Category: Elementary to High School

  • The details behind the first national school voucher program

    The details behind the first national school voucher program

    After decades of trying, conservatives this year succeeded in creating the first national school voucher program.

    The Republican megabill that President Donald Trump signed into law in July will establish new tax credit scholarships for families to use at private schools, including religious ones — a long-held goal of school privatization advocates who argue parents should get taxpayer support if they want to opt out of their neighborhood school.

    Under the “big, beautiful bill,” donors can receive dollar-for-dollar tax credits of up to $1,700 for contributions to scholarship-granting nonprofits. Those groups then distribute the money to families seeking help paying for private school, tutoring and other educational expenses. 

    The program, while significant, is less expansive than in earlier drafts of the legislation. Previous versions gave donors larger tax credits — a match up to $5,000 or 10 percent of their income, whichever is greater — and mandated that all states participate rather than allowing them to opt in. 

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    Here are 10 things to know about the program. If you have other questions or there’s more you’d like to know, write to us: [email protected].

    When does it start?

    Jan. 1, 2027. Families have until then to research where they might want to spend a scholarship — and if the school in mind even plans to accept one. Taxpayers who want to contribute to support the scholarships can do so beginning in late 2026.  

    How will the scholarships work?

    The law opens the door to churches, universities, education nonprofits, rotary clubs and potentially even public schools (more on that below) to accept and distribute donations for the program. These “scholarship-granting organizations,” or SGOs, can keep up to 10 percent of the donations for administrative costs.

    In some states with existing scholarship programs, families apply with a third-party contractor that works with eligible schools and selects students for awards. Other states allow religious groups and other nonprofits to create and manage their own scholarship funds. The federal bill gives states wide flexibility to make those sorts of decisions about how the program is administered, experts say.

    Who’s eligible for the scholarships?

    To qualify, students need to check these boxes: They must be eligible to attend a public school, their state must opt in to the program, and their families must earn no more than three times the area median income — a threshold that would include households with incomes nearing $500,000 in some parts of the United States.

    Students who already attend private school qualify, since they are eligible for public school, even if they don’t attend one. The scholarships also may cover home-schoolers. (Keep reading for more on that.)

    How much money will families receive? 

    While the bill set a $1,700 cap on how much individual donors can contribute through their taxes, it’s unclear whether it limits how much an individual student could collect in scholarships.

    In theory, a student could apply for several scholarships. An SGO might also offer a scholarship that reimburses a family for all costs associated with attending their preferred school. In states that already offer similar school choice programs, a student might be able to collect scholarships from both the new program and the existing state program. Still, the average cost of private school tuition is roughly $13,000, so even students who combine several scholarships may not receive enough to cover the full cost of attending.

    The Treasury Department is expected to issue regulations on the program, and we may not know these kinds of details until it does. 

    Related: Arizona gave families public money for private schools. Then private schools raised tuition

    What can the scholarship money be used for?

    Quite a lot. The legislation suggests that families could use the money not only to help pay for private school tuition, but also for room and board, services for students with disabilities, transportation, tutoring, and school supplies like books, computers and uniforms. 

    The rules may depend on the individual state and its definition of an “eligible school.” In some states, home schooling might qualify students for the scholarships, but in other states it might not, said Robert Enlow, president of EdChoice, a pro-school choice group.  

    It’s also possible that public schools could charge scholarship students — as some do with home-schoolers — for services like tutoring, special education or advanced courses. 

    So students can use the money at public schools? How would that work? 

    Yes, potentially. In some states, schools already charge activity or participation fees for non-enrolled students who want to join clubs and sports. Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, said some states may write their own rules that allow schools to extend the menu of services they could charge for.

    Meanwhile, most school districts — roughly 4 in 5 — already partner with foundations that raise money to help students with transportation, school supplies and basic needs. Both Enlow and Roza said they expected nonprofits and districts to partner on finding ways to tap the federal scholarship dollars as well.

    “Imagine you could have a public school foundation going out and helping with transportation and books and computers and tutors and all sorts of stuff, right?” Enlow said. “The potential is huge.”

    Will all private schools accept the scholarships? 

    No, private schools are not required to accept the scholarships, and many states that offer school choice don’t require private schools to participate. Private schools generally can accept or reject a student for any reason, whether they have a scholarship or not.

    In Arizona, for example, the tax credit program provided scholarships to students at 348 schools last year. More than 400 private schools operated in the state as of 2022.

    Related: Tracking Trump: His actions to dismantle the Education Department, and more 

    Which states will participate?

    Roughly 21 states — including Arizona, Georgia and Montana — offer their own tax credit scholarships, according to the group EdChoice, so it’s expected they would opt into the federal program. Conservative lawmakers in North Carolina already introduced a bill to allow families there to take part in the federal scholarships. 

    If public schools can benefit too, even Democratic governors may consider joining the program, said Roza.

    “Ultimately if the state can open this to summer camp and tutoring, obviously there would be a lot of pressure to unlock so much money with this,” she said.

    How much will the scholarships cost the government?

    It depends on how many taxpayers claim the credit. 

    While an earlier version of the bill would have capped the tax credits at $10 billion a year, the final legislation contains no such limit — so the exact amount in lost revenue won’t be known until much later. That said, an analysis by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found that the legislation would cost the Treasury up to $4 billion per year.

    Others think the cost will be higher. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning research group, placed its projection closer to $51 billion, while Roza estimated the cost at $28 billion per year. Still, she hesitated to count that as a direct loss to K-12 funding. “It’s new money in the sense that it doesn’t go into or out of the federal pie,” Roza said.

    What’s been the reaction to the plan? 

    Critics, including teachers unions and many education experts, have been quick to raise alarms about the voucher program, arguing that it’s a handout for wealthy families and will harm public schools by reducing funding for them.

    “It’s the centerpiece of the Great American Heist — a privatization scheme wrapped in tax policy,” Denise Forte, president of the left-leaning nonprofit EdTrust, said at a hearing before the Senate Democratic Caucus in July. 

    Advocates for the separation of church and state worry about the program channeling money from government coffers to religious schools, while disability advocates note that private schools are not required to serve students with disabilities.

    Some supporters of school vouchers, meanwhile, wish the legislation had gone further.

    “This is a very positive program for taxpayers in America. You can help families get better education and claim a tax credit for it,” said EdChoice’s Enlow. “It’s going to benefit middle- and low-income families.” But he added, “It’s not as generous as we would like, which is universal.”

    Others are focused now on encouraging states to participate in the program. “The fight doesn’t end with the passing of the bill,” said Sydney Altfield, national director of Teach Coalition, which advocates for Jewish schools to get access to government funding. “States must opt into the program.”

    Contact staff writer Neal Morton at 212-678-8247, on Signal at nealmorton.99, or via email at [email protected].

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

    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.

    Join us today.

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  • If we are serious about improving student outcomes, we can’t treat teacher retention as an afterthought

    If we are serious about improving student outcomes, we can’t treat teacher retention as an afterthought

    In the race to help students recover from pandemic-related learning loss, education leaders have overlooked one of the most powerful tools already at their disposal: experienced teachers.

    For decades, a myth has persisted in education policy circles that after their first few years on the job, teachers stop improving. This belief has undercut efforts to retain seasoned educators, with many policymakers and administrators treating veteran teachers as replaceable cogs rather than irreplaceable assets.

    But that myth doesn’t hold up. The evidence tells a different story: Teachers don’t hit a plateau after year five. While their growth may slow, it doesn’t stop. In the right environments — with collaborative colleagues, supportive administrators and stable classroom assignments — teachers can keep getting better well into their second decade in the classroom.

    This insight couldn’t come at a more critical time. As schools work to accelerate post-pandemic learning recovery, especially for the most vulnerable students, they need all the instructional expertise they can muster.

    That means not just recruiting new teachers but keeping their best educators in the classroom and giving them the support they need to thrive.

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    In a new review of 23 longitudinal studies conducted by the Learning Policy Institute and published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, all but one of the studies showed that teachers generally improve significantly during their first five years. The research review also found continued, albeit slower, improvement well into years 6 through 15; several of the studies found improvement into later years of teaching, though at a diminished pace.

    These gains translate into measurable benefits for students: higher test scores, fewer disciplinary issues, reduced absenteeism and increased postsecondary attainment. In North Carolina, for example, students with highly experienced English teachers learned more and were substantially less likely to skip school and more likely to enjoy reading. These effects were strongest for students who were most at risk of falling behind.

    While experience helps all teachers improve, we’re currently failing to build that experience where it’s needed most. Schools serving large populations of low-income Black and Hispanic students are far more likely to be staffed primarily by early career teachers.

    And unfortunately, they’re also more likely to see those teachers leave after just a few years. This churn makes it nearly impossible to build a stable, experienced workforce in high-need schools.

    It also robs novice teachers of the veteran mentors who could help them get better faster and robs students of the opportunity to learn from seasoned educators who have refined their craft over time.

    To fix this, we need to address both sides of the equation: helping teachers improve and keeping them in the classrooms that need them most.

    Research points to several conditions that support continued teacher growth. Beginning teachers are more likely to stay and improve if they have had high-quality preparation and mentoring. Teaching is not a solo sport. Educators who work alongside more experienced peers improve faster, especially in the early years.

    Teachers also improve more when they’re able to teach the same grade level or subject year after year. Unfortunately, those in under-resourced schools are more likely to be shuffled around, undermining their ability to build expertise.

    Perhaps most importantly, schools that have strong leadership and which foster time for collaboration and a culture of professional trust see greater gains in teacher retention over time.

    Teachers who feel supported by their administrators, who collaborate with a team that shares their mission and who aren’t constantly switching subjects or grade levels are far more likely to stay in the profession.

    Pay matters too, especially in high-need schools where working conditions are toughest. But incentives alone aren’t enough. Short-term bonuses can attract teachers, but they won’t keep them if the work environment drives them away.

    Related: One state radically boosted new teacher pay – and upset a lot of teachers

    If we’re serious about improving student outcomes, especially in the wake of the pandemic, we have to stop treating teacher retention as an afterthought. That means retooling our policies to reflect what the research now clearly shows: experience matters, and it can be cultivated.

    Policymakers should invest in high-quality teacher preparation and mentoring programs, particularly in high-need schools. They should create conditions that promote teacher stability and collaboration, such as protected planning time and consistent teaching assignments.

    Principals must be trained not just as managers, but as instructional leaders capable of building strong school cultures. And state and district leaders must consider meaningful financial incentives and other supports to retain experienced teachers in the classrooms that need them most.

    With the right support, teachers can keep getting better. In this moment of learning recovery, a key to success is keeping teachers in schools and consciously supporting their growing effectiveness.

    Linda Darling-Hammond is founding president and chief knowledge officer at the Learning Policy Institute. Michael J. Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and an executive editor of Education Next.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about teacher retention was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

    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.

    Join us today.

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  • Schools and colleges nationwide face Trump investigations

    Schools and colleges nationwide face Trump investigations

    The Trump administration moved quickly after taking office to open dozens of investigations into schools and universities nationwide. Most of those announced publicly mark a dramatic shift in priorities from previous administrations.

    The Education Department and other agencies are looking into allegations of antisemitism and racial discrimination against white students at dozens of colleges. The agency also has begun investigating policies that protect transgender athletes and, in some cases, targeted entire state departments of education as part of that work.

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    Here’s a look at investigations the Trump administration has announced. This map and list will be updated. Know of an investigation we missed? Tell us: [email protected]. 

    Although the majority of investigations that have been opened are in states considered to be liberal, almost every state in the country has at least one entity under scrutiny. And many institutions face more than one investigation.

    Related: Tracking Trump: His actions to dismantle the Education Department, and more

    To date, colleges and universities have received the most attention from the administration, with more than 60 targeted over alleged incidents of antisemitism and another 45 under scrutiny over their work with a program that aims to increase diversity among Ph.D. candidates. Most of the K-12 investigations involve transgender policies, including those about access to sports and locker rooms. 

    Contact investigations editor Sarah Butrymowicz at [email protected] or on Signal: @sbutry.04

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

    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.

    Join us today.

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  • How no-strings cash changed the lives of teens

    How no-strings cash changed the lives of teens

    NEW ORLEANS — Kapri Clark used the $50 to help pay for her braces. Lyrik Grant saved half of it, and used the rest for dance classes. Kevin Jackson said he squandered the cash on wings, ride shares for dates and some DJ equipment he later tossed.

    For the past five years, Clark, Grant, Jackson and hundreds of high schoolers in New Orleans have shopped — or saved — as part of a project to explore what happens if you give cash directly to young people, no strings attached.

    “That was the most helpful thing ever,” said Clark, now a student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, who said she could still use that extra cash.

    “The $50 study,” as it’s known, began at Rooted School, a local charter school, as an experiment to increase attendance. The study has since grown to eight other high schools in the city, as well as Rooted’s sister campus in Indianapolis, with students randomly selected to receive $50 every week for 40 weeks, or $2,000 total. By comparing their spending and savings habits to a larger control group, researchers wanted to figure out whether the money improved a teen’s financial capability and perception of themselves. They also wanted to know: Could the cash boost their grade-point averages and reading scores?

    Now, as the experiment expands to Washington, D.C., and perhaps Texas, a final report of the $50 study suggests a little bit of spending cash can make a difference in young people’s lives.

    The report, released Tuesday, shows students who received the cash payments were slightly more likely to attend school than those who didn’t. Academic performance did not differ between the groups. But financially, the extra cash helped students acquire stronger long-term planning skills and familiarity with savings accounts and other financial products. They ended the study, on average, with $300 saved away — a 15 percent savings rate, triple the national average for American adults.

    “When young people are given the opportunity to manage money in low-stakes environments, they build the habits that shape long-term financial health,” said Stacia West, an associate professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and co-founder of the Center for Guaranteed Income Research, which partnered with the Rooted School Foundation to run the study. “The short-term habits we’re seeing are laying the foundation for lifelong financial capability.”

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    Across the United States and the globe, hundreds of communities have tinkered with some form of universal basic income, or UBI, a social welfare program that provides people with regular cash payments to meet their needs. Direct cash transfer programs like the $50 study or the child tax credit for families are similar, but they often provide smaller amounts and target specific populations to boost a person’s income. Many studies have linked UBI to financial stability and better employment and health outcomes.

    In the U.S. and Canada, researchers have found links between cash transfer pilots that focus on low-income families and better test scores and graduation rates for their kids. So far, though, few experiments have targeted young people or examined how the programs influence their lives specifically.

    Talia Livneh, senior director of programs at the Rooted School in New Orleans, poses for a portrait on the school grounds. Credit: Daniella Zalcman for The Hechinger Report

    “There’s a deep, deep distrust that we adults have of young people,” said Jonathan Johnson, CEO of the Rooted School Foundation, which operates the network’s four charter schools. “That distrust is to their detriment.”

    In New Orleans, roughly 4 in 5 of Rooted students come from economically disadvantaged families, and during the pandemic, many struggled to prioritize school. Some students skipped class to provide child care for their working parents, or because they needed to work themselves, according to Johnson. With some seed funding from a local education nonprofit, Rooted started a “micropilot” to test whether cash could help students make ends meet and get themselves to school.

    The original cohort included 20 students, half of whom received the $50 payment. In that micropilot, those receiving the cash saw their material wellbeing improve, meaning their family could more easily afford rent or utilities, and they gained skills around setting financial goals.  Rooted added students from its Indianapolis campus and another high school in New Orleans, G.W. Carver. And for their final report released this week, researchers sifted through the spending and survey data from 170 students who received the cash payments and 210 students who did not.

    The two-year report found students in the treatment group attended 1.23 more days of school, and  spent close to half their funds on essentials like food and groceries. The report also noted that 70 percent of all students at the participating schools qualify for subsidized meals, suggesting “this spending may reflect efforts to meet immediate nutritional needs.” One 12th grader in a survey mentioned using the money to feed their siblings.

    Kapri Clark recalled waiting every Wednesday morning for the $50 deposit to appear in her banking app. And every Wednesday afternoon, during her senior year at Carver High School, she put that money toward her $200 bill for braces she covered out of pocket.

    She braided hair to cover the rest, and still books clients when she has time in between her studies to become a nurse at the Lafayette campus. Even in college, Clark can see the need for some supplemental income for herself and her peers.

    “I make enough to take care of myself, but I watch every dollar,” said Clark. “There’s a lot of people struggling in life to eat, to live. Think if they got kids.”

    Read Irvin, chief of staff for Collegiate Academies in New Orleans, a network of five charter high schools that includes Carver High, said the $2,000 had provided the extra incentive a few students needed to stick it out until graduation. “That’s incredibly impactful for their life trajectories,” she said.

    Related: How to help young kids: Give their parents cash

    In January 2024, the city of New Orleans invested $1 million to bankroll another extension of the study, as part of an economic mobility initiative that tapped federal Covid relief funding. During the pandemic, a skyrocketing murder rate and spike in overall crime had convinced the city to help more residents, especially young people, find stability.

    “Research shows that people who are economically stable are less likely to commit crime,” said Courtney Wong, the city’s deputy director of economic development.

    The city funding not only expanded the $50 study to nine high schools, it also set a longer timeline for the research: About 800 seniors who participate will have their data tracked for 18 months after their graduation.

    A former high school teacher and administrator, Wong said $50 could have made a difference in the lives of many of her former students.

    “This targets young people in that perfect moment,” she said. “They’re in the right spot where even a little amount of help could have big, positive impacts before issues of crime or unemployment or things like that even come up.”

    Researchers also found students who received the $50 reported greater agency. They felt more control over their finances and more confidence about making long-term financial decisions. Students, according to the report, aligned their spending to future goals such as college prep classes and getting a driver’s license.

    Lyrik Grant, a rising junior at Carver High School, is the second-youngest of six kids with two working parents. She could ask them for help, but the $50 allowed Grant to afford the tights and tops she needed for dance class on her own. The money helped cover a college entrance exam, which she aced, and Grant wants to learn how to drive soon.

    “My first thought was: What am I going to do with all this money?” Grant said, adding that the cash helped some of her classmates find financial stability. “Children don’t always want to spend their parent’s money, and some parents don’t always have money to give them.”

    Still, for some students, the money wasn’t exactly life-changing. Irvin of Collegiate Academies said many used the cash to “just be teenagers.”

    That was true for Kevin Jackson, a rising junior at Rooted School New Orleans.

    “It’s cool to get free money,” he said. “I was spending it on the TikTok shop: posters, keyboards, lights — stuff I liked, not stuff I actually needed.”

    Related: All-charter no more: New Orleans opens its first traditional school in nearly two decades

    Despite the studies that show a positive impact from UBI, many Americans appear skeptical of the idea of a federal program that gives unconditional financial support to people. Aditi Vasan, a pediatrician and researcher at PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said skeptics often worry about recipients using public dollars for drug use or other illicit behavior, even though the data does not support that.

    Still, that fear will likely keep any large-scale cash transfer program from being adopted in the United States any time soon, she said.

    “That concern exists certainly for cash transfers in general but might be particularly magnified for teens,” Vasan said. “We’ve not seen that play out in the evidence from the quality studies that have been done.”

    Next year, in Washington, D.C., the nonprofit Education Forward will fund a pilot of the $50 study with 40 high schoolers. The Rooted school network resumed talks, meanwhile, to take the study to neighboring Texas, after state lawmakers earlier this year failed to pass legislation that threatened to ban local governments from adopting guaranteed income programs.

    Talia Livneh, senior director of programs for the Rooted School Foundation, said the politics may need to catch up to the research.

    “I don’t think what we’re doing is so radical. I believe this just works,” she said. “Kids don’t lack character. They lack cash,” Livneh added. “They deserve deep, deep trust that students and people know what’s best for them.”

    It’s been four years since Vernell Cheneau III received the $50 for 40 weeks while a student at Rooted in New Orleans, and his economic life isn’t easy. He struggled for months to find part-time work in his hometown. But on a recent summer morning, the same day he finally received a job offer, Cheneau recalled what he learned from the study.

    Vernell Cheneau III (left) with two other students who participated in the cash transfer program at Rooted School, in New Orleans.
    Credit: Courtesy of Rooted School

    “You learn that money goes fast, especially if it’s free,” said Cheneau, 22.

    As a student, he tried to use the money to build some credit history. Since then, he’s learned the full cost of being an adult in America: health care, fuel and maintenance for his car, getting your hair done before a new job. Cheneau has also spent that time trying to convince friends and family to support UBI.

    Most oppose giving “free” money to people, he said. “How much does it cost to feed children? Get to work? We can’t just allow people to drown.”

    “Everything costs something,” Cheneau added. “If you’re stuck in a rut, it’s expensive to restart. In this country, it’s expensive to be poor.”

    Contact staff writer Neal Morton at 212-678-8247, on Signal at nealmorton.99, or via email at [email protected].

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

    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.

    Join us today.

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  • PRINCIPAL VOICE: Inviting families into our classrooms slashed absenteeism and raised reading levels

    PRINCIPAL VOICE: Inviting families into our classrooms slashed absenteeism and raised reading levels

    Two years ago, I bought each of the teachers at Hamilton Elementary in San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood a blue chair. I told them to put it in the back of their classrooms, and that if a parent or caregiver wanted to visit to see how their children are learning — no matter what the reason — that this would be a dedicated space for them.

    I may have earned some exaggerated eye-rolls from educators that day. After all, I can appreciate the disruption to learning that classroom visitors can sometimes cause, especially among excitable elementary schoolers.

    But school is our home, and it is our responsibility to invite families into our home and welcome them. And this was a necessary olive branch, my way of saying to families: “From here on out, things are going to be different.”

    And they were. They also can be different at other schools, because the benefits of family engagement go well beyond student achievement.

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    Research has long shown that when parents and caregivers are involved and engaged with their children’s education — whether that’s by attending parent-teacher conferences or participating in school events — student achievement, motivation and social-emotional well-being increase.

    Parent involvement with reading activities has a positive impact on reading achievement, language comprehension, expressive language skills and level of attention in the classroom, according to the National Literacy Trust.

    Research also shows that educators enjoy increased job satisfaction and are more likely to keep teaching at the school, families enjoy stronger relationships with their children and feel less isolated, and even school districts themselves become better places to live and raise children.

    None of this was the case when we returned to normalcy following Covid. Just 13 percent of students were reading on grade level, and 37 percent were chronically absent. I knew right away that before we even attempted to tackle academics, we needed to engage families and make them feel deeply connected and committed to the community I envisioned building here.

    Today, 45 percent of students are reading at grade-level, and chronic absenteeism, at 12 percent on the most recent official numbers, is down to 10 percent in our own tracking, with a goal of pushing it down to 8 percent in 2025-26.

    But it wasn’t easy given the distrust that had boiled over during the pandemic, with families skeptical of our ability to effectively support their children and school staff feeling defensive and exhausted.

    It was clear to me that families weren’t excited to send their kids to school, didn’t feel informed about what was happening on our campus and, moreover, didn’t feel comfortable — let alone capable — of communicating their needs to us.

    Complicating matters further was the need to share information across many languages other than English, which can make relationship-building and communicating expectations difficult.

    Roughly half of our students are English learners, and while the majority of their families are Spanish-speakers, there are growing populations of students whose first languages are Haitian-Creole, Pashto and Vietnamese.

    Related: What the research says about the best way to engage parents

    The first thing I did was establish open communication with parents using ClassDojo, a mobile app that gives families an easy, intuitive central access point to our teachers and staff, automatically translates all messages into parents’ native languages and allows us to share stories about what is happening in school.

    It became an easy way to build trust and collaboration between families and staff.

    Creating that type of visibility was key to breaking down walls between us. And in those early days, we didn’t post about literacy, math or anything related to academics. Instead, we focused solely on attendance and getting families to come inside the school as much as possible.

    We focused on relationship-building activities and joyful learning. We hosted after-school art classes and monthly family Fridays, when families could come to school to engage in a fun activity.

    We organized a Halloween costume drive with candy and fun games for kids; we hosted a Read Across America event where we passed out Play-Doh; and we organized other low-stakes events at school, rooted in building a partnership between home and school.

    Again, our goal wasn’t learning during these meet-ups. It was all in service of building trust and creating meaningful relationships with students and their families.

    Once we had the foundation in place, we added a focus on academics — though we rooted that learning in family engagement, too. For example, our schoolwide focus last year was phonics, so we sent activities home for families to complete with their children that were tied specifically to concepts the students needed reinforced, based on their individual assessments, like long vowel patterns and sight words.

    These activities were taught by the students and their teachers to family members during conferences.

    Beyond helping students, the exercise challenged a false narrative so many families had assumed — that they either didn’t know enough about what was happening in school to help, weren’t confident enough to help or didn’t have enough time.

    Today, the atmosphere at Hamilton feels radically different than when I first walked through the doors. When we first started hosting Family Fridays, about 10 family members and their children showed up.

    Now, we have roughly 200 caregivers at every meet-up. Families run most of the community-based initiatives at the school — from a boutique where families can shop among donated clothes twice a month, to a food distribution center, to a book club, English classes and a monthly meet-up where families can socialize.

    When district leaders visit, they’re always impressed by the participation. I tell them, if you care about family engagement, it has to be so deeply embedded into the system that people don’t have a choice but to do it.

    That’s why I’m constantly thinking about how to center family engagement in staff meetings, in attendance meetings, in literacy and math plans, in behavioral and counseling plans and in meetings about school procedures and budgets.

    It’s a strategy that not only involves families but also supports academic achievement and student well-being. For me, family engagement is the ultimate strategy for academics.

    Sometimes in the K-12 world we keep outreach and academics separate, but in reality, engagement is the key that unlocks our ability to hit academic goals and create a joyful school community.

    Dr. Brittany Daley is the principal of Hamilton Elementary School in San Diego, California.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about family engagement was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

    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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  • A government climate website teachers rely on is in peril

    A government climate website teachers rely on is in peril

    For the last 15 years, science teacher Jeff Grant has used information on climate change from the federal website Climate.gov to create lesson plans, prepare students for Advanced Placement tests and educate fellow teachers. Now, Grant says, he is “grabbing what [he] can” from the site run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Program Office, amid concerns that the Trump administration is mothballing it as part of a broader effort to undermine climate science and education.

    “It’s just one more thing stifling science education,” said Grant, who teaches at Downers Grove North High School in the Chicago suburbs. 

    Since early May, all 10 editorial contributors to Climate.gov have lost their jobs, and the organization that produces its education resources will soon run out of money. On June 24, the site’s homepage was redirected to NOAA.gov, a change NOAA said was made to comply with an earlier executive order on “restoring gold standard science.” Those steps follow many others the president has made to dismantle federal efforts to fight climate change, which his administration refers to as the “new green scam.”

    Former employees of Climate.gov and other educators say they fear that the site, which will no longer produce new content, could be transformed into a platform for disinformation. 

    “It will make it harder for teachers to do a good job in educating their students about climate change,” said Glenn Branch, deputy director of the nonprofit National Center for Science Education. “Previously, they could rely on the federal government to provide free, up-to-date, accurate resources on climate change that were aimed at helping educators in particular, and they won’t be able to do so if some of these more dire predictions come to pass.”

    Such concerns have some foundation. For example, Covid.gov, which during the Biden administration offered health information and access to Covid-19 tests, has been revamped to promote the controversial theory that the coronavirus was created in a lab. The administration has also moved aggressively to delete from government sites other terms that are currently out of favor, such as references to transgender people that were once on the National Park Service website of the Stonewall National Memorial, honoring a major milestone in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights.

    Kim Doster, director of NOAA’s office of communications, declined to answer specific questions but shared a version of the statement posted on the NOAA website when Climate.gov was transferred. “In compliance with Executive Order 14303, Restoring Gold Standard Science, NOAA is relocating all research products from Climate.gov to NOAA.gov in an effort to centralize and consolidate resources,” it says.  

    Related: Want to read more about how climate change is shaping education? Subscribe to our free newsletter.

    Climate.gov, founded in 2010 to support earth science instruction in schools, had become a go-to site for educators and the general public for news and information about temperature, sea level rise and other indicators of global warming.

    For many educators, it has served a particularly key role. Because its resources are free, they are vital in schools that lack resources and funding, teachers and experts say. 

    Rebecca Lindsey, Climate.gov’s lead editor and writer, was one of several hundred NOAA probationary employees fired in February, then rehired and put on administrative leave, before being terminated again in March. The rest of the content production team — which included a meteorologist, a graphic artist and data visualizers — lost their jobs in mid-May. Only the site’s two web developers still have their jobs. 

    A screenshot of the Sea Level Rise Viewer, an interactive NOAA that’s listed as a resource on Climate.gov, a government climate website. Credit: NOAA Office for Coastal Management

    Lindsey said she worries that the government “intended to keep the site up and use it to spread climate misinformation, because they were keeping the web developers and getting rid of the content team.”

    In addition, the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network, the official content provider for the education section of the site, has not received the latest installment of its three-year grant and expects its funds to run out in August. 

    “We won’t have funding to provide updates, fix hyperlinks and make sure that new resources are being added, or help teachers manage or address or use the resources,” said Anne Gold, CLEAN’s principal investigator. “It’s going to start deteriorating in quality.” 

    CLEAN, whose website is hosted by Carleton College, is now searching for other sources of money to continue its work, Gold said. 

    With the June 24 change redirecting visitors from Climate.gov to NOAA.gov/climate, the website  for the first time falls under the purview of a political appointee: Doster. Its previous leader, David Herring, is a science writer and educator.

    Melissa Lau, an AP environmental science teacher in Piedmont, Oklahoma, said the relocated site was “really difficult to navigate.”

    As someone who lives in Tornado Alley, Lau said, she frequented CLEAN and NOAA sites to show her students localized, real-time data on storm seasons. She said she is concerned that teachers won’t have time to track down information that was shifted in the website’s move and, as a result, may opt not to teach climate change. 

    The executive order on “restoring gold standard science” that appears to have triggered the shift gives political appointees the authority to decide what science information needs to be modified to align with its tenets. 

    While the disclaimer posted to NOAA.gov seems to imply that Climate.gov did not meet this requirement, educators and researchers said that the site and its CLEAN education resources were the epitome of a gold standard.

    “I want to stress that the reason why CLEAN is considered the gold standard is because we have such high standards for scientific accuracy, classroom readiness and maintenance,” Gold said. “We all know that knowledge is power, and power gives hope. … [Losing funding] is going to be a huge loss to classrooms and to students and the next generation.”

    Related: One state mandates teaching climate change in almost all subjects — even PE

    This is only the latest attack by the Trump administration on education around climate change. This month, the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s website, GlobalChange.gov, was shut down by the administration, after the program was defunded in April. The website once hosted an extensive climate literacy guide, along with all five iterations of the National Climate Assessment — a congressionally required report that informed the public about the effects and risks of climate change, along with local, actionable responses. 

    The Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA, has cut other federal funding for climate research, including at Princeton University, arguing that these climate grant awards promoted “exaggerated and implausible climate threats, contributing to a phenomenon known as ‘climate anxiety,’ which has increased significantly among America’s youth.” 

    Studies, though, suggest that if young people have a greater understanding of why weather is changing and how to take action, they are less likely to feel anxious. 

    “The more you know [about climate change], the more it’s not a scary monster in the closet,” said Lauren Madden, professor of elementary science education at the College of New Jersey. “It’s a thing you can react to.” She added, “We’re going to have more storms, we’re going to have more fires, we’re going to have more droughts. There are things we can do to help slow this. … I think that quells anxiety, that doesn’t spark it.”

    And climate education has broad public support — about 3 in 4 registered voters say schools should teach children about global warming, according to a 2024 report from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Similarly, 77 percent of Americans regard it as very or somewhat important for elementary and secondary school students to learn about climate change, according to a 2019 study. And all but five states have adopted science standards that incorporate at least some instruction on climate change.

    Yet few teachers have received training on climate change. There is also not much professional development for climate educators, and textbooks tend to downplay the effects of climate change. 

    As a result, many science teachers rely on federal tools and embed them in their curriculum. They are worried that the information will no longer be relevant, or disappear entirely, according to Lori Henrickson, former climate integration specialist for Washington state’s education department. Henrickson, who lost her job this June as the result of state budget cuts, was in charge of integrating climate education across content areas in the state, from language arts to physical education.

    The .gov top-level domain connotes credibility and accessibility, according to Branch: “It is also easier for teachers facing or fearing climate change denial backlash to cite a reliable, free source from the federal government.”

    Related: How Trump is disrupting efforts by schools and colleges to combat climate change

    With Climate.gov’s future uncertain, educators are looking to other resources, like university websites and tools from other countries. 

    “I’m sure there will continue to be tools, and there will be enough people who will be willing to pay to access them,” Madden said. But, she added, “they probably won’t be as comprehensive, and it won’t feel like it’s a democratic process. It’ll feel like: If you or your employer are willing to chip in for it, then you’ll have access.”

    Madden, along with many other educators, frequently used the Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice toolkit, but the site was taken down earlier this year. 

    “I feel like with all the federal websites, I’m constantly checking to see what’s still up and what’s not,” Madden said. 

    Bertha Vazquez, education director for the Center of Inquiry, an organization that works to preserve science and critical thinking, said she worried that the disappearance of climate information could leave U.S. students behind. 

    “The future of the American economy is not in oil, the future of the American economy is in solar and wind and geothermal. And if we’re going to keep up with the international economy, we need to go in that direction,” she said. But while the U.S. should be leading the way in scientific discovery, Vazquez said, such work will now be left to other countries.

    Lau said she felt helpless and frustrated about Climate.gov’s shutdown and about the “attack on American science in general.” 

    “I don’t know what to do. I can contact my legislators, but my legislators from my state are not going to be really open to my concerns,” she said. “If students next year are asking me questions about [science research and funding], I have to tell them, ‘I do not know,’ and just have to leave it at that.”

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

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

    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.

    Join us today.

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  • She was a rising senior on the honor roll. ICE just upended her life

    She was a rising senior on the honor roll. ICE just upended her life

    This story was produced by The 19th and reprinted with permission. 

    On July 4, Nory Sontay Ramos stepped off a flight from San Antonio into a country she hardly recognized: Guatemala. 

    The summer wasn’t supposed to start this way. The 17-year-old had plans. In early June, she wrapped up 11th grade on a high note, having made the honor roll and represented her Los Angeles high school in the city finals for track. With track season over, she turned her attention to cross-country, showing up to campus for practice after the school year ended. 

    Everything changed when she and her mother, Estela Ramos — both undocumented — appeared at what they thought was a standard check-in visit with immigration officials on June 30. 

    “ICE took us to a room, and they ended up telling my mom, ‘Your case is over, so we have to take you guys with us,’” Sontay Ramos told The 19th. Over the objections of their attorney, federal agents led them away.

    The next day, she and her mother were shipped to Texas. And by July 4, they were on a plane to Guatemala, a country where neither of them have lived for over a decade. On Independence Day — an occasion associated with freedom, with hope — their American dream shattered. Sontay Ramos has no idea what will become of the friends, family members and school community her deportation forced her to leave behind in Los Angeles.

    A lawyer hired after she and her mother were detained said Monday that a motion to reopen the case has been filed with the Board of Immigration Appeals but provided no other information to The 19th. 

    A year shy of becoming a high school graduate in the United States, the teen’s life — and opportunities — completely changed in the span of five days.

    “I’m confused,” Sontay Ramos said, her voice breaking. “I don’t know. I’m just really sad about everything.”

    President Donald Trump campaigned for a return to office with the promise of mass deportations, characterizing undocumented immigrants as criminals and threats to women and girls. But as his administration has ramped up enforcement of his policy priority, undocumented people with no criminal backgrounds have made up the largest share of immigrants targeted. Those who are pursuing legal status through the proper channels have also become vulnerable — showing up to check-ins, like Sontay Ramos and her mother — only to be detained. These developments, recent polls reveal, have led to public disapproval of the Trump administration’s strategies. 

    Civil liberties and advocacy groups have raised concerns that undocumented immigrants are being removed so quickly they have been denied the right to due process. With Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act directing $150 billion more toward mass deportations, expedited removals of undocumented immigrants will almost certainly increase — and those immigrants who arrived in the United States as children like Sontay Ramos stand to get caught in the middle. 

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    The Trump administration deported more than 93,800 people from January 20 to June 11, with ICE more than doubling its arrests compared with the same period in 2024, revealed an analysis by the Washington Post based on information from the Deportation Data Project. (The data does not reflect arrest and removal numbers from Customs and Border Protection.) Of those, 61 percent did not have criminal records and almost 90 percent were men, underscoring how relatively uncommon it is for a mother and daughter to be removed. 

    The Trump administration has not provided a tally of how many minors have been deported this year, but The 19th’s review of figures from the Deportation Data Project found that only about 3 percent of removals involved children. When ICE targets juveniles, the incidents often make national headlines, such as when a 9-year-old boy and his father living in Torrance, California, were detained in May and swiftly deported to Honduras. In states including Michigan, Massachusetts and New York, the detainment of teenagers, including those who are technically legal adults, have also garnered widespread media attention this year.

    But when Sontay Ramos and her mother exited their Guatemala-bound flight on Friday, they weren’t met with fanfare. None of their family members in the Central American nation knew to expect them. With the help of an internet connection, they managed to contact one of Sontay Ramos’ older sisters, with whom they’re now living. The teenager isn’t sure which part of Guatemala she’s in, though she describes the area as rural. 

    Just six when she left Guatemala, Sontay Ramos struggles to recall what life there was like. But she remembers the emotion she felt as a small child: fear.

    “I was scared because there’s gangsters here, and they tried to kill my mom,” she said. A family member involved in a gang threatened her mother, once attacking her so badly she needed to be hospitalized, she said. “My mom was scared.”

    A research study exploring the root causes of immigration from Guatemala from 2012 to 2019 found violence, poverty, climate change and corruption to be among the driving factors and that many such migrants hail from rural parts of the country.  

    “The two major reasons, especially if we look at families, have to do with violence and drought,” said David Leblang, a coauthor of that study and politics professor at the University of Virginia.  “It has been drought and then flood, hurricane and then drought that has just decreased the ability for families to put food on the table, so you see a combination of economic insecurity, but more so for families, food insecurity — because when you can’t feed your kids, that’s when families are going to pick up and they’re going to move first to more urban areas and then out of the country.”

    About 11 years ago, Sontay Ramos and her mother headed by car to the United States in search of safety and opportunity. There, other family members awaited them and they hoped to be granted asylum, she said. 

    The transition was not easy. They left behind three of Sontay Ramos’ older siblings who did not want to come to the United States, she said. Her father remained in Guatemala, too. His death from illness shortly after she moved away was devastating.

    “Unfortunately, her dad passed away at a young age, just like two weeks after her arrival to the States,” recalled Jennifer Ramos, Sontay Ramos’ 22-year-old cousin who lives in Los Angeles. “She grew up with her dad, so that also hit her at such a young age, just coming to a new country at six years old and not knowing the language here and losing her father. It was definitely hard for her.”

    Getting accustomed to life in Los Angeles also wasn’t easy. Sontay Ramos and her mother are Indigenous Guatemalans, fluent in K’iche’. Few resources in their native tongue made assimilation more challenging in a city where English and Spanish are the primary languages.

    Related: A superintendent made big gains with English learners. His success may have been his downfall

    Jennifer Ramos helped her little cousin learn to speak English. “She would come over, and I would help her with her homework. When she first came to the States, my younger sister was kind of her only friend in school because she didn’t know anybody and, again, the language barrier. She actually does struggle speaking Spanish.”

    In time, Sontay Ramos and her mother adjusted to life in California. Her mother ultimately became a garment worker, employed as a seamstress until physical setbacks — illness and surgery — sidelined her earlier this year. Her deportation has separated her from her life partner, with whom she and her daughter shared an apartment in the Westlake District of Los Angeles, the neighborhood where an ICE raid at a Home Depot close to an elementary school in June panicked families, and days of demonstrations in nearby downtown escalated after Trump deployed 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines. 

    Los Angeles is a deeply blue city in a liberal state, with the nation’s highest concentration of immigrants — a place that the president has made ground zero for his immigration raids. In November, the City Council voted unanimously to make L.A. a sanctuary city, which bars it from using resources for immigration enforcement. Last week, the Trump administration filed suit, challenging the law. Meanwhile, advocacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and Public Counsel are suing the Trump administration for what it describes as a pattern of federal violations during immigration raids in Greater Los Angeles.  

    Before Trump’s immigration policies roiled her neighborhood and upended her life, Sontay Ramos was indistinguishable from her peers born in the United States. She grew up on the Netflix shows “Stranger Things” and “Cobra Kai,” enjoys the music of Lana Del Rey and The Weeknd and dotes on her cat, Max, who turned one on May 15. He is black — one of her two favorite colors. In her spare time, Sontay Ramos practices taekwondo, which she’s been learning for nearly four years.  

    “I just liked it,” she said of the martial art. Knowing how to fight, she added, helps her feel protected. 

    Sontay Ramos never sensed she was in danger before the immigration check-in that would push her out of the United States.

    But her cousin Jennifer Ramos worried. The night before, Ramos’ father invited the family over to have Sunday dinner with his wife and three daughters. The evening was largely festive. Her father made shrimp ceviche and was eager for his family to enjoy the tangy, citrusy dish — especially Estela Ramos, who had just celebrated her 45th birthday. But when Estela mentioned that she and her daughter had an immigration check-in scheduled, everyone fell quiet.

    “We were kind of scared,” Jennifer Ramos said. “We were like, ‘Are you sure you should go?’”

    Estela Ramos poses for a picture with Jennifer Ramos at her quinceanera in 2017. Credit: COURTESY OF JENNIFER RAMOS

    But her aunt tried to reassure them by letting them know their lawyer said it would be fine. After all, they had shown up for previous check-ins without incident, and if they didn’t appear, immigration officials would just find them at home. 

    Now, Jennifer Ramos doesn’t know when she’ll see her aunt and cousin again.

    “It is unfair that a young student like her has been detained,” she said. “She’s the most deserving person. This should be the least of her worries.”

    Sontay Ramos couldn’t help but tear up when she described what she was looking forward to about senior year — graduation, her friends, track-and-field and cross-country.

    Although excited to reunite with family members they hadn’t seen in years, she and her mother have been weeping off and on since they arrived in Guatemala.

    “I was happy, but I was expecting to see them in another way,” she said of her relatives. “Not like this.”

    Sleeping and eating have been tough as has the constant feeling of disorientation. She doesn’t know where she is. In K’iche’, she asked her mother for the name of the town they’re in, but it didn’t register. 

    She also continues to feel blindsided about why she and her mother were deported at all. She doesn’t understand how or why their case was closed.

    Recent polls, particularly those conducted after the immigration raids in Los Angeles, reveal that the Trump’s administration’s immigration crackdowns may be unpopular with the majority of the public. A PBS News/NPR/Marist poll released July 1 found that just 43 percent of Americans support Trump’s tactics. 

    Sixty-four percent of registered voters support giving most undocumented immigrants in the United States a pathway to legal status, with 31 percent preferring deportation for most of them, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released June 26. Six months ago, only 55 percent of voters supported giving unauthorized immigrants a path to legal status, while 36 percent backed deportation. 

    Leblang, the politics professor, said that ultimately the economy will sway the public to take a stand on immigration. 

    “All of those people who are being deported, they’re consuming goods that are produced by natives,” he said. “So, what the evidence suggests is that’s going to affect native workers’ wages, so across the board, this is going to have a negative effect on the economy.” 

    Related: They crossed the border for better schools. Now, some families are leaving the US

    For Manuel Guevara — a physical education teacher and coach at the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, where Sontay Ramos is enrolled as a student — immigration isn’t an economic issue but a personal one. He came to the United States at 11 months in the mid-1980s amid El Salvador’s horrific 12-year civil war, becoming a citizen as a teenager. He fears that more deportations of youth from his school are imminent. He knows some families skipped school graduations in the area due to their concerns over raids. Some are so worried they refuse to let their children attend football practice. He’s heard that other families intend to self deport.

    “This is not normal,” Guevara said. “Our whole community is beyond vulnerable. A lot of their [students’] parents, sad to say, don’t know how to read and write. Their kids need to do that for them. If they’re presented with [immigration] paperwork, they might not even be able to read it because that’s not their primary language.”

    Before her deportation, Nory Sontay Ramos was recognized at school for her academic and athletic achievements. Credit: COURTESY OF JENNIFER RAMOS

    He can hardly believe that Sontay Ramos, whom he taught for most of her high school years, is gone. 

    “She was smiling, happy-go-lucky,” Guevara said. He’s astounded that she was detained and deported in less than a week. “Nory is going into her senior year, which is another thing that’s just killing me. She was going into her senior year with all this momentum.”

    Guevara fondly recalled the teen’s high-pitched voice that gets even higher when she’s excited. 

    “You could tell when she’s coming from down the hallway, for sure,” he said. But her trademark voice is now subdued due to her deportation ordeal. Through tears, she expressed gratitude for how her teachers, classmates and other supporters have donated nearly $7,000 to her GoFundMe campaign. 

    “I just want to thank everybody for the support and tell them to just be safe out there and be strong no matter what’s going to happen,” she said. 

    If she can’t return to the United States, she will figure out how to finish her education in Guatemala, Sontay Ramos said. 

    Guevara is certain she has the aptitude for greatness. Her academics and extracurricular activities are just hints of what she’s capable of, he said. 

    “She was about to reach cruising altitude,” he said. “Some of our students are capable of reaching the clouds up there and doing some great things. And I really believe that she was on her way.”

    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.

    Join us today.

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  • High school speech and debate allows students to find common ground

    High school speech and debate allows students to find common ground

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

    DES MOINES, Iowa — Macon Smith stood in front of a nearly empty classroom 1,000 miles from home. He asked his opponent and the two judges in the room if they were ready to start, then he set a six-minute timer and took a deep breath.

    “When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty,” he began. 

    In front of Macon, a 17-year-old high school junior, was a daunting task: to outline and defend the argument that violent revolution is a just response to political oppression.

    In a few hours, Macon would stand in another classroom with new judges and a different opponent. He would break apart his entire argument and undo everything he had just said.

    “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” Macon started.

    It doesn’t really matter what opinion Macon holds on violence or political oppression. In this moment in front of the judges, he believes what he’s saying. His job is to get the judges to believe with him.

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    Macon was one of more than 7,000 middle and high school students to compete in the National Speech and Debate Tournament this summer in Iowa, run by an organization that is celebrating a century in existence.

    In that time, the National Speech and Debate Association has persevered through economic and social upheaval. It is entering its next era, one in which the very notion of engaging in informed and respectful debate seems impossible. The organizers of this event see the activity as even more important in a fracturing society.

    “I don’t think there’s an activity in the world that develops empathy and listening skills like speech and debate,” said Scott Wunn, the organization’s president. “We’re continuing to create better citizens.” 

    Macon Smith, a rising senior from Bob Jones Academy in South Carolina, competes in the third round of the Lincoln-Douglas Debate at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Iowa this summer. Credit: Meenakshi Van Zee for The Hechinger Report

    Though the tournament is held in different cities around the country, for the 100th anniversary, the organizers chose to host it in Des Moines, where the association’s headquarters is based.

    Preparing for this competition was a year in the making for Macon, who will be a senior at Bob Jones Academy, a Christian school in Greenville, South Carolina, this fall. Students here compete in more than two dozen categories, such as Original Oratory, in which they write and recite their own 10-minute speeches, or Big Questions, where they attempt to argue broad, philosophical ideas. 

    Macon’s specialty, the Lincoln-Douglas Debate, is modeled after a series of public, three-hour debates between Abraham Lincoln and Sen. Stephen Douglas in 1858. In this event, two students have just 40 minutes to set up their arguments, cross-examine each other and sway the judges.

    “Even if I don’t personally believe it, I can still look at the facts and determine, OK, this is a good fact, or it’s true, and argue for that side,” Macon said.

    Debaters often have to tackle topics that are difficult, controversial and timely: Students in 1927 debated whether there was a need for a federal Department of Education. In 1987, they argued about mandatory AIDS testing. In 2004, they debated whether the United States was losing the war on terror. This year, in the Public Forum division, students debated whether the benefits of presidential executive orders outweigh the harms. 

    Related: Teaching social studies in a polarized world

    While the speech and debate students practiced for their national event, adults running the country screamed over each other during a congressional hearing on state sanctuary policies. A senator was thrown to the floor and handcuffed during a press conference on sending the National Guard to immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles. Most Americans feel political discourse is moving in the wrong direction — both conservatives and progressives say talking politics with someone they disagree with has become increasingly stressful and frustrating. 

    Speech and debate club, though, is different.

    “First of all, it gives a kid a place to speak out and have a voice,” said Gail Nicholas, who for 40 years has coached speech and debate at Bob Jones Academy alongside her husband, Chuck Nicholas, who is Macon’s coach. “But then also learn to talk to other people civilly, and I think that’s not what’s being modeled out there in the real world right now.” 

    Macon Smith, a rising senior from Bob Jones Academy in South Carolina, shows off the notes that he took during debates at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Iowa. Credit: Meenakshi Van Zee for The Hechinger Report

    On the second day of the competition in a school cafeteria in West Des Moines, Macon was anxiously refreshing the webpage that would show the results of his rounds to learn whether he would advance to semifinals.  

    For most of the school year, Macon spent two days a week practicing after school, researching and writing out his arguments. Like many competitors, he has found that it’s easy to make snap judgments when you don’t know much about an issue. Decisively defending that view, to yourself and to others, is much harder.  

    “I tend to go in with an opinion and lose my opinion as the topic goes on,” said Daphne DiFrancesco, a rising senior from Cary Academy in Cary, North Carolina.

    Traveling for regional events throughout the school year means Macon has become friends with students who don’t always share his conservative views. He knows this because in debate, discussing politics and religion is almost unavoidable.

    “It doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all,” Macon said. “You don’t want to burn down a bridge before you make it with other people. If you stop your connection with a person right at their political beliefs, you’re already cutting off half of the country. That’s not a good way to conduct yourself.”

    Macon, and other students in the clubs, said participating has made them think more deeply about their own beliefs. Last year, Macon debated a bill that would defund Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency he supports. After listening to other students, he developed a more nuanced view of the organization. 

    “When you look at the principle of enforcing illegal immigration, that can still be upheld, but the agency that does so itself is flawed,” he said.

    Related: ‘I can tell you don’t agree with me’:’ Colleges teach kids how to hear differing opinions

    Henry Dieringer, a senior from L.C. Anderson High School in Austin, Texas, went into one competition thinking he would argue in favor of a bill that would provide work permits for immigrants, which he agrees with. Further research led him to oppose the idea of creating a federal database on immigrants.

    “It made me think more about the way that public policy is so much more nuanced than what we believe,” Henry said. 

    On the afternoon of the second day of the national tournament, Macon learned he didn’t advance to the next round. What’s sad, he said, is he probably won’t have to think this hard about the justness of violent revolution ever again. 

    “There’s always next year,” Macon said.

    Callista Martin, 16, a rising senior from Bainbridge High School in Washington state, also didn’t make the semifinals. Callista and Macon met online this year through speech and debate so they could scrimmage with someone they hadn’t practiced with before. It gave them the chance to debate someone with differing political views and argument styles.

    Macon Smith, a rising senior from Bob Jones Academy in South Carolina, takes notes during a round of the Lincoln-Douglas Debate at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Iowa. Credit: Meenakshi Van Zee for The Hechinger Report

    “In the rounds, I’m an entirely different person. I’m pretty aggressive, my voice turns kind of mean,” Callista said. “But outside of the rounds, I always make sure to say hi to them before and after and say things I liked about their case, ask them about their school.”

    Talking to her peers outside of rounds is perhaps the most important part of being in the club, Callista said. This summer, she will travel to meet with some of her closest friends, people she met at debate camps and tournaments in Washington.  

    Since Callista fell in love with speech and debate as a freshman, she has devoted herself to keeping it alive at her school. No teacher has volunteered to be a coach for the debate club, so the 16-year-old is coaching both her classmates and herself.

    A lack of coaches is a common problem. Just under 3,800 public and private high schools and middle schools were members of the National Speech and Debate Association at the end of this past school year, just a fraction of the tens of thousands of secondary schools in the country. The organization would like to double its membership in the next five years.

    That would mean recruiting more teachers to lead clubs, but neither educators nor schools are lining up to take on the responsibility, said David Yastremski, an English teacher at Ridge High School in New Jersey who has coached teams for about 30 years.

    It’s a major time commitment for teachers to dedicate their evenings and weekends to the events with little supplemental pay or recognition. Also, it may seem like a risk to some teachers at a time when states such as Virginia and Louisiana have banned teachers from talking about what some call “divisive concepts,” to oversee a school activity where engaging with controversial topics is the point.

    “I primarily teach and coach in a space where kids can still have those conversations,” Yastremski said. “I fear that in other parts of the country, that’s not the case.” 

    Related: A school district singled out by Trump says it teaches ‘whole truth history’ 

    Dennis Philbert, a coach from Central High School in Newark, New Jersey, who had two students become finalists in the tournament’s Dramatic Interpretation category, said he fears for his profession because of the scrutiny educators are under. It takes the fun out of teaching, he said, but this club can reignite that passion.

    “All of my assistant coaches are former members of my team,” Philbert said. “They love this activity [so much] that they came back to help younger students … to show that this is an activity that is needed.”

    On the other side of Des Moines, Gagnado Diedhiou was competing in the Congressional Debate, a division of the tournament that mimics Congress and requires students to argue for or against bills modeled after current events. During one round, Gagnado spoke in favor of a bill to shift the country to use more nuclear energy, for a bill that would grant Puerto Rico statehood, and against legislation requiring hospitals to publicly post prices.

    Gagnado Diedhiou, a senior from Eastside High School in South Carolina, competing in the first round of the Congressional Debate at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Iowa in June. Credit: Meenakshi Van Zee for The Hechinger Report

    Just like in Congress, boys outnumbered girls in this classroom. Gagnado was the only Black teenager and the only student wearing a hijab. The senior, who just graduated from Eastside High School in Greenville, South Carolina, is accustomed to being in rooms where nobody looks like her — it’s part of the reason she joined Equality in Forensics, a national student-led debate organization that provides free resources to schools and students across the country.

    “It kind of makes you have to walk on eggshells a little bit. Especially because when you’re the only person in that room who looks like you, it makes you a lot more obvious to the judges,” said Gagnado, who won regional Student of the Year for speech and debate in her South Carolina district this year. “You stand out, and not always in a good way.”

    Camille Fernandez, a rising junior at West Broward High School in Florida, said the competitions she has participated in have been dominated by male students. One opponent called her a vulgar and sexist slur after their round was over. Camille is a member of a student-led group — called Outreach Debate — trying to bridge inequities in the clubs. 

    “A lot of people think that debate should stay the same way that it’s always been, where it’s kind of just — and this is my personal bias — a lot of white men winning,” Camille said. “A lot of people think that should be changed, me included.” 

    Despite the challenges, Gagnado said her time in debate club has made her realize she could have an influence in the world.

    “With my three-minute speech, I can convince a whole chamber, I can convince a judge to vote for this bill. I can advocate and make a difference with some legislation,” said Gagnado, who is bound for Yale. 

    About 10,000 people attended the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Iowa this June during the organization’s centennial anniversary. Credit: Meenakshi Van Zee for The Hechinger Report

    A day before the national tournament’s concluding ceremony, a 22-year-old attendee rushed the stage at the Iowa Event Center in Des Moines during the final round of the Humorous Interpretation speech competition, scaring everyone in the audience. After he bent down to open his backpack, 3,000 people in the auditorium fled for the exits. The man was later charged with possession of a controlled substance and disorderly conduct. For a brief moment, it seemed like the angry discourse and extreme politics from outside of the competition had become a part of it. 

    In response, the speech and debate organization shifted the time of some events, limited entrances into the building and brought in metal detectors, police officers and counselors. Some students, Gagnado among them, chose not to return to the event. 

    Still, thousands of attendees stayed until the end to celebrate the national champions. During the awards ceremony, where therapy dogs roamed the grounds, Angad Singh, a student from Bellarmine College Preparatory in California competing in Original Oratory, took the national prize for his speech on his Sikh identity and the phrase “thoughts and prayers” commonly repeated by American leaders after a tragedy, titled “Living on a Prayer.”

    “I’ve prayed for change,” Singh told the audience. “Then I joined speech and debate to use my voice and fight for it.”

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

    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.

    Join us today.

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  • Apprenticeships for high schoolers are touted as the next big thing. One state leads the way

    Apprenticeships for high schoolers are touted as the next big thing. One state leads the way

    This story is part of Hechinger’s ongoing coverage about rethinking high school. See our articles about a new diploma in Alabama and a “career education for all” model in Kentucky. 

    ELKHART, Ind. — Ever since Ty Zartman was little, people told him he had to go to college to be successful. “It was engraved on my brain,” he said. 

    But despite earning straight A’s, qualifying for the National Honor Society, being voted prom king and playing on the high school football and baseball teams, the teen never relished the idea of spending another four years in school. So in fall 2023 he signed up through his Elkhart, Indiana, high school for an apprenticeship at Hoosier Crane Service Company, eager to explore other paths. There, he was excited to meet coworkers who didn’t have a four-year degree but earned good money and were happy in their careers. 

    Through the youth apprenticeship, Ty started his day at the crane manufacturing and repair business at 6:30 a.m., working in customer service and taking safety and training courses while earning $13 an hour. Then, he spent the afternoon at his school, Jimtown High, in Advanced Placement English and U.S. government classes. 

    In June, the 18-year-old started full-time at Hoosier Crane as a field technician. 

    “College is important and I’m not dissing on that,” Ty said. “But it’s not necessarily something that you need.” 

    Elkhart County is at the forefront of a movement slowly spreading across Indiana and the nation to make apprenticeships a common offering in high school. 

    In 2019, as part of a plan to boost the region’s economic prospects, county leaders launched an effort to place high schoolers in apprenticeships that combine work-based training with classroom instruction. About 80 students from the county’s seven school districts participated this academic year, in fields such as health care, law, manufacturing, education and engineering. In April, as part of a broader push to revamp high school education and add more work-based learning, the state set a goal of 50,000 high school apprentices by 2034.  

    Tim Pletcher, the principal of Jimtown High, said students are often drawn first to the chance to spend less time in class. But his students quickly realize apprenticeships give them work-based learning credits and industry connections that help them after graduation. They also earn a paycheck. “It’s really causing us to have a paradigm shift in how we look at getting kids ready for the next step,” he said. 

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    This “earn and learn” model is taking hold in part because of deepening disillusionment with four-year college, and the fact that well-paying jobs that don’t require bachelor’s degrees are going unfilled nationally. The past three presidential administrations invested in expanding apprenticeships, including those for high schoolers, and in April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for 1 million new apprentices. In a recent poll, more than 80 percent of people said they supported expanding partnerships between schools and businesses to provide work-based learning experiences for students.

    Yet in the United States, the number of so-called youth apprenticeships for high schoolers is still “infinitesimally small,” said Vinz Koller, a vice president at nonprofit group Jobs for the Future. One estimate suggests they number about 20,000 nationally, while there are some 17 million high school students. By contrast, in Switzerland — which has been praised widely for its apprenticeship model, including by U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon — 70 percent of high schoolers participate. Indiana is among several states, including Colorado, South Carolina and Washington, that have embraced the model and sent delegations to Switzerland to learn more. 

    Elkhart, Indiana, known as the “RV capital of the world,” saw widespread unemployment during the Great Recession. That led community leaders to focus on apprenticeships as a way to diversify their economy. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report

    Experts including Ursula Renold, professor of education systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, note that importing the model to the United States at a large scale won’t be simple. Most businesses aren’t accustomed to employing apprentices, parents can be resistant to their students trading four-year college aspirations for work, and public transportation to take students to apprenticeships is limited, especially in rural areas. Many high schoolers don’t have a driver’s license, access to a car or money for gas. School districts already face a shortage of bus drivers that makes transporting students to apprenticeships difficult or impossible.

    Still, Renold, who is known as the “grande dame of apprenticeships,” said Indiana’s commitment to apprenticeships at the highest levels of state government, as well as the funding the state has invested in work-based learning, at least $67 million, seem to be setting the state up for success, though it could take a decade to see results. 

    “If I had to make a bet,” said Renold, “I would say it’s Indiana who will lead the way.”

    Related: Apprenticeships are a trending alternative to college, but there’s a hitch

    Elkhart County’s experiment with apprenticeships has its roots in the Great Recession. Recreational vehicle manufacturing dominates the local economy, and demand for the vehicles plummeted, contributing to a regional unemployment rate at that time of nearly 20 percent. Soon after, community leaders began discussing how to better insulate themselves from future economic instability, eventually focusing on high school education as a way to diversify industries and keep up with automation, said Brian Wiebe, who in 2012 founded local nonprofit Horizon Education Alliance, or HEA, to help lead that work.

    Elkhart County, Indiana, was the first community in Indiana to encourage businesses to employ high school students as apprentices, where they can earn work-based learning credits and make industry connections that help them, even if they decide to go on to college. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report

    That year, Wiebe and two dozen local and state political, business, nonprofit and education leaders visited Switzerland and Germany to learn more about the apprenticeship model. “We realized in the U.S., there was only a Plan A, a path to college,” he recalled. “We were not supporting the rest of our young people because there was no Plan B.” 

    HEA partnered with Elkhart County school districts and businesses, as well as with CareerWise, a youth apprenticeship nonprofit that works nationally. They began rolling out apprenticeships in 2019, eventually settling on a goal of increasing participation by 20 percent each year. 

    In 2021, Katie Jenner, the new secretary of education for Indiana, learned about Elkhart’s apprenticeships as she was trying to revamp high school education in the state so it better prepared students for the workforce. Elkhart, as well as six other apprenticeship pilot sites funded by Indianapolis-based philanthropy the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, provided a proof of concept for the apprenticeship model, said Jenner. 

    In December, the state adopted a new diploma system that includes an emphasis on experiential and work-based learning, through apprenticeships, internships and summer jobs. 

    Related: Schools push career ed classes ‘for all,’ even kids heading to college

    On a weekday this winter, 17 sophomores at Elkhart’s Concord High School were sitting at computers, creating resumes they planned to use to apply for apprenticeships. The students were among some 50 sophomores at the high school who’d expressed interest in apprenticing and met the school’s attendance and minimum 2.5 GPA requirements, out of a class of roughly 400. They would receive coaching and participate in mock interviews before meeting with employers. 

    Becca Roberts, a former English teacher who now oversees the high school’s college and career programs, said apprenticeships help convince students of the importance of habits like punctuality, clear communication and regular attendance. “It’s not from a book,” she said. “They’re dealing with real life.”

    Becca Roberts, who oversees college and career programs at Concord High School in Indiana, helps students research different companies offering apprenticeships, including job descriptions, work schedules and commuting distances. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report

    One student, Ava Cripe, said she hoped for an apprenticeship of some sort in the health care field. She’d only been a pet sitter and was nervous at the thought of having a professional job. “You’re actually going out and working for someone else, like not for your parents or your grandma, so it’s a little scary,” she said. 

    CareerWise Elkhart has recently beefed up its support for students and businesses participating in apprenticeships. It employs a business partnership manager and customer success managers who help smooth over issues that arise in the workplace — an apprentice who isn’t taking initiative, for example, or an apprenticeship that isn’t sufficiently challenging. “Before, if an issue came up, a business would just fire a student or a student would leave,” said Sarah Koontz, director of CareerWise Elkhart County. “We’re now more proactive.” 

    In Elkhart and across the state, the embrace of work-based learning has worried some parents who fear it will limit, not expand, their children’s opportunities. In previous generations, career and technical programs (then known as vocational education) were often used to route low-income and Black and Hispanic students away from college and into relatively low-paying career paths. 

    Anitra Zartman, Ty’s mother, said she and her husband were initially worried when their son said he wanted to go straight to work. They both graduated from college, and her husband holds a master’s degree. “We were like, ‘Don’t waste your talent. You’re smart, go to college.’” But she says they came around after seeing how the work experience influenced him. “His maturity has definitely changed. I think it’s because he has a responsibility that he takes very seriously,” she said. “He doesn’t want to let people down.”

    Her eldest daughter, Senica Zartman, also apprenticed during her final two years of high school, as a teacher’s assistant. She is now in college studying education. “The apprenticeship solidified her choice,” Anitra Zartman said, and it helped her decide to work with elementary students. Anitra Zartman said she would encourage her two youngest children to participate in apprenticeships too. 

    Ty Zartman works from 6 a.m. to noon at his apprenticeship at Hoosier Crane Service Company before he goes to school for afternoon classes. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report

    Sarah Metzler, CEO of the nonprofit HEA, said apprenticeships differ from the vocational education of the past that tended only to prepare students for relatively low paid, entry-level jobs. With apprenticeships, she said, students must continually learn new skills and earn new licenses and industry certifications as part of the program.

    Litzy Henriquez Monchez, 17, apprentices in human resources at a company of 50 people, earning $13.50 an hour. “I deal with payroll, I onboard new employees, I do a lot of translating. Anything that has to do with any of the employees, I deal with,” she said. She’s also earning an industry-recognized certification for her knowledge of a human resources management system, and says the company has offered to pay for her college tuition if she continues in the position. 

    Koontz said most companies pay for their apprentices to attend Ivy Tech, a statewide community college system, if they continue to work there. One is even paying for their apprentice’s four-year degree, she said. 

    Related: ‘Golden ticket to job security’: Trade union partnerships hold promise for high school students

    Attracting employers has proven to be the biggest challenge to expanding youth apprenticeships — in Elkhart and beyond. In total, 20 companies worked with the Elkhart school districts last year, and 28 have signed on for this coming school year — only enough to employ about a third of interested students. 

    The obstacles, employers say, include the expense of apprentices’ salaries, training and other costs. 

    Metzler and others, though, point to studies showing benefits for employers, including cost savings over time and improved employee loyalty. And in Indiana, the Fairbanks foundation and other organizations are working on ways to reduce employer costs, including by developing a standard curriculum for apprenticeships in industries like health care and banking so individual companies don’t bear the costs alone. 

    Business leaders who do sign on say they are happy with the experience. Todd Cook, the CEO of Hoosier Crane Service Company, employs 10 high schoolers, including Ty Zartman, as engineering and industrial maintenance technician apprentices, approximately 10 percent of his staff. He said the pipeline created by the apprenticeship program has helped reduce recruiting costs.

    “We’re starting to build our own farm system of talent,” he said. Students initially earn $13 an hour, and finish their apprenticeship earning $18. If they continue with the company, he said, they can earn up to $50 an hour after about five years. And if they go on to become trainers or mentors, Cook said, “Honestly, there is no ceiling.”

    Related: A new kind of high school diploma trades chemistry for carpentry 

    Transportation has been a limiting factor too. There’s no public transit system, and students who can’t rely on their parents for rides are often out of luck. “We’d love to offer a bus to every kid, to every location, but we don’t have people to run those extra bus routes,” said Principal Pletcher.

    The state has tried to help by investing $10 million to help students pay for costs such as transportation, equipment and certifications. Each school that provides work-based learning opportunities also receives an additional $500 per student. 

    Indiana has a goal to employ 50,000 high school students as apprentices by 2034. State leaders in business, education, government and nonprofits are working closely with Swiss experts to adopt a youth apprenticeship program similar to the one in that country. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report

    Trump’s executive order called for the secretaries of education, labor and commerce to develop a plan by late August for adding 1 million new apprenticeships. The order does not set a date for reaching that milestone, and it applies to apprentices of all ages, not just high schoolers. Vinz Koller of Jobs for the Future said the goal is modest, and achievable; the number of youth apprenticeships has doubled just in the past few years, he said, and California alone has a goal of reaching 500,000 apprenticeships, across all ages, by 2029. 

    Still, the order did not include additional funding for apprenticeships, and the Trump administration’s proposed budget includes major cuts to workforce development training. In an email, a White House spokesperson said the administration had promoted apprenticeships through outreach programs but did not provide additional information including on whether that outreach had a focus on youth apprenticeships.     

    Back in Elkhart, Ty Zartman, the Hoosier Crane apprentice, has begun his technician job with the company after graduating in early June. He is earning $19 an hour. He is also taking a class at the local community college on electrical work and recently received a certificate of completion from the Department of Labor for completing 2,000 hours of his apprenticeship. 

    Anitra Zartman said she wishes he’d attended more school events like pep rallies, and sometimes worried he wasn’t “being a kid.” But Ty said his supervisor is “super flexible” and he was able to go to the winter formal and prom. “I think I still live a kid life,” he said. “I do a lot of fun things.” 

    Of his job, he said, “I love it so much.”

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

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

    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.

    Join us today.

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  • We have to work together to improve school culture and make our public schools great places to teach, work and learn

    We have to work together to improve school culture and make our public schools great places to teach, work and learn

    A torrent of controversy has erupted over the Trump administration’s decision to shutter the federal Department of Education. Critics howl that it will destroy public education in America. Supporters insist it will somehow make things better.

    The only thing that’s clear is that our public education system is broken. It’s time for politicians to stop using education as a political football, with blue and red teams competing for control rather than sharing the responsibility to prepare our children for their futures.

    The resulting chaos and confusion and rigid policies choke the joy out of learning and of working in our schools. Insufficient attention by leaders to education culture can result in fear and distrust, turf wars and a tendency to blame and make excuses for a lack of progress.

    Such behaviors produce a toxicity that disables learning and disempowers leadership. Instead of increasing our nation’s economic prosperity, we’re deepening inequality, limiting opportunity and sadly wasting the potential of many children, on whose ability to thrive our country depends.

    Poor work conditions, insufficient support, inadequate pay and limited career opportunities are among some of the reasons teachers are leaving and schools are struggling to attract top talent. Reductions in funding from the Great Recession through the present render our facilities dangerous in some instances and unwelcoming in others. Would you buy a house with barbed wire fencing and unkempt grounds that make you wonder whether the aim is to keep something out or in?

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    What should we do to change what is going on inside our schools?

    We must first of all start working together to make our public schools great places to teach and learn.

    Great places to work and learn are places that are well led, fueled by purpose and guided by shared, positive behaviors that advance learning goals and serve as “rules of the road” for how employees and students are expected to behave.

    In great schools, employees, students and families are respected and valued. Leaders in great schools inspire their employees — all of them — to do more than they think they can. Employees align behind the purpose of enabling learning, which creates momentum and camaraderie for what they are working to attain together.

    In great schools, leaders inspire their communities to join them in cheering for and supporting kids’ future successes. Families, no matter their socioeconomic status, feel a sense of belonging.

    Problems are perceived as opportunities to get better, not sources of indiscriminate blame. Solutions are found by looking in the mirror first. External threats to learning, such as poverty or parents’ underemployment, are acknowledged and addressed. Schools don’t dodge their responsibility to educate all kids.

    In great schools, kids are known by caring employees; they feel seen and heard and are deeply engaged and invested in their learning.

    Every employee working in a great school district feels responsible for achieving the district’s mission, no matter whether they work inside or outside of the classroom.

    When kids return after being absent, employees welcome them back, tell them they were missed and focus on catching them up. They do not judge the constraints of their families’ lives or mete out punishment as though missing school is a crime.

    Related: Horticulture, horses and ‘Chill Rooms’: One district goes all-in on mental health support

    Great places to learn must also be great places to work. We must reframe our concept of schools as not just places where kids learn. Great places to work care about the needs of all the human beings in their care, including and especially their employees.

    “To win in the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace,” Douglas R. Conant, former Campbell Soup Company CEO famously said. He knew what is becoming clearer within our public school systems — that unhappy, unfulfilled employees lead to high turnover, disengagement by students and staff and disaffected families turning to alternative educational offerings.

    It is no secret that attracting and retaining top talent to work in our schools is increasingly difficult as employees seek more stability. Attracting younger workers is even more difficult.

    Many of those who currently work in schools, especially teachers, are stressed, burned out and dissatisfied. Being stressed and burned out is not a normative experience; it’s a symptom of a weak culture, and an organizational problem to be solved. And employee turnover is no longer limited to teachers. There are increasing vacancies among principals, bus drivers and food service and facilities staff.

    The quality of the experiences of employees working in our schools must be higher. Every point along the employee experience continuum, from applying for a job to choosing to leave, is an opportunity to deepen employee engagement and commitment to being a high performer.

    We can fix what we have broken. Thinking differently about making our public schools great places to work and learn is a good place to start. No policy changes are required to demonstrate concern for the human beings the system employs and seeks to educate.

    Etienne R. LeGrand is a thought leader, writer and culture-shaping strategist and adviser at Vivify Performance.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about school culture was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

    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.

    Join us today.

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