply a matter of student effort or teacher technique, but a product of the environments and systems that shape learning opportunities.

Learning Does Not Stop at the Schoolhouse Door

Students, families and educators who contributed to Digital Promise’s Challenge Map identified supports that go beyond the schoolhouse, offering insight into the social conditions shaping learning. Suggestions for home stability, physical and emotional safety, and balancing responsibilities inside and outside of school highlight how deeply schooling is intertwined with young people’s lives beyond the classroom.

Other insights were deceptively simple yet profound: One group of students suggested creating regular feedback loops in schools so they could share concerns, inform changes to physical spaces and course offerings, and shape how resources are used. Even these straightforward ideas, however, call for systemic shifts in how schools operate and how student voices are embedded in decision-making.

What It Means to Put People at the Center of Innovation

Education remains a fundamentally human endeavor. As long as the goal is to prepare young people to navigate their futures with skill, agency and well-being, the conditions and relationships that shape students’ opportunity and engagement remain essential.

At a time when education research and development (R&D) is often synonymous with emerging technologies, shifting the focus to problem-solving — driven by the perspectives of those living the challenges — expands what counts as innovation. Existing technologies may play an important role, but they should not be scaled simply because they are novel.

Rather, the starting point for innovation should be: What is the central problem that needs to be solved, for and with whom, and what are the resulting outcomes if the problem is addressed successfully? Only then should existing tools or new solution development enter into the equation. Addressing these challenges requires shifts in mindsets and power dynamics so that both students and educators learn how student voice should shape learning and curriculum.

Why Education Research and Development Needs a Systems Lens

As education R&D evolves, the field is increasingly recognizing that local district systems and community engagement have often been missing from innovation efforts. In policy and education leadership circles, there is a growing call for education R&D that strengthens young people’s futures and, by extension, the nation’s long-term economic and civic well-being.

When schools and local communities are meaningfully engaged in R&D, their perspectives consistently point to persistent challenges that require a systems-level response. These challenges are not isolated problems to be solved with standalone interventions, but signals of deeper misalignments in policies, incentives and assumptions across the education ecosystem.

Questions for Building Lasting Change

Solution developers, policymakers and funders drive change through their respective products and investments. Recognizing these challenges as persistent problems and indicators of necessary systems change, they might consider:

How well do solutions capture the actual problems they aim to solve, rather than the technological possibilities they allow?
To what extent do local policies and incentives support the development of solutions that center students, families, communities and educators experiencing the challenge?
How are the perspectives of those living the challenges incorporated throughout the research, solution design and implementation process?
How do technological solutions reflect the relational and mindset shifts required across the system?
How can the evaluation of challenges in education take a systems approach that not only accounts for easily identifiable policies, resources, and practices but also for underlying relationships and assumptions?

Above all, lasting educational innovation depends on a shared conviction: The voices and experiences of students, families, community members and educators must shape how problems are defined and solutions are developed.

With Teens Comfortable Confiding in AI, Should Schools Embrace It for Mental Health Care?

Daniel Mollenkamp — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 13:00:00 GMT

The alert came around 7 p.m.

Brittani Phillips checked her phone. A middle school counselor in Putnam County, Florida, Phillips receives messages from an artificial intelligence-enabled therapy platform that students use during nonschool hours. It flags when a student may be at risk for harming themself or others based on what the student types into a chat.

Phillips saw that this was a “severe” alert for an eighth grader.

So, Phillips spent her evening on the phone with the student’s mom, probing her to figure out what was going on and how vulnerable the student was. Phillips also called the police, she says, noting that she tells students that the chats are confidential until they can’t be.

That was last school year, in the spring.

“He’s alive and well. He’s in ninth grade this year,” Phillips says. She believes that the interaction built trust between her and the family. When the student passes her in the hall now, he makes a point to greet her, she adds.

Navigating budget shortfalls and limited mental health staff, Interlachen Jr.-Sr. High School, where Phillips works, is using an AI platform to vet students’ mental health needs.

Phillips’ district has used Alongside, an automated student monitoring system, for three years. It’s an example of the growing category of tools that are marketed to K-12 schools for similar purposes, with at least 9 companies getting funding deals since 2022.

Alongside says its tool is used by more than 200 schools around the US and argues that its platform offers better services than typical telehealth options because it has a social and emotional skill-building chat tool — where students yak about their life-problems with a llama called Kiwi that tries to teach them to build up resilience — and its AI-generated content is monitored by clinicians. The system offers resource-tapped schools, especially in rural areas, access to critical mental health resources, company representatives say.

AI is a major component of the Trump administration’s national education agenda. Yet, some parents, educators and, increasingly, lawmakers, are wary of increasing teens’ time in front of screens. States have also started restricting the use of AI in telehealth.

Many experts and families also worry that students attach to AI too strongly. Even as a recent national survey found that 20 percent of high schoolers have used AI romantically or know someone who has, there’s significant interest in keeping students from emotionally connecting with bots. That even includes a proposed federal law that would force AI companies to remind students that chatbots aren’t real people.

Still, in her job, Phillips says the tool her school uses is exceptional at putting out the “small fires.” With around 360 middle schoolers to support, having this tool to hand-hold them through the breakups and other routine problems they face allows her to focus her time with students nearing crisis. Plus, students sometimes find it easier to turn to AI for dealing with emotional problems, she says.

On the Digital Couch

Student nervousness plays into why they are comfortable confiding in these technologies, school counselors say.

Speaking with a mental health professional can be intimidating, especially for adolescents, says Sarah Caliboso-Soto, a licensed clinical social worker who serves as the assistant director of clinical programs at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and the clinical director for the Trauma Recovery Center and Telebehavioral Health at USC.

There’s a generational component as well. For students who’ve grown up encountering chat interfaces through social media and websites, AI interfaces can feel familiar. And kids today find that it’s easier to text than call someone on the phone, says Linda Charmaraman, director of the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab at Wellesley Centers for Women.

Using AI to work through emotions also allows students to avoid watching facial expressions, which they may worry will carry judgment, she adds. Also, chatbots are available at times when a human might not be, without the hassle of having to make an appointment, Charmaraman says.

“It’s almost more natural than interacting with another human being,” Caliboso-Soto says.

In her work with a telehealth clinic, Caliboso-Soto has seen a rise in crisis text lines and chat lines. The clinic doesn’t use AI of any kind, she says, but it often gets approached by companies looking to get AI into the therapy sessions as notetakers.

It’s not necessarily bad in Caliboso-Soto’s opinion. For resource-strapped schools, AI can be used “as a first line of defense,” regularly checking in with students and pointing them in the right direction when they need more help, she says.

The starting price for a school to use Alongside’s services is about $10 per student per year, according to the company. Larger districts usually receive volume-based discounts.

But Caliboso-Soto worries about using AI as a substitute counselor. It lacks the discernment that clinicians provide when interacting with students, she notes. While large language models can be trained to notice symptoms in text, they cannot see or hear what a human clinician can when interacting with a student, the inflections of the voice and the movements of the body, nor can it reliably catch subtle observations or behaviors. “You can't replace human connection, human judgment,” she adds.

While AI can speed up the diagnostic process or free up time for school counselors, it’s crucial not to overly rely on it for mental health, says Charmaraman. The technology can miss some of the nuances that a human counselor would catch, and it can give students unrealistic positive reinforcement. Schools need to adopt a holistic approach that includes families and caregivers, she argues.

Plus, if a school is increasingly using AI intervention to filter serious cases, it’s worth paying attention to whether students are having less frequent contact with clinically-trained humans, Caliboso-Soto says.

For its part, Alongside representatives say that the platform is not meant as a replacement for human therapy. The app is a stepping stone to seeking help from adults, says Ava Shropshire, a junior at Washington University who serves as a youth adviser for Alongside. She argues that the app makes mental health and social-emotional learning feel more normal for students and can lead them to seek out human help.

Still, some students think it’s at best a Band-Aid.

Social Accountability

“Can you think of another time in history when people have been so lonely, when our communities have been so weak?” asks Sam Hiner, executive director of The Young People’s Alliance, a North Carolina-based organization that lobbies for more youth participation in politics and policymaking.

During a time of economic upheaval, technology and social media have manipulated and isolated students from one another, and that’s led to a deep yearning for community and belonging, Hiner says.

Students will get it wherever they can, even if that’s through ChatGPT, he adds.

The Young People’s Alliance released a framework for regulating AI that allows for some therapeutic uses of the technology.

But in general, the organization is striving to rebuild the human community and is set against use of AI when it threatens to replace human companionship, Hiner says. “That's a critical aspect of therapy and of living a fulfilled life and having social connection and having mental well-being,” he adds.

So for Hiner, the main concern is what’s called a “parasocial relationship,” when students develop a one-sided emotional attachment, especially when the technology enters schools for therapeutic purposes. It might be valuable to have an AI that can provide feedback or conduct analysis, even to mental health, but Hiner says that the AI should not hint or convey that it has its own emotional state — for instance, saying “I’m proud of you” to a student user — because that encourages attachment.

Even though platforms often claim to decrease loneliness, they don’t really measure whether people are more connected and are more set up to live fulfilled, connected, happy lives in the long term, says Hiner: “All [tech platforms are] measuring is whether this bot is serving as an effective crutch for the immediate feelings of loneliness that they're experiencing.”

What advocates want to prevent is these bots fueling the loss of social skills because they pull people away from relationships with other people, where they have social accountability, Hiner says.

Pushing Boundaries

Privacy experts note that these chatbots do not generally carry the same privacy protections of conversations with a licensed therapist. And when concerns about student privacy and encounters with the police are high, use of these tools raise “messy” privacy concerns, even when supervised by people with clinical training, a privacy law expert says.

Both the company and Phillips, the counselor in Putnam County, stress that, to work, these systems need human oversight. Phillips feels like this tool is an improvement over other monitoring tools the district has used, which point students toward in-school discipline rather than mental health help.

This school year, Phillips noted 19 “severe” alerts from the AI health tool as of February (from a total of 393 active users). The company doesn’t separate the incidents by which students caused them. So some of the same students are causing multiple of those 19 “severe alerts,” Phillips notes.

Phillips has learned, in using the tool, that it takes a human to perceive teenage humor, too.

That’s because some alerts aren’t genuine. On occasion, middle school students — usually boys — will test the boundaries of this technology, Phillips says. They type “my uncle touches me” or “my mom beat me with a pole” into the chat to test whether Phillips will follow up on it.

These boys are just trying to see if anyone is listening, to test whether anyone cares, she says. Sometimes, they just find it funny.

When she pulls them aside to discuss it, she can observe their body language, and whether it changes, which might suggest that the comment was real. If it was a joke, they often become apologetic. When a student doesn’t seem remorseful, Phillips will call and let the parents know what happened. But even in these cases, Phillips feels she has more options than provided by other monitoring systems, which would refer the student to in-school suspension.

Because Phillips is keeping her eye on the interactions, the students also learn to trust that she’s actually monitoring the system, she adds.

And, she says, the number of boys who do test the system in that way goes down every year.

Why Not Ask Why: 'Digital Delusion' Author Urges Educators to Rethink Technology’s Reach

Mary-Liz Shaw — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Several years ago, Jared Cooney Horvath’s interest in teaching took a scientific turn.

He entered teaching during a period he calls “the decade of the brain” — when much of the buzz around education and learning covered new theories about brain activity and information processing. Horvath believed that if he learned more about the brain, he’d become a better teacher.

But the education ideas that captured the popular imagination in the early 2000s had to do with catering to so-called learning styles — right- versus left-brain thinkers or visual versus word learners — and notions about how to hasten cognitive development through certain outside stimuli. Remember those moms-to-be with headphones on their bellies for their babies to experience the “Mozart Effect” in utero?

The gains from these methods proved to be short-lived or difficult to measure accurately.

Yet the science of learning persists. And what Horvath — today a neuroscientist and education consultant — now knows about human cognitive development has spurred him to join a cohort of researchers who are questioning the proliferation of technology and education software in schools.

His new book “The Digital Delusion” feels like a logical progression from Jonathan Haidt’s 2024 bestseller “The Anxious Generation,” which looked at how hours spent in front of screens, especially on social media, with its rapid-fire videos and toxic commentary, has damaged children’s overall mental health and learning.

In “Digital Delusion,” Horvath outlines research showing how digital devices and screen time, at the expense of playtime, interferes with children’s cognitive development. Then he argues how the ubiquitous use in schools of laptops and edtech, at the expense of traditional skills like handwriting and note-taking, alters, for the worse, how kids learn.

Horvath’s book arrives at a pivotal moment, with digital systems facing a cultural reckoning: Social media companies defend themselves in court against accusations that their platforms harm mental health, and lawmakers propose legislation that would severely restrict screen time for kids under 13. Meanwhile, school districts across the United States impose bell-to-bell cellphone bans, and parents push to opt their children out of using digital devices for school.

Horvath takes a pragmatic approach on that score, suggesting arguments parents can use with administrators and at school board meetings. He has chapters that include examples of letters and other tools parents can customize to mobilize action at state and federal levels.

Some educators maintain that schools should emphasize responsible use of technology, including AI, to prepare students for a technology-driven workforce. Horvath isn’t convinced. First, he argues, workforce preparation should not be education’s priority, particularly in younger grades. Second, it’s inefficient: “Teach someone to use a tool and they’ll be able to use that tool,” he writes. “Teach someone how to think and they’ll be able to use any tool.”

Even so, Horvath insists he isn’t anti-tech: “This isn’t a book about resisting devices,” he writes. “It’s a book about reclaiming education as a deeply human endeavor.”

EdSurge spoke with Horvath about “The Digital Delusion” and his work with schools around the globe, including in Australia, which at the end of last year banned social media for anyone under 16.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

EdSurge: You make the point that whenever a new technology is introduced to a culture, early adopters are the enthusiasts. But for any given technology to have broad acceptance, it must pass muster with skeptics. Yet that didn’t really happen with digital technology in schools, did it?

Horvath: If I invented something, I had to convince you. This [product] will get rid of that stain on your shirt. This will keep your iceberg lettuce crisp in the fridge. If you promised something you had to live up to it, because for the few people who adopted it to begin with, if you didn’t clean their stains, they’re not coming back.

Digital technology never made a claim to anything. It just kind of appeared and people just started using it. When AI came out, the developers flat-out said, we don’t know what this does. Why don’t you guys tell us what it does? And for some reason we shoved it into schools and said, instead of me telling you what it does, why don’t I let my kids tell you what it does?

Something very weird happened where they made no claims to efficacy and then we jumped in and started using it. Our job now is to start to pull some of those weeds rather than protect before planting. And unfortunately that means there’s been a lot of victims along the way.

A lot of kids have suffered due to our rush to just put things in their hands, unfortunately.

I think we have this love affair with digital technology. I don’t know if it’s because of sci-fi or “Star Trek” or what. We intuitively think this is going to be helpful.

And now we’re just scrambling back.

You explain that children need to play for optimum cognitive development, but ordinary childhood play and behavior has been disrupted by screens. Is there evidence that if we take the technology away from children whose brains are still forming that they can bounce back?

Yes, absolutely. The good thing about human biology is it is wickedly malleable.

There’s two aspects to keep in mind. One, biology is also wickedly conservative. It changes all the time, but it never forgets anything. So if you have had a habit at one point and you drop that habit, you can move your biology a different way, but if you come back to that habit even once, your biology will have held onto that entire circuit. It’s a survival mechanism. Our genes, our brain, hold everything.

So when it comes to these tech habits, if you’ve already formed them as a kid, they will always kind of be there. If you think, I’m over this, and you pick up your phone, you will move much faster back into that habit than you did before.

The other thing to recognize here is everything we know about learning, and most of what we know about biology, basically starts after the age of 5. That’s when what we call human biological learning mechanisms really kick in.

From birth to about 5, you’re in a totally different world. The brain is basically in input mode. Gimme, gimme, gimme. And I’m going to hold onto everything. This is why if a kid grows up in a house with two languages, they will easily learn two languages because the brain just says gimme, gimme, gimme.

So that’s where I think the super danger zone comes in. If you develop habits or problems before the age of 5, when you hit 5, the brain locks itself down. You won’t be able to consciously remember what happened before the age of 5, but all of that [input] forms the foundation upon which further learning is going to occur.

My fear is if you form a habit before the age of 5 and then your brain locks down, are you now stuck in a spot where it will be very hard to get that out? If you’ve already addicted your kid before age 5, be careful. I don’t know what that’s going to mean when they get older.

There is data that says around 40 percent of 2-year-olds have tablets.

Why? My question is just why? There are a lot of states right now putting forward bills to limit screen time in primary years: K through [grade] 2, 90 minutes; [grades] 2 through 5, two hours a day. To which I always reply, why any hours?

I could easily make a case they don’t need any of this at any moment. It makes no sense for learning and development why [technology] needs to interface with anything they’re doing.

But by banning, aren’t we setting up a mystique around technology — causing a different kind of distraction around the yearning to use it?

That’s what you want. By banning and building a mystique, you give kids aspirations. I think back to my generation, when we turned 16, you couldn’t stop us from driving. Why? Because with our parents, that was the hold: you want to go to your friend’s house? You got a bike, you got feet, I’m not driving you. You want to get to school? There’s a bus, you got feet, I’m not driving you. So by the time we knew we could drive, that’s the first thing we did.

If by banning tech, that makes kids say when I’m 18, I’m using tech — then, good, that means I have 18 years to train you to be ready to use that machine.

Can schools realistically go back to paper? Textbooks, for instance, are expensive and take longer to update than websites, which are dynamic.

It’s funny, this is where you get the clash between different masters. In a good rule of thumb you can only serve one master at a time. So we’ve got issues of, I want my kids to learn, but I have monetary constraints and I have administrative bureaucracy that I’ve got to wend my way through.

When you’ve got multiple masters, eventually you’ve got to settle on one because if you try and serve many, no one’s going to be happy. And I would hope that in education we choose learning as our ultimate master. If that means, look, we have to devote more of our budget to textbooks and that means we won’t be able to do X this year, then so be it.

If that means, look, we’re going to only use the website for the last two years of history, but we’re going to have the book for the rest because it’s better for learning, then so be it.

I don’t know how much more research we need on this. People learn more from hard copy text than they do from digital text. It’s done. That battle is over. So if learning is our outcome, why not go back to what we know works best for that?

Can you explain the findings around taking notes by hand?

Most students think note-taking is something they do while they learn. So [they think] if AI does it for me — cool! But they miss the point. Note-taking is the learning, not something that’s happening in parallel to learning. That is the learning. Because that’s where you’re doing your transformation: Your teacher said it. I now have to analyze it, think about it, organize it, get it out.

That requires friction. Your brain is going much faster. So the handwriting is constraining the speed with which you can think, which in turn is forcing you to focus on ideas, which in turn is transforming those ideas as you’re going along.

That is the definition of learning.

The act of handwriting is arguably the most complex thing we do. When it comes to motor skills, there might be nothing more complex than that.

We talk about the difference between gross- and fine-motor movements. Name one skill we do that is so minutely fine as handwriting and so varied as handwriting. If you’re using a pen versus a pencil versus a crayon versus a marker, you’re doing very subtly different movements.

Those develop so much more awareness and understanding of the body in a way that then translates into other fields in ways we’ve never seen from any other skill before.

If you know how to write, you will become better at reading. If you know how to write, you will become better at recognizing faces. Why? We don’t know. But everything seems to be correlated back to that skill.

So when people debate [whether] handwriting is still worth teaching? Of course. Is cursive still worth teaching? Of course. No one’s going to use cursive as an adult. That’s not why we’re teaching it, baby. It has nothing to do with what you’re going to do as an adult. ’

You were just in Australia. What is the feedback from the social media ban?

The response is overwhelmingly positive. Basically every school I worked at, the kids are fine with it. Teachers are fine with it. All of a sudden, behaviors are getting so much better in school. They said the biggest problem is with parents, oddly enough, who basically have to hang out with their kids and they don’t know what to do. If that’s our biggest problem, we’ll solve that. Hang out with your kid.

Any time you remove something from your kid’s heart, you’re going to have to fill it with something else. You’re going to have to fill it with yourself, which means you’re going to have to take some of your own tech out of your own life to devote more of your time to your kid.

Universal Pre-K Is a Hot Policy Idea. But What About Kindergarten?

Lauren Coffey — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 09:07:00 GMT

Even casual observers of the early childhood space likely noticed the massive push for expanding access to care and education programs over the last year, most notably with universal preschool options.

But a less splashy effort has been quietly underway for years: making kindergarten mandatory, enrolling the small percent of children holding out from the entry-level grade in order to boost their academic and emotional success.

Enrolling children in kindergarten is only legally required for families in 20 states, though every state makes it mandatory for public schools to offer the entry-level grade to students. Students in those states can also complete kindergarten in private school or through homeschool, instead.

The mandate has gained momentum slowly over several decades, most recently in California, Michigan, New Jersey and Louisiana, though only the latter two ultimately passed new laws.

But as state leaders grapple with dwindling funds for early childhood education, and with the spotlight shining on the more popular push for universal preschool, the future of mandatory kindergarten remains murky.

“I bet there are lawmakers who don’t even know it’s not mandatory,” says Hanna Melnick, director of early learning policy at the Learning Policy Institute.

The Push for Kindergarten

The purpose of kindergarten has shifted over the years. Once a haven for educational play, kindergarten classrooms now tend to emphasize academic work. Regardless, educators and experts use it as a way to identify whether students have the social-emotional, language and motor skills they need for elementary school. Plenty of studies prove that enrolling in kindergarten reaps long-term rewards, both academically and socially, particularly for lower-income and minority students.

Those benefits are often mentioned by lawmakers looking to make kindergarten mandatory.

For example, Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in 2024 that mandatory kindergarten could decrease student absenteeism in addition to increasing student achievement. That measure failed to pass, though the state instead launched its expansive PreK for All initiative that same year.

“Any time a group of kids are being underserved, it’s not good for the kid or family,” Christina Weiland, a professor of education and public policy at the University of Michigan, says.

“But for the teacher, if students are placed in first grade and they are behind, it places more demand on teachers on how to get every kid to the same place.”

Even states without technically mandated kindergarten have workarounds. Florida, for example, does not mandate kindergarten for all students, but for a student to enroll in a public school first-grade classroom, having completed kindergarten is a prerequisite. New Jersey leaves it up to individual school districts, and some require completing the grade while others do not.

Alabama in 2024 passed legislation requiring children who did not attend kindergarten to pass the “First Grade Readiness Assessment” in order to enroll directly into first grade. The test is being administered for the first time this school year. Those who do not pass will be required to attend kindergarten.

“This new law will ensure students are truly prepared to enter the first grade,” Alabama state representative Pebblin Warren, who has pushed for this legislation since 2019, said in a statement. She added that she hoped it would help even the playing field for students and their teachers, and help with future school retention.

Comparing Costs

California’s policy history offers a case study about the push and pull between investing in mandatory kindergarten versus other public early learning programs.

In California, 5 percent of families do not enroll their children into kindergarten. That adds up to about 200,000 kids sitting out.

In 2024, a bill was put forth to legally mandate students attend kindergarten before entering first grade. As of now, 6-year-olds must attend school, and it is up to parents whether to enroll them in kindergarten or first grade.

California’s proposal made it through the state House and Senate before Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill, pointing toward the $268 million it would cost annually as too high a price tag.

However, starting in the 2022-2023 school year, similarly to in Michigan, Newsom approved California’s transitional kindergarten program, which sought to increase access to public education programs for 4-year-olds. In the most recent budget, Newsom proposed $1.8 billion in additional funding for expanding the state’s transitional kindergarten program, which effectively serves as universal pre-K.

Financial cost is one big factor as officials weigh which kinds of early learning programs to support. Sometimes the pain of big upfront bills seem to outweigh the potential longer-term payoff for society, says Emma Garcia, a principal researcher at the Learning Policy Institute.

“I feel like sometimes the argument used against it is, ‘Oh, it costs a lot and the effects fade,” she says. “But it’s what society gains from the early investment.”

There’s also the political “costs” of passing new regulations mandating participation in school.

“Offering a service tends to be fairly popular; requiring it tends to be less so,” Sarah Novicoff, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, says. “It’s all about questions of priorities, about what the state particularly thinks will make change in the most impactful way and there’s trade-offs to all these things.”

Today’s political climate favors “parental choice,” both in the ideological sense of parents knowing what is best for their children, and in the literal sense via school vouchers.

“Family choice has always been embedded in any child care policy,” Jade Jenkins, an associate professor of education at the University of California Irvine who has studied the effects of mandatory kindergarten since 2015. “And with the conservative sentiment dominating the landscape these days, which is parental choice and the push toward educational choice for school-aged children, nationalizing or any kind of early childhood educational mandates are further off.”

It’s not obvious that even families who do participate in kindergarten always value it fully, at least according to attendance records. According to the American Enterprise Institute, 1 in 3 California kindergarten students were chronically absent, or missed 10 percent or more of a school year.

If families put less stock in kindergarten, it might be because of the reality that, in many places, only half-day programs are available. According to the Education Commission of the States, a nonprofit tracking education policy, only 16 states and Washington D.C. require schools to offer all-day kindergarten options, with the remainder mandating half-day offerings.

Without that all-day offering, many parents are left in the lurch for half of the work day.

“It’s not just about parent choice: They offer half day, and you often have to pay for full day [care], which is a real access problem where policies could make a difference,” Weiland says. “A push toward offering full day is probably more meaningful, at least on the equity side.”

Potential Wins and Roadblocks

It turns out that the two policy ideas — offering universal pre-K and mandating kindergarten — may lead to the same place. Some experts posit that expanded pre-K could help place students on the elementary public school track earlier.

After all, Weiland says, “I’ve never heard of doing universal pre-K and then not kindergarten; that’s not too much of a common path, at least.”

That seems especially likely in areas like Washington, D.C., and Boston, where universal preschool programs are embedded in public school settings (as opposed to offered at standalone centers or in-home programs).

“In a mixed-delivery system, we have no reason to believe this would make me stay in public school, but in places like Boston where it’s highly regarded in the public schools, we have found they are somewhat more likely to stay in public schools,” Jenkins says.

And that could help in a small way with the enrollment issues schools have encountered since the pandemic. While school enrollment rates for 5-year-olds are high — 84 percent across the country, according to the National Center for Education Statistics — they began dipping postpandemic, down 6 percent for 5-year-olds from 2019 to 2021.

These days, education leaders are also worried about longer-term demographic and birth rate changes primed to hurt schools, such as “the fertility cliff and the enrollment cliff,” Jenkins says. For institutions that are funded based on a per-pupil method of calculation, that means fewer dollars.

Weiland pointed toward states like Vermont, Maine and West Virginia that have all been hit particularly hard with enrollment dips and had to close down schools.

“We have these school enrollment crises, where the birth cohorts are getting smaller, and it doesn’t make great financial sense for kindergarten classrooms to go under-enrolled,” she says. “That could have some political momentum to increase enrollment numbers.”

For schools trying to stay open, every additional kindergartener helps.

What Students Gain When Teachers — Not AI — Grade Students’ Work

Masheika Allgood — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 09:00:00 GMT

This article is part of the collection: Teaching Tech: Navigating Learning and AI in the Industrial Revolution.

During our research project on teaching and learning with AI, Mi Aniefuna talked to a lawyer-turned-teacher-turned AI ethicist. Masheika Allgood, founder of AllAI Consulting (pronounced “ally”), shared a story with me about her most transformative year as a teacher. What she did to help her seventh grade ELA students is something that generative AI, as we know it, can’t do. As the number of teachers using AI for tasks like grading and lesson planning increases, Allgood advocates that they be informed users.

All first-person accounts in this article belong to Masheika Allgood, with research support from EdSurge researcher Mi Aniefuna.

I’ve always taught. In undergrad, I was an elementary school substitute teacher. In law school, I volunteered at a preschool. In 2009, I was an online professor at Strayer University, when online learning had just become a thing. Most recently, I taught a course for Executive MBA students, and I am currently teaching a course for Juris Master's students.

So, that’s what I do — I teach, and it’s what I’ve loved since I was a young educator. Among all my teaching experiences, my most formative period as a teacher, when I developed a style and pedagogy, was the year I taught seventh-grade language arts at a public middle school in South Florida.

By the time I stepped into that middle school classroom, I’d already completed three of my four degrees. My goal wasn’t to just make it to the end of the year; it was to help each of my students come to love the classroom as much as I did. For me, that journey began with preparation, ensuring that every student had a strong foundation so that when it was time to fly, we could all rise together.

As with any journey prep, this one started with taking inventory; in our case, it was diagnostic tests. I know from experience that smart kids can fudge their way through skills they haven’t fully developed, and education doesn’t always notice. I also know that people often make incorrect assumptions about low achievers, namely that they’re equally low-performing in all areas.

But people can surprise you, especially children. And you can’t properly assess inventory if you don’t actually check the cabinets to see where things are. For diagnostic testing, I selected specific areas to assess based on the year's learning goals and the fundamentals students needed to meet them. For example, a student can’t analyze a section of reading if they don’t know how to compare and contrast. So I assessed, gave feedback and coached my students to incorporate it.

Assessment Today: What the Research SaysAs of 2022, about 94 percent of educators report using a learning management system. LMS platforms, like Canvas and Magic School, are common edtech tools used for content management, collecting assignments and automated grading and assessments.

Then, I meticulously analyzed the assessments, comparing them across all my classes, and created a mapping system to visualize where all my students were. I even used the assessments to develop my lesson plans. And while I taught the same fundamentals to every single class, I would lean in heavily on a particular section depending on where the students were stronger or weaker.

After four or five weeks, we reassessed those foundational skills through a variety of means: they composed a song to explain a grammatical point, created crossword puzzles on key points in their reading and identified audio foreshadowing in movie clips. I also administered quizzes and assignments. By the time Christmas break began, all of my students had mastered seventh grade fundamentals. And in the second half of the year, we were finally able to fly.

Assessment Today: What the Research SaysAmong teachers who use AI in their jobs, about two-thirds of teachers say AI has improved the quality of their grading and open-ended student feedback.

Students read a fiction book from cover to cover as a class. For the vast majority of my students, that was the first time they’d done so. They enjoyed it because we did cool things that resonated with them. They drew timelines of important events we discussed, and each class developed an official timeline. They wrote letters as older versions of the characters, offering advice or wisdom as the book versions of themselves. We also held an official debate in which each class addressed the legality of mailbox baseball. One of my students researched the federal code on mailbox tampering and cited it in the debate, and that was one of the proudest moments of my teaching career.

And it wasn’t just my honors classes that flew. I also had students with learning and behavioral disabilities, hearing and speech difficulties and a few students who’d spent an inordinate amount of the school year sitting in the principal’s office. Still, they came to my class, and we all flew — because we all could. Because they spent the first half of the year learning the fundamentals, they were able to handle the higher-order concepts, having developed the grammar, vocabulary, and critical thinking skills that were necessary. Thanks to the diagnostic tests, I created careful and intentional lesson planning and reassessments that helped me close the gap.

AI-Powered Tools & Data Privacy Case StudiesMost edtech apps share students' personal data with third parties. There is no data source that confirms whether Early Warning Systems (EWS) data remain private. Researchers report that EWS is effective when utilized for family and school interventions. In 2021, a Florida school district shared EWS data that labelled students “at-risk.” Through school resource officers, the county police department used this data to label students as “future delinquency” and “destined to a life of crime.” A 2023 study of more than a million records from 10 years of usage data from Wisconsin’s Dropout Early Warning System found that the tool didn’t increase graduation rates, but it used race, income and other demographic data that inadvertently labeled Black, Hispanic, and low-income students. Eight in 10 students marked “at-risk” were incorrectly labelled.

During my observation at the end of the school year, the observing teacher couldn’t tell the difference between my honors and other classes. She said they were all performing at an advanced level. One student, in particular, who was such a regular at the principal’s office that they were shocked when I called in and demanded he be allowed to attend my class, not only passed my class, but he and every other student I taught also passed the state exam.

That’s why this research series matters. I’m passionate about diagnostics and assessments because I’ve seen what they can do. Because every student can succeed if they learn the fundamentals.

For me, the question that centers my teaching practice is: How do we know that students are learning? That question also drove my participation in this research project. In an era of nearly ubiquitous student learning platforms, such as learning management systems and other educational technology tools, how are diagnostics and assessments conducted? How do they inform the lesson plan and course goals? How is education changing, and are these changes improving the learning process for students?

In a district where students have been counted out and labeled as “low achievers,” Allgood utilized her expertise as a teacher, along with research-backed pedagogical strategies, to personalize instruction, deliver targeted feedback, make content culturally relevant and lead with empathy.

Fast forward to today, schools have deployed dozens of edtech tools to support teaching, learning and assessment, but many edtech tools now have AI-powered features. With competing priorities and dwindling resources, teachers are using generative AI to assist with feedback. What happens when we rely on AI to assess student learning and grade their work?

How Teachers Make Classroom Technology Work for Them

Abbie Misha — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:55:00 GMT

Walk into any school and you will find teachers using classroom technology in very different ways. One teacher builds interactive lessons with embedded videos and real-time polls. Down the hall, another uses technology more selectively, focusing on core features that support daily instruction. Both are effective educators. Both deserve classroom technology that works for them — and their students.

The challenge isn’t that teachers need to change how they work; it’s that most classroom technology is designed with only one pathway in mind. When tools offer multiple entry points instead, they can meet teachers where they are while supporting a wide range of student needs.

Recently, EdSurge spoke with three educators who use ViewSonic’s interactive display technology in distinctly different ways: Rebecca Ganger, technology coach and Chromebook coordinator, who also teaches high school students to repair devices and sponsors her district’s middle school Technology Club; Elena Clemente, technology trainer with 29 years of teaching experience in early elementary grades; and Brendan Powell, elementary STEM teacher. Their experiences illustrate what becomes possible when technology adapts to people rather than demanding that people adapt to it.

EdSurge: Why is it important that classroom technology offers multiple ways to engage?

Powell: Students need an engaging system to help them improve their understanding, and it makes learning more fun. Interactive technology helps a lot with coding, so my students can work through problems with me and are more engaged when they actually get to do the examples. Giving students choices helps them understand different concepts and piques their interest.

Clemente: Students learn in different ways, and teachers bring different approaches to their classrooms. While some students may prefer the interactive tools already displayed, others might prefer to choose which tool to use to demonstrate how to solve a math problem. The same goes for teachers. Some may prefer to use ready-made slides, while others prefer to create on the canvas. By offering choices, we allow both students and teachers to use technology in ways that make learning engaging.

What makes technology feel approachable rather than intimidating for teachers at different comfort levels?

Clemente: As I have led several professional development sessions for teachers, I know that some want only the basics, such as writing on the canvas or projecting slides. Others have created engaging lessons that bring learning to life. All teachers are able to learn more.

I have found that it is best to demonstrate how to use a tool on the interactive panel, have teachers practice and then discuss how they can use it in their lessons. When teachers take that learning back to their classrooms and apply it in a lesson, the tool feels more approachable.

Ganger: Often, new technology requires you to learn so many things just to be able to use the basics and get started. Being able to use parts of the software and then incorporate more as you become familiar and comfortable is a huge plus. You can start with just a little bit of instruction and then learn more to incorporate additional tools into your lessons as you’re ready. You can use it at your comfort level, and it is also very user-friendly for student participation at the board.

What changes occur when students interact directly with classroom displays?

Powell: When students use the display in my classroom, they are more willing to talk to each other about the process and explain their ideas more clearly.

Ganger: They become more focused on the activity and are excited to participate. Students are so accustomed to auditory and visual sources being their primary ways of obtaining information. Having the opportunity to interact with technology fits into their natural way of learning.

Clemente: One of the big changes I have seen, or rather heard, is the amount of conversation that takes place. Students are able to express their thinking out loud while building speaking and listening skills. Students take pride in being able to share and navigate the interactive panel.

How do you keep students actively involved during interactive lessons?

Ganger: I personally enjoy adding a variety of interactive tools. I incorporate sounds, videos and links to other sites all within my presentation. I also enjoy using game boards with subject-specific questions as review activities. Varying the activities keeps things fresh and interesting for students.

Clemente: One way I keep students actively involved is by having them use their [individual] whiteboards to participate while I am projecting. Students know that they are accountable and that I am looking to call on them to share good examples and demonstrate their learning. I also use partner talks so that students can share what they are learning and gain different perspectives. Students love being called up to engage with the interactive panel, so I call them up in groups. They line up and take turns, or sometimes they work as a team and collaboratively solve the problem.

When it works well, how does technology change your teaching?

Clemente: When technology works well, it makes my job as a classroom teacher easier. I am able to easily share material, provide visually appealing interactive slides and engage with my students using hands-on learning activities that build their technical skills. As a technology trainer, I use technology to demonstrate how teaching can come to life, creating engaging lessons that have a positive impact on student learning.

Ganger: It frees up time typically spent lecturing in front of the room, allowing more one-on-one interaction with students. It provides immediate feedback and allows for easy differentiation of material. Being able to reach all types of learning styles with interactive boards and software is a game-changer.

Powell: The technology that works well in my room has changed how my students access information and made learning more flexible for all of them. One thing I like to say in my room is that technology can help us learn new skills and ways of thinking that will benefit us in the long run. Technology is always evolving, so it helps to have my students involved with me as I’m learning as well.

The Math Skill Schools Should Teach — Gambling

Daniel Mollenkamp — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 15:00:00 GMT

Isaac Rose-Berman doesn’t think that gambling is evil. After deciding not to pursue a doctorate in political science, Rose-Berman became a professional gambler for a time.

But these days, in his 20s, he’s finding himself writing, advising and talking to high schoolers in an attempt to set them up to make informed choices about gambling. He’s also a fellow at the American Institute for Boys and Men, which advocates for policies that support the well-being of those groups.

“I think my advantage here is that, like, I do gamble. I know people who gamble,” says Rose-Berman, who notes he gambled a lot before he was 21, the legal gambling age in most states. He says he understands the highs, the lows and the tricks companies play in order to keep players engaged.

The startling rise of gambling in American culture gives this work a sense of urgency.

Less than a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door to sports betting, gambling now seems pervasive. And it’s not just on sports.

“We're seeing, on the internet, so much more gambling — advertising and marketing and social media influencers, like gambling influencers,” says Jérémie Richard, an assistant professor and clinical psychologist at the University of Ottawa.

These days, everyone has access to a casino in their pocket, Richard adds. And when you combine that with push notifications, a technique also common in social media platforms, it can overwhelm children, teens and even young adults.

Although underage gambling is illegal, it’s also common. A recent report from Common Sense, a nonprofit that studies the impact of media and technology on children's well-being, found that more than a third of boys will gamble before they turn 18. Also, around 60 percent of boys saw ads or gambling content pop into their social media feeds, though most of the students didn’t feel the ads made them gamble, the report found.

Gambling addiction often starts in adolescence, when students’ brains haven’t fully developed. It’s causing some to sound alarm bells about whether there’s an emerging crisis, especially for boys.

Some researchers think that better math skills — like a firmer grasp on probabilities and critical thinking — would help.

By the Numbers

Gambling addiction can be tough for adolescents to deal with, especially because the consequences of the addiction are delayed, says Sarah Clark, a research scientist in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Michigan.

Teenagers are more prone to take risks, to feel invincible, and for gambling, the devastating outcomes of addiction can seem far away, Clark says. “It fits well with the fun, adolescent, ‘sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,’” she says.

Common Sense’s report focused on boys, whose gambling the organization has come to view as a public health issue, according to Michael Robb, head of research for Common Sense.

But gambling is not a boys-only problem. Indeed, Clark expects that more girls will gamble in the near future. While the recent explosion in betting seems to have been driven by sports betting, which boys favor, the rise of online casinos, and of hiding gambling inside of games that girls play, along with prediction betting, will draw more girls, she says.

The taboos that once limited youth gambling aren’t really there anymore, either. Unlike the old days, when there was a taboo against visiting a physical casino, most teens now have easy access to gambling through their phones, Clark says. It means that students might still have to sneak off to smoke pot or have sex, but not to gamble. They can even gamble during class on their phones, she adds.

Clark worries that beyond the financial impact of gambling losses, popular forms of gambling seem personal in a more destructive way for teenagers: Sports betting and prediction markets give them someone else to blame when they lose. And students aren’t developed enough for these stressors, Clark says.

Worried about gambling addiction, researchers have started arguing for tougher regulations on ads that promote gambling, and for addiction screenings in schools.

A randomized controlled trial in six secondary schools in Scotland found that gambling curricula can boost awareness of gambling addiction among students. But it suggested to some that the approach would have limited success in preventing gambling behaviors. In Canada, Patricia Conrad developed early education interventions for drug and alcohol abuse. Since the number of people who will develop a gambling addiction is small, identifying and focusing on high-risk youth allows for a more targeted approach. And Richard, the clinical psychologist at the University of Ottawa, thinks that a similar approach could help in gambling addiction.

But at the school level, part of the solution is teaching students to become aware of their own thoughts and feelings. The goal is for them to understand how their minds and ways of thinking can fall into emotional traps, so that they can make informed choices in their lives. It’s the same work clinicians perform with people who get cognitive behavioral therapy for a gambling disorder, Richard says.

But in a sense, it’s nothing new.

Subtracting Addiction?

Gambling is unrepentantly mathematical, with companies that facilitate bets relying on sophisticated algorithms to track odds and ensure that they profit.

Indeed, schools have long referenced gambling in the classroom, often in probability classes, which instruct students on how to calculate odds. Even before the Supreme Court decision that allowed advertising to flourish, addiction experts had flagged youth gambling as a problem, one that math skills could help control. A couple of decades ago — with funding from public health offices in Massachusetts and Louisiana — this was even turned into a research-backed math curriculum that the authors argued could both boost critical thinking by students and reduce the likelihood that they will become “pathological gamblers.” That curriculum focused on number sense, data, statistics and probability.

These days, as American student math scores slide on national and international assessments, those interested in curbing addiction suggest that the need for these skills has only grown. Using math to make clear, rational decisions, when combined with a knowledge of basic probabilities and how the mind can be tempted into mistakes is critical for student success, they argue.

Ironically, Richard says, the prevalence of gambling might make learning math more digestible to students. It’s certainly more interesting than comparing slices of pie, which is how some students are taught probabilities. Bringing the math into real-life problems faced by students — as opposed to abstract, sterile ones — might motivate them to learn, he says.

Math is what separates gambling from other forms of addiction like vaping, says Clark. For example, gambling companies push parlays on people because the probability of hitting on a parlay is low, she says.

So in addition to basic math skills, students also need the ability to identify when they or a friend has a problem, and skill to critically assess how companies market gambling, Clark argues.

For instance, there are some particular tactics that gambling companies use to lure bettors, Clark notes. The reason these companies give free money for betting is that they have sophisticated data systems that convince them you will lose more than that. If a student understands the math and casts a critical eye on marketing tactics, they will be more resistant to problematic gambling, she argues.

Richard, the Canadian researcher, expects some parents or teachers to be reluctant to teach how gambling works, out of a fear that they would contribute to exposing students to gambling.

But abstinence may not be an option.

“Your kids are being exposed to gambling already, through advertising, through marketing, and so there's nothing new there,” Richard says.

The scale of the marketing can be surprising. One study of professional sports, published last year from researchers at the University of Bristol, found that the NHL exposed viewers to an average of three sports betting ads per broadcast minute.

For Rose-Berman, the former professional gambler, it’s critical that students understand that all forms of “financial speculation” are rigged against the average person.

Knowledge of math alone won’t work to prevent addition, he argues. There’s complicated psychology to becoming addicted to something, and even when they know the math doesn’t work, students can fall prey to addiction.

Still, students should approach these activities with skepticism, and understand that companies are not their friends, he says.

When Rose-Berman presents at schools, he explains the basics of math to students, explaining why roulette and sports betting are rigged against bettors. A lot of boys are attracted to the ego-appeal, he says. They think that because they know sports they will come out ahead in sports betting.

Nearly half of the time, after he presents, boys share their idiosyncratic gambling strategies withto him, and he then has to explain why they would still lose money. Sometimes, that means explaining why it’s a poor strategy to bet a dollar and then if you lose, bet two dollars.

Other times, it’s more complicated. It can mean explaining to a high schooler why the fact that LeBron James has gone over his point total in eight of the last 10 games won’t help them to place a profitable bet. Hint: It’s not a reliable-enough indicator.

A lot of young men who gamble think it’s a good way to earn money in the long run, Rose-Berman says. It’s part of the overconfidence that they can have. And a lot of his work comes down to helping students understand that these are large companies that are trying to take advantage of them.

But if you are good at sports betting, these companies will kick you out, he tells them.

“They have really, really smart people whose job it is to figure out if you are good at this,” he says. “If they haven’t kicked you out, it means you’re a sucker.”