Tag: pay

  • School bus driver shortage improves slightly with bump in hiring, pay

    School bus driver shortage improves slightly with bump in hiring, pay

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    Dive Brief:

    • Higher hourly wages are credited for modest growth in the number of school bus drivers over the past year, but employment in the field remains down 9.5% compared to 2019 staffing levels, according to a recent analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.
    • The median hourly wage for school bus drivers was $22.45 on Aug. 1, a 4.2% increase year over year when accounting for inflation.
    • Nonetheless, the K-12 staffing outlook overall shows instability as school systems continue adjusting to the end of federal COVID-19 emergency funding and as changes implemented by the Trump administration put more fiscal pressures on state and local school systems, EPI said.

    Dive Insight:

    Employment for all K-12 positions is up 1.4% from August 2019 to August 2025, EPI found.  Custodian positions dropped 12.4%, joining school bus drivers among those seeing the largest decreases. Slots for paraprofessionals, on the other hand, increased 16.5% during the same period, according to EPI. 

    The recent wage growth for school bus drivers is not the typical pattern seen over the past 15 years, EPI said. In fact, from Nov. 1, 2012, through June 1, 2015, school bus drivers saw negative year-over-year wage growth. Negative growth also occurred for this role in July 2018, November 2018 and September 2019.

    EPI said the split-shift schedule required for the beginning and end of school days makes it difficult to recruit bus drivers. Moreover, school bus drivers — along with paraprofessionals, custodians and food service workers — tend to receive low pay. These jobs also are disproportionately held by women, Black and brown workers, and older employees, according to a 2024 EPI report.

    School bus driver employment has grown by about 2,300 jobs over the past year. This growth is due to state and local government school bus driver employment, which saw an increase of nearly 9,900 drivers since the fall of 2024. Private-sector school bus employment fell by 8,200 jobs over the same period.

    The institute’s most recent report said it’s hard to draw meaningful conclusions about the school bus driver wage growth over the last few years due to COVID-influenced changes in the labor market, as well as difficulty collecting labor data during the pandemic. 

    Still, EPI said “the wage growth for school bus drivers in the last year stands out as a much-needed investment in this critical segment of the education workforce.”

    Several schools in Pennsylvania and one school system in Ohio closed for at least a day this school year due to school bus driver shortages, according to local news reports. Other localities have consolidated bus routes or made other adjustments to respond to driver shortages.

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  • Colleges Pay Students to Participate in Events on Campus

    Colleges Pay Students to Participate in Events on Campus

    Since 2020, faculty, staff and administrators have noticed a trend among incoming college students: They don’t know how to make friends. Data affirms this—fewer students said they studied with classmates, volunteered or participated in clubs or organizations in 2023 than in 2019, according to a 2025 report from the Student Experience in the Research University Consortium.

    At the same time, student engagement and belonging correlate with academic success. Past surveys show that students who engage in extracurricular activities are more likely to feel that they belong on campus and that it’s easier to make friends. Extracurriculars can advance students’ career skills such as leadership and communication, as well as develop their professional interests.

    The challenge for institutions, therefore, is how to reverse the trend toward disengagement and emphasize on-campus connections.

    Some colleges are moving beyond offering free T-shirts and raffle prizes to encourage event attendance and moving straight to giving out cash, recognizing that finances are often the biggest barrier to student participation.

    State of play: An August 2025 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that 36 percent of students have not participated in an extracurricular or co-curricular activity on campus. About one-third of students said they were involved in a few activities, and 17 percent said they were very involved in one activity.

    Adult learners (65 percent) and two-year students were least likely to say they’ve participated in campus activities (64 percent), as were students who had dropped out for a semester (63 percent), students working at least 30 hours per week (55 percent), first-generation students (49 percent) and Hispanic students (48 percent).

    The biggest hang-up for students: finances. As the costs of attending college continue to rise, a greater share of students work while enrolled. Seventy percent of Student Voice respondents said they hold a job in a typical semester, and 30 percent of those students work full-time.

    When asked their top source of stress while in college, students pointed to balancing academics with other financial and personal obligations (50 percent) or paying for college (38 percent). An additional 22 percent indicated that paying for personal expenses was a top stressor.

    Rather than ask students to choose between work or campus activities, administrators are creating avenues to pay students for certain university-led activities, such as attending workshops, engaging with support resources or investing in their health.

    Points for participation: Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., is launching a points-based incentive program next spring, called Blueprint Rewards, that translates on-campus participation into scholarship dollars and discounts at the campus store. The initiative builds on previous investments in co-curriculars including a student-facing app, Blueprint, and digital badging, which were implemented in 2018 and 2021, respectively.

    Under Blueprint Rewards, some campus events are designated as points-bearing in Blueprint, denoted by the abbreviation SET, for Student Engagement Transcript.

    Each SET event is worth between one and 10 points. After reaching 20 points connected to a given theme, students unlock a badge. The six badges are loosely modeled on the National Association for Colleges and Employers’ career competencies: leadership, accountability, problem-solving, growth mindset, collaboration and adaptability.

    For example, activities that count toward the growth mindset badge include participating in a mindfulness event (worth one point), attending a fitness center training (five points) or becoming a wellness educator on campus (10 points).

    After completing one badge, students also earn $500 in scholarship dollars, which is applied to the following year’s tuition, making the program a retention strategy as well.

    Students unlock scholarships and other rewards as they complete various badges in the Blueprint Rewards program.

    Students can redeem up to $1,000 in badge dollars toward tuition each academic year. Administrators elected to cap badge scholarships at two per academic year to ensure students are juggling their academic and other responsibilities with campus participation, according to a FAQ page.

    If they finish all six badges, students can opt to enroll in a no-tuition graduate-level course after their senior year, a value of $2,250.

    If they complete three badges by the end of their junior year, students can gain an additional $1,500 toward participation in a faculty-led experience in the U.S. or abroad. The goal is to encourage study-away experiences, and the badges (adaptability, problem-solving and accountability) help make sure the student is adequately prepared for travel.

    The program was announced Oct. 29, and full-time undergraduate students can start earning rewards in January. Since launching the digital badges in 2021, the university has seen the number of student engagements in co-curricular activities grow 65 percent, President Kevin Ross said.

    “Blueprint Rewards builds on that momentum—helping students lower tuition costs while earning résumé-boosting credentials and scholarships that recognize their engagement and career readiness,” Ross said.

    Another model: Administrators at Lynn aren’t the only campus officials using financial incentives to get students out of their dorm rooms and gaining life skills.

    The University of Kentucky’s UK Invests both rewards students for engaging in health and wellness activities and provides financial literacy and investment education. The university dedicated $1 million for the first year and has received philanthropic support to continue awarding students money.

    UK students who open a Fidelity savings account and deposit $25 are given $50 by the investment firm; each event they attend could be worth as much as an additional $50 in their accounts.

    Student behaviors are tracked on three platforms—Handshake, SUMO and BBNvolved—and participation data is used to establish how much money the student earned, which is then deposited into the student’s Fidelity account. The university processes payments to student accounts every other Friday.

    There is no cap on how much money a student can earn in a given year under UK Invests, but there is a limit to which events have financial incentives attached. For example, a student who uses the gym is paid $5 for visiting the gym three times in one week, but the student isn’t eligible to earn money after six weeks.

    The goal for the university, in addition to encouraging students to take advantage of the various offerings on campus, is to ensure graduates leave with a return on investment for their degree and some cash in savings.

    We bet your colleague would like this article, too. Send them this link to subscribe to our newsletter on Student Success.

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  • Feds launch site for employers to pay controversial H-1B fee, clarify exemptions

    Feds launch site for employers to pay controversial H-1B fee, clarify exemptions

    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Treasury Department launched an online payment website for employers to pay President Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions, according to an update last week from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
    • USCIS said the fee applies to new H-1B petitions filed on or after Sept. 21 on behalf of beneficiaries who are outside the U.S. and do not have a valid H-1B visa, or whose petitions request consular notification, port of entry notification or pre-flight inspection. Payment must be made prior to filing a petition with USCIS, per the agency.
    • Separately, USCIS’ update clarified that the fee requirement does not apply to petitions requesting an amendment, change of status or extension of stay for noncitizens who are inside the U.S., if that request is granted by USCIS. If it is not granted, then the fee applies.

    Dive Insight:

    Trump’s proclamation announcing the H-1B fee left employers with plenty of unanswered questions. While Monday’s update provides some clarity, the policy’s future is still uncertain in part because business groups, employers, unions, lawmakers and other stakeholders oppose it.

    At least two lawsuits have been filed seeking to enjoin the fee proclamation — one by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., and another by a group of plaintiffs in California. Both similarly alleged that the H-1B fee violates the constitutional separation of powers as well as the Administrative Procedure Act. The complaints also warned of negative effects on U.S. employers that depend on the H-1B program to attract skilled foreign workers.

    In a letter to Trump and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, a bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers agreed to the need for reform of the H-1B program while expressing concerns about the potential effects of the fee on U.S. employers’ ability to compete with their global counterparts for talent.

    “The recently announced H-1B visa changes will undermine the efforts of the very catalysts of our innovation economy — startups and small technology firms — that cannot absorb costs at the same level as larger firms,” the lawmakers wrote.

    Trump and the White House have said the fee is necessary to combat “systemic abuse” of the H-1B program by employers that seek to artificially suppress wages at the cost of reduced job opportunities for U.S. citizens. In addition to the fee imposed on new visa petitions, the administration issued a proposed rule to change its selection process for H-1B visas to be weighted in favor of higher-paying offers.

    USCIS’ guidance noted that the Secretary of Homeland Security may grant other exceptions to the H-1B fee in “extraordinarily rare” circumstances where:

    • A beneficiary’s presence is in the national interest.
    • No American worker is available to fill the role.
    • The beneficiary does not pose a threat to U.S. security or welfare.
    • Requiring payment from the employer would significantly undermine U.S. interests.

    The agency provided an email address to which employers could send requests for fee exemption along with supporting evidence.

    Employers planning to file for new H-1B visas should plan to pay the fee unless litigation results in some kind of change, Akshat Divatia, attorney at law firm Harris Sliwoski, wrote in an article Tuesday. Divatia noted that some of the criteria for exemptions outlined by USCIS may conflict with congressional design of the H-1B program, and that employers “should watch closely how the courts respond” to such arguments.

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  • Feds launch site for employers to pay controversial H-1B fee, clarify exemptions

    Feds launch site for employers to pay controversial H-1B fee, clarify exemptions

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Treasury Department launched an online payment website for employers to pay President Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions, according to an update Monday from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
    • USCIS said the fee applies to new H-1B petitions filed on or after Sept. 21 on behalf of beneficiaries who are outside the U.S. and do not have a valid H-1B visa, or whose petitions request consular notification, port of entry notification or pre-flight inspection. Payment must be made prior to filing a petition with USCIS, per the agency.
    • Separately, USCIS’ update clarified that the fee requirement does not apply to petitions requesting an amendment, change of status or extension of stay for noncitizens who are inside the U.S., if that request is granted by USCIS. If it is not granted, then the fee applies.

    Dive Insight:

    Trump’s proclamation announcing the H-1B fee left employers with plenty of unanswered questions. While Monday’s update provides some clarity, the policy’s future is still uncertain in part because business groups, employers, unions, lawmakers and other stakeholders oppose it.

    At least two lawsuits have been filed seeking to enjoin the fee proclamation — one by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., and another by a group of plaintiffs in California. Both similarly alleged that the H-1B fee violates the constitutional separation of powers as well as the Administrative Procedure Act. The complaints also warned of negative effects on U.S. employers that depend on the H-1B program to attract skilled foreign workers.

    In a letter to Trump and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, a bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers agreed to the need for reform of the H-1B program while expressing concerns about the potential effects of the fee on U.S. employers’ ability to compete with their global counterparts for talent.

    “The recently announced H-1B visa changes will undermine the efforts of the very catalysts of our innovation economy — startups and small technology firms — that cannot absorb costs at the same level as larger firms,” the lawmakers wrote.

    Trump and the White House have said the fee is necessary to combat “systemic abuse” of the H-1B program by employers that seek to artificially suppress wages at the cost of reduced job opportunities for U.S. citizens. In addition to the fee imposed on new visa petitions, the administration issued a proposed rule to change its selection process for H-1B visas to be weighted in favor of higher-paying offers.

    USCIS’ guidance noted that the Secretary of Homeland Security may grant other exceptions to the H-1B fee in “extraordinarily rare” circumstances where:

    • A beneficiary’s presence is in the national interest.
    • No American worker is available to fill the role.
    • The beneficiary does not pose a threat to U.S. security or welfare.
    • Requiring payment from the employer would significantly undermine U.S. interests.

    The agency provided an email address to which employers could send requests for fee exemption along with supporting evidence.

    Employers planning to file for new H-1B visas should plan to pay the fee unless litigation results in some kind of change, Akshat Divatia, attorney at law firm Harris Sliwoski, wrote in an article Tuesday. Divatia noted that some of the criteria for exemptions outlined by USCIS may conflict with congressional design of the H-1B program, and that employers “should watch closely how the courts respond” to such arguments.

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  • Most Students Pay Out-of-Pocket For Non-Degree Credentials

    Most Students Pay Out-of-Pocket For Non-Degree Credentials

    As Americans earn non-degree credentials in droves, many are paying for these programs out of pocket, according to a new report from The Pew Charitable Trusts.  

    The report, released Thursday, analyzed 2022 data from a new national survey of over 15,000 American adults fielded by the U.S. Census Bureau, called the National Training, Education, and Workforce Survey. The data included individuals who attained vocational certificates at a higher ed institution, such as a community college or trade school, as well as active industry licenses or personal certifications, like a teaching license.

    Interest in non-degree credential programs has exploded in recent years, the data showed. The rate at which Americans earned non-degree credentials tripled between 2009 and 2021. The annual vocational certificate attainment rate jumped from about 0.4 percent of U.S. adults to about 1.2 percent over that period, while the professional license attainment rate rose from about 0.5 percent to around 1.6 percent. More than a third (34 percent) of adults surveyed held a non-degree credential.

    Meanwhile, enrollment in degree programs has trended downwards. Both bachelor’s degree and associate degree enrollments fell between spring 2020 and spring 2025, by 1.1 percent and 7.8 percent respectively. (However, the analysis also found students often earned non-degree credentials on top of degrees. Slightly over half of adults who hold these credentials earned degrees, as well.)

    But even though non-degree credentials are “skyrocketing” across the country, “we know very little about how students pay for these programs,” said Ama Takyi-Laryea, a senior manager of Pew’s student loan initiative.

    The new data offers some answers. Most non-degree credential earners reported using their own money to pay for programs—51 percent of vocational certificate holders and 71 percent of professional license holders. Roughly a fifth of both groups said they took out government or private loans. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of professional license holders and 15 percent of vocational certificate holders said they relied on employer financial support, while another 15 percent of vocational certificate earners used other kinds of scholarships. More than 60 percent of respondents used only one form of financial support to pay for their programs.

    Takyi-Laryea said these findings raise concerns, given that such programs can be “quite costly.” An Education Trust brief found that the median monthly cost of attendance for some of these programs ranges between about $2,100 and $2,500, depending on the type of provider. She wants to see further research done on how students afford these programs, including how often they use credit cards to pay program costs.

    “The outcomes for students are mixed when it comes to these programs,” she said. “And so sometimes, despite the hefty costs associated with it, students are left with unsustainable debt or with a credential of little value …More research into how students pay for these programs will protect them from riskier forms of financing.”

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  • Most Students Pay Out of Pocket for Nondegree Credentials

    Most Students Pay Out of Pocket for Nondegree Credentials

    As Americans earn nondegree credentials in droves, many are paying for these programs out of pocket, according to a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

    The report, released Thursday, analyzed 2022 data from a new national survey of over 15,000 American adults fielded by the U.S. Census Bureau, called the National Training, Education and Workforce Survey. The data included individuals who earned vocational certificates at a higher ed institution, such as a community college or trade school, as well as active industry licenses or personal certifications, like a teaching license.

    Interest in nondegree credential programs has exploded in recent years, the data showed: The rate at which Americans earned nondegree credentials tripled between 2009 and 2021. The annual vocational certificate attainment rate jumped from about 0.4 percent of U.S. adults to about 1.2 percent over that period, while the professional license attainment rate rose from about 0.5 percent to around 1.6 percent. More than a third (34 percent) of adults surveyed held a nondegree credential.

    Meanwhile, enrollment in degree programs has trended downward. Both bachelor’s degree and associate degree enrollments fell between spring 2020 and spring 2025, by 1.1 percent and 7.8 percent respectively. (However, the analysis also found students often earned nondegree credentials on top of degrees. Slightly over half of adults who hold these credentials earned degrees, as well.)

    But even though attainment of nondegree credentials is “skyrocketing” across the country, “we know very little about how students pay for these programs,” said Ama Takyi-Laryea, a senior manager of Pew’s student loan initiative.

    The new data offers some answers. Most nondegree credential earners reported using their own money to pay for programs—51 percent of vocational certificate holders and 71 percent of professional license holders. Roughly a fifth of both groups said they took out government or private loans. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of professional license holders and 15 percent of vocational certificate holders said they relied on employer financial support, while another 15 percent of vocational certificate earners used other kinds of scholarships. More than 60 percent of respondents used only one form of financial support to pay for their programs.

    Takyi-Laryea said these findings raise concerns, given that such programs can be “quite costly.” An Education Trust brief found that the median monthly cost of attendance for some of these programs ranges between $2,100 and $2,500, depending on the type of provider. She wants to see further research done on how students afford these programs, including how often they use credit cards to pay program costs.

    “The outcomes for students are mixed when it comes to these programs,” she said. “And so sometimes, despite the hefty costs associated with it, students are left with unsustainable debt or with a credential of little value … More research into how students pay for these programs will protect them from riskier forms of financing.”

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  • When young girls pay the cost of climate change

    When young girls pay the cost of climate change

    Jaffarabad, Balochistan: When floodwaters swept through Shaista’s village in 2022, they didn’t just take her family’s home and farmland, they also took away her childhood. Just 14 years old, Shaista was married off to a man twice her age in exchange for a small dowry. 

    Her father, a daily wage laborer, said it was the most painful decision he has ever made.

    “I didn’t want to do it,” he said, his eyes fixed on the cracked earth where his fields used to be. “But I have four other children to feed and no land to farm. We lost everything.”

    Stories like Shaista’s are becoming increasingly common across Balochistan, Pakistan’s poorest province. In 2022, devastating floods there driven by record-breaking monsoon rains and accelerated glacial melt linked to climate change, displaced over 1.5 million people.

    There is worldwide recognition that extreme weather events — not just floods, but drought, heatwaves, tornados and hurricanes — are becoming more frequent and less predictable as the planet warms. These events have devastating and long-term consequences for people in poor regions. 

    Young girls as assets 

    In districts like Jaffarabad and Chowki Jamali, the aftermath of the disaster has left families grappling with deepening poverty, food insecurity and crushing debt. For many, marrying off their young daughters is no longer just a tradition, it’s a form of survival.

    A 2023 survey by the Provincial Disaster Management Authority reported a 15% spike in underage marriages in flood-affected regions. Child rights activists warn that these numbers likely underestimate the scale of the crisis, as most cases go unreported.

    “In flood-hit areas, families are exchanging their daughters to repay loans, buy food or simply reduce the number of mouths to feed,” said Maryam Jamali, a social worker with the Madad Community organization. “We’ve documented girls as young as 12 being married to men in their forties or fifties. This isn’t about tradition anymore, it’s desperation.”

    Bride prices, once a source of negotiation and family prestige, have plummeted due to the economic collapse. Activists report instances where girls are married for as little as 100,000 Pakistani rupees (roughly US$360), or in some cases, simply traded for livestock or debt forgiveness.

    “There are villages where girls are married off like assets being liquidated,” said Sikander Bizenjo, a co-founder of the Balochistan Youth Action Committee. “It’s not just a violation of rights, it’s a systemic failure rooted in climate vulnerability, poverty and legal gaps.”

    Marriage as debt payment

    In Usta Muhammad, another flood-ravaged district, 13-year-old Sumaira (name changed) was married off just weeks after her family’s mud house collapsed. Her parents received 300,000 rupees (a little over $1,000) from the groom’s family, which they used to rebuild their shelter and repay moneylenders. 

    Now pregnant, Sumaira, has dropped out of school and rarely leaves her husband’s house.

    “I miss my friends and school,” she told us softly. “I wanted to become a teacher. But my parents said there was no other way.”

    Child marriages like Shaista’s and Sumaira’s carry lasting consequences: early pregnancies that endanger both mother and child, disrupted education, psychological trauma and lifetime economic dependence. 

    A study following the 2010 floods found maternal mortality rates in some affected regions were as high as 381 per 100,000 live births, one of the highest in the world.

    “These girls are thrust into adult roles before they’re ready,” said Dr. Sameena Khan, a gynecologist in Quetta. “They face dangerous pregnancies, and many have no access to medical care. Their childhood ends the moment they say ‘yes’ or are forced to.”

    Giving girls an alternative to marriage

    The crisis unfolding in Balochistan is not unique. Across the world, climate shocks and civil strife are causing displacement that intensifies the risk of child marriage. 

    In 2024, News Decoder correspondent Katherine Lake Berz interviewed 14-year-old Ola, who nearly became a child bride after her Syrian family, displaced by war and facing severe poverty, began arranging her marriage to an older man. But before that coil happen, Ola was able to enroll in Alsama, a non-governmental organization that provides secondary education to refugee girls. In less than a year, she was reading English at A2 level.

    Alsama, which has more than 900 students across four schools and a waiting list of hundreds, has been able to show girls and their parents that education can offer an alternative path to security and dignity.

    In Balochistan, the absence of legal safeguards compounds the crisis. The Sindh province banned child marriage in 2013 under the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act which set the legal age at 18 for both girls and boys. But Balochistan has yet to enact a comparable law. 

    Nationally, Pakistan remains bound by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires nations to end child marriage but enforcement remains patchy. And Pakistan is not one of the 16 countries that have also signed onto the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages, which forbids marriage before a girl reaches puberty and requires complete freedom in the choice of a spouse. 

    Pakistan needs to reform its laws, said human rights lawyer Ali Dayan Hasan. “Without a clear provincial law and mechanisms to enforce it, girls are at the mercy of social pressure and economic collapse,” Hasan said. “We need legal reform that matches the urgency of the climate and humanitarian crises we are facing.”

    Attempts to introduce child marriage laws in Balochistan have repeatedly stalled amid political resistance and lack of awareness. Religious and tribal leaders argue that such laws interfere with cultural norms, while government officials cite limited administrative capacity in rural areas.

    Bringing an end to child marriages

    The solution, experts agree, is multi-pronged: legal reform, economic recovery and access to education.

    “We can’t end child marriage without rebuilding livelihoods,” said Bizenjo. “Families need food, land, healthcare and hope. If they can’t survive, they’ll continue to sacrifice their daughters.”

    Grassroots organizations like Madad and Sujag Sansar provide vocational training, safe shelters and legal awareness sessions in flood-affected areas. In one case, Sujag Sansar intervened to stop the marriage of 10-year-old Mehtab in Sindh, enrolling her in a sewing workshop instead.

    UNICEF estimates that child marriages could increase by 18% in Pakistan due to the 2022 floods, potentially reversing years of progress. The agency is urging governments to integrate child protection into climate adaptation and disaster relief programs.

    “Girls must not be forgotten in climate response plans,” said UNICEF Pakistan’s representative Abdullah Fadil. “Their future cannot be the cost of every flood, every drought, every crisis.”

    Back in Jaffarabad, Shaista now lives with her husband’s family in a two-room house. Her dreams of becoming a doctor have faded, replaced by household chores and looming motherhood. “I wanted to study more,” she said. “But now I have to take care of others.”

    Questions to consider:

    1. How does the marriage of young girls connect to climate change?

    2. How can societies end the practice of child marriage?

    3. Why do you think only 16 countries have signed the UN treaty that requires consent for marriages?

     

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  • California wants to make platforms pay for offensive user posts. The First Amendment and Section 230 say otherwise.

    California wants to make platforms pay for offensive user posts. The First Amendment and Section 230 say otherwise.

    This week, FIRE wrote to California Governor Gavin Newsom, urging him to veto SB 771, a bill that would allow users and government enforcers to sue large social media platforms for enormous sums if their algorithms relay user-generated content that contributes to violation of certain civil rights laws.

    Obviously, platforms are going to have a difficult time knowing if any given post might later be alleged to have violated a civil rights law. So to avoid the risk of huge penalties, they will simply suppress any content (and user) that is hateful or controversial — even when it is fully protected by the First Amendment.

    And that’s exactly what the California legislature wants. In its bill analysis, the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee chair made clear that their goal was not just to target unlawful speech, but to make platforms wary of hosting “hate speech” more generally:

    This cause of action is intended to impose meaningful consequences on social media platforms that continue to push hate speech . . . to provide a meaningful incentive for social media platforms to pay more attention to hate speech . . . and to be more diligent about not serving such content.

    Supporters have tried to evade SB 771’s First Amendment and Section 230 concerns, largely by obfuscating what the bill actually does. To hear them tell it, SB 711 doesn’t create any new liability, it just holds social media companies responsible if their algorithms aid and abet a violation of civil rights law, which is already illegal.

    But if you look just a little bit closer, that explanation doesn’t quite hold up. To understand why, it’s important to clarify what “aiding and abetting” liability is. Fortunately, the Supreme Court explained this just recently — and in a case also about social media algorithms to boot. 

    In Twitter v. Taamneh, the plaintiffs claimed that social media platforms had aided and abetted acts of terrorism by algorithmically arranging, promoting, and connecting users to ISIS content, and by failing to prevent ISIS from using their services after being made aware of the unlawful use.

    The Supreme Court ruled that they had not successfully made out a claim. Because aiding and abetting requires not just awareness of the wrongful goals, but also a “conscious intent to participate in, and actively further, the specific wrongful act.” All the social media platforms had done was create a communications infrastructure, which treated ISIS content just like any other content — and that is not enough.

    California law also requires knowledge, intent, and active assistance to be liable for aiding. But nobody really thinks the platforms have designed their algorithms to facilitate civil rights violations. So SB 771 has a problem. Under the existing standard, it’s never going to do anything, which is obviously not what its supporters intend. Therefore, they hope to create a new form of liability — recklessly aiding and abetting — for when platforms know there’s a serious risk of harm and choose to ignore it.

    But wait, there’s more.

    SB 771 also says that, by law, platforms are considered to have actual knowledge of how their algorithms interact with every user, including why every single piece of content will or will not be shown to them. This is just another way of saying that every platform knows there’s a chance users will be exposed to harmful content. All that’s left is for users to show that a platform consciously ignored that risk. 

    That will be trivially easy. Here’s the argument: the platform knew of the risk and still deployed the algorithm instead of trying to make it “safer.” 

    Soon, social media platforms will be liable solely for using an “unsafe” algorithm, even if they were entirely unaware of the offending content, let alone have any reason to think it’s unlawful.

    But the First Amendment requires that any liability for distributing speech must require the distributor to have knowledge of the expression’s nature and character. Otherwise, nobody would be able to distribute expression they haven’t inspected, which would “would tend to restrict the public’s access to [expression] the State could not constitutionally suppress directly.” Unfortunately for California, the very goal they want SB 771 to accomplish is what makes it unconstitutional.

    And this liability is not restricted to content recommendation algorithms (though it would still be unconstitutional if it were). SB 771 doesn’t define “algorithm” beyond the function of “relay[ing] content to users.” But every piece of content on social media, whether in a chronological or recommendation-based feed, is displayed to users using an algorithm. So SB 771 will impose liability every time any piece of content is shown on social media to any user.

    This is where Section 230 also has something to say. One of the most consequential laws governing the internet, Section 230 states, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider,” and prohibits states from imposing any liability inconsistent with it. In other words, the creator of the unlawful content is responsible for it, not the service they used to do so. Section 230 has been critical to the internet’s speech-enabling character. Without it, hosting the speech of others at any meaningful scale would be far too risky.

    SB 771 tries to make an end-run around Section 230 by providing that “deploying an algorithm that relays content to users may be considered to be an act of the platform independent from the message of the content relayed.” In other words, California is trying to redefine the liability: “we’re not treating you as the publisher of that speech, we’re just holding you liable for what your algorithm does.”

    But there can be no liability without the content relayed by the algorithm. By itself, the algorithm does not cause any harm recognized by law. It’s the user-generated content that causes the ostensible civil rights violation.

    And that’s not to mention the fact that because all social media content is relayed by algorithm, it would effectively nullify Section 230 by imposing liability on all content. California cannot evade federal law by waving a magic wand and declaring the thing Section 230 protects to be something else.

    Newsom has until October 13 to make a decision. If signed, the law takes effect on Jan. 1, 2027, and in the interim, other states will likely follow suit. The result will be a less free Internet, and less free speech — until the courts inevitably strike down SB 771 after costly, wasteful litigation. Newsom must not let it come to that. The best time to avoid violating the First Amendment is now. 

    The second best time is also now.

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  • K-12 districts are fighting ransomware, but IT teams pay the price

    K-12 districts are fighting ransomware, but IT teams pay the price

    Key points:

    The education sector is making measurable progress in defending against ransomware, with fewer ransom payments, dramatically reduced costs, and faster recovery rates, according to the fifth annual Sophos State of Ransomware in Education report from Sophos.

    Still, these gains are accompanied by mounting pressures on IT teams, who report widespread stress, burnout, and career disruptions following attacks–nearly 40 percent of the 441 IT and cybersecurity leaders surveyed reported dealing with anxiety.

    Over the past five years, ransomware has emerged as one of the most pressing threats to education–with attacks becoming a daily occurrence. Primary and secondary institutions are seen by cybercriminals as “soft targets”–often underfunded, understaffed, and holding highly sensitive data. The consequences are severe: disrupted learning, strained budgets, and growing fears over student and staff privacy. Without stronger defenses, schools risk not only losing vital resources but also the trust of the communities they serve.

    Indicators of success against ransomware

    The new study demonstrates that the education sector is getting better at reacting and responding to ransomware, forcing cybercriminals to evolve their approach. Trending data from the study reveals an increase in attacks where adversaries attempt to extort money without encrypting data. Unfortunately, paying the ransom remains part of the solution for about half of all victims. However, the payment values are dropping significantly, and for those who have experienced data encryption in ransomware attacks, 97 percent were able to recover data in some way. The study found several key indicators of success against ransomware in education:

    • Stopping more attacks: When it comes to blocking attacks before files can be encrypted, both K-12 and higher education institutions reported their highest success rate in four years (67 percent and 38 percent of attacks, respectively).
    • Following the money: In the last year, ransom demands fell 73 percent (an average drop of $2.83M), while average payments dropped from $6M to $800K in lower education and from $4M to $463K in higher education.
    • Plummeting cost of recovery: Outside of ransom payments, average recovery costs dropped 77 percent in higher education and 39 percent in K-12 education. Despite this success, K-12 education reported the highest recovery bill across all industries surveyed.

    Gaps still need to be addressed

    While the education sector has made progress in limiting the impact of ransomware, serious gaps remain. In the Sophos study, 64 percent of victims reported missing or ineffective protection solutions; 66 percent cited a lack of people (either expertise or capacity) to stop attacks; and 67 percent admitted to having security gaps. These risks highlight the critical need for schools to focus on prevention, as cybercriminals develop new techniques, including AI-powered attacks.

    Highlights from the study that shed light on the gaps that still need to be addressed include:

    • AI-powered threats: K-12 education institutions reported that 22 percent of ransomware attacks had origins in phishing. With AI enabling more convincing emails, voice scams, and even deepfakes, schools risk becoming test grounds for emerging tactics.
    • High-value data: Higher education institutions, custodians of AI research and large language model datasets, remain a prime target, with exploited vulnerabilities (35 percent) and security gaps the provider was not aware of (45 percent) as leading weaknesses that were exploited by adversaries.
    • Human toll: Every institution with encrypted data reported impacts on IT staff. Over one in four staff members took leave after an attack, nearly 40 percent reported heightened stress, and more than one-third felt guilt they could not prevent the breach.

    “Ransomware attacks in education don’t just disrupt classrooms, they disrupt communities of students, families, and educators,” said Alexandra Rose, director of CTU Threat Research at Sophos. “While it’s encouraging to see schools strengthening their ability to respond, the real priority must be preventing these attacks in the first place. That requires strong planning and close collaboration with trusted partners, especially as adversaries adopt new tactics, including AI-driven threats.”

    Holding on to the gains

    Based on its work protecting thousands of educational institutions, Sophos experts recommend several steps to maintain momentum and prepare for evolving threats:

    • Focus on prevention: The dramatic success of lower education in stopping ransomware attacks before encryption offers a blueprint for broader public sector organizations. Organizations need to couple their detection and response efforts with preventing attacks before they compromise the organization.
    • Secure funding: Explore new avenues such as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s E-Rate subsidies to strengthen networks and firewalls, and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre initiatives, including its free cyber defense service for schools, to boost overall protection. These resources help schools both prevent and withstand attacks.
    • Unify strategies: Educational institutions should adopt coordinated approaches across sprawling IT estates to close visibility gaps and reduce risks before adversaries can exploit them.
    • Relieve staff burden: Ransomware takes a heavy toll on IT teams. Schools can reduce pressure and extend their capabilities by partnering with trusted providers for managed detection and response (MDR) and other around-the-clock expertise.
    • Strengthen response: Even with stronger prevention, schools must be prepared to respond when incidents occur. They can recover more quickly by building robust incident response plans, running simulations to prepare for real-world scenarios, and enhancing readiness with 24/7/365 services like MDR.

    Data for the State of Ransomware in Education 2025 report comes from a vendor-agnostic survey of 441 IT and cybersecurity leaders – 243 from K-12 education and 198 from higher education institutions hit by ransomware in the past year. The organizations surveyed ranged from 100-5,000 employees and across 17 countries. The survey was conducted between January and March 2025, and respondents were asked about their experience of ransomware over the previous 12 months.

    This press release originally appeared online.

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  • Small District to Pay $7.5 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over Sexual Abuse Decades Ago – The 74

    Small District to Pay $7.5 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over Sexual Abuse Decades Ago – The 74


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    On the eve of what was expected to be a long and gut-wrenching trial, a small school district in Santa Barbara County has settled a sexual abuse lawsuit for $7.5 million with two brothers, now 65 and 68 years old, who claimed a long-dead principal molested them in the 1970s.  

    The brothers had sought $35 million for the harm they said they suffered, an attorney for the youngest brother said.

    The settlement equals about 40% of the 350-student district’s 2025-26 budget, although the district did not disclose the terms and timetable for the payment. The district’s superintendent acknowledged in a statement that there would be an impact on the budget. 

    Board members of the Montecito Union School District announced the settlement over the weekend. The trial was scheduled to start Monday.

    The case was brought under a 2019 state law, Assembly Bill 218, that removed a statute of limitations for filing claims that employees of public agencies, including school districts and city and county governments, sexually abused children placed in their care.

    Estimates suggest settlements and jury awards could cost California school districts as much as $3 billion by one projection, and possibly a lot more. Los Angeles County alone has agreed to pay $4 billion to settle abuse claims with more pending, mostly involving plaintiffs who were once in foster care.

    With many larger lawsuits with multiple victims yet to be settled or go to trial, the financial impacts are hard to predict. Small districts are worried that multimillion-dollar verdicts could devastate budgets, if not lead to insolvency. Insurance costs, meanwhile, have soared by more than 200% in five years, according to a survey of districts.

    In the Montecito case, the brothers were seeking $35 million in damages combined, John Richards, a lawyer representing one of them, said outside of court Monday.

    Montecito is not alone in facing decades-old accusations. The San Francisco Unified School District is embroiled in an ongoing suit involving a teacher who allegedly molested a student in the mid-1960s, records show.

    School boards association helps with legal fees

    The Montecito case drew the attention of the California School Boards Association, which gave the district a $50,000 grant to help with legal costs, said spokesman Troy Flint.

    Flint said Montecito Union Superintendent Anthony Ranii has “been a staunch advocate for AB 218 reform because he understands how this well-intentioned law carries such significant unintended consequences that compromise the educational experience of current and future students.”

    Montecito Union “is just one example of what potentially awaits school districts and county offices of education statewide,” Flint added.

    The settlement came just weeks after state Assembly members let a measure that would have restored a statute of limitations to such cases, Senate Bill 577, go without a vote in the final days of the legislative session. Its sponsor, Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, said he would bring it back next year.

    At a brief hearing Monday, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Anderle called the Montecito matter “a case of real consequence.” He had scheduled 17 days for trial, court records show. The district’s lawyers did not attend the hearing.

    The brothers’ lawsuit was filed in 2022 and alleged that Montecito Union’s former superintendent and principal, Stanford Kerr, molested them in the early 1970s, including raping one of them. Kerr died in 2013 at 89. He never faced criminal charges.

    A third plaintiff who also claimed Kerr abused him settled earlier with the district for $1 million. He had described a full range of abuse covering many types of conduct, which included rape, court filings state.

    Just recompense for years of suffering

    The brothers, identified in court documents as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2, pushed forward, Richards said, hoping to be compensated for years of agony. The younger of the two, Richards said, has suffered a lifetime of substance abuse, which is blamed on Kerr’s assaults. 

    “The money is nice,” Richards said, but the younger brother also seeks “social acknowledgment that what happened to (him) was terrible. He has a long way to go,” in recovering.

    The district admitted no liability in making the settlement.

    Montecito Union has no insurance coverage going back to the period the brothers said the abuse occurred — 1972 to 1978, Ranii said in a statement.

    “We were prepared to mount a vigorous defense,” he said. But the possibility of a jury awarding far more than the district could afford pushed the idea of a settlement after years of pretrial maneuvering.

    The superintendent’s statement did not directly address the brothers’ claims. It also did not mention Kerr.

    “We are deeply mindful of the enduring pain caused by sexual abuse and feel for any person who has experienced such abuse,” Ranii said in the statement.

    A large award in the event of a trial would have “diminished our ability to serve students now and well into the future,” Ranii said. “Continued litigation created exceptional financial vulnerability. Settling now allows us to stabilize operations and remain focused on today’s students.”

    Montecito is an unincorporated oceanfront community just south of Santa Barbara in the shadows of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Its residents include Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The district is one of the state’s richest, with more than $40,000 per student in funding due to tax receipts from high-value properties. 

    The district will manage the costs through a hiring freeze, staff reductions “when natural attrition occurs,” and redirecting “funds previously designated for capital repair,” Ranii said. The settlement allows the district to avoid layoffs, he said.

    The brothers’ case was built around the testimony they would have given about Kerr’s abuses, Richards said. There was no physical evidence. At one point, a district employee went to the brothers’ home and forced their parents to sign a document requiring them to make sure the boys came right home after school and avoided Kerr, according to court filings.

    Richards said the district did not produce such a document in discovery. It had no records that the boys ever attended the school, he said, although their photos appear in yearbooks. The district also had no records that Kerr ever faced accusations of abuse or sexual misconduct.

    Two school board members from Kerr’s time as superintendent said in depositions taken for the brothers’ suit that they would have taken action had they known he was abusing students, Richards said. But with the case settled, the elderly former members won’t be called to testify.

    All that remains is a final hearing that the judge scheduled for Nov. 19 to make sure the payment has been received “and that the check’s been cashed,” he said.

    Editor-at-Large John Festerwald contributed to this story.

    This story was originally published by EdSource. Sign up for their daily newsletter.


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