Tag: national

  • Trump’s new housing policies could push another 170,000 people into homelessness (National Low Income Housing Coalition)

    Trump’s new housing policies could push another 170,000 people into homelessness (National Low Income Housing Coalition)

    Why NLIHC is taking action:

    The Continuum of Care Program exists to house people experiencing homelessness using proven, evidence-based solutions and strong local leadership. Yet, this NOFO introduces structural restrictions that contradict its stated purpose — capping permanent housing resources, weakening local decision-making, and threatening the stability of community response systems nationwide.

    As many as 170,000 more people could be pushed into homelessness if these changes stand — not as an abstract number, but as real individuals, families, veterans, seniors, youth, and neighbors in every state who depend on CoC-funded housing and services to remain stably housed.

    What this lawsuit means for our field and partners:

    We are fighting to:

    • Prevent hundreds of thousands of people from losing their homes

    • Protect proven permanent housing interventions within CoC funding

    • Defend the ability of local communities to lead response strategies using data and evidence

    • Stand with municipalities and providers working to keep people housed, stabilized, and supported

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  • Leonard Peltier: National Day of Mourning Address, 2025

    Leonard Peltier: National Day of Mourning Address, 2025

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  • U.S. Universities Are National Security Assets (opinion)

    U.S. Universities Are National Security Assets (opinion)

    For too long, Americans have underestimated the strategic value of our universities. The popular belief is that higher education’s chief contribution to national security is soft power—the goodwill generated by cultural exchange, academic diplomacy and global networking. That’s accurate, but it’s only a small part of the security story.

    The vast majority of our 4,000-odd colleges and universities (including the elite ones) are hardly the ivory towers so associated with so-called woke movements and high-profile culture wars. Many, in fact, are the R&D labs of our national security infrastructure. They are the training grounds for the nation’s cyber warriors, military leaders, intelligence officers and diplomats. To be sure, they are one of America’s most potent weapons in an era of fierce geopolitical competition.

    The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps is the military’s largest commissioning source, with a footprint that spans the nation. Army ROTC alone operates at about 1,000 college campuses and provides merit-based benefits to roughly 15,000 students each year. It produces approximately 70 percent of the officers entering the Army annually, commissioning around 5,000 second lieutenants in a typical year.

    The scale is cross-service: Air Force ROTC maintains 145 host detachments with more than 1,100 partner universities and commissioned 2,109 Air Force and 141 Space Force officers in 2022. Navy/Marine Corps ROTC fields 63 units hosted at 77 colleges and extends to 160-plus colleges via cross-town agreements. Between 2011 and 2021, about 1,441 U.S. colleges and universities had at least one ROTC host, cross-town or extension unit—and every state has at least one host. Over its first century, ROTC has produced more than one million officers.

    The Department of Defense, as key partner with higher education, invests billions annually in university research. In fiscal year 2022 alone, the DOD’s research, development, test and evaluation budget authority reached $118.7 billion. For example, the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program awarded $43 million in equipment grants to 112 university researchers for the 2025 fiscal year. Entities like DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the Army Research Laboratory, and the Office of Naval Research fund breakthroughs in AI, quantum computing, hypersonics and cyber resilience. Universities partner with the Defense Department and other government agencies to conduct research in areas like drone technology, stealth aircraft and, historically, the development of the Internet and GPS.

    Cybersecurity is another front where U.S. universities lead with global distinction. The National Security Agency has designated nearly 500 campuses as national Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity. Universities like Carnegie Mellon, Purdue and the University of Texas at San Antonio run advanced programs focused on cryptography, digital forensics and cyber policy, partnering with both government and industry to build systems that repel state-sponsored hackers.

    Biosecurity is equally critical. The COVID-19 pandemic proved that viruses can fundamentally destabilize economies and national morale as quickly as warfare can. Johns Hopkins, Emory, Harvard and Vanderbilt Universities all were at the forefront of research on the coronavirus and vaccines. Land-grant universities like Texas A&M and Iowa State have long been securing our food supply against agroterrorism and climate threats. As just one example of this partnership, in 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture announced $7.6 million in grants to 12 different universities focused on agricultural biosecurity.

    Then there’s the talent pipeline. American universities train the linguists, engineers, analysts and scientists who feed the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security and the armed forces. Through partnerships with universities, the National Security Education Program, the Critical Language Scholarship and the National Security Language Initiative for Youth help produce graduates fluent in Arabic, Mandarin and Farsi—utterly essential skills for both diplomacy and national intelligence.

    Boren Scholars and Fellows are dedicated to harnessing their advanced linguistic and cultural skills within the federal government by securing a minimum of one year of employment in national security, actively strengthening the federal workforce and significantly elevating U.S. capabilities, deterrence and readiness.

    Meanwhile, China has built a centralized academic–military complex under its Military–Civil Fusion strategy. Top universities like Tsinghua and Beihang Universities are deeply integrated with the People’s Liberation Army, producing dual-use research in AI, quantum and hypersonics—technologies intended to challenge U.S. dominance. The National University of Defense Technology is a flagship institution in this network, known for dual-use supercomputing and aerospace research. This model is potent but currently lacks the kind of innovative potential of U.S. institutions.

    The U.S. system, by contrast, is decentralized, competitive and open. We often refer to this as “loose coupling”; the accompanying organizational dynamic is what enables so much of the innovative, interdisciplinary and cross-institutional work that U.S. higher education produces. But adequately funding this system is quickly becoming unsustainable and unpopular. The Trump administration is cutting funding for politically inconvenient fields—such as climate science, public health and international cooperation—and subjecting grant applications to political review. Many of these cuts target areas of academic inquiry that may appear obscure to the public but are fundamental to the foundational domains of national security. It is also worth noting that recent research suggests that the already high public and private returns to federally funded research are likely much higher than those reflected in current estimates.

    Focusing solely on weapons labs while neglecting other strategic fields is short-sighted and dangerous. Security is not merely about firepower—it’s about the stability of the knowledge-based society. Public health, basic sciences, environmental resilience, diplomacy and social cohesion are just as critical to preventing conflict as advanced missiles and cyber weapons. To be sure, our colleges and universities contribute, almost beyond measure, to the stability of U.S. civil society through each of these domains.

    Universities are not optional in the defense of this republic—they are indispensable. Undermine them and we hand our international competitors the high ground in both technology and ideas. In the contest for global leadership, the fight won’t just be won on battlefields. It will be won in classrooms, labs and libraries.

    Brian Heuser is an associate professor of the practice of international education policy at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. For much of his career, he has worked on numerous projects related to national security education, including with the Boren Scholars Program, the former Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program and as a U.S. Embassy policy specialist to the Republic of Georgia.

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  • Higher education should back a national digital skills wallet

    Higher education should back a national digital skills wallet

    Across the UK, millions of people struggle to prove what they’re capable of. From students juggling part-time work, to graduates volunteering in their communities, much of their learning sits outside formal qualifications and is effectively invisible to employers and institutions.

    That invisibility costs everyone. It holds back individuals who can’t evidence their abilities and employers who struggle to identify the right talent, and it also drags on national productivity.

    Last month the RSA and Ufi VocTech Trust published the final report of the Digital Badging Commission, From Skills to Growth: A Plan for Digital Badging in the UK. The conclusion is clear: the UK urgently needs a national digital skills wallet, linked to emerging plans for a national digital ID and built on open, interoperable standards. It would allow people to collect, store and share digital badges and credentials for their skills and capabilities that sit alongside their formal qualifications for a more holistic approach to education.

    This recommendation now aligns directly with the UK government’s post-16 education and skills white paper which commits to a digital-first, lifelong learning system and the development of a national digital identity infrastructure. The commission’s proposals are therefore timely, practical and well placed to support the government’s agenda.

    The missing infrastructure

    While individual institutions issue transcripts in pdf format, and some pioneer digital badges alongside them, there’s no shared infrastructure to make those records connected nor visible across different sectors. As education and work become increasingly digital, paper certificates should be giving way to verifiable, portable digital records, alongside digital badges and credentials.

    These are not just icons of achievement, but verified records embedded with information about who issued them, what they recognise and when they were awarded. Built on open standards, they can be issued by any organisation that follows the same open technical framework, ensuring compatibility across sectors.

    Globally, digital badges and credentials are part of richer digital profile infrastructures, including Comprehensive Learner Records (CLRs) and Learning and Employment Records (LERs). CLRs capture academic, professional and co-curricular achievements, while LERs extend this to employment history, creating a portfolio of verified experience. Both can be stored in digital wallets, secure platforms that give individuals control over how and when they share their data with employers or education providers.

    Together, these systems represent a shift towards lifelong, learner-owned digital records, combining qualifications, skills and experience into one trusted framework. This is precisely the direction outlined in the government’s white paper, which calls for a more joined-up and data-driven post-16 education landscape.

    The Digital Badging Commission’s modelling shows that a trusted digital credentialing ecosystem could unlock billions in productivity across the wider economy through faster hiring and retention. But the gains go deeper than economics: visibility of skills drives inclusion. It means every learner, whatever their route, can have their capabilities recognised.

    Keeping up with global trends

    The use of digital skills wallets and LERs is accelerating worldwide. In the UK, the idea of a skills passport is not new – in 2022, the Council of Skills Advisers, chaired by David Blunkett, proposed a Learning and Skills Passport, a modular, assessment-based record built over a lifetime, linked to Individual Learning Accounts. More recently, under the industrial strategy, government confirmed that Skills England will work with industry to develop such passports.

    Across Europe, the EU’s Digital Identity Wallet is being piloted in several member states ahead of full rollout in 2026. It will let citizens store and share verified digital credentials, from qualifications to identity documents, through a secure mobile app integrated with Europass. The system aims to make skills and qualifications transferable across borders, supporting the EU’s vision for a flexible, skills-based digital economy.

    The Digital Badging Commission is calling for interoperable skills wallets that begins as an evolution of the Department for Education’s digital Education Record (which will be rolled out to all school pupils from August 2026). It will initially hold GCSEs for school-leavers but could expand to become a lifelong, portable record – potentially linking to whatever comes out of emerging plans for a national digital ID.

    Here the white paper is welcome but incomplete. It describes an “education record app” focused on qualifications and support information, yet it does not set out how essential, non-accredited learning (workplace skills, volunteering, micro-credentials) will be imported. To avoid a two-tier system, the government should seize the chance to ensure one integrated wallet – rather than a separate “skills app” – so a person’s full skillset is represented, not just formal assessments. Not only that, but individuals should be able to choose what they share, and with whom.

    This directly complements the white paper’s ambition for a unified skills and qualifications framework, ensuring that learning follows the individual, not the institution, across life and work.

    Crucially, it must adopt open standards so that every education provider can issue records that align with it, and can be exported into a shared national wallet or interoperable proprietary ones. Degree transcripts from universities would no longer be in pdf format, but living records exported to the same technical rules as other credentials. A learner could move a verified transcript directly into a skills and qualifications wallet, combine it with badges from professional training or volunteering, and share it securely with employers anywhere in the UK.

    That interoperability matters. Without it, the Education Record risks excluding lifelong learning altogether. With it, we can create a single, trusted architecture connecting higher education, workplace learning and civic participation. For universities, it means the qualifications they issue remain visible and valuable in a joined-up system.

    What higher education stands to gain

    There’s a strategic choice here. Universities can either wait until government or private platforms dictate the standards or help design them now.

    By engaging early, HEIs can enhance their reputation and competitiveness by being seen as innovators in trusted digital credentials. This will strengthen their global profile and appeal to learners and employers seeking transparent, skills-focused education. They can provide better learner outcomes by meaningfully capturing students’ broader skills, placements and co-curricular learning, improving employability and lifelong learning pathways – taking the former Higher Education Achievement Record to its natural digital conclusion, and making lifelong learning tangible, rather than rhetorical, to students. Moreover, early involvement will mean a smoother integration with existing systems (VLEs and student records), reducing future compliance costs and avoiding disruptive retrofitting when standards are mandated.

    The post-16 white paper’s call for a coherent digital skills framework reinforces this opportunity for universities to lead, not follow, in shaping the standards and technology that will define post-16 learning.

    The obvious concerns are trust, quality and cost. Without consistent quality assurance, digital credentials risk being untrusted markers of skill. That’s why the Commission also calls for a national registry for digital credential quality assurance – a registry that defines standards, metadata requirements and approved issuers.

    Quality is not the enemy of flexibility in this case; it is the enabler of trust. If universities lead in shaping these standards, they can ensure rigour and learner protection are built in from the start.

    Adopting open standards in education and digital skills systems will not necessarily be straightforward, particularly in environments where legacy systems have been modified incrementally over years. For many institutions, both large and small, modifying student information systems and integrating open standards to bring them into line will require significant overhaul of systems, as well as underpinning investment in staff training.

    However, the implementation of the LLE is requiring all institutions to explore the extent to which their student record systems are fit for purpose, and this represents a real opportunity to think broadly about what systems will be required in the future.

    A call to lead, not follow

    The RSA once helped invent the modern exam system. Today we need the same leap of imagination for the digital age. If we want an inclusive, high-trust and high-skill economy, recognition must catch up with reality.

    Universities are uniquely placed to lead this transition, rooted in evidence, trusted by learners and central to the national conversation about growth. The question is not whether digital credentials will become part of our landscape, but who will set the standards and values that shape them.

    By engaging with open standards for degree transcripts and flexing VLEs to deliver digital badges, higher education can ensure that the national digital skills wallet reflects academic quality, learner autonomy and social purpose. In the wake of the government’s post-16 white paper – and with clarity now needed on integrating non-accredited learning – the timing could not be better. It’s an opportunity to turn invisible learning into visible value.

    You can download the Digital Badging Commission’s final report, From Skills to Growth: A Plan for Digital Badging in the UK here.

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  • National Institute on Transfer Prepares to Close

    National Institute on Transfer Prepares to Close

    For over two decades, the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students has bridged two worlds—the researchers who study transfer students and the campus staff who work with them. Located at the University of North Georgia, NISTS has gathered these groups for annual conferences, disseminated resources and research, and doled out awards for groundbreaking work.

    Now, university leaders say they can no longer afford to fund NISTS. At the end of October, NISTS, at least in its current form, will shutter.

    The institute “has made a lasting impact in improving transfer policy and practice nationwide,” and “its research has informed how colleges and universities support transfer student success,” university officials said in a statement.

    But “unfortunately, due to ongoing budget constraints and a realignment of institutional priorities, the university is no longer able to financially support the Institute,” the statement read. “We are proud of the Institute’s legacy and the many partnerships it has built, and we remain committed to serving transfer students through our academic programs and student success initiatives.”

    Janet Marling, NISTS’s executive director, said that over the past year, institute staff tried but ultimately couldn’t find a new permanent home for their work—at least for now. She hopes that other organizations will carry on parts of the institute’s work, including its conferences and programs, and house its research and resources so transfer professionals can continue to benefit from them.

    “We have heard, time and time again, there just isn’t anyone else providing the resources, the community, the networking, the translation of research to practice in the transfer sphere in the way that NISTS is doing it,” Marling said.

    ‘A Terrible Loss’

    NISTS prides itself on taking a unique approach, connecting staff who span the transfer student experience—from admissions professionals to advisers to faculty members—in an effort to holistically improve transfer student success. Transfer practitioners and researchers worry NISTS’s closure will have ripple effects across the field.

    Alexandra Logue, professor emerita at the CUNY Graduate Center, said the transfer process inherently involves multiple institutions working together, including, in some cases, across state lines; about a quarter of transfer students choose to go to a four-year college or university in another state.

    Logue appreciated that NISTS conferences offered a rare “chance for people from all the different states in the country to come together” to coordinate and swap best practices. Such programs also allowed transfer researchers like her to share their findings with staff working directly with transfer students on campuses.

    “The research that we do is pointless if it isn’t put into practice,” Logue said.

    While other organizations are doing powerful work to improve transfer student outcomes, NISTS played a major role in bringing new visibility to transfer students’ needs by making them a singular focus, said Stephen Handel, a NISTS advisory board member.

    The institute “added a legitimacy to a constituency of students that often got forgotten,” Handel said. “NISTS was completely focused on that constituency alone, and that’s what made it unique.”

    Eileen Strempel, also on the advisory board, said she got involved with NISTS when she served as an administrator at Syracuse University and sought to create a strategic plan to improve transfer outcomes—an area she hadn’t done much work in before.

    “I felt like, oh, wow, there’s a brain trust already for me, the neophyte, the learner who doesn’t know very much about transfer at all,” she said. She called the closure “a terrible loss.”

    She said NISTS leaders often asked conference participants how many of them had never attended a convention focused on transfer students before; Each year, most hands went up.

    “To me, what that moment always crystallized was the important role that NISTS had” in helping practitioners figure out “how they could learn from other colleagues, that they didn’t need to recreate the wheel,” Strempel said.

    Those lessons have had downstream effects on students.

    Each practitioner came out better equipped “to help hundreds, if not thousands of students,” Strempel said.

    Marling said one of the most exciting parts of the work was seeing its impact on students across the country. For example, she watched graduates of NISTS’s post-master’s certificate program in transfer leadership and practice go on to make meaningful changes on their campuses, such as establishing new transfer partnerships with other institutions or revamping training for advisers to improve transfer students’ experiences.

    She said she feels “profoundly sad” about NISTS shuttering at University of North Georgia, but she also believes NISTS will live on in some form because of the “tremendous outpouring of support and concern” that followed the announcement of its closure.

    “I’m very hopeful that the spirit of NISTS will continue,” whether that’s as an institute elsewhere or “within the many, many transfer champions that are working in higher education across the country. I’m really excited to see how individuals and institutions take what they’ve learned from NISTS and continue to grow their focus on transfer students and continue to provide equitable opportunities for these students.”

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  • Think Like a Linguist: It’s time for a national conversation about the value of languages 

    Think Like a Linguist: It’s time for a national conversation about the value of languages 

    Author:
    Dr Charlotte Ryland

    Published:

    This guest blog was kindly authored by Dr Charlotte Ryland, Director of the Translation Exchange. 

    ‘Languages are not just a skillset, they’re a mindset.’ 

    I still remember where I was when a teacher friend made this comment, a few years ago, because it highlighted something I’d been worrying at for a long time. I felt that languages education for young learners undervalued the process of language learning itself, by underrating what it means to be a linguist. That value needed to be completely reframed: to move far beyond the notion that language learning gives you a set of useful communicative skills – the ‘utility argument’ – towards a more holistic and ambitious vision of the linguist’s mindset.  

    Fast forward to this summer, and a HEPI report by Megan Bowler highlighted a programme that I co-founded as doing just that: ‘[Think Like a Linguist offers] 12-13 year olds clear demonstrations of the value of a linguistic “mindset” and its real-world applications’.  

    That notion of the ‘real-world application’ is essential to how we think and talk about language learning and needs unpicking. I founded a languages outreach and advocacy centre (based at The Queen’s College, Oxford) because I was frustrated by existing languages outreach mechanisms run by universities. This frustration came in part from what I perceived as an over-emphasis on precisely those ‘real-world applications’: the outreach programmes I encountered tended to rely heavily on imagined futures – Keep learning your vocab and practising your grammar, then you’ll see! A life of travel, international business careers, slightly higher salaries awaits you! Yet this approach did not seem to be working for the year groups whose minds needed to be changed.  

    The cliff-edge for languages – in England and Wales – is now GCSE options, with over 50% of pupils opting out at the age of 13/14, i.e. at their first opportunity to do so. Languages presents university outreach with a special case, then: with a need to engage much younger learners than has traditionally been the case. Ideally, we start at upper primary and focus on lower secondary school learners, before pupils begin to think seriously about their GCSE options. My approach to working with this demographic has been to take a ‘show, not tell’ approach – to involve learners from age 8 in rich, creative, cultural activities that enable them to experience first-hand the pleasure and purpose of being a linguist.  

    That focus on showing is key to how we should treat the real-world applications, too. It is not enough to give pupils a learning experience based solely on communicative skills, while trying to tell them that this education will secure them a good job in our competitive, AI-soaked 21st-century economy. They don’t buy it, and the uptake statistics for formal language learning bear this out. Instead, we need to show those learners how relevant and in-demand the ‘linguistic mindset’ they develop will be, by integrating into the learning experience the broadest conception of what it means to be a linguist.  

    Higher Education institutions can do this. And they’ll do so much more effectively if they work together. They have access to a huge community of language graduates, who have between them generations of experience in the widest range of professions. With this community, the broadest conception of the linguistic mindset becomes tangible. In my experience, it falls into your lap the minute you ask one of these graduates about the impact of their languages education on their career path and life experience. 

    A standard response runs like this: they move quickly through the frontline benefits around communication in other languages – taking them as a given – and light instead on what Bowler refers to as ‘the irreplaceable advantages of the “linguistic mindset”’. For a lawyer, it includes the capacity to cope with frustration, to tolerate and work through uncertainty; for a consultant, it is being able to build trusted relationships and read between the lines. A civil servant might reference their ability to synthesise and analyse a large amount of information, seeking out potential biases and multiple perspectives. The list goes on and is underlined by the striking words of a 13-year-old participant in Think Like a Linguist: ‘I learnt that there is more to languages than speaking and listening. It’s also about thinking in your own way.’  

    If we have access to a form of education that stands to raise a generation of individuals able to think for themselves, and to do so on the global stage, then what are we waiting for? 

    The readiness of languages graduates to share these insights is one of the sector’s greatest assets. We need a national conversation about the value of languages for individuals and for society, fuelled by these stories and taking full account of the challenges currently being set us by AI. Duolingo have set us on an excellent path, with evidence in their user statistics and polling that the UK is a country of languages enthusiasts. As Duolingo’s UK Director Michael Lynas notes in his introduction to Bowler’s report, we need not be dogged by the negativity that often frames conversations about languages: instead, we must build on the tangible positives.  

    For this national conversation to make an impact, collaboration will be key. Shared learning from effective university outreach programmes to date can provide a basis for this conversation. And The Languages Gateway, a new cross-sector initiative dedicated to collating resources and supporting strategic collaboration, can host it. Further backing for this national conversation from higher education institutions and central government will support the Gateway in its work to raise the national profile of languages to where it belongs: delivering ‘irreplaceable’ value to 21st-century global Britain. 

      

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  • How We Outperformed National Reading Scores – And Kept Students at Grade Level – The 74

    How We Outperformed National Reading Scores – And Kept Students at Grade Level – The 74


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    As reading scores remain a top concern for schools nationwide, many districts are experimenting with ability-based grouping in the early grades. The idea is to group students in multiple grade levels by their current reading level — not their grade level. A classroom could have seven kindergartners, 10 first graders, and three second graders grouped together for reading because they all read at the same level.

    While this may work for some schools, in our district, Rockwood School District in Missouri, we’ve chosen a different path. We keep students together in their class during whole-class instruction — regardless of ability level — and provide support or enrichment by creating flexible groups based on instructional needs within their grade level.

    We’re building skilled, confident readers not by separating them, but by growing them together.

    Children, like adults, learn and grow in diverse groups. In a Rockwood classroom, every student contributes to the shared learning environment — and every student benefits from being part of it.

    Our approach starts with whole-class instruction. All students, including English multilingual learners and those working toward grade-level benchmarks, participate in daily, grade-level phonics and comprehension lessons. We believe these shared experiences are foundational — not just for building literacy, but for fostering community and academic confidence.

    After our explicit, whole-group lessons, students move into flexible, needs-based small groups informed by real-time data and observations. Some students receive reteaching, while others take on enrichment activities. During these blocks, differentiation is fluid: A student may need decoding help one day and vocabulary enrichment the next. No one is locked into a static tier. Every day is a new opportunity.

    Students also engage in daily independent and partner reading. In addition, reading specialists provide targeted, research-based interventions for striving readers who need additional instruction.

    We build movement into our instruction, as well — not as a brain break, but as a learning tool. We use gestures for phonemes, tapping for spelling and jumping to count syllables. These are “brain boosts,” helping young learners stay focused and engaged.

    We challenge all students, regardless of skill level. During phonics and word work, advanced readers work with more complex texts and tasks. Emerging readers receive the time and scaffolded support they need — such as visual cues and pre-teaching or exposing students to a concept or skill before it’s formally taught during a whole-class lesson. That can help them fully participate in every class. A student might not yet be able to decode or encode every word, but they are exposed to the grade-level standards and are challenged to meet the high expectations we have for all students.

    During shared and interactive reading lessons, all students are able to practice fluency and build their comprehension skills and vocabulary knowledge. Through these shared experiences, every child experiences success.

    There’s a common misconception that mixed-ability classrooms hold back high achievers or overwhelm striving readers. But in practice, engagement depends more on how we teach rather than who is in the room. With well-paced, multimodal lessons grounded in grade-level content, every learner finds an entry point.

    You’ll see joy, movement, and mutual respect in our classrooms — because when we treat students as capable, they rise. And when we give them the right tools, not labels, they use them.

    While ability grouping may seem like a practical solution, research suggests it can have a lasting downside. A Northwestern University study of nearly 12,000 students found that those placed in the lowest kindergarten reading groups rarely caught up to their peers. For example, when you group a third grader with first graders, when does the older child get caught up? Even if he learns and progresses with his ability group, he’s still two grade levels behind his third-grade peers.

    This study echoes what researchers refer to as the Matthew Effect in reading: The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Lower-track students are exposed to less complex vocabulary and fewer comprehension strategies. Once placed on that path, it’s hard to catch up. Once a student is assigned a label, it’s difficult to change it — for both the student and educators.

    In Rockwood, we’re confident in what we’re doing. We have effective, evidence-based curricula for Tier I phonics and comprehension, and every student receives the same whole-class instruction as every other student in their grade. Then, students receive intervention or enrichment as needed.

    At the end of the 2024–25 school year, our data affirmed what we see every day. Our kindergarteners outperformed national proficiency averages in every skill group — in some cases by more than 17 percentage points, according to our Reading Horizons data. Our first and second graders outpaced national averages across nearly every domain. We don’t claim to have solved the literacy crisis — or know that our model will work for every district, school, classroom or student — but we’re building readers before gaps emerge.

    We’ve learned that when every student receives strong Tier I instruction, no one gets left behind. The key isn’t separating kids by ability. It’s designing instruction that’s universally strong and strategically supported.

    We recognize that every community faces distinct challenges. If you’re a district leader weighing the trade-offs of ability grouping, consider this: When you pull students out of the room during critical learning moments, the rich vocabulary, the shared texts and the academic conversation, you are not closing the learning gap, but creating a bigger one. Those critical moments build more than skills; they build readers.

    In Rockwood, our data confirms what we see every day: students growing not only in skills, but also in confidence, stamina and joy. We’re proving that inclusive, grade-level-first instruction can work — and work well — for all learners.


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  • NAEP scores for class of 2024 show major declines, with fewer students college ready

    NAEP scores for class of 2024 show major declines, with fewer students college ready

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    Students from the class of 2024 had historically low scores on a major national test administered just months before they graduated.

    Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, released September 9, show scores for 12th graders declined in math and reading for all but the highest performing students, as well as widening gaps between high and low performers in math. More than half of these students reported being accepted into a four-year college, but the test results indicate that many of them are not academically prepared for college, officials said.

    “This means these students are taking their next steps in life with fewer skills and less knowledge in core academics than their predecessors a decade ago, and this is happening at a time when rapid advancements in technology and society demand more of future workers and citizens, not less,” said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. “We have seen progress before on NAEP, including greater percentages of students meeting the NAEP proficient level. We cannot lose sight of what is possible when we use valuable data like NAEP to drive change and improve learning in U.S. schools.”

    These results reflect similar trends seen in fourth and eighth grade NAEP results released in January, as well as eighth grade science results also released Tuesday.

    In a statement, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the results show that federal involvement has not improved education, and that states should take more control.

    “If America is going to remain globally competitive, students must be able to read proficiently, think critically, and graduate equipped to solve complex problems,” she said. “We owe it to them to do better.”

    The students who took this test were in eighth grade in March of 2020 and experienced a highly disrupted freshman year of high school because of the pandemic. Those who went to college would now be entering their sophomore year.

    Roughly 19,300 students took the math test and 24,300 students took the reading test between January and March of 2024.

    The math test measures students’ knowledge in four areas: number properties and operations; measurement and geometry; data analysis, statistics, and probability; and algebra. The average score was the lowest it has been since 2005, and 45% of students scored below the NAEP Basic level, even as fewer students scored at NAEP Proficient or above.

    NAEP Proficient typically represents a higher bar than grade-level proficiency as measured on state- and district-level standardized tests. A student scoring in the proficient range might be able to pick the correct algebraic formula for a particular scenario or solve a two-dimensional geometric problem. A student scoring at the basic level likely would be able to determine probability from a simple table or find the population of an area when given the population density.

    Only students in the 90th percentile — the highest achieving students — didn’t see a decline, and the gap between high- and low-performing students in math was higher than on all previous assessments.

    This gap between high and low performers appeared before the pandemic, but has widened in most grade levels and subject areas since. The causes are not entirely clear but might reflect changes in how schools approach teaching as well as challenges outside the classroom.

    Testing officials estimate that 33% of students from the class of 2024 were ready for college-level math, down from 37% in 2019, even as more students said they intended to go to college.

    In reading, students similarly posted lower average scores than on any previous assessment, with only the highest performing students not seeing a decline.

    The reading test measures students’ comprehension of both literary and informational texts and requires students to interpret texts and demonstrate critical thinking skills, as well as understand the plain meaning of the words.

    A student scoring at the basic level likely would understand the purpose of a persuasive essay, for example, or the reaction of a potential audience, while a students scoring at the proficient level would be able to describe why the author made certain rhetorical choices.

    Roughly 32% of students scored below NAEP Basic, 12 percentage points higher than students in 1992, while fewer students scored above NAEP Proficient. An estimated 35% of students were ready for college-level work, down from 37% in 2019.

    In a survey attached to the test, students in 2024 were more likely to report having missed three or more days of school in the previous month than their counterparts in 2019. Students who miss more school typically score lower on NAEP and other tests. Higher performing students were more likely to say they missed no days of school in the previous month.

    Students in 2024 were less likely to report taking pre-calculus, though the rates of students taking both calculus and algebra II were similar in 2019 and 2024. Students reported less confidence in their math abilities than their 2019 counterparts, though students in 2024 were actually less likely to say they didn’t enjoy math.

    Students also reported lower confidence in their reading abilities. At the same time, higher percentages of students than in 2024 reported that their teachers asked them to do more sophisticated tasks, such as identifying evidence in a piece of persuasive writing, and fewer students reported a low interest in reading.

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

    For more news on national assessments, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub.

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  • Strengthening family engagement to support the science of reading

    Strengthening family engagement to support the science of reading

    Key points:

    While most teachers are eager to implement the science of reading, many lack the time and tools to connect these practices to home-based support, according to a new national survey from Lexia, a Cambium Learning Group brand.

    The 2025 Back-to-School Teacher Survey, with input from more than 1,500 K–12 educators nationwide, points to an opportunity for district leaders to work in concert with teachers to provide families with the science of reading-based literacy resources they need to support student reading success.

    Key insights from the survey include:

    • 60 percent of teachers are either fully trained or interested in learning more about the science of reading
    • Only 15 percent currently provide parents with structured, evidence-based literacy activities
    • 79 percent of teachers cite time constraints and parents’ work schedules as top barriers to family engagement
    • Just 10 percent report that their schools offer comprehensive family literacy programs
    • Teachers overwhelmingly want in-person workshops and video tutorials to help parents support reading at home

    “Teachers know that parental involvement can accelerate literacy and they’re eager for ways to strengthen those connections,” said Lexia President Nick Gaehde. “This data highlights how districts can continue to build on momentum in this new school year by offering scalable, multilingual, and flexible family engagement strategies that align with the science of reading.”

    Teachers also called for:

    • Better technology tools for consistent school-to-home communication
    • Greater multilingual support to serve diverse communities
    • Professional learning that includes family engagement training

    Gaehde concluded, “Lexia’s survey reflects the continued national emphasis on Structured Literacy and shows that equipping families is essential to driving lasting student outcomes. At Lexia we’re committed to partnering with districts and teachers to strengthen the school-to-home connection. By giving educators practical tools and data-driven insights, we help teachers and families work together–ensuring every child has the literacy support they need to thrive.”

    The complete findings are available in a new report, From Classroom to Living Room: Exploring Parental Involvement in K–12 Literacy. District leaders can also download the accompanying infographic, “What District Leaders Need To Know: 5 Key Findings About Family Engagement and Literacy,” which highlights the most pressing data points and strategic opportunities for improving school-to-home literacy connections.

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  • How ANU can revive ‘national asset’ mission – Campus Review

    How ANU can revive ‘national asset’ mission – Campus Review

    On Campus

    The education minister needs to address issues of transparency, VC salaries and the public good

    The Australian National University (ANU) is one of the most prestigious universities in Australia and is regularly ranked among the world’s best.

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