After decades serving in the Marine Corps and in education, I know firsthand that servant leadership and diplomacy can and should be taught. That’s why I hoped to bring 32 high school seniors from Texas to Washington, D.C., this fall for a week of engagement and learning with top U.S. government and international leaders.
Instead of open doors, we faced a government shutdown and had to cancel our trip.
The shutdown impacts government employees, members of the military and their families who are serving overseas and all Americans who depend on government being open to serve us — in businesses, schools and national parks, and through air travel and the postal service.
Our trip was not going to be a typical rushed tour of monuments, but a highly selective, long-anticipated capstone experience. Our plans included intensive interaction with government leaders at the Naval Academy and the Pentagon, discussions at the State Department and a leadership panel with senators and congressmembers. Our students hoped to explore potential careers and even practice their Spanish and Mandarin skills at the Mexican and Chinese embassies.
The students not only missed out on the opportunity to connect with these leaders and make important connections for college and career, they learned what happens when leadership and diplomacy fail — a harsh reminder that we need to teach these skills, and the principles that support them, in our schools.
Senior members of the military know that the DIME framework — diplomatic, informational, military and economic — should guide and support strategic objectives, particularly on the international stage. My own time in the Corps taught me the essential role of honesty and trust in conversations, negotiations and diplomacy. In civic life, this approach preserves democracy, yet the government shutdown demonstrates what happens when the mission shifts from solving problems to scoring points.
Our elected leaders were tasked with a mission, and the continued shutdown shows a breakdown in key aspects of governance and public service. That’s the real teachable moment of this shutdown. Democracy works when leaders can disagree without disengaging; when they can argue, compromise and keep doors open. If our future leaders can’t practice those skills, shutdowns will become less an exception and more a way of governing.
Students from ILTexas, a charter network serving over 26,000 students across the state, got a lesson in failed diplomacy after the government shutdown forced cancellation of their long-planned trip to the nation’s capital. Credit: Courtesy International Leadership of Texas Charter Schools
With opposing points of view, communication is essential. Bridging language is invaluable. As the adage goes, talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. Speak in his own language, that goes to his heart. That is why, starting in kindergarten, we teach every student in our charter school network English, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.
Some of our graduates will become teachers, lawyers, doctors and entrepreneurs. Others will pursue careers in public service or navigate our democracy on the international stage. All will enter a world more fractured than the one I stepped into as a Marine.
While our leaders struggle to find common ground, studies show that nationally, only 22 percent of eighth graders are proficient in civics, and fewer than 20 percent of American students study a foreign language. My students are exceptions, preparing to lead in three languages and through servant leadership, a philosophy that turns a position of power into a daily practice of responsibility and care for others.
While my students represent our ILTexas schools, they also know they are carrying something larger: the hopes of their families, communities and even their teenage peers across the country. Some hope to utilize their multilingual skills, motivated by a desire to help the international community. Others want to be a part of the next generation of diplomats and policy thinkers who are ready to face modern challenges head-on.
To help them, we build good habits into the school day. Silent hallways instill respect for others. Language instruction builds empathy and an international perspective. Community service requirements (60 hours per high school student) and projects, as well as dedicated leadership courses and optional participation in our Marine Corps JROTC program give students regular chances to practice purpose over privilege.
Educators should prepare young people for the challenges they will inherit, whether in Washington, in our communities or on the world stage. But schools can’t carry this responsibility alone. Students are watching all of us. It’s our duty to show them a better way.
We owe our young people more than simply a good education. We owe them a society in which they can see these civic lessons modeled by their elected leaders, and a path to put them into practice.
Eddie Conger is the founder and superintendent of International Leadership of Texas, a public charter school network serving more than 26,000 students across the state, and a retired U.S. Marine Corps major.
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.
Remiah Ward’s shift at the SmartStyle salon inside Walmart was almost over, and she’d barely made $30 in tips from the haircuts she’d done that day. It wasn’t unusual — a year after her graduation from beauty school, tips plus minimum wage weren’t enough to cover her rent.
She scarcely had time to eat and sleep before she had to drive back to the same Walmart in central Florida to stock shelves on the night shift. That job paid $14 an hour, but it meant she sometimes spent 18 hours a day in the same building. She worked six days a week but still struggled to catch up on bills and sleep.
The admissions officer at the American Institute of Beauty, where she enrolled straight out of high school, had sold her on a different dream. She would easily earn enough to pay back the $10,000 she borrowed to attend, she said she was told. Ward had no way of knowing that stylists from her school earn $20,200 a year, on average, four years after graduating. Seven years later, her debt, plus interest, is still unpaid.
In July, Republicans in Congress pushed through policies aimed at ensuring that what happened to Ward wouldn’t happen to other Americans on the government’s dime; colleges whose graduates don’t earn at least as much as someone with a high school diploma will now risk losing access to federal student loans. But one group managed to slip through the cracks — thousands of schools like the American Institute of Beauty were exempt.
Remiah Ward worked two jobs while trying to make it as a hair stylist but never made enough to pay her all her bills and has had to put her dream career on hold. Credit: Courtesy Remiah Ward
Certificate schools succeeded in getting a carve-out. The industry breathed a collective sigh of relief, and with good reason. At least 1,280 certificate-granting programs, which enrolled more than 220,000 students, would have been at risk of losing federal student loan funding if they had been included in the bill, according to a Hechinger Report analysis of federal data. [See table.] About 80% of those are for-profit programs, and 45 percent are cosmetology schools.
“There is this very strange donut hole in accountability where workforce programs are held accountable, two-year degree programs are held accountable, but everything in between gets off without any accountability,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.
The schools spared are known as certificate programs and, with their promise of an affordable and relatively quick path to economic security, are the fastest growing part of higher education. They usually take about a year to complete and train people to be hair-stylists, welders, medical assistants and cooks, among other jobs.
As with traditional colleges, there are big differences in quality among certificate programs. Some hair stylists can make a middle-class living if they work in a busy salon. But for people who have to pay back hefty student loans, the low wages for stylists in the early years can be an insurmountable obstacle.
Ward found herself facing that dilemma. When she could no longer sustain the lack of sleep from her double shifts at Walmart, she pressed pause on her styling career and took a job with Amazon, loading and unloading planes. She wasn’t ready to give up her dream career, though, so in addition to her 10-hour days moving boxes, she took part-time gigs at local hair salons. She didn’t have family to help pay rent, not to mention loan payments, so she couldn’t afford to work fulltime at a salon, which is essential to build up a regular clientele — and bigger tips. Without that, she couldn’t get much beyond minimum wage.
A representative from the American Institute of Beauty denied that Ward was told she would easily repay her loan.
“No admissions representative, not at AIB or elsewhere, would ever make such a statement,” Denise Herman, general counsel and assistant vice president of AIB, said in an email.
The high cost of many for-profit cosmetology schools — tuition can be upward of $20,000, usually for a one-year program — can leave former students mired in debt. In May, the government released data showing 850 colleges where at least a third of borrowers haven’t made a loan payment for 90 days or more, putting them on track to default. About 42 percent of those were for-profit cosmetology and barbering schools (including AIB).
Brittany Mcnew says she loves working as a stylist but that her income takes a hit when traffic is slow in her salon in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Credit: Meredith Kolodner/The Hechinger Report
Herman blamed the Biden administration policy that after the pandemic let borrowers forgo payments without any penalty.
“Debtors became ‘comfortable’ not making payments,” said Herman. “AIB provides the graduate with the information graduates need to make their payments. What that graduate decides to pay, or not pay, is not influenced by AIB.”
Under the “big beautiful bill” passed in July, two- and four-year colleges must ensure that, after four years, graduates on average make at least as much as someone in their state who has only a high school diploma. The colleges must inform students if they fail that test, and if it happens for two out of three years, the college will be ineligible to receive federal loan funds.
Some for-profit certificate schools lobbied hard for an exemption. The American Association of Career Schools, which represents proprietary cosmetology schools, spent $120,000 lobbying the Education Department and Congress, including on the “big beautiful bill,” in the first six months of this year. At the group’s major lobbying event in April, Sen. Bill Cassidy, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was the keynote speaker.
Cassidy declined to answer questions about why certificate programs were excluded, but a fact sheet from his committee noted that they are already covered by something else, the gainful employment rule, which is also being challenged by the for-profit cosmetology industry.
That federal gainful employment regulation, updated in 2023, requires in essence that graduates from career-oriented schools earn enough to be able to pay back their loans and earn more than a high school graduate. It also requires that consumers, like Ward, be given more information about how graduates from all colleges fare in the workplace.
The rule posed an existential threat to a huge swath of cosmetology schools.
In 2023, the American Association of Career Schools sued to block the gainful employment rule.
“AACS supports fair and reasonable accountability measures,” Cecil Kidd, the AACS’s executive director, said in an email. “However, we strongly object to arbitrary or discriminatory policies such as the US Department of Education’s Gainful Employment rule, which unfairly targets career schools while exempting many public and private non-profit institutions that fail to meet comparable outcomes.”
He pointed to public comments in which AACS has argued that the rule imposes an unfair burden on cosmetology schools since stylists are predominantly women, who are more likely to have “personal commitments” that affect their earnings, and who rely on tips that are often pocketed as unreported income.
Cameron Vandenboom is a successful hair stylist but says the high cost of her private beauty school wasn’t worth thousands of dollars in student debt: “I absolutely should have gone to community college.” Credit: Courtesy Shanna Kaye Photo
In a twist that surprised advocates on both sides, the Education Department in May asked the court to effectively dismiss AACS’ lawsuit.
If the court rules in favor of the cosmetology schools, certificate programs will be free of all accountability requirements on their graduates’ earning levels, because they got the carveout in July.
Even if the court rules against cosmetology schools, advocates are pessimistic that the Trump administration will implement the gainful rules. The first Trump administration got rid of the original rules back in 2019 and Nicholas Kent, now the U.S. undersecretary of education, was previously the chief policy officer for Career Education Colleges and Universities, or CECU, the trade group that represents for-profit colleges, including certificate programs. He is a well-known critic of the rule.
“I would be very surprised, if the unlikely scenario plays out that the Biden rule is upheld, that this Department of Education would just say, OK, the court has spoken,” said Jason Altmire, CECU’s executive director. “We are not opposed to accountability for certificate programs, so long as it’s fair to everybody and we have a voice in how you’re measuring programs.”
Altmire said CECU didn’t lobby for certificate programs to be carved out of Congress’ bill, but did argue against the earnings formula that Congress landed on. Altmire said it doesn’t take into account part-time work and the gender gap in wages.
One objection from AACS, raised by CECU as well, is that the earnings measured don’t include tips, which are crucial to hair stylists’ income. Analyzed without including tips, 576 of 724 cosmetology schools in the Hechinger Report analysis would fail Congress’ earnings test. But even if tips were included and raised stylists’ income by 20 percent, 526 cosmetology schools would still fail.
Earlier this year, Remiah Ward made the difficult decision to leave Florida and move to Kentucky, where the cost of living was more forgiving. She’s working from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. at an aluminum factory for $19.50 an hour.
One day, she might go back to styling after her debt is paid off. Like many former beauty school students, she wishes she’d had more information when she decided to enroll.
“They really sugar-coated it. I was 18 years old, and I needed a trade that I was already pretty good at,” said Ward, who is now 26. “Everybody thinks they’re going to make a high return, and it’s just not the reality.”
Marina Villeneuve contributed data analysis to this story.
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.
Schools that train hairstylists, dental assistants and health aides will be able to keep getting federal student loan dollars even if the professionals they turn out don’t end up earning any more than a high school graduate.
That’s because programs like those, which don’t end in a college degree, were granted an exemption from new accountability measures under President Donald Trump’s ”big, beautiful bill.”
A Hechinger Report analysis of federal data found at least 1,280 such certificate programs could have been at risk of their students losing access to federal student loans — but a successful lobbying effort excluded them from the accountability measures.
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Under the new law, most graduates of associate, bachelor’s and graduate degree programs must earn at least as much as someone who has only a high school diploma. If programs fail to hit that benchmark for two out of three years, their students will no longer be eligible for federal student loans. (And the schools must warn students of this possibility if they miss the mark for just one year). Without that borrowing power, many students could not afford to attend. And without those students, some of the schools might not survive.
Using the table below, see which certificate programs might have been flagged under the Trump law if not for the exemption. If graduates of a particular program ended up earning less than adults with only a high school diploma, that program could have faced losing eligibility for federal student loans under the Trump law.
Methodology
What exactly does the “big, beautiful bill” call for?
The legislation requires the Department of Education to compare earnings of working adults who have only a high school diploma to the earnings of adults four years after they complete a degree program or graduate certificate. If a postsecondary program’s graduates fail to outearn adults with only high school degrees for two out of three years, students can no longer obtain federal student loans to attend that program.
The law also sets up an appeals process and a way for programs to apply to regain eligibility for federal student loans.
What data was analyzed?
The law directs the education secretary to use census data to calculate median earnings for working adults with only a high school degree in the state where a program is located. The Department of Education will release regulations that spell out exactly how to do that math. For example, the law does not spell out whether it will look at census data averaged out over 12 months or a longer period of time.
For earnings data for high school graduates, The Hechinger Report relied on calculations from the Department of Education, which were derived from the 2022 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates Public Use Microdata Sample from the U.S. Census Bureau.
To calculate median earnings for graduates, the law directs the Education Department to put together earnings data for a cohort of at least 30 graduates who received federal student aid for postsecondary education — which typically includes grants, loans or work-study. Graduates are excluded if they’re currently enrolled in another higher education program. If there are fewer than 30 students in a cohort, the Education Department can lump together several years of data to get to 30 students.
To get earnings data for graduates of certificate programs, Hechinger used a federal database known as College Scorecard. We downloaded field of study data for the 2022-23 school year. From this data, The Hechinger Report extracted information about certificate programs, at their main campuses, and included only programs that had median earnings data. The federal database suppresses earnings data for small programs. That left 4,431 currently operating certificate programs.
How was a program determined to be at possible risk of failing the accountability measure?
For each program, The Hechinger Report compared median graduate earnings to the high school graduate earnings data of the state where the program was located. If the graduates earned less, the program was considered to be at risk.
Under the law, postsecondary programs that don’t meet the earnings benchmark for one year have to inform all current students that they are at risk of losing their eligibility for federal student loans.
Are there any limitations to the data?
The “big, beautiful bill” takes online programs into account by considering whether students live in the same state where their academic program is based. Under the law, student earnings are compared with national data rather than state data when fewer than half of enrolled students live in the state where the school is located, which may be the case for online programs.
The Hechinger Report’s analysis instead compares every program with state earnings. That’s because the College Scorecard field of study data set is limited and only includes information about graduates employed within the same state as the institution, not whether enrolled students live in the same state as the program. In addition, College Scorecard data provides earnings data for all graduates without a breakdown for whether they receive federal aid.
Also, the Hechinger database looks at the available median earnings of all students four years after graduation for the school year 2022-23, regardless of the number of graduates. Though College Scorecard suppresses data on smaller programs, median earnings data is available for programs with 16 or more working graduates. The “big, beautiful bill” directs the Department of Education to instead lump together years of data to create cohorts of at least 30 students.
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.
From Texas to Florida to Arizona, school voucher policies are reshaping the landscape of American education. The Trump administration champions federal support for voucher expansion, and many state-level leaders are advancing school choice programs. Billions of public dollars are now flowing to private schools, church networks and microeducation platforms.
The push to expand school choice is not just reallocating public funds to private institutions. It is reorganizing the very purpose of schooling. And in that shift, something essential is being lost — the public mission of education as a foundation of democracy.
Civic education is becoming fragmented, underfunded and institutionally weak.
In this moment of sweeping change, as public dollars shift from common institutions to private and alternative schools, the shared civic entities that once supported democratic learning are being diminished or lost entirely — traditional structures like public schools, libraries and community colleges are no longer guaranteed common spaces.
The result is a disjointed system in which students may gain academic content or career preparation but receive little support in learning how to lead with integrity, think across differences or sustain democratic institutions. The very idea of public life is at risk, especially in places where shared experience has been replaced by polarization. We need civic education more than ever.
If we want students who can lead a multiracial democracy, we need schools of every type to take civic formation seriously. That includes religious schools, charter schools and homeschooling networks. The responsibility cannot fall on public schools alone. Civic formation is not an ideological project. It is a democratic one, involving the long-term work of building the skills, habits and values that prepare people to work across differences and take responsibility for shared democratic life.
What we need now is a civic education strategy that matches the scale of the changes reshaping American schooling. This will mean fostering coordinated investment, institutional partnerships and recognition that the stakes are not just academic, they are also democratic.
Americans overwhelmingly support civic instruction. According to a 2020 survey in Texas by the Center of Women in Politics and Public Policy and iCivics, just 49 percent of teachers statewide believed that enough time was being devoted to teaching civics knowledge, and just 23 percent said the same about participatory-democracy skills. This gap is not unique to Texas, but there is little agreement on how civics should be taught, and even less structural support for the schools trying to do it.
Without serious investment, civic formation will remain an afterthought — a patchwork effort disconnected from the design of most educational systems.
This is not an argument against vouchers in principle. Families should have options. But in the move to decentralize education, we risk hollowing out its civic core. A democratic society cannot survive on academic content alone. It requires citizens — not just in the legal sense, but in the civic one.
A democratic society needs people who can deliberate, organize, collaborate and build a shared future with others who do not think or live like they do.
And that’s why we are building a framework in Texas that others can adopt and adapt to their own civic mission.
The pioneering Democracy Schools model, to which I contribute, supports civic formation across a range of public and private schools, colleges, community organizations and professional networks.
Civic infrastructure is the term we use to describe our approach: the design of relationships, institutions and systems that hold democracy together. Just as engineers build physical infrastructure, educators and civic leaders must build civic infrastructure by working with communities, not for or on them.
We start from a democratic tradition rooted in the Black freedom struggle. Freedom, in this view, is not just protection from domination. It is the capacity to act, build and see oneself reflected in the world. This view of citizenship demands more than voice. It calls for the ability to shape institutions, policies and public narratives from the ground up.
The model speaks to a national crisis: the erosion of shared civic space in education. It must be practiced and must be supported by institutions that understand their role in building public life. Historically Black colleges and universities like Huston-Tillotson University offer a powerful example. They are not elite pipelines disconnected from everyday life. They are rooted in community, oriented toward public leadership and shaped by a history of democratic struggle. They show what it looks like to educate for civic capacity — not just for upward mobility. They remind us that education is not only about what students know, but about who they become and what kind of world they are prepared to help shape.
Our national future depends on how well we prepare young people to take responsibility for shared institutions and pluralistic public life. This cannot be accomplished through content standards alone. It requires civic ecosystems designed to cultivate public authorship.
We have an enormous stake in preparing the next generation for the demands of democratic life. What kind of society are we preparing young people to lead? The answer will not come from any single institution. It will come from partnerships across sectors, aligned in purpose even if diverse in approach.
We are eager to collaborate with any organization — public, private or faith-based — committed to building the civic infrastructure that sustains our democracy. Wherever education takes place, civic formation must remain a central concern.
Robert Ceresa is the founding director of the Politics Lab of the James L. Farmer House, Huston-Tillotson University.
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.
Everywhere you look, someone is telling students and workers to “learn AI.”
It’s become the go-to advice for staying employable, relevant and prepared for the future. But here’s the problem: While definitions of artificial intelligence literacy are starting to emerge, we still lack a consistent, measurable framework to know whether someone is truly ready to use AI effectively and responsibly.
And that is becoming a serious issue for education and workforce systems already being reshaped by AI. Schools and colleges are redesigning their entire curriculums. Companies are rewriting job descriptions. States are launching AI-focused initiatives.
Yet we’re missing a foundational step: agreeing not only on what we mean by AI literacy, but on howweassessit in practice.
Two major recent developments underscore why this step matters, and why it is important that we find a way to take it before urging students to use AI. First, the U.S. Department of Education released its proposed priorities for advancing AI in education, guidance that will ultimately shape how federal grants will support K-12 and higher education. For the first time, we now have a proposed federal definition of AI literacy: the technical knowledge, durable skills and future-ready attitudes required to thrive in a world influenced by AI. Such literacy will enable learners to engage and create with, manage and design AI, while critically evaluating its benefits, risks and implications.
Second, we now have the White House’s American AI Action Plan, a broader national strategy aimed at strengthening the country’s leadership in artificial intelligence. Education and workforce development are central to the plan.
What both efforts share is a recognition that AI is not just a technological shift, it’s a human one. In many ways, the most important AI literacy skills are not about AI itself, but about the human capacities needed to use AI wisely.
Sadly, the consequences of shallow AI education are already visible in workplaces. Some 55 percent of managers believe their employees are AI-proficient, while only 43 percent of employees share that confidence, according to the 2025 ETS Human Progress Report.
One can say that the same perception gap exists between school administrators and teachers. The disconnect creates risks for organizations and reveals how assumptions about AI literacy can diverge sharply from reality.
But if we’re going to build AI literacy into every level of learning, we have to ask the harder question: How do we both determine when someone is truly AI literate and assess it in ways that are fair, useful and scalable?
AI literacy may be new, but we don’t have to start from scratch to measure it. We’ve tackled challenges like this before, moving beyond check-the-box tests in digital literacy to capture deeper, real-world skills. Building on those lessons will help define and measure this next evolution of 21st-century skills.
Right now, we often treat AI literacy as a binary: You either “have it” or you don’t. But real AI literacy and readiness is more nuanced. It includes understanding how AI works, being able to use it effectively in real-world settings and knowing when to trust it. It includes writing effective prompts, spotting bias, asking hard questions and applying judgment.
This isn’t just about teaching coding or issuing a certificate. It’s about making sure that students, educators and workers can collaborate in and navigate a world in which AI is increasingly involved in how we learn, hire, communicate and make decisions.
Without a way to measure AI literacy, we can’t identify who needs support. We can’t track progress. And we risk letting a new kind of unfairness take root, in which some communities build real capacity with AI and others are left with shallow exposure and no feedback.
What can education leaders do right now to address this issue? I have a few ideas.
First, we need a working definition of AI literacy that goes beyond tool usage. The Department of Education’s proposed definition is a good start, combining technical fluency, applied reasoning and ethical awareness.
Second, assessments of AI literacy should be integrated into curriculum design. Schools and colleges incorporating AI into coursework need clear definitions of proficiency. TeachAI’s AI Literacy Framework for Primary and Secondary Education is a great resource.
Third, AI proficiency must be defined and measured consistently, or we risk a mismatched state of literacy. Without consistent measurements and standards, one district may see AI literacy as just using ChatGPT, while another defines it far more broadly, leaving students unevenly ready for the next generation of jobs.
To prepare for an AI-driven future, defining and measuring AI literacy must be a priority. Every student will be graduating into a world in which AI literacy is essential. Human resources leaders confirmed in the 2025 ETS Human Progress Report that the No. 1 skill employers are demanding today is AI literacy. Without measurement, we risk building the future on assumptions, not readiness.
And that’s too shaky a foundation for the stakes ahead.
Amit Sevak is CEO of ETS, the largest private educational assessment organization in the world.
This story about AI literacy 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.
In an age defined by digital transformation, access to reliable, high-speed internet is not a luxury; it is the bedrock of opportunity. It impacts the school classroom, the doctor’s office, the town square and the job market.
As we stand on the cusp of a workforce revolution driven by the “arrival technology” of artificial intelligence, high-speed internet access has become the critical determinant of our nation’s economic future. Yet, for millions of Americans, this essential connection remains out of reach.
This digital divide is a persistent crisis that deepens societal inequities, and we must rally around one of the most effective tools we have to combat it: the Universal Service Fund. The USF is a long-standing national commitment built on a foundation of bipartisan support and born from the principle that every American, regardless of their location or income, deserves access to communications services.
Without this essential program, over 54 million students, 16,000 healthcare providers and 7.5 million high-need subscribers would lose internet service that connects classrooms, rural communities (including their hospitals) and libraries to the internet.
The discussion about the future of USF has reached a critical juncture: Which communities will have access to USF, how it will be funded and whether equitable access to connectivity will continue to be a priority will soon be decided.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court found the USF’s infrastructure to be constitutional — and a backbone for access and opportunity in this country. Congress recently took a significant next step by relaunching a bicameral, bipartisan working group devoted to overhauling the fund. Now they are actively seeking input from stakeholders on how to best modernize this vital program for the future, and they need our input.
I’m urging everyone who cares about digital equity to make their voices heard. The window for our input in support of this vital connectivity infrastructure is open through September 15.
While Universal Service may appear as only a small fee on our monthly phone bills, its impact is monumental. The fund powers critical programs that form a lifeline for our nation’s most vital institutions and vulnerable populations. The USF helps thousands of schools and libraries obtain affordable internet — including the school I founded in downtown Brooklyn. For students in rural towns, the E-Rate program, funded by the USF, allows access to the same online educational resources as those available to students in major cities. In schools all over the country, the USF helps foster digital literacy, supports coding clubs and enables students to complete homework online.
By wiring our classrooms and libraries, we are investing in the next generation of innovators.
The coming waves of technological change — including the widespread adoption of AI — threaten to make the digital divide an unbridgeable economic chasm. Those on the wrong side of this divide experienced profound disadvantages during the pandemic. To get connected, students at my school ended up doing homework in fast-food parking lots. Entire communities lost vital connections to knowledge and opportunity when libraries closed.
But that was just a preview of the digital struggle. This time, we have to fight to protect the future of this investment in our nation’s vital infrastructure to ensure that the rising wave of AI jobs, opportunities and tools is accessible to all.
AI is rapidly becoming a fundamental tool for the American workforce and in the classroom. AI tools require robust bandwidth to process data, connect to cloud platforms and function effectively.
The student of tomorrow will rely on AI as a personalized tutor that enhances teacher-led classroom instruction, explains complex concepts and supports their homework. AI will also power the future of work for farmers, mechanics and engineers.
Without access to AI, entire communities and segments of the workforce will be locked out. We will create a new class of “AI have-nots,” unable to leverage the technology designed to propel our economy forward.
The ability to participate in this new economy, to upskill and reskill for the jobs of tomorrow, is entirely dependent on the one thing the USF is designed to provide: reliable connectivity.
The USF is also critical for rural health care by supporting providers’ internet access and making telehealth available in many communities. It makes internet service affordable for low-income households through its Lifeline program and the Connect America Fund, which promotes the construction of broadband infrastructure in rural areas.
The USF is more than a funding mechanism; it is a statement of our values and a strategic economic necessity. It reflects our collective agreement that a child’s future shouldn’t be limited by their school’s internet connection, that a patient’s health outcome shouldn’t depend on their zip code and that every American worker deserves the ability to harness new technology for their career.
With Congress actively debating the future of the fund, now is the time to rally. We must engage in this process, call on our policymakers to champion a modernized and sustainably funded USF and recognize it not as a cost, but as an essential investment in a prosperous, competitive and flourishing America.
Erin Mote is the CEO and founder of InnovateEDU, a nonprofit that aims to catalyze education transformation by bridging gaps in data, policy, practice and research.
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.
After a three-year pause prompted by the pandemic, the clock on student loan repayments suddenly started ticking again in September 2023, and forbearance ended last September. For millions of borrowers like Shauntee Russell, the resumption of payments marked a harsh return to financial reality.
Russell, a single mother of three from Chicago, had received $127,000 in student loan forgiveness through the SAVE program, and had experienced profound relief at having that $632 monthly payment lifted from her shoulders. SAVE exemplified both the transformative power of debt relief and the urgent need to continue this fight — but now SAVE has been suspended.
Such setbacks cannot be the end of our story, as I document in my forthcoming book. The resumption of loan payments, while painful, must serve as a rallying cry rather than a surrender. We stand at a critical juncture. The Supreme Court’s devastating blow to former President Biden’s initial forgiveness plan and the ongoing legal challenges to programs like SAVE have left 45 million borrowers in a state of financial limbo. The fundamental inequities of our higher education system have never been more apparent.
Black students graduate with nearly 50 percent more debt than their white counterparts, while women hold roughly two-thirds of all outstanding student debt — a staggering $1.5 trillion that continues to grow. These aren’t just statistics; they represent systemic barriers that prevent entire communities from achieving economic mobility.
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The students I interviewed while reporting on this crisis reveal the human cost of inaction. They include Maria Sanchez, a nursing student in St. Louis who skips meals to save money and can only access textbooks through library loans.
Then there is Robert Carroll, who gave up his dorm room in Cleveland and now alternates between friends’ couches just to stay in school.
These students represent the millions who are working multiple jobs, sacrificing basic needs and seeing their dreams deferred under the weight of financial pressure.
Yet what strikes me most is their resilience and determination. Despite these overwhelming obstacles, these students persist, driven by the same belief that motivated civil rights leaders like Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. — that education is the pathway to economic empowerment and social justice.
The current political landscape, with Donald J. Trump’s return to the presidency and a Republican-controlled Congress, presents unprecedented challenges. Plans to dismantle key borrower protections and efforts to eliminate the Department of Education signal a dark period ahead for student debt relief.
But history teaches us that progress often comes through sustained grassroots organizing and innovative policy solutions at multiple levels of government and society.
Universities must step up with institutional relief programs, as my own institution, Trinity Washington University, did when it settled $1.8 million in student balances during the pandemic.
The Black church, which has long understood the connection between education and liberation, continues to provide crucial support through scholarship programs. Organizations like the United Negro College Fund, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education remain vital pillars in making higher education accessible.
Still, individual, institutional and state efforts, while necessary, are not sufficient. We need comprehensive federal action that treats student debt as what it truly is: a civil rights issue and a moral imperative. The magnitude of the crisis — it affects Americans across every congressional district — creates unique opportunities for bipartisan coalition building.
Smart advocates are already reframing the narrative by replacing partisan talking points with economic arguments that resonate across ideological lines: workforce development, entrepreneurship and American competitiveness on the world stage.
When student debt prevents nurses from serving rural communities, teachers from working in underserved schools and young entrepreneurs from starting businesses, it becomes an economic drag that affects everyone.
The path to federal action may require creative approaches — perhaps through tax policy, regulatory changes or targeted relief for specific professions — but the political mathematics of 45 million impacted voters ultimately makes comprehensive action not just morally necessary, but politically inevitable.
Student debt relief is not about handouts — it’s about honoring the promise that education should be a ladder up, not an anchor weighing down entire generations; it’s about ensuring that Shauntee Russell’s relief becomes the norm, not the exception. The fight is far from over.
The young activists I met at the March on Washington 60th anniversary understood something profound: Their debt is not their fault, but their fight is their responsibility. They carry forward the legacy of those who came before them who believed that access to education should not depend on one’s family wealth, and that crushing debt should not be the price of pursuing knowledge.
The arc of history still bends toward justice — but in this era of political resistance, we must be prepared to bend it ourselves through sustained organizing, innovative policy solutions and an unwavering commitment to the principle that education is a right, not a privilege reserved for the wealthy.
The resumption of payments is not the end of this story. It’s the beginning of the next chapter in our fight for educational equity and economic justice. And this chapter, like those before it, will be written by the voices of the millions who refuse to let debt define their destiny.
Jamal Watson is a professor and associate dean of graduate studies at Trinity Washington University and an editor at Diverse Issues In Higher Education.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Illinois hospital staff will soon be required by law to refer parents of severely premature infants to services that can help prevent years of intensive and expensive therapy later, when the children are older. The new law follows reporting from The Hechinger Report that exposed how hospitals often fail to connect many eligible parents to these opportunities for their children after they leave neonatal intensive care units.
Earlier this year, Hechinger contributor Sarah Carr wrote about how, across the country, far too few parents are made aware of the kinds of therapies their babies are entitled to under federal law. Such early intervention services can ultimately reduce the need for these children to require costly special education support as schoolchildren.
Carr noted: “Federal law says children with developmental delays, including newborns with significant likelihood of a delay, can get early intervention from birth to age 3. States design their own programs and set their own funding levels, however. They also set some of the criteria for which newborns are automatically eligible, typically relying on qualifying conditions like Down syndrome or cerebral palsy, extreme prematurity or low birthweight. Nationally, far fewer infants and toddlers receive the therapies than should. The stats are particularly bleak for babies under the age of 1: Just 1 percent of these infants get help. Yet an estimated 13 percent of infants and toddlers likely qualify.”
After the Hechinger Report story was published, Illinois state Rep. Janet Yang Rohr authored legislation to require that hospitals distribute materials informing parents of premature and low birth weight babies about their eligibility for early intervention therapies. The bill also required that hospitals make a nurse or physical therapist available to explain these rights to families.
Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues.
“The problem is that these families often don’t know about these services,” Yang Rohr said last spring, after her chamber passed the bill. “So this bill improves that early intervention process by requiring NICU staff to share information about these services and requires hospital staff to write a referral to these programs for families that are eligible.”
Illinois Representative Janet Yang Rohr Credit: ILGA
Carr also wrote: “The stakes are high for these fragile, rapidly growing babies and their brains. Even a few months of additional therapy can reduce a child’s risk of complications and make it less likely that they will struggle with talking, moving and learning down the road. In Chicago and elsewhere, families, advocates and physicians say a lot of the failures boil down to overstretched hospital and early intervention delivery systems that are not always talking with families very effectively, or with each other hardly at all. ‘They really put the onus of helping your child get better outcomes on you,’ said Jaclyn Vasquez, an early childhood consultant who has had three babies of her own spend time in the NICU.”
“Early intervention is life-changing for many families, as these programs provide critical services and therapies as children develop,” Illinois state Sen. Ram Villivalam said when the bill was sent to Pritzker. “But, these services can only benefit those they are able to reach, which means uplifting the program and expanding its outreach to those who need it is imperative.”
Contact editor Nirvi Shah at 212-678-3445, securely on Signal at NirviShah.14 or via email at [email protected].
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.
As the first in my family to attend college, I felt a profound commitment to excel academically and gain admission to a top university. Growing up amid the hustle and bustle of Silicon Valley, I always envisioned a bright future ahead, with college at the forefront of my goals since elementary school.
At my Title I elementary and middle schools, student-to-teacher ratios were even higher than those listed online. There was a lack of classroom technology and resources like history textbooks. Our two middle school counselors each managed students by the hundreds, making it nearly impossible for them to keep track of individual academic progress and educational goals. Afterward, I attended a private high school, thanks to support from my family. Our caring teachers made the effort to get to know each student, and dedicated counselors advocated for me when it mattered most.
Yet when conversations about college came around, navigating the complex system was difficult. I had to chart my own path to success through independent research, often looking at data that was scattered and inconsistent. It hindered my ability to educate myself on college-going rates, costs, outcomes and employment prospects post-graduation.
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Limited resources available at many underserved schools across the nation make it a more challenging environment for students to get support and excel, thus limiting their true academic potential.
In my senior year of high school, after gaining newfound confidence while serving as a commissioner at-large in my county’s youth commission, I decided to try to challenge the status quo in higher education through the power of data and find a way to speak up for other first-generation students who find themselves interacting with systems not designed with their experiences in mind. My mentors at a regional food bank where I volunteered shaped me to lead with confidence and heart.
When I received my admission letter from the University of California, Berkeley, I felt deeply honored to earn a place at one of the world’s leading research and teaching institutions.
I am now an advisory board member of the recently formed California Cradle-to-Career Data System, the state’s longitudinal system that connects education and career outcomes data in one central place. I have learned firsthand that the resources available for students to gauge their potential postgraduate earnings often rely on self-submitted data or estimates, rather than on an accurate overview of college and career outcomes.
As part of this work, I am now helping my state’s leaders develop tools like the Student Pathways dashboard, which provides insights on the higher education options available to students after high school.
The tool provides information on a single website for everyone to access at any time. By streamlining access to this data, it allows students and the adults helping them to easily pinpoint which types of degrees or certifications are right for them, which may lead to employment opportunities where they live and which colleges or universities the students’ classmates are headed to.
Students need access that can help them map out their futures — whether they hope to attend college, earn a certificate or enter the workforce directly after high school. Using data in the pathways tool can clarify how others have navigated to and through college and hopefully help students chart their own paths.
As the youngest advisory board member, I have the opportunity to provide proposals and recommendations from a student’s perspective on how the system can engage with communities to make its data more accessible. Community engagement involves ensuring that Californians are aware of the data system, can understand and interpret the available data and have an opportunity to share their feedback.
I often think about how the countless hours I spent trying to find information to help guide my goals and decision-making were both a burden and barrier to attending college. I know firsthand how the power of data can help build a successful future.
Today, many first-generation and low-income college students do not have the opportunity to assess which pathways will yield the most fruit. I’m confident that with accessible facts and data for our decision-making, we can confidently forge the paths that will bring our dreams to life.
Mike Nguyen is a rising junior studying business administration and science, technology, and society at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. This piece was written in collaboration with Alexis Takagi, a basic needs coordinator at Santa Clara University. Both Nguyen and Takagi are advisory board members of the California Cradle-to-Career Data System.
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.
Last August, Republican Rep. Gino Bulso looked out at a room filled with dozens of fellow state lawmakers as he touted new legislation he had just helped become a reality in Tennessee. Under the law, a fetal ultrasound or a video of a computer-animated fetus developing in the womb had become mandatory viewing for students in the state’s sex education classes.
Bulso was there at the request of the event’s host, anti-abortion advocacy nonprofit Live Action. The group had gathered legislators from across the country to provide them “with the policy information and persuasion strategies they need to end abortion,” according to its annual report.
Bulso’s panel, “The Agenda for Life in Schools and Beyond,” focused on how he had successfully shepherded his bill into becoming the second so-called fetal development education law in the country.
When lawmakers returned to their home states after the Live Action event, The Hechinger Report found, at least 10 of them sponsored bills similar to Bulso’s, in some cases proposing that students as young as third grade watch fetal development videos. Another legislator who introduced such a bill had sent his chief of staff and wife to the event. And the volume of legislation stemming from the gathering may be higher: Live Action keeps its list of attendees private, though many lawmakers posted about the event on social media or were featured in Live Action’s promotional materials.
Since 2023, when North Dakota became the first state to pass fetal development education legislation, anti-abortion lawmakers in more than 20 additional states have proposed such bills; 6 of those states, including Bulso’s, have passed them. As a result, this fall, nearly 4 million children will attend school in a state that requires them to watch a video or ultrasound of a fetus in the womb during sex education classes. And this year, legislators in four states tried to go even further: Their proposals would have required students to view depictions of abortions, including computer-animated videos.
After the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, public schools have become an increasingly important battleground in the fight over abortion rights. Even though 12 states now ban abortion in all circumstances, the number of procedures has increased nationwide since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe.Public support for abortion rights has also risen. Many anti-abortion advocates hope that getting their message in front of students can help them win the hearts and minds of young people and change these trends in the long run.
While critics, including medical professionals and some parents, say that the fetal development education materials being introduced to schools are manipulative and little more than propaganda, Live Action and other groups that produce them maintain they are medically accurate and unbiased. Experts in sex education and abortion policy say a related problem is the dearth of sex education in schools — students, on average, receive only about six hours during their high school years — that creates a vacuum for anti-abortion groups to move into.
“They’re attempting to reach children at an age where I would assume most haven’t been exposed to issues of an abortion,” says Alisa Von Hagel, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Superior who has studied the strategies of the anti-abortion movement. “They’re attempting to be the first to imprint this quote, unquote ‘knowledge’ or opinion about these issues.”
During a debate earlier this year in the Arkansas Senate, Republican Sen. Alan Clark referred to his state’s proposal as “one of the most important pro-life bills that’s ever come before us.” He also said, “It will shape the minds of kids from now on.”
The proposal would have required showing a video created by Live Action to students starting in sixth grade. In the video, titled “Meet Baby Olivia,” a narrator tells the viewer that life begins at conception and says the fetus, named Baby Olivia, begins playing and exploring as early as 11 weeks.
In an annual report, Live Action noted that its “Meet Baby Olivia” video caused a “37-point shift towards the pro-life perspective among viewers.” The organization also highlighted the impact its materials can have on kids, in particular, to help “instill a reverence for life as children at impressionable ages develop their world view.”
Tennessee state Rep. Gino Bulso sponsored the nation’s second fetal development education law. He credits the anti-abortion group Live Action with helping him get it passed. Credit: George Walker IV/AP Images
Both Bulso and Noah Brandt, Live Action’s vice president of communications, have said the only goals of Baby Olivia and fetal development education are to teach and inform students — but they also expected it to leave an impression. “It is intuitive that, after watching that, people would be less likely to support abortion on demand,” Brandt said.
Live Action’s work to connect with students is also part of playbooks for other anti-abortion organizations. Take Heartbeat International, for example, a group that supports clinics known as “crisis pregnancy centers,” which provide limited medical care and encourage people not to have abortions. Heartbeat also offers in-person and online training, including one program on how to “Change the Nation with Pro-life Education,” featuring specific tactics for working with public schools. One speaker at Heartbeat’s 2023 national conference described performing an ultrasound on a pregnant woman in front of public school students to “plant a seed of life.”
Before creating “Meet Baby Olivia,” Live Action was best known for anti-abortion campaigns and undercover stings against Planned Parenthood, and largely worked outside of policymaking. But as the organization has grown in recent years, it has begun to coordinate directly with legislators.
Live Action held its inaugural lawmaker summit in 2022, two months after Roe was overturned. The following spring, North Dakota passed a fetal development education law, the nation’s first.
Many proposed fetal development education bills mention the video “Meet Baby Olivia” by name. Critics say that the video is designed to manipulate the viewer’s emotions, while its creator, Live Action, says it is accurate. Credit: Live Action
By 2024, the summit had doubled in size to host 70 lawmakers at a four-star hotel in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Lawmakers attended panel discussions titled “Saving Our Children and Helping Their Mothers” and “Communications and Persuasion: Winning the Messaging War.” Live Action also screened its abortion videos, including “Meet Baby Olivia.”
On his panel, Bulso walked through every step of creating Tennessee’s law, from filing the bill to committee deliberations to its eventual passage. He gave Live Action credit for providing him with resources to help make the case that “Meet Baby Olivia” was scientifically accurate.
Most of the proposed fetal development education bills don’t prescribe a specific video, but many suggest the Baby Olivia video. Two bills in Texas do mention alternatives: A 1983 film by PBS’s NOVA called “The Miracle of Life” and a video produced by the St. John Paul II Life Center, a crisis pregnancy center.
Said Brandt, it’s up to “lawmakers, school board members, teachers, that kind of thing, to try to make prudential judgments about, ‘Is the actual resource I’m using a good resource to accomplish the goal that I’ve been tasked to accomplish?’”
“Meet Baby Olivia” in particular, has been sharply criticized by medical experts since Live Action released the video in 2021. Many doctors have raised concerns about its language and portrayal of the timeline of fetal development. Parents and students in Fargo, North Dakota, used arguments such as these to convince the school district to use a different video to meet the state law.
“The Baby Olivia video is designed to manipulate students’ emotions rather than to share objective facts about embryonic and fetal development,” Nisha Verma, senior advisor of reproductive health policy and advocacy for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a statement. “The video attempts to advance anti-abortion policies such as fetal personhood and uses non-scientific language about conception, pregnancy, embryos, and fetuses to evoke an emotional response.”
Live Action maintains the video is medically accurate — and has its own roster of anti-abortion doctors who endorse it, including a handful who collaborated with the organization on the video’s creation.
The approval of some medical professionals was part of the appeal of “Meet Baby Olivia” and another Live Action video series called “What Is Abortion?” for New Hampshire Rep. John Sellers, another Republican who attended the group’s lawmaker summit. The series shows a computer rendering of three different points in the pregnancy process.
Since 2023, getting fetal development education into public schools has been a priority for the anti-abortion group, Live Action. Credit: Live Action
In January, Sellers filed two bills to make Live Action’s videos required viewing for New Hampshire students — including college students in the case of “Meet Baby Olivia.” Both bills, however, faced opposition: Nearly 700 residents officially recorded their objection with the state or submitted testimony opposing the fetal development bill, and 1,080 registered their opposition to the abortion video legislation. By comparison, the number of residents who registered in favor was 23 and 30, respectively.
Many of those who submitted written testimony called the bill an attempt to indoctrinate students; Sellers maintained the legislation was nonpolitical. “We’re just trying to get the information out to the kids so they’re educated,” he said in an interview. “I don’t know how you indoctrinate somebody with the truth of the development of life … or the truth that these are the types of procedures of abortions. I can’t see that being indoctrination.”
Sellers said further that he hoped education could help people “make a better decision of, ‘Should I get an abortion or not?’”
Several people who opposed Sellers’ bills agreed that the videos contained some factual information and that topics such as fetal development and abortion could be useful to learn about in schools, but it was the presentation of the information — and that it came from an anti-abortion group — that worried them, they explained.
“My biggest concern is that it’s set up to come from a moralistic and fear-based place as opposed to a medical or wellness model,” said Stephanie Vazzano, a therapist who lives in New Hampshire who submitted written testimony opposing the abortion video bill. “They do have some facts. When you watch them you can be really seduced by those facts … but then these other things get slipped in.”
During the hearing for his bills, Sellers repeatedly said he was open to other abortion videos being shown but didn’t know of any. This lack of alternativeshas allowed Live Action to succeed in getting into schools so far, said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at University of California-Davis and author of several books on the history of abortion debates. “Part of what they’ve exposed is that there are gaps in the way we’ve done sex education,” she points out. “There’s truth in the sense that sex education programs across the board, including those favored by progressives, don’t have enough information about pregnancy, childbirth, abortion or fetal development.”
In many ways, Live Action’s efforts — as well as those of Heartbeat International and other organizations working to reach K-12 students — are a response to groups that run comprehensive sex education programs. Five states require comprehensive sex education, and individual districts in other states also provide it. These programs typically cover an array of topics including contraception, gender identity, consent, and options if one becomes pregnant. Planned Parenthood offers such a program to schools and has become the single-largest provider of sex ed nationwide.
“I’m sympathetic if someone says we wouldn’t want any organization that has any point of view creating any materials for our public school system,” Brandt of Live Action said. “But I would just say that’s not the reality that’s happening across the country. It’s tough to find curriculum that is from a group that no one would oppose.”
Even some anti-abortion Republicans have drawn a line at directly promoting the use of Live Action materials in public schools. Among them is Arkansas Sen. Breanne Davis, who led the opposition to a bill that specifically called for “Meet Baby Olivia” to be shown in schools. She raised concerns about requiring content from “a political advocacy group.” Davis said in an interview, “That’s just out of bounds for what we should be putting into law.”
At least 11 state legislators who attended Live Action’s Lawmaker Summit, including Arkansas Rep. Mary Bentley, introduced fetal development legislation during the 2025 legislative session. Credit: Facebook
In hearings, Arkansas representative and bill sponsor Mary Bentley argued it would be easier and better for school districts to be told which video to use rather than have to make that determination themselves. She remains staunchly in support of the Baby Olivia video: “I think it’s so good to help kids understand the process of fetal development,” she said. “I just assumed that it would get the support that we needed in the most pro-life state in the nation.”
Davis proposed a competing bill, one that would require the Arkansas department of education to adopt standards for age-appropriate fetal development education, including showing an ultrasound, in the future. No video would be required, but districts could still show one, such as “Meet Baby Olivia,” if they chose to.
In the end, Bentley’s bill died and Davis’s legislation was signed into law in April.
For Brandt, of Live Action, the law falls short of what he considers the “gold standard” of fetal development education, but “We’re happy that they passed some version of it,” he said. “That is definitely better than nothing, and maybe can even be improved upon in the future.”
Contact investigations editor Sarah Butrymowicz at [email protected] or on Signal: @sbutry.04.
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.
