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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.”
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.”
“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.
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.”
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.”
“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].
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 the nearly two years since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions, there have been repeatedcalls for universities to address the resulting decline in diversity by recruiting from community colleges.
On the surface, encouraging students to transfer from two-year colleges sounds like a terrific idea. Community colleges enroll large numbers of students who are low-income or whose parents did not attend college. Black and Latino students disproportionately start college at these institutions, whose mission for more than 50 years has been to expand access to higher education.
But while community colleges should be an avenue into high-value STEM degrees for students from low-income backgrounds and minoritized students, the reality is sobering: Just 2 percent of students who begin at a community college earn a STEM bachelor’s degree within six years, our recent study of transfer experiences in California found.
There are too many roadblocks in their way, leaving the path to STEM degrees for community college students incredibly narrow. A key barrier is the complexity of the process of transferring from a community college to a four-year institution.
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Many community college students who want to transfer and major in a STEM field must contend with three major obstacles in the transfer process:
1. A maze of inconsistent and often opaque math requirements. We found that a student considering three or four prospective university campuses might have to take three or four different math classes just to meet a single math requirement in a given major. One campus might expect a transfer student majoring in business to take calculus, while another might ask for business calculus. Still another might strongly recommend a “calculus for life sciences” course. And sometimes an institution’s website might list different requirements than a statewide transfer site. Such inconsistencies can lengthen students’ times to degrees — especially in STEM majors, which may require five- or six-course math sequences before transfer.
2. Underlying math anxiety. Many students interviewed for the study told us that they had internalized negative comments from teachers, advisers and peers about their academic ability, particularly in math. This uncertainty contributed to feelings of anxiety about completing their math courses. Their predicament is especially troubling given concerns that required courses may not contribute to success in specific fields.
3. Course scheduling conflicts that slow students’ progress. Two required courses may meet on the same day and time, for example, or a required course could be scheduled at a time that conflicts with a student’s work schedule. In interviews, we also heard that course enrollment caps and sequential pathways in which certain courses are offered only once a year too often lengthen the time to degree for students.
To help, rather than hinder, STEM students’ progress toward their college and professional goals, the transfer process needs to change significantly. First and foremost, universities need to send clear and consistent signals about what hoops community college students should be jumping through in order to transfer.
A student applying to three prospective campuses, for example, should not have to meet separate sets of requirements for each.
Community colleges and universities should also prioritize active learning strategies and proven supports to combat math anxiety. These may include providing professional learning for instructors to help them make math courses more engaging and to foster a sense of belonging. Training for counselors to advise students on requirements for STEM pathways is also important.
Community colleges must make their course schedules more student-centered, by offering evening and weekend courses and ensuring that courses required for specific degrees are not scheduled at overlapping times. They should also help students with unavoidable scheduling conflicts take comparable required courses at other colleges.
At the state level, it’s critical to adopt goals for transfer participation and completion (including STEM-specific goals) as well as comprehensive and transparent statewide agreements for math requirements by major.
States should also provide transfer planning tools that provide accurate and up-to-date information. For example, the AI Transfer and Articulation Infrastructure Network, led by University of California, Berkeley researchers, is using artificial intelligence technology to help institutions more efficiently identify which community college courses meet university requirements. More effective tools will increase transparency without requiring students and counselors to navigate complex and varied transfer requirements on their own. As it stands, complex, confusing and opaque math requirements limit transfer opportunities for community college students seeking STEM degrees, instead of expanding them.
We must untangle the transfer process, smooth pathways to high-value degrees and ensure that every student has a clear, unobstructed opportunity to pursue an education that will set them up for success.
Pamela Burdman is executive director of Just Equations, a California-based policy institute focused on reconceptualizing the role of math in education equity. Alexis Robin Hale is a research fellow at Just Equations and a graduate student at UCLA in Social Sciences and Comparative 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.
OKLAHOMA CITY — Those who knew Melissa Evon the best “laughed really hard” at the thought of her teaching family and consumer sciences, formerly known as home economics.
By her own admission, the Elgin High School teacher is not the best cook. Her first attempt to sew ended with a broken sewing machine and her mother declaring, “You can buy your clothes from now on.”
Still, Evon’s work in family and consumer sciences won her the 2025 Oklahoma Teacher of the Year award on Friday. Yes, her students practice cooking and sewing, but they also learn how to open a bank account, file taxes, apply for scholarships, register to vote and change a tire — lessons she said “get kids ready to be adults.”
“Even though most of my career was (teaching) history, government and geography, the opportunity to teach those real life skills has just been a phenomenal experience,” Evon told Oklahoma Voice.
After graduating from Mustang High School and Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Evon started her teaching career in 1992 at Elgin Public Schools just north of Lawton. She’s now entering her 27th year in education, a career that included stints in other states while her husband served in the Air Force and a break after her son was born.
No matter the state, the grade level or the subject, “I’m convinced I teach the world’s greatest kids,” she said.
Her family later returned to Oklahoma where Evon said she received a great education in public schools and was confident her son would, too.
Over the course of her career, before and after leaving the state, she won Elgin Teacher of the Year three times, district Superintendent Nathaniel Meraz said.
So, Meraz said he was “ecstatic” but not shocked that Evon won the award at the state level.
“There would be nobody better than her,” Meraz said. “They may be as good as her. They may be up there with her. But she is in that company of the top teachers.”
Oklahoma Teacher of the Year Melissa Evon has won her district’s top teacher award three times. (Photo provided by the Oklahoma State Department of Education)
Like all winners of Oklahoma Teacher of the Year, Evon will spend a year out of the classroom to travel the state as an ambassador of the teaching profession. She said her focus will be encouraging teachers to stay in education at a time when Oklahoma struggles to keep experienced educators in the classroom.
Evon herself at times questioned whether to continue teaching, she said. In those moments, she drew upon mantras that are now the core of her Teacher of the Year platform: “See the light” by looking for the good in every day and “be the light for your kids.”
She also told herself to “get out of the boat,” another way of saying “take a leap of faith.”
Two years ago, she realized she needed a change if she were to stay in education. She wanted to return to the high-school level after years of teaching seventh-grade social studies.
The only opening at the high school, though, was family and consumer sciences. Accepting the job was a “get out of the boat and take a leap of faith moment,” she said.
“I think teachers have to be willing to do that when we get stuck,” Evon said. “Get out of the boat. Sometimes that’s changing your curriculum. Sometimes it might be more like what I did, changing what you teach. Maybe it’s changing grade levels, changing subjects, changing something you’ve always done, tweaking that idea.”
Since then, she’s taught classes focused on interpersonal communication, parenting, financial literacy and career opportunities. She said her students are preparing to become adults, lead families and grow into productive citizens.
And, sure, they learn cooking and sewing along the way.
“I’m getting to teach those things, and I know that what I do matters,” Evon said. “They come back and tell me that.”
Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: [email protected].
During an ISTELive 25 session, Dr. Wanda Terral, chief of technology for Tennessee’s Lakeland School System, took attendees through a growing list of Google tools, along with some non-Google resources, to boost classroom creativity, productivity, and collaboration.
Here are just 10 of the resources Terral covered–explore the full list for more ideas and resources to increase your Google knowledge.
Day 2 of the U.S. Department of Education (ED)’s Neg Reg aimed at weaponizing Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) was… just as damning as Day 1. Here’s the recap:
Session Summary:
The session got SPICY right off the bat. ED began the day by presenting their newly revised language. Here are some key moments:
Abby Shafroth, legal aid negotiator, stated CLEARLY for the record that this Neg Reg is not about protecting PSLF; it’s about the Department of Education (ED) using it as a tool to coerce nonprofits and universities to further the Trump Administration’s own goals. The government’s response was not convincing. Watch her remarks here.
Betsy Mayotte, the negotiator representing consumers, brought more fire: “When reading the statute of PSLF, I don’t see where the Education Secretary has the authority to remove employer eligibility definition from a 501(c)(3) or government organization…but my understanding of the regulations and executive order is that they cannot be contrary to the statute. There are no ifs, ands, or buts under government or 501(c)(3).” Watch the exchange here.
In a heated discussion on ED’s proposal to exclude public service workers who provide gender-affirming care to transgender minors, Abby further flagged that no one in the room had any medical expertise, so no one had qualifications to weigh in on medical definitions like “chemical and surgical castration.”
The non-federal negotiators held a caucus to talk about large employers that fall under a single federal Employer Identification Number. They are CONCERNED that the extreme breadth of this rule could potentially cut out thousands of workers only because a subset of people work on issues disfavored by this Administration—all without any right to appeal. Negotiators plan to submit language that would allow employers to appeal a decision to revoke PSLF eligibility by ED.
Borrowers and other experts and advocates came in HOT with public commenttoday—calling out ED for using this rulemaking to unlawfully engage in viewpoint discrimination and leave borrowers drowning in debt, unable to keep food on their tables, or provide for their families.
Missing From the Table:
Today, our legal director, Winston Berkman-Breen, who was excluded from the committee (but still gave powerful public comment yesterday!) has some thoughts on what was missing from the conversation:
For two days now, negotiators have raised legitimate questions and important concerns about the Secretary of Education’s authority to disqualify certain government and 501(c)(3) employers from PSLF. And for two days now, ED’s neg reg staff—inlcuding the moderator!—have engaged in bad faith negotiations.
Jacob, ED’s attorney, asserted that the Secretary has broad authority in its administration of the PSLF program—true, but only to an extent. The Secretary cannot narrow the program beyond the basic requirements set by Congress. When pushed for specific authority, Tamy—the federal negotiator—simply declined.
It doesn’t stop there—ED representatives sidestepped, dismissed, or outright ignored negotiators’ questions and concerns. That’s because this isn’t a negotiation—it’s an exercise in gaslighting. ED is proposing action that exceeds the Secretary’s statutory authority and likely violates the U.S. Constitution—all the while telling negotiators to fall in line.
The kicker? By pushing this proposal, ED itself is engaged in an activity with “substantial illegal purpose.” Let that sink in.
Public Comment Mic Drops:
And Satra D. Taylor, a student loan borrower, Black woman, and SBPC fellow, who was also not selected by ED to negotiate, shared more thoughts during public comment:
“I am disheartened and frustrated by what I have witnessed over the last few days… It has become clear that this Administration is intent on… making college once again exclusive to white, male, and wealthy individuals. These political attacks, disguised as rulemaking, are inequitable and target communities from historically marginalized backgrounds. The PSLF program has provided a vital incentive for Americans interested in serving our country and local communities, regardless of their political affiliation. The Department’s efforts to engage in rulemaking and to change PSLF eligibility are directly related to the goal of Trump’s Executive Order and exceed the Administration’s authority…”
Back in March, President Trump announced an executive order to revoke Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) eligibility from public service workers employed at organizations engaged in work opposed by his administration—a blatantly illegal attempt to use public service workers as pawns in his right-wing political project to destroy civil society.
Shortly after, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced its plans for a Negotiated Rulemaking (Neg Reg) process to put these dangerous policies into the PSLF regulations. Today marked Day 1 of the only 3-day committee session for this Neg Reg—and ED has already doubled down on this campaign to weaponize debt to silence speech that does not align with President Trump’s MAGA playbook:
ED’s first draft of regulatory language, to put it bluntly, serves Trump’s fascist agenda. It empowers Secretary McMahon to block all government workers with student debt, including first responders, social workers, and teachers, from receiving PSLF in retaliation if she decides that a local or state government policy conflicts with her extreme, right-wing views on immigration, civil rights, or free speech. More on that here.
ED excluded borrowers and key experts from the rulemaking committee.
Despite overwhelming public demand for stronger borrower protections, discussions focused on weaponizing and restricting critical relief programs like PSLF.
Session Summary:
The day started off on a bad foot. Abby Shafroth, alternate negotiator for the Consumers, Legal Aid, and Civil Rights seat, requested to add a seat dedicated to civil rights because the proposed changes to PSLF directly affect the ability of marginalized communities to access higher education. Civil rights advocates Chavis Jones and Jaylon Herbin were present and ready to join the table—but ED denied the request.
After this inaugural miscarriage of justice, most of the day was spent running through definitions outlined in ED’s proposed language. Does ED actually have the authority to exclude certain groups from PSLF when Congress has already specially outlined some but not others? Hint: they don’t. Who would be excluded from PSLF based on “illegal activities”? Would military members be excluded if the military were found in violation of state tort laws? If a city’s Health Department were specifically found guilty of substantial illegal activity, would all workers employed by that entire city be disqualified?
Put plainly: ED did not have sufficient answers for these questions. At times, ED chastised negotiators for asking questions at “inappropriate times.” Other times, ED assured folks that everything would become clear once the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking language was issued. ED also refused to provide any examples of application of, or answer any “hypothetical” questions about their proposal. In our opinion, if you’re going to put forth a prospective rulemaking to decide the fate of millions of people, you should at the very least be able to explain how it would work.
Missing From the Table:
ED refused to seat Satra D. Taylor, a student loan borrower, Black woman, and SBPC fellow, who wants to know:
“Why didn’t ED include anyone who would be most affected by these policy changes to negotiate—not a single public service worker, civil rights advocate, first responder, social worker, or teacher? Also, what is ED’s legal authority to propose these regulations in the first place? Congress defined in law that government and 501(c)(3) non-profit employers are categorically eligible for PSLF, and yet ED’s current proposal would exclude government and non-profit employers that it determines no longer engage in public service. This is a foundational issue for the Neg Reg, and ED refused to provide a clear answer.”
Public Comment Mic Drops:
Our legal director, Winston Berkman-Breen (also excluded from the committee), called out ED during the public comment period:
“Although this is not a serious proposal, it is a dangerous one. If the Administration has true concerns about whether employers across the country are engaged in unlawful activity, its law enforcement offices could conduct thorough investigations and then allow courts to determine the merits of those allegations. Instead, it has proposed letting the Secretary of Education police American society.”
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?
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.
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.
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.
Tired of talking about AI? That’s too bad. The technology remains the most impactful force in education. The challenge becomes avoiding all the Claptrap. Thankfully, that’s where Denise Pope, Co-Founder of Challenge Success at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, comes in.
I had the chance to explore the current AI state-of-play from her perspective. One striking disparity I haven’t heard talked about: While AI usage among students has skyrocketed—from 25% to 60% at the middle school level and 45% to 75% at the high school level over just two school years—only 32% of teachers report using AI for academic purposes.
This gap has created what Denise describes as an educational “La La Land,” where students are experimenting with AI tools while many schools lack clear policies or guidance. The absence of structured approaches is breeding anxiety among both educators and students, who are left wondering when and how AI should appropriately be used in academic settings.
Click through to hear how Denise believes this issue can be addressed:
Kevin is a forward-thinking media executive with more than 25 years of experience building brands and audiences online, in print, and face to face. He is an acclaimed writer, editor, and commentator covering the intersection of society and technology, especially education technology. You can reach Kevin at [email protected]
