Author: admin

  • Fake News Brings Me to an Unusual Topic for this Blog – Teaching in Higher Ed

    Fake News Brings Me to an Unusual Topic for this Blog – Teaching in Higher Ed

    This post is one of many, related to my participation in  Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery workshop.

    The topic for this lesson is fake news. Jarche instructs us that there are four primary types of fake news and he asks us to find an example of each type. I don’t normally post overtly political content here on my blog, but when it comes to the topic of fake news, it seemed easier to focus on politics than teaching and learning.

    The closest I could come off the top of my head in my normal topics was the Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning podcast, and the many podcasts I’ve done about grading and assessment. But I’m still going to stick with politics for now. Stop reading if you aren’t prepared to read examples of the current US presidential administration lying.

    Four Types of Fake News

    1. Propaganda – Ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause.” – Merriam WebsterExample – Snopes shares 12 times AI generated or doctored content was shared by Trump or the White House. These examples seem to fit under propaganda, since they attempt to influencing people’s attitudes and beliefs. Though that also sounds like disinformation to me and I’m still not clear I know the difference.
    2. Disinformation – “False information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.” – Merriam WebsterExample – Trump states that there is no inflation in the US. There are some who say that Trump’s specific type of lying falls under the category of bullshit, as defined by Harry Frankfurt in his book, On Bullshit. Either way, it feels like shooting fish in a barrel to find examples of disinformation from this administration.
    3. Conspiracy theory – “Persist for a long time even when there is no decisive evidence for them… Based on a variety of thinking patterns that are known to be unreliable tools for tracking reality.” – The Conspiracy Theory Handbook, by Lewandowski + CookExample – Ok. So this isn’t a genuine conspiracy, rather it was satirical from the start. But given how I feel after finding those examples of propaganda and disinformation, I needed a little break. The “birds aren’t real” satirical conspiracy scratches a certain itch for me, as someone who enjoys learning about birds.
    4. Clickbait – “Text or a thumbnail that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow (“click”) that link and view, read, stream or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading… A defining characteristic of clickbait is misrepresentation in the enticement presented to the user to manipulate them to click onto a link.” – WikipediaExample – Bryan Tyler Cohen is rather notorious for using clickbait YouTube video titles on his main channel. I saw a video of him explaining that he knows they are frustrating to people, but that they really generate far more views, in his testing. He even created an alternate channel (Bryan Tyler Cohen News) with more toned down titles, which he suggests can be better to send to people who may be on a different side of the issues than him, politically.

    My Muddiest Point

    I’m having a hard time distinguishing between disinformation and propaganda. Jarche shared a quote from researcher Renée DiResta, who would prefer our focus be on the word propaganda, as it is more descriptive of the problem at hand.

    El Pais: The problem is not misinformation

    Q. Why do you prefer the word “propaganda” to “misinformation”?

    A. Misinformation implies that the problem is one of facts, and it’s never been a problem of facts. It’s a problem of people wanting to receive information that makes them feel comfortable and happy. Anti-vaccine messages don’t appeal to facts, but to the identity of the recipient. They’re saying: “If you are a person on the right, you should not trust these vaccines.” It’s very much tied to political identity. Misinformation implies that if you were to say that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an absolute clown who knows absolutely nothing about vaccines or their relationship to autism, and that this has been researched to ad nauseam by scientists, if it were a problem of misinformation, you would assume that people would say, “Oh, here’s the accurate information, so I’m going to change my mind.” But that’s not the case. It’s a topic of identity, of beliefs, and that’s why propaganda is a more appropriate term.

    But I’m still not entirely clear I can distinguish propaganda from disinformation at this time.

    Handling Conspiracy Theories with Students

    I have such a hard time navigating conspiracy theories with students who take business ethics with me. We have a whole section of the class where they learn how to use Mike Caulfield’s SIFT framework to fact check the articles they read about business ethics related news stories throughout our semester together. I’ve found it is practically useless to ask them the question from Mike’s mini course about if they or someone they’re close to has ever believed in a conspiracy theory before.

    There’s so much of one’s identity that gets wrapped up in what we believe. Generally, they don’t view these beliefs as conspiracies if they or their loved ones believe in them.

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  • The white paper on regulation

    The white paper on regulation

    The Office for Students is a creation of the 2017 Higher Education and Research Act, but this legislation was not the last word on the matter.

    It has gained new powers and new responsibilities over the years, and – looking closely at the white paper – it looks set to expand its powers, capabilities, and capacity even further.

    As the Department for Education, and as ministers and politicians more generally, make new demands of the regulator it needs to be given the power to meet these demands. And this generally needs to happen via the amendment of HERA, which almost always requires further primary legislation.

    It is clear that much of the change that ministers expect to see in the higher education sector – as set out via the white paper – needs to happen via the action of the regulator.

    Regulation, rebooted

    The 2022 Skills and Post-16 Education Act gave OfS explicit powers to assess the quality of higher education with reference to student outcomes, protection from defamation claims based on regulatory decisions, and the duty to publish details of investigations.

    The 2023 Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, alongside the various measures linked directly to freedom of speech and academic freedom, attempted to grant OfS the power to monitor overseas funding – this was, in the end, not enacted.

    These decisions to give OfS new powers and new duties will have been influenced by legal embarrassment (the student outcomes and defamation issues) and perceived threats (such as on overseas funding or freedom of speech), but measures are generally finessed in conversation with the regulator and its own assessment of powers that it needs.

    It is fair to assume that OfS – famously careful around legal risk – would largely prefer to have more powers rather than less. The diversity of the sector, and the range of political and public concern about what providers actually get up to, mean that the regulator may often feel pressured to act in ways that it is not, technically, permitted to. This is not a risk limited to OfS – witness the Department for Education’s legal travails regarding Oxford Business College.

    Aspects requiring primary legislation

    The white paper offers the Office for Students a number of new powers to do things which – on the face of it – it can already do and has already done. What we need to keep an eye on here is where the amping up of these existing powers happens in a way that overrides safeguards that exist to prevent arbitrary and unfair regulatory action. It is already troubling that, unlike pretty much anyone else, the Office for Students is legally unable to defame a provider (for example by posting details of an investigation including details that are later shown to be false).

    Quality

    The Department for Education seems to labour under the misconception that OfS cannot restrict a provider’s ability to recruit on the basis of “poor quality”. It can – and has done so four times since the regulator was established. Nonetheless, the government will legislate “when parliamentary time allows” to give OfS these powers again using slightly different words – and probably modifying sections 5 and 6 of HERA to allow it to do so (currently, the Secretary of State cannot give OfS guidance that relates to the recruitment and admission of students).

    This would be part of a wider portfolio of new powers for OfS, allowing it to intervene decisively to tackle poor quality provision (including within franchise arrangements), prevent the abuse of public money at registered providers, and safeguard against provision with poor outcomes for students).

    Again – these are powers, in the broadest sense, the OfS already has. It has already intervene to tackle low quality provision (including poor quality outcomes for students) via the B3 and other B condition investigations and linked regulatory rulings. And it has already intervened on franchise arrangements (most recently opening an investigation into the arrangement between Bath Spa University and the Fairfield School of Business).

    There will be a strengthening of powers to close down provision where fraud or the misuse of public funds is identified – and here it is fair to read across to concerns about franchise provision and the work of (“unscrupulous”) UK recruitment agents. Condition E8 – which specifically addresses the wider issues of fraud and misuse of public funds, currently applies only to new registrants: it is fair to ask why extending this to currently registered providers is not under consideration as a non-legislative approach. Clearly the infamous powers of entry and search (HERA section 61) and the power to require information from unregistered providers (HERA section 62) are not cutting it.

    Linked to these, OfS will be able to build capacity to carry out more investigations and to do so at greater speed – for which in the first part we should read that OfS will get more money from DfE. It already gets roughly £10m each year, which covers things like running TEF and administering the freedom of speech complaints scheme – this is on top of around £32m in registration fees from the sector (also public money) which sounds like a lot but doesn’t even cover staff costs at OfS. We are awaiting a consultation on OfS registration fees for providers for the future, so it is possible this situation may change.

    OfS’ proposed new quality regime is centred around TEF, a “section 25” scheme in the language of HERA. Schedule 2, section 2, of HERA is clear that a section 25 scheme can be used to vary the fee cap for individual providers. Indeed, it is currently used to vary the cap – if you don’t have a TEF award (at all) you can only charge a maximum of £9,275 next year. So no fancy legislative changes would be required to make fee uplifts conditional on a “higher quality threshold” if you happened to believe that a provider’s income per student should be determined by outcomes data from a decade ago.

    Not strictly speaking “quality”, but OfS will also get stronger regulatory power to take robust action against providers that breach their duties under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act – beyond even fining providers (as it has recently done to the University of Sussex) and deregistering (or adding a condition of registration via conditions E1 and E2), a power it has had since HERA was passed. I’m not sure what would constitute more robust action than that.

    Access and participation

    The access and participation plan (APP) regime is a remnant of the work of the former Office for Fair Access (OFFA). The Higher Education Act 2004 gave this body the ability to call for and assess “access agreements”, with the approval of OFFA needed for a provider to charge higher fees. Section 29 of HERA gave the impression that handed these powers directly over to the Office for Students – but in actuality it gave a lot more direct power to the Secretary of State to specify the content of plans and the way they are assessed via regulations.

    The proposals in the white paper look for a risk-based approach to APP, but at provider level – not the more general risks associated with particular groups of students that we find in the OfS’ current approach. Providers that do well at access and participation will benefit from streamlined regulation, for those that do not the experience may involve a little more pain.

    The big change is that access and participation will now look in a lot more detail at postgraduate provision and the postgraduate student experience. And section 32(5)(b) of HERA specifically prohibits plans from addressing “education provided by means of any postgraduate course other than a course of initial teacher training”. So we could expect some kind of legislative action (it may be possible to do via regulations but if there is a bill coming then why not?) to address this issue. And besides that, there will be a load of regulations and guidance from the Secretary of State setting out what she would like John Blake or his successor to do.

    Aspects requiring changes to the regulatory framework

    Registration

    In what is fast becoming a more closely coupled tertiary sector, OfS is set to become a primary regulator for every provider of higher education. There are three sets of providers that will be affected by this move:

    • Further education colleges (FECs) delivering higher education (courses at levels 4 and above)
    • Other providers delivering provision currently funded via Advanced Learner Loans (ALL)
    • Other providers designated for student loan support, including those delivering courses via franchise and partnership arrangements.

    In each of these cases, provision that is to all intents and purposes higher education is currently delivered without the direct oversight of the higher education regulator. This may be delivered with the oversight and approval of a higher education provider (franchise and partnership provision), or with the oversight of Ofqual (there are hundreds of these).

    The regulation of this kind of provision within FECs is probably best understood – as things stand all of the fundamental regulation of these bodies (stuff like governance and financial planning) happens via the Department for Education, which took on this role from the Education and Skills Funding Agency when it was abolished on 31 March 2025. The Department then provides assurance to the Office for Students and data to HESA.

    Designation for student support nominally happens via a decision made by the Secretary of State (section 84 of HERA) – in practice this happens by default for anyone delivering higher education. As we saw in the Oxford Business College case, arrangements like this are predicated on the assumption that what we might call regulation (quality and standards, and also – I guess – fit and proper person type stuff) is pushed onto the validating organisation with varying degrees of confidence

    Advanced Learner Loan (ALL) funded provision, confusingly, is technically further education (level 3 and up) but the logic of the machinery of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement wants to bring the upper end of this provision into the ambit of OfS. There was initially supposed to be a separate category of registration for ALL provision with OfS, this plan has been scrapped.

    We’ve known informally that it was unlikely to happen for some time, but it was actually the white paper that put the nail in the coffin. OfS will be consulting, this autumn, on the disapplication of certain conditions of registration for providers in the further education sector – though this shift will be a slow process, with current ALL arrangements extending through to 2030. But this consultation is very likely to extend much wider – recall that OfS is also tasked with a more robust approach to market entry (which, again, would be done via registration).

    Likewise, OfS has been tasked with toughening up the (E) conditions on governance, and the (D) conditions on financial sustainability (which would include forming a system-wide view of sector resilience working with UKRI) – we’ve seen evidence of a rethought approach to governance in the new conditions (E7 and E9) for initial registration, and have suspected that a further consultation would apply this to more providers.

    Degree awarding powers

    The ability to award your own qualifications is an important reputational stepping stone for any provider entering the higher education sector. It has an impact on the ability to design and run new courses, and also brings a financial benefit – no need to pay capitation on fee income to your academic partners. While quality and standards play a role in OfS registration decisions, these two aspects of provision are central to assessment for degree awarding powers as expressed via:

    An emerging self-critical, cohesive academic community with a clear commitment to the assurance of standards supported by effective (in prospect) quality systems.

    The current system (as of 1 April 2023) is run by the Office for Students after the decision of the QAA to demit from the role of Designated Quality Body. There are aspects that deal with student protection, financial probity, and arrangements for progression dealt with as a precursor to a full assessment – and here OfS looks for evidence that courses have been developed and approved in accordance with sector recognised standards: currently copy-pasted from the QAA’s (2014) framework for higher education qualifications and the UKSCQA degree classification descriptions (2019).

    When this arrangement was set up back in 2022 it was somewhat controversial. There was no sign of the sector recognised standard that is the QAA Quality Code, and seemingly no mechanism to update the official list of standards recognised by the sector as they are restated elsewhere. There is a mention of sector recognised standards in HERA, but these need to be determined by “persons representing a broad range of registered higher education providers” and “command the confidence of registered higher education providers”.

    External examiners are not mentioned in the sector recognised standards (despite being a standard that is recognised by the sector), but are mentioned in DAPs criterion B3k on the quality of the academic experience, in C1g on allowing academics to be external examiners elsewhere to gain experience (which F1i clarifies should be a third of academic staff where research degrees are offered). If you are applying for full DAPs you need to send OfS a sample of external examiner reports.

    In the white paper it is suggested that government is not convinced of the value of external examination – here’s the charge sheet:

    • We will consider the extent to which recent patterns of improving grades can be explained by an erosion of standards, rather than improved teaching or assessment practices
    • We will also continue to build the evidence base on the effectiveness or otherwise of the external examining system, which we will feed into the Office for Students’ programme for reform
    • We will also seek employers’ views about whether the academic system is giving graduates the skills and knowledge they need for the workplace.

    Of course, this sails worryingly close to devolved issues, as the external examiner infrastructure extends far beyond England: it is a requirement, supported by the sector, in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. External examiners do not often have any input into awarded degree classifications (that’s degree algorithms that are set internally by providers) so are not particularly likely to be a determining factor in more people getting a first.

    Indeed, the sector came together (back in 2022) to publish a set of External Examining Principles which exist as an annex to the statement of intent on degree classifications that forms a part of the OfS’s “sector-recognised standards.” It’s a good read for anyone who does not have a full understanding of the role of external examiners, both within institutional processes and those of the many professional, statutory, and regulatory bodies (PSRBs).

    This isn’t yet at the point of a consultation, just work the Office for Students is doing to update the process – a body of work that will also establish the concept and process of granting Higher Technical Qualification awarding powers. But we should watch some of the language around the next release of the OfS’ monitoring work on grade inflation – especially as the 2022 insight brief highlighted UUK work to strengthen the external examiner system as a key tool to address the issue.

    Other new responsibilities

    White papers generally try to make changes to the provision of applicant information – we have the 2004 white paper to thank for what is now known as Discover Uni, and the 2015 white paper put forward a simple precious metals based system that we have come to love as the Teaching Excellence Framework. Thankfully this time round it is a matter of incorporating Discover Uni style data onto UCAS course pages (which, and honestly I’m sorry to keep doing this) you can already find in a “student outcomes” section operated by the Office for Students. The white paper asks for continuation data to be added to this widget – I imagine not a huge piece of work.

    It’s 2025, so every document has to mention what is popularly known as “artificial intelligence” and we more accurately describe as generative large language models. A few paragraphs tacked on to the end of the white paper ask OfS to assess the impact of such tools on assessments and qualifications – adding, almost in passing, that it expects that “all students will learn about artificial intelligence as part of their higher education experience”. In direct, but light-hearted I am sure, contravention of section 8 (a)(i) of HERA, which says that providers are free to determine the content of courses.

    Which brings us to Progress 8 – a measure used in schools policy which adds together pupils’ highest scores from eight (hence the name I suppose) GCSEs that the government thinks are important (English and maths, plus “English Baccalaureate” subjects like: sciences, history, geography, languages) and produces a cohort average used to compare schools (here it is called “Attainment 8”) and compare average performance pupils in a given school cohort with how they did in simpler subjects at primary schools as a kind of value added measure (“Progress 8”). In other words, DfE looking in the white paper to work with OfS to build Progress 8 but for higher education is another stab at learning gain measures – something we’ve been investigating since the days of HEFCE and have never been shown to work on a national scale.

    Trust and confidence

    Regulation works via the consent of the regulated. Everyone from Universities UK down has been at pains to point out that they do see the value of higher education regulation, even if it was expressed in kind of a “more in sorrow than in anger” way at the primal therapy that was the House of Lords Industry and Regulator Committee.

    But this agreement over value is determined by a perception that the actions of the regulator are fair, predictable, and proportionate. These qualities can be seen by inexperienced regulators as a block to speedy and decisive action, but the work OfS has done to reset what was initially a very fractious relationship with the sector (and associated bodies) suggests that the importance of consensual regulation is fully understood on Lime Kiln Close.

    Every time the OfS gets, or asks for, new powers it affects the calculus of value to the sector. Here it is less a matter of new powers and more an issue of strengthening and extending existing powers (despite the occasionally confused language of the white paper). Everyone involved is surely aware that a strong power is a power that is perceived as fair – and is challengeable when it appears to be unfair. The occasional lawsuits OfS (and DfE) have faced have happened when someone is keen to do the right thing but has not gone about it in the right way.

    The coming consultations – ahead of legislation and changes to the framework – need to be genuine listening exercises, even if this means adding the kind of nuance that slows things down, or reflecting on the powers OfS already has and looking for ways to improve their effective use.

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  • Canberra steps forward as ‘TAFE university’ – Campus Review

    Canberra steps forward as ‘TAFE university’ – Campus Review

    The University of Canberra will offer shorter courses to students who have completed a TAFE course in a bid to fast track tertiary harmonisation at the institution.

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  • Victorian inquiry into uni governance – Campus Review

    Victorian inquiry into uni governance – Campus Review

    Universities will face even more scrutiny in the coming months after a third government announced it will probe the governance and management of public higher education institutions.

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  • Giving students the microphone – Campus Review

    Giving students the microphone – Campus Review

    Podcasts

    Martin BettsOctober 27, 2025Last Updated: October 27, 2025

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    We asked 34 students from eight universities what they thought of higher education and what they would change. Their answers might surprise you.

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  • What to Know about NYC School Bus Companies’ Shutdown Threats – The 74

    What to Know about NYC School Bus Companies’ Shutdown Threats – The 74


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    New York City’s troubled yellow school bus system is in the spotlight once again, with threats of a service disruption and looming mass layoffs due to a contract dispute with the city.

    The city’s largest school bus companies notified the state Department of Labor that they are preparing to shut down operations and lay off employees on Nov. 1 if they don’t receive a contract extension, the New York Post first reported Monday.

    Lawmakers, advocates, and city officials immediately condemned the bus companies’ threat, with schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos calling the move “deeply upsetting and an act of bad faith.”

    The timing of the bus company’s push, just before November’s mayoral election, for a five-year extension that would outlast the incoming mayor’s first term, “effectively bypassed the oversight of voters and elected officials who manage these vital services,” Aviles-Ramos said.

    Mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani agreed, telling reporters at an unrelated Tuesday press conference that the oversight panel in charge of approving the contract “is right to not give in to the threats.”

    The bus companies argue they have no choice because their temporary contract is expiring and they can no longer operate without a longer-term agreement.

    The episode is the latest in a long history of conflicts over how to manage the sprawling yellow bus system, which relies on a patchwork of largely for-profit companies to ferry some 150,000 students across nearly 19,000 routes each day. All told, the city spent nearly $2 billion on school busing last year.

    Parents and advocates hope this clash can draw renewed attention to problems in a system notorious for delayed and no-show buses, long rides without sufficient AC, and a lack of transparency.

    “There’s this tug of war over the money,” said Sara Catalinotto, the executive director of the advocacy group Parents for Improving School Transportation. “But this is a service, and without it these kids are discriminated against.”

    What’s the history behind these bus contracts?

    The current dispute springs from a disagreement over how to handle the city’s “legacy” school bus contracts, which date back to the 1970s and are typically renewed every five years. They most recently expired in June.

    In the months before the contracts expired, city Education Department officials signaled they were interested in rebidding the contracts, or soliciting offers from a new set of companies to more efficiently modernize buses, increase service, and strengthen sanctions for contract violations.

    Simply renewing the existing contracts gives the city “far less negotiating ability … because we have to continue with this same set of vendors,” Emma Vadehra, the Education Department’s former deputy chancellor, told the City Council in May.

    But city officials say they can’t move forward with rebidding without the option to offer something called the “Employee Protection Provision,” or EPP.

    That protection — built into the legacy contracts for decades — ensures unionized bus workers laid off by one company are prioritized for hiring by other companies, at their existing wages. Drivers and union officials consider the provision a dealbreaker — and would almost certainly strike without it.

    But city officials say a 2011 state court decision prohibits them from inserting EPP into new contracts if they rebid — and only allows them to keep EPP if they extend existing contracts. The only fix, city officials say, is changing state law — an effort that has so far stalled in Albany.

    Without that state legislation, city officials faced a choice: inking another five-year extension or pushing for a shorter-term contract in the hopes state lawmakers quickly clear the way for a rebid.

    Who is opposed to a five-year contract renewal?

    While the city moved ahead with negotiations for a five-year extension, a growing number of advocates, parents, and lawmakers flooded meetings of the Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP — the body that approves Education Department contracts — to push for a shorter-term contract.

    “Do not vote yes to extend for some long period of time,” said Christi Angel, a parent leader in District 75, which serves students with significant disabilities who disproportionately rely on busing, at the September PEP meeting. Roughly 43% of students who ride school buses have disabilities. “Don’t reward bad behavior,” Angel said. “This is a broken system.”

    Their arguments quickly gained traction in the PEP, where multiple members expressed their opposition to a five-year extension at September’s meeting.

    The panel is expected to vote on the five-year extension next month, after the mayoral election, said PEP Chair Greg Faulkner, though he would prefer to wait until the new mayor takes office in January.

    “Shouldn’t the mayor-elect have some say in a billion dollar contract?” said Faulkner. “I just think that’s sound governance.”

    Why are the city and bus companies at odds right now?

    Over the summer, the city and bus companies agreed to two emergency extensions to keep service running, the second of which expires on Oct. 31.

    Without a guarantee of an active contract after that date — since the PEP is not voting this month — the bus companies claim they have no choice but to consider layoffs.

    The city, however, had “long planned” to offer an emergency extension for November and December, and officials delivered the agreement to the bus companies on Monday, Aviles-Ramos said.

    The PEP only votes on those extensions after they’ve already taken effect, Faulkner noted.

    The bus companies, he said, are attempting to “create confusion in order to hold us hostage for a longer term agreement.”

    The bus companies reject that assertion and say they simply cannot survive any longer on emergency extensions, which don’t allow them the kind of long-term certainty they need to operate their businesses.

    “Banks will not finance 30-day extensions, buses can’t be bought, payroll cannot be paid,” said Sean Crowley, a lawyer representing several companies. “Enough is enough!”

    The companies claim that they have already worked out the contours of a new five-year contract extension with the city and are just awaiting the PEP’s approval, though Faulkner said the Education Department hasn’t yet presented the PEP with the contract.

    What happens from here?

    A spokesperson confirmed that several bus companies had received the city’s offer for another emergency contract extension and were reviewing the documents.

    Aviles-Ramos said the city is working to get “alternative transportation services” in place if that falls through.

    But even if the bus companies and city do manage to avoid a service shutdown Nov. 1, the episode raises larger questions about how to make lasting improvements in the troubled system. Ongoing driver shortages make that task even harder.

    The bus companies argue that the five-year contract agreement they sketched out with the city would achieve many of those goals, including stricter accountability to ensure drivers use GPS tracking, more staffing to field parent complaints, and monetary penalties for companies that underperform, according to testimony submitted to the PEP in September.

    But critics continue to push for a shorter-term extension to give the state legislature time to pass EPP legislation, and clear the way for a rebid.

    Mamdani has not offered specifics about how he would manage the school bus system, but said Tuesday that given the many concerns about yellow bus service, any contract extension deserves a “hard look.”

    Some reformers point to changes already underway. Under Mayor Bill de Blasio, the city bought out the largest bus company and turned it over to a nonprofit overseen by the city.

    Matt Berlin, the CEO of that nonprofit, called NYCSBUS, and former director of the city’s Office of Pupil Transportation, believes the nonprofit model has “a lot to offer the city” and could expand.

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.


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  • TCU Dissolves Women and Gender Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies Departments

    TCU Dissolves Women and Gender Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies Departments

    Texas Christian University Texas Christian University will shutter its women and gender studies department and comparative race and ethnic studies department at the end of this academic year, folding both programs into the English department in a move faculty members say reflects the institution’s response to political pressure.

    The decision, announced earlier this month, comes as higher education institutions nationwide face mounting scrutiny over programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion—particularly those focusing on gender and race. TCU officials cited low enrollment as the primary rationale, though faculty members say the timing suggests otherwise.

    Discussions about restructuring or renaming the departments began in February. Those conversations centered on how to address external pressure against anything perceived as related to DEI initiatives—pressure that has intensified since the Trump administration began efforts to eliminate such programs.

    Faculty members report that university messaging has been inconsistent. Last spring, they were told the two departments would merge but could not include “race” or “gender” in the combined department’s name. By August, officials indicated the merged department could retain those terms. The October announcement revealed all three units would be absorbed into the English department, which will retain its original name.

    University data shows undergraduate enrollment in both departments remains minimal this fall: two seniors are majoring in women and gender studies, while nine students major in comparative race and ethnic studies—five seniors, three juniors and one sophomore.

    Women and gender studies at TCU traces its roots to 1979, when professors Jean Giles-Sims and Priscilla Tate began advocating for such a program. The university formally launched it in 1994. The comparative race and ethnic studies program emerged in 2017 amid student concerns about campus climate, with its founding director telling media the program would help foster cultural change and attract a more diverse student body.

    In his email to English faculty, Provost Floyd Wormley Jr.said  that the restructuring aims to “ensure a more efficient and effective use of faculty and administrative resources” while maintaining fiscal sustainability. 

     

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  • Minneapolis School Board Signals Potential School Closures – The 74

    Minneapolis School Board Signals Potential School Closures – The 74


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    The Minneapolis school board has formally asked Superintendent Dr. Lisa Sayles-Adams for information that could lead to school closures. They passed a resolution to the effect at a recent meeting.

    The board first drafted the directive —which asks for an initial report to the board by April 2026 — at two day-long meetings in June and August. The planning follows years of discussion about closing schools in a district with 29,000 students but the capacity for 42,000 and thus a bevy of half-empty schools.

    Even as enrollment declines at a school building, the fixed expenses for building staff — like principals, secretaries, nurses, librarians, culinary workers, custodians and social workers — stay the same or go up. With so many buildings below capacity, a big portion of each Minneapolis student’s funding has to go toward covering these fixed building-level costs, draining money away from instruction and extracurricular activities.

    The board resolution comprises topics for district administrators to investigate, including efficient use of current buildings, potential changes to magnet programs, and ways to increase enrollment in the district.

    Years-long discussion about the financial burden of operating small enrollment schools

    The process for downsizing the district’s footprint has been long and circuitous.

    In October 2022, the district prepared a comprehensive financial assessment forecasting that without significant cost cutting, the district would end up draining its reserves, while expenses would exceed revenues by the end of fiscal year 2026. The district has avoided that fate by cutting services and raising class sizes, but it is still unable to balance its budget without relying on reserves and other one-time funds.

    The 2022 memo did not prescribe closing schools, but it did present an analysis showing enrollment growth alone could not overcome the district’s structural inefficiencies resulting from operating many schools with small enrollments. At the time of the analysis, Anoka-Hennepin was operating 37 school buildings while enrolling about 37,000 students. Minneapolis was operating 61 buildings while enrolling about 29,000 students. Minneapolis had about half as many students per building as Anoka-Hennepin.

    The board first publicly discussed reducing the number of schools in March 2023, when then-board Chair Sharon El-Amin asked Rochelle Cox, the then-interim superintendent, to develop a draft plan for “school transformation.” Neither Cox nor the board took action.

    Two months before current Superintendent Dr. Lisa Sayles-Adams started at the district in early 2024, the School Board passed a “transformation resolution” that directed the district to do an accounting of physical space but stopped short of calling for a timeline on school closures.

    Sayle-Adams promised to tackle “right-sizing” the district after passing a budget in June 2024, because, she said, the community asked her to address the issue.

    Low enrollment schools require more funding per student for building-level staff

    The district is contending with rising costs and operating a significant number of small buildings, as well as buildings operating below capacity. Given the rising fixed costs of operating these buildings, that leaves less money for everything else, from class size reduction to teacher pay and programs commonly found in most school districts like world languages, art, music and athletics.

    Across the district, as building-level enrollment has declined, students have lost access to services like academic support if they’re struggling; staff to address student behavior; and community liaisons to help parents connect with schools. Small elementary schools have difficulty funding full-time positions for electives like art, music and gym, while hiring part-time staff for these positions is challenging. Some elementary students have gone without these electives, or only have music or art for part of the school year.

    Enrollment declines at middle and high schools have meant fewer elective options, like world languages, dance, theater and orchestra, as well as extracurriculars. Students also lose access to advanced coursework — like AP or IB classes — when there are too few students in the school who want to enroll. Many of the district’s high schools are now sharing athletic teams because individual schools lack enough students and funding to support a robust athletics program.

    The decline in services drives some families to schools outside the district that have the services and programs they desire, compounding the enrollment declines.

    Declines in enrollment mitigated by new-to-country students

    Minneapolis Public Schools lost about 15% of its enrollment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, due to a combination of factors including implementing a controversial plan redrawing school boundaries, and keeping its schools closed longer during the pandemic than any other Minnesota district, which was followed in March 2022 by a three week educator strike.

    The district has enjoyed a small enrollment increase both last year and this year. Although the district does not track the immigration status of students, the increase has been attributed almost entirely to students newly arrived to the United States from Central America. Since the 2021-22 school year, English learner students have increased from 17% of the district’s students to 23% in the 2024-25 school year, according to Minnesota Department of Education data.

    This year, the district expects to spend at least $17 million more on English learner services than it receives in funding from state and federal sources. Although the Legislature increased state aid for English learners during the 2023 legislative session, the district’s funding is insufficient to cover the cost of providing the intensive services needed by students with the lowest levels of English proficiency.

    Many of the newcomer students are also unhoused, which has led to growing costs for the district to transport students from shelters outside district boundaries, as required under the federal McKinney-Vento law. The state has started to pay the cost of this transportation under a law passed in 2023.

    It is not clear whether changes to federal immigration policy will impact the district’s ability to continue to rely on newcomers to stabilize or grow enrollment in the future.

    Future enrollment expected to decline, limiting district’s funding

    Hazel Reinhardt, a demographer hired by the district, says enrollment is likely to continue to decline in the coming years because of lower birth rates, fewer families choosing to raise children in the city, and the state’s favorable laws around charter schools and open enrollment, allowing parents to send their children to St. Paul or suburban schools.

    Reinhardt told the board in June that once parents leave for charter and private schools or open enrollment options, “precious few” districts are able to bring them back.

    Most of the district’s funding is based on enrollment, so declining enrollment has created a ballooning fiscal crisis. Growing costs for both labor and services have outpaced increases in state and local funding.

    The district continues to cut services, increase class sizes and pull from its dwindling reserve funds to balance its annual budget. The district is expected to use $25 million from its reserves this school year after using $85 million from reserves last school year.

    The district’s enrollment woes and related financial distress are not unique to Minneapolis, with similar challenges facing large urban districts like Oakland, San Francisco, Denver, Seattle and Portland. Denver and Oakland have closed a small number of schools in recent years, but not enough to stabilize district finances. And school boards in Seattle and San Francisco have walked away from closure plans after significant public pressure, leaving both districts with growing budget deficits.

    Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: [email protected].


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  • Teachers unions leverage contracts to fight climate change

    Teachers unions leverage contracts to fight climate change

    This story first appeared in Hechinger’s climate and education newsletter. Sign up here. 

    In Illinois, the Chicago Teachers Union won a contract with the city’s schools to add solar panels on some buildings and clean energy career pathways for students, among other actions. In Minnesota, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators demanded that the district create a task force on environmental issues and provide free metro passes for students. And in California, the Los Angeles teachers union’s demands include electrifying the district’s bus fleet and providing electric vehicle charging stations at all schools. 

    Those are among the examples in a new report on how unionized teachers are pushing their school districts to take action on the climate crisis, which is damaging school buildings and disrupting learning. The report — produced by the nonprofit Building Power Resource Center, which supports local governments and leaders, and the Labor Network for Sustainability, a nonprofit that seeks to unite labor and climate groups — describes how educators can raise demands for climate action when they negotiate labor contracts with their districts. By emphasizing the financial case for switching to renewable energy, educators can simultaneously act on climate change, improve conditions in schools and save districts money, it says. 

    As federal support and financial incentives for climate action wither, this sort of local action is becoming more difficult — but also more urgent, advocates say. Chicago Public Schools has relied on funding for electric buses that has been sunsetted by the Trump administration, said Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union. But the district is also seeking other local and state funding and nonprofit support.

    Bradley Marianno, an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that educator unions embracing climate action is part of a move started about 15 years ago in which more progressive unions — like those in Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere — focus on “collective good bargaining,” or advocating for changes that are good for their members but also the broader community. But this approach is unlikely to catch on everywhere: “The risk lies in members feeling that core issues like wages and working conditions are being overlooked in favor of more global causes,” he wrote in an email. 

    I recently caught up with Potter, the CTU vice president, about the report and his union’s approach to bargaining for climate action. Collaborating with local environmental and community groups, the Chicago Teachers Union ultimately succeeded in winning a contract that calls for identifying schools for solar panels and electrification, expanding indoor air quality monitoring, helping educators integrate climate change into their curriculum, and establishing training for students in clean energy jobs, among other steps. 

    This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

    The report talks about contract negotiations being an underused — and effective — lever for demanding climate action. Why do you see that process as such an opportunity for climate action?

    On the local level, our schools are 84, 83 years old on average. There is lead paint, lead pipes, mold, asbestos, PCBs, all kinds of contamination in the HVAC system and the walls that require upgrades. By our estimate, the district needs $30 billion worth of upgrades, and right now I think they spend $500 million a year to just do patch-up work. We’re at a point where it’s a system fail of epic proportions if we can’t figure out a way to transition and make things healthier. And so if you’re going to do a roof repair, put solar on it, have independence from fossil fuels, clean air in areas that have faced environmental racism and contamination. 

    We’re also dealing with a legacy of discrimination and harm, and that is true of the nation. So how do we get out of this and also save the planet and also prevent greater climate events that further destabilize vulnerable communities and put people at risk? It made sense for us to use our contract as a path to do both things — deal with this local crisis that was screaming for new solutions and ideas, in a moment when the climate is on fire, literally.  

    How challenging was it to get educators to view climate issues as a priority? There are so many other things, around pay and other issues, on the table. 

    When we started, it almost felt like people in the membership, in the community, viewed it as a niche issue. Like, ‘Oh, isn’t that cute, you care about green technology.’ As we figured out how to think about it and talk about it and probe where people were having issues in their schools, it became really obvious that when you started talking about asbestos, lead and mold remediation — and helping communities that have been hit the hardest with cumulative impacts and carcinogens and how those things are present in schools — that became much more tangible. Or even quality food and lunch and breakfast for students who are low-income. It went from bottom of the list to top of the list, instantaneously. 

    Your contract calls for a number of climate-related actions, including green pathways for students and agreements with building trade unions to create good jobs for students. Tell me about that. 

    We’re trying to use the transformation of our facilities as another opportunity for families and students in these communities that have been harmed the most to get the greatest benefit from the transformation. So if we can install solar, we want our students to be part of that project on the ground in their schools, gaining the skills and apprenticeship credentials to become the electricians of the future. And using that as a project labor agreement [which establishes the terms of work on a certain project] with the trades to open doors and opportunities. The same goes for all the other improvements — whether it’s heat pumps, HVAC systems, geothermal. And for EV — we have outdated auto shop programming that’s exclusively based on the combustible engine reliant on fossil fuels, whereas in [the nearby city of] Belvidere they are building electric cars per the United Auto Workers’ new contract. Could we gain a career path on electric vehicles that allows students to gain that mechanical knowledge and insight and prepares them for the vehicles of the future? 

    The report talks about the Batesville School District in Arkansas that was able to increase teacher salaries because of savings from solar. Have you tried to make the case for higher teacher salaries because of these climate steps?  

    The $500 million our district allocates for facility upgrades annually comes out of the general fund, so we haven’t at all thought about it in terms of salary. We’ve thought about it in terms of having a school nurse, social worker, mental health interventions at a moment when there is so much trauma. We see this as a win-win: The fewer dollars the district has to spend on facility needs means the more dollars they can spend on instructional and social-emotional needs for students. In terms of the Arkansas model, it’s pretty basic. If you get off the fossil fuel pipelines and electric lines and you become self-sufficient, essentially, powering your own electric and heat, there is going to be a boon, particularly if there are up-front subsidies. 

    Math and climate change 

    When temperatures rise in classrooms, students have more trouble concentrating and their learning suffers — in math, in particular. That’s according to a new report from NWEA, an education research and testing company.

    The report, part of a growing body of evidence of the harms of extreme heat on student performance, found that math scores declined when outdoor temperatures on test days rose above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Students in high-poverty schools, which are less likely to have air conditioning, saw declines up to twice as large as those in wealthier schools. 

    The learning losses grew as temperatures rose. Students who took tests on 101-degree days scored roughly 0.06 standard deviations below students who tested when temperatures were 60 degrees, the equivalent of about 10 percent of the learning a fifth grader typically gains in a school year. 

    It’s not entirely clear why student math scores suffer more than reading when temperatures rise. But Sofia Postell, an NWEA research analyst, said that on math tests, students must problem-solve and rely on their memories, and that kind of thinking is particularly difficult when students are hot and tired. Anxiety could be a factor too, she wrote in an email: “Research has also shown that heat increases anxiety, and some students may experience more testing anxiety around math exams.”

    The study was based on data from roughly 3 million scores on NWEA’s signature MAP Growth test for third to eighth graders in six states. 

    The report urged school, district and state officials to take several steps to reduce the effects of high heat on student learning and testing. Ideally, tests would be scheduled during times of the year when it wasn’t so hot, it said, and also during mornings, when temperatures are cooler. Leaders also need to invest in updating HVAC systems to keep kids cool. 

    “Extreme heat has already detrimentally impacted student learning and these effects will only intensify without action,” wrote Postell. 

    Mea culpa: A quick note to say I got two things wrong in my last newsletter — the name of the Natural Resources Defense Council was incorrect, as was the number of hours of learning California students have missed so far this year. It’s more than 54,000. 

    Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected].

    This story about teachers unions was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter on climate and education.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • Nevada Funding for Dolly Parton Book Program in Clark County Dries Up – The 74

    Nevada Funding for Dolly Parton Book Program in Clark County Dries Up – The 74


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    Over the past two years, upwards of 18,000 young children in the Las Vegas metro area have received free monthly books in the mail as part of an early literacy program started by country icon Dolly Parton. But that ends this month.

    Storied Inc., the Clark County-based nonprofit partner for Parton’s Imagination Library, last week announced to parents and guardians that its October books would be the last until additional funding for the program is secured. The program, when funded, provides a free, age-appropriate monthly book to children 0 to 5 years old.

    According to Meredith Helmick, executive director of Storied, the nonprofit sought funding from the Nevada State Legislature earlier this year to keep the program going after an initial two-years of state grant funding ended, but they came up empty handed.

    Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager sponsored a bill to appropriate $3.9 million to the United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra, which currently runs the Imagination Library for Washoe County residents, to expand the program statewide. The bill was referred to the Assembly Committee on Ways & Means, where it languished until the end of the regular session without a hearing or even a mention, according to the legislature’s website.

    Helmick also hoped the nonprofit program might be able to secure funding through Senate Bill 460, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro’s omnibus education legislation.

    An early version of that bill appropriated $50 million for early childhood literacy readiness programs, but an amendment reduced that to $0 for the fiscal year beginning July 2025 and $12 million for the fiscal year beginning July 2026. Helmick says lawmakers chose to prioritize expansion of preschool seats, a Cannizzaro priority.

    SB460 was heavily negotiated and amended to include many of Gov. Joe Lombardo’s education priorities. Those priorities included setting aside $7 million in grant funding for charter school transportation.

    It appears those other priorities came at the expense of existing innovative programs that were working.

    Helmick says a survey of her families last year found 62% of them had fewer than 20 children’s books in their homes before enrolling their children in the program.

    “This program is such a low cost, high reward program,” she added.

    Helmick is hopeful the program can return to the Las Vegas area. She says Storied is having conversations with large companies and other nonprofits, reaching out to elected officials at all levels of government, and urging their supporters to do the same.

    “We’ve heard rumors of a special session,” she adds. “Can we rewrite SB460 to include the language that it took out? Are there other funds that we could add or tap into that we could fit under? Maybe that’s an avenue.”

    ‘It isn’t just about the books’

    Meredith Helmick and her husband, Kyle, were inspired to start Storied Inc. after attempting to sign up their daughter for Imagination Library only to learn the nationwide program didn’t serve their area.

    Dolly Parton launched Imagination Library in 1995 and the program has since given out more than 250 million free books to children in the United States and four other countries.

    Storied Inc. is one of several partners running the program in Nevada. According to Helmick, the other partners have managed to continue their programs, either in whole or by scaling down the number of kids served.

    The sheer size of Clark County’s population makes that a tougher task for Storied. According to the Imagination Library’s website, nearly 29,000 Nevada children are enrolled, the vast majority through Storied.

    Helmick says that before they even had a chance to market the program or figure out stable funding, an intrepid stranger found the sign up form and shared it on a social media group for parents in Las Vegas.

    “In 48 hours, we had 3,500 kids registered,” she recalls. “It was, like, ‘I guess we’re doing it now.’ But it all worked out beautifully.”

    From there, the program quickly grew just by word of mouth. It was funded from June 2023 to July 2025 by a grant from the state’s Early Childhood Innovative Literacy Program. Participation fluctuates each month as kids are signed up or age out at 5 years old, but Helmick says it stays in the range of 18,000 or 19,000 thousand children spanning most of Clark County.

    (Boulder City residents have a dedicated partner, Reading to Z, which currently serves fewer than 200 kids. Rural Clark County residents who live in Valley Electric Association’s service area can sign up for a program run by the energy cooperative’s charitable foundation.)

    Over the summer, with the funding drying up, Storied stopped accepting new kids into the program.

    “We didn’t want to disappoint families” by starting to send them books only to stop sending them a few months later, said Helmick. “One thing that sets (Imagination Library) apart is these books are sent directly to their home. I am a huge proponent of libraries. I’m there practically every week. But not everybody is able to do that. That is a barrier.”

    Additionally, the books arrive addressed to the child.

    “Getting it in the mail, the label with their name, it gives them ownership of the book,” says Helmick. “It makes a huge difference. I didn’t realize it until I heard it from families.”

    On the inside of each book cover is a note from Imagination Library with tips for parents on conversations they can have with their child about the book, or questions they can ask to boost critical thinking and early reading skills.

    “It isn’t just about the books and the words and the stories you’re reading with your kids,” said Helmick. “It’s sitting together side by side. It’s having conversations with them.”

    Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: [email protected].


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