Tag: Program

  • Advanced Teaching Roles Program Shows Improved Test Scores, but Faces Funding Concerns – The 74

    Advanced Teaching Roles Program Shows Improved Test Scores, but Faces Funding Concerns – The 74


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    North Carolina’s Advanced Teaching Roles program, which allows highly effective teachers to receive salary supplements for teaching additional students or supporting other teachers, is having positive effects on math and science test scores, according to an evaluation presented by NC State University’s Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at the State Board of Education meeting last week.

    Since 2016, the ATR initiative has allowed districts to create new career pathways and provide salary supplements for highly effective teachers — or Advanced Teachers — who mentor and support other educators while still teaching part of the day. Their roles include Adult Leadership teachers, who lead small teams and receive at least $10,000 supplements, and Classroom Excellence teachers, who take on larger student loads and receive a minimum of $3,000 supplements. 

    Those in adult leadership roles teach for at least 30% of the day, lead a team of 3-8 classroom teachers, and share responsibility for the performance of all those teachers’ students. Classroom excellence teachers are responsible for at least 20% more students than before they enter the role.

    “Our ATR program was designed to allow highly effective classroom educators to reach more students and to support the professional growth of educators,” said Dr. Callie Edwards, the program’s lead evaluator, at the State Board of Education meeting last Wednesday. “ATR aims to improve the quality of classroom instruction, the recruitment and retention of teachers, as well as ultimately impact student academic achievement.”

    In the 2024-25 school year, 26 districts operated ATR programs across 400 schools — 56% of which were elementary schools — employing 1,494 Advanced Teachers who supported nearly 4,000 classroom teachers statewide, according to the evaluation. Edwards said that 88% of Adult Leadership teachers received at least $10,000, and 85% of Classroom Excellence teachers received $3,000 or more.

    Statistical analysis of the 2023-24 school year’s data found that students in ATR schools outperformed their peers in non-ATR schools in math and science, showing statistically significant learning gains. 

    “Across the various programs I’ve evaluated, these are positive results — especially in math and science — where the impact of ATR is equivalent to about a month of extra learning for students,” said Dr. Lam Pham, the leading quantitative evaluator. “The results in ELA are positive but not statistically significant, which has been consistent for the last three years,” Pham said, referring to English Language Arts.

    These effects on math and science grow over time, according to the evaluation. Math scores improved throughout schools’ first six years of ATR implementation — though they are no longer significant by the seventh year of implementation, according to the presentation. For science scores, statistically significant gains began in the fifth year after schools began implementing ATR.

    Additionally, math teachers in ATR schools reported higher EVAAS growth scores than their peers in comparable schools.

    Teachers in ATR schools also reported feeling like they have more time to do their work compared to teachers in non-ATR schools.

    This year’s report featured data on teachers supported by ATR teachers for the first time. The evaluation found no positive effects on test scores for students taught by supported teachers compared to students taught by teachers who are not in the program. The researchers also found no effect on turnover levels for teachers supported by Advanced Teachers. However, the report says additional years of data will be necessary to verify if those effects appear over time.  

    The evaluation recommended that principals in ATR schools should foster collaboration and communicate strategically about the program with staff, beginning during Advanced Teachers’ hiring and onboarding.

    “It’s important to integrate ATR into those processes,” Edwards told the Board. “That means introducing Advanced Teachers to new staff and making collaboration, especially mentoring and coaching, a structured part of the day.”

    Edwards said these practices have been adopted in some schools, but principals reported needing more time and support to build collaboration opportunities into the school schedule.

    The report also urges district administrators to coordinate with Beginning Teacher (BT) programs, advertise ATR in recruitment materials, and improve their data collection practices. It also calls on state leaders to standardize the program to ensure consistency across participating districts.

    “Districts need standardized messaging, professional learning opportunities, and technical assistance to support implementation,” Edwards said. “The state can also create more opportunities for districts to share what’s working with one another and expand the evaluation beyond test scores to capture things like classroom engagement, social, emotional development, and feedback from teachers and principals.”

    The evaluators also said “there’s more to do” to expand the program in western North Carolina after Board members raised concerns about uneven participation across the state’s regions.

    2026-27 participants

    After the Friday Institute’s presentation, Board members heard a presentation on proposals for the next round of districts to join the ATR program from Dr. Thomas R. Tomberlin, senior director of educator preparation, licensure, and performance.

    Tomberlin said DPI received 15 proposals representing 22 districts. These proposals have been evaluated by seven independent evaluators, Tomberlin said. The Board had to choose the program’s next participants by Oct. 15 to comply with a legislative requirement. 

    The state can only allocate $911,349 for new implementation grants in 2026-27 — less than one-sixth of the funding required to fund all applications. That level of funding is “very low” compared to previous years, Tomberlin said. In the 2023-25 state budget, the General Assembly appropriated $10.9 million in recurring funds for these supplements in each year of the biennium.

    Tomberlin recommended that the Board approve the three highest-scoring proposals for the 2026-27 fiscal year, and fund these districts at 85% of their request. If the Board approves this recommendation, the state would still have $37,981 in planning funds left over for districts approved during the 2026 proposal cycle.

    Tomberlin said districts are already struggling to pay for the program’s salary supplements. The Friday Institute’s report showed that, despite the high median supplements, some districts are offering supplements as little as $1,000.

    “Some districts are not able to pay the full $10,000 because they have more ATR teachers than the funding that we can give them in terms of those allotments,” Tomberlin said. “And we had requested the General Assembly, I think, an additional $14 million to cover those supplements, and we didn’t get any.”

    The Senate’s budget proposal this session included funds to expand the ATR program over the biennium, while the House proposal did not. The General Assembly has not yet passed a comprehensive state budget, and its mini-budget did not include ATR program funding.

    Tomberlin said DPI would be in touch with the three districts to verify if they can proceed with the program despite limited funding.

    This article first appeared on EdNC and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.


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  • California governor signs Cal State direct admissions program into law

    California governor signs Cal State direct admissions program into law

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    Dive Brief:

    • Qualifying high school seniors in California will be automatically admitted to a California State University campus beginning with the 2026-27 academic year under a bill Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law this week. 
    • Under the program, eligible students will automatically receive letters notifying them that they have been directly admitted to Cal State campuses with enrollment capacity based on their academic records. 
    • The program expands a pilot announced last year limited to high school students in California’s Riverside County. Out of 17,000 students who received admission offers to Cal State for the fall 2025 term, 13,200 completed the required paperwork, according to state Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, who co-sponsored the bill.

    Dive Insight:

    California’s new legislation, called SB 640, aims to boost college access and help reverse enrollment declines at some of Cal State’s 23 campuses. 

    A September news release from Cabaldon’s office noted two campuses with the biggest declines were in his district: CSU Maritime Academy — which recently merged with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo — and Sonoma State University, which announced deep budget and program cuts at the beginning of this year.

    “Direct admission removes the applications hurdle that stops some students from going to college, and relieves the fear that they won’t get in anywhere,” Cabaldon said after SB 640 cleared California’s Legislature last month. 

    The lawmaker cited a 2022 academic study of Idaho’s direct admissions program, implemented in 2015, that found the initiative increased first-time undergraduate enrollments by 4% to 8% — an average increase of 50 to 100 students per campus. It also boosted in-state enrollment levels by approximately 8% to 15%, the study found. 

    Enrollment gains from the direct admissions program were concentrated mainly in community colleges, though it had “minimal-to-no impacts” on the enrollment of Pell Grant-eligible students, according to the study. At the time of publication, one of the researchers noted the lack of change was not surprising, given that the program did not focus on any particular student group.

    Meanwhile, a 2023 study of 33,000 students found a Common App direct admissions initiative geared toward marginalized student groups increased applications among Black, Latinx, multiracial, first-generation and low-income students.

    California joins a growing number of states incorporating direct admissions into the acceptance process for their public colleges. That list includes North Carolina, which this year offered 62,000 public high school students admissions into one of dozens of institutions through the NC College Connect Program, an expansion of a pilot launched last year.

    “The process of applying to college, transferring between institutions, and navigating the maze of financial aid feels like an insurmountable series of hurdles,” Shun Robertson, the University of North Carolina’s senior vice president for strategy and policy, told Higher Ed Dive earlier this fall. “Eliminating these barriers has been a high priority.”

    Institutions in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Hawai’i, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Utah and West Virginia also offer direct admissions programs.

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  • Coppin State’s Tuition Program Led to Enrollment Boom

    Coppin State’s Tuition Program Led to Enrollment Boom

    A historically Black university in Maryland says efforts to boost enrollment and up its name recognition are paying dividends, allowing it to more than quadruple out-of-state student enrollment over the past two years.

    Coppin State University in Baltimore announced in 2023 that it would begin offering in-state tuition to any student who lived in one of the 41 U.S. states and territories without an HBCU—as well as the District of Columbia, which has two HBCUs—through a program called Expand Eagle Nation. In 2024, the first year of the program, the institution more than doubled the number of students from qualifying states to 195—up from 81 the previous fall. (Coppin’s in-state annual cost of attendance is $27,410, versus $34,474 for out-of-state students.)

    This fall, the numbers increased even more dramatically: 416 of Coppin’s incoming class of 1,000—its largest freshman class in 25 years—come from the qualifying states. Overall, Coppin’s enrollment is up 26 percent this year, including growth on the in-state side, as well. In fact, James Stewart, associate vice president for student development and achievement, said the attention Coppin has received for its Expand Eagle Nation program has raised the university’s profile among local students.

    Still, it’s been a major shift for the institution, which used to attract students primarily from within a 50-mile radius.

    “I think our students enjoy the diversity of thought from so many different regions,” said Jinawa McNeil, the university’s director of admissions. “This is really giving opportunity to students, but it’s [also] making Coppin a different environment, where you traditionally were with students that you might have went to high school with, or maybe a high school not far from you, but now you’re talking to students who are literally from states that you’ve never been to.”

    Coppin’s growth comes at a time when many institutions across the country are working to attract new populations of students ahead of the impending demographic cliff—the decline in high school graduates that is expected to begin next year. (The Maryland Higher Education Commission projected earlier this year, however, that Maryland will be one of the few states to buck the trend, projecting an 11 percent increase in high school graduates from 2024 to 2031.)

    Coppin isn’t the only institution looking to out-of-state students to boost enrollment; in an interview earlier this fall, University of Connecticut officials attributed their growth in head count to more out-of-state name recognition due to the institution’s academic programs and popular sports teams, for example.

    “Given the declining number of students in their own state, [colleges] have to chase them elsewhere,” said Gregory Price, a professor of economics at the University of New Orleans who studies the economics of HBCUs. “It’s sort of like an arms race.”

    Coppin is also capitalizing on the current popularity of HBCUs, which saw significant increases in applications and enrollments following the Supreme Court’s 2023 ban on affirmative action in admissions.

    “Everything that’s been going on politically, from affirmative action to DEI, sends a message to Black students that they don’t belong,” Henry Williams, president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for public HBCUs, told Inside Higher Ed regarding the trend last year. “At an HBCU, you’re never going to have that question, and all of the support, resources and scholarship money being taken away elsewhere are already built into the structure [at HBCUs] … there’s value in a sense of belonging.”

    Price noted that HBCUs are also often cheaper than other institutions—as is the case at Coppin, which says it’s the least expensive institution in Maryland. That’s because historically, HBCUs haven’t had large research enterprises, which saves the institutions many costs, he said; they can also attract faculty without paying salaries above market rate.

    “To the extent HBCUs have a distinct value proposition for Black students, that could be good because there aren’t many HBCUs … and that value proposition is high returns in the labor market relative to the cost of attendance,” he said. “If you can reduce the costs, you could probably stay ahead of that demographic cliff longer than other colleges can.”

    Bolstering Recruitment

    Along with offering in-state tuition to out-of-state students, Coppin officials took a slew of steps to increase their presence in the states from which they hoped to attract students. That included visiting high schools—and plastering advertisements on buses and billboards in those cities ahead of their visits, so students would hopefully already recognize the Coppin brand by the time they met an admissions official.

    The university formed transfer partnerships with community college systems in Colorado and California, and the admissions team reached out to regional organizations that help students in the college search process to ensure their staffs were aware of Coppin.

    Increasing the university’s name recognition was an important goal of the Expand Eagle Nation program, McNeil said.

    “It [used to be] a much harder recruitment sale, for lack of a better term,” she said. “We were beginning with who were as an institution, rather than saying, ‘Oh, you’ve heard about us, so let’s help you learn more.’”

    Stewart also noted that the university was prepared for the enrollment boost, having met with academic affairs staff over the past year to ensure there would be enough courses and faculty to meet the needs of all students. To house the influx, Coppin is currently constructing a new dorm, slated to open next fall; it also has six off-campus apartment facilities that Stewart said include resident assistants, just like on-campus housing, and regular shuttle access to campus.

    “We’re going to end up with a good mix where we increase our housing on campus, especially, to meet our new students, but we have options for our [upperclassmen] off campus that give them this blending of what real-life living in an urban environment is,” he said.

    One unexpected challenge that has come with implementing Expand Eagle Nation? Convincing prospective students that the offer is real.

    “They [don’t] believe it,” McNeil said. “Like, ‘What’s the trick, what’s the catch?’ They just don’t believe an institution was willing to invest that deeply, because students understand, and definitely parents of students, specifically parents that have been to college and might have some college debt. They just did not believe that this was an opportunity, because they don’t see too many opportunities like this.”

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  • Inside North Carolina’s direct admissions program

    Inside North Carolina’s direct admissions program

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    This fall, North Carolina is one of the latest states rolling out a direct admission program that offers high school seniors acceptance to a range of public and private colleges. 

    Through direct admissions, colleges proactively admit students based on high school academic performance metrics such as GPA, SAT scores, or the amount of credits they received. 

    Around the start of the school year, more than 62,000 public high school seniors in North Carolina were offered direct admission to select colleges through the NC College Connect Program. Eleven of the University of North Carolina System’s 16 colleges, 29 private colleges and all 58 of the state’s community colleges are participating. 

    The UNC System first piloted NC College Connect last year in partnership with state agencies, the governor’s office and North Carolina’s community college system. The system launched the program to increase access to higher education in the state, Shun Robertson, UNC’s senior vice president for strategy and policy, said in an email. 

    For many high school seniors, “the process of applying to college, transferring between institutions, and navigating the maze of financial aid feels like an insurmountable series of hurdles,” said Robertson. “Eliminating these barriers has been a high priority.”

    Over the past decade, direct admissions policies have increased the likelihood that in-state students both apply to college and apply to more colleges, said John Lane, vice president for academic affairs at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, in an email. In turn, that shift has effectively increased college enrollment, he said.

    “Direct admissions policies and programs are impactful because they eliminate the complications and uncertainties of longstanding college application processes,” said Lane. “Instead, students are proactively admitted.”

    UNC’s program

    The UNC System piloted its direct admissions initiative last fall and notified over 70,000 high school seniors with GPAs of 2.8 or higher of their eligibility for the program, Robertson said. 

    Those seniors could apply to six UNC institutions and all 58 state community colleges for the 2025-26 academic year by sharing on an online portal their email address, their potential major, and when they’d like to start college, he said. 

    UNC System officials haven’t been able to review outcome data yet for the pilot program, a spokesperson said. But over 5,000 students responded to the letter during the pilot, the spokesperson said. 

    The system simplified the program this fall. Students won’t have to formally apply to get into one of the colleges on their list, rather they are provided direct admission to institutions based on their GPA and whether they meet the program’s requirements, Robertson said. Then they just need to submit a program form to accept their admission, he said. 

    Students accepting admission to community colleges must still fill out applications, but they will already be admitted, according to the initiative’s website. 

    The program also expanded to include private colleges in the state and added more UNC institutions, said Robertson. The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, the system’s highly selective flagship, remains excluded from the program.

    Some of the private institutions in the program have additional direct admission qualification requirements, such as foreign language course requirements. 

    UNC System officials hope direct admissions will help the state’s institutions enrollment numbers long term by tapping into a growing college-aged student population. 

    Like most of the country, North Carolina is expected to see a decline in high school graduates between 2025 and 2030, according to a report last year from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. However, that pool of students is expected to grow again in North Carolina after that year. 

    WICHE predicts that North Carolina will be one of 12 states, along with the District of Columbia, to have growing numbers of high school students between 2023 and 2041. Overall, North Carolina should see a 6% increase in high school graduates over that period, per WICHE projections.

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  • Purdue Ends GEAR UP Program After Federal Grant Cut

    Purdue Ends GEAR UP Program After Federal Grant Cut

    Purdue University is ending its GEAR UP program after the Trump administration canceled a $34.9 million federal grant to support its activities, WFYI reported. The program provided college-prep programming for more than 13,000 low-income students in Indiana, according to a 2024 press release from Purdue’s College of Education.  

    The grant, awarded last year, was expected to run through 2031. But the U.S. Department of Education told Purdue in a Sept. 12 termination letter that the grant application flouted the department’s policy of “prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education” and ran afoul of civil rights law. The letter referenced parts of the application, including plans to provide DEI training to hiring managers and professional development in “culturally responsive teaching.”

    The program is “inconsistent with, and no longer effectuates, the best interest of the Federal Government,” the letter read. The GEAR UP program shut down on Tuesday. Purdue did not appeal the grant termination, WFYI reported.

    The Education Department has canceled at least nine GEAR UP grants, EducationWeek reported, though it continued awards for other programs last week.

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  • Advocates Worry About McNair Scholars Program

    Advocates Worry About McNair Scholars Program

    Delays in the distribution of federal grants for undergraduates involved with TRIO, a series of college-access programs, combined with an ongoing lawsuit have raised concerns among proponents for the McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program—a TRIO grant designed specifically for those pursuing graduate school.

    Legally, grants don’t have to be awarded for either the TRIO undergraduate programs or McNair until the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30. But in most years prior, the Department of Education has notified institutions about the status of awards in late August or mid-September. 

    That has not been the case so far this year. 

    Award notifications started to trickle out after Sept. 15 for the undergraduate programs that started Sept. 1, but according to a TRIO advocacy group, most of the college staff members who lead McNair are still waiting to hear from the department, though at least one program got approval Friday.

    As with the other TRIO programs, the Education Department says it will issue notices by the end of the month. But with a lawsuit filed last year arguing McNair is discriminatory and President Trump calling to slash TRIO altogether in his recent budget proposal, uncertainty remains rampant. 

    “All of a sudden, we’re in sort of this panic mode,” one assistant program director said on condition of anonymity, fearing that speaking out could harm the students she serves. “That stress and panic has certainly been building since January, but this definitely accelerated it.” 

    And while the anonymous director said her program has yet to receive a status update, for some the fear of cancellation has already become a reality. 

    So far, the Council for Opportunity in Education, a TRIO advocacy group, has tallied 18 grant cancellations out of the more than 200 McNair programs. Collectively, McNair serves more than 6,000 first-generation, low-income and underrepresented students each year. 

    ED deputy press secretary Ellen Keast said in a statement, “The department plans to issue continuation awards for the McNair Scholars program by the end of the fiscal year,” while also continuing to “evaluate the underlying legal issues raised in litigation.” In an email obtained by Inside Higher Ed, a legislative affairs officer at the department reinforced this statement to a staffer on Capitol Hill, saying that any grantees facing a cancellation would have been notified by Sept. 16. 

    Still, the director said she is scrambling to devise a backup plan.

    “We have less than three weeks to figure out what’s going on, talk to our institutions and make a plan,” she said. “Jobs are going to be lost and students aren’t going to have services.”

    ‘Unacceptable Delays’

    Worries about McNair have existed for months, but they kicked into a higher gear at a COE conference earlier this month. 

    The program director and COE president Kimberly Jones, both of whom attended the conference, say that Christopher McCaghren, ED’s deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs, spoke about the future of McNair on Sept. 10. And according to both of their recollections, when the secretary was asked if and when grant awards would be allocated, he said the department needed to wait on further rulings from the court before it could administer this year’s awards. (Jones noted that the session was not recorded, at the request of the department.) 

    Keast said the account of McCaghren’s comments was “unsubstantiated fake news” and reinforced that the department is committed to issuing McNair awards by Sept. 30. She declined, however, to provide a transcript or recording of his remarks.

    The lawsuit McCaghren was likely referring to was filed last year by the Young America’s Foundation, a national conservative student group. It alleged the criteria for McNair eligibility was race-based and argued that in order to be constitutional, the program should be open to all students. The case was dismissed by a federal district court, but the plaintiffs have since appealed. 

    If the government is delaying grant allocation because of the lawsuit, Jones said, it would be an “absolutely unacceptable” practice. 

    “If the government couldn’t move on something every time they were sued, then they wouldn’t do anything,” she added. “I believe that this is an opportunity they’re taking advantage of to undermine the program and attempt to eliminate it.”

    Amanda Fuchs Miller, the Biden administration appointee who previously filled McCaghren’s role, made similar comments.

    “Just because there’s pending litigation doesn’t mean that you don’t fund a program that Congress has authorized and appropriated funds for,” she said. “That’s not the role of the executive branch.”

    Both Jones and Fuchs Miller pointed to the department’s recent decision to end funding for grant programs that support minority-serving institutions as another reason they are worried about McNair’s future. 

    The MSI decision stemmed from a similar lawsuit that argued the criteria for Hispanic-serving institutions was illegal. And while no court ruling had been issued, a Justice Department official agreed with the plaintiffs and so did Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who expanded the determination to include similar grant programs.

    ‘Tapping Into Talent’

    Named after Ronald McNair, a first-generation college student and astrophysicist who died during the launch of NASA’s space shuttle Challenger in 1986, the McNair Scholars program started in 1989 and receives about $60 million per year from Congress.

    As with other TRIO programs, at least two-thirds of the students served under McNair must be first-generation and low-income. But what has sparked the legal scrutiny of the graduate program is a provision that allows up to one-third of the participating students to be admitted because they are “a member of a group that is underrepresented.” 

    Proponents for McNair say that this may include characteristics like race or sexuality, but aspects like gender and field of study often play a role as well. In many instances a student will tick all three boxes—first-gen, low-income and underrepresented—at once.

    “There’s a perspective that McNair is only for students of color, which it is not,” said Jones. “It particularly looks for a demographic that is not usually sought after in postgraduate education … We’re tapping into talent that we would not have otherwise.”

    For example, a white woman from a low-income household who is pursuing a career in STEM could be a prime candidate under the current regulatory statute.

    But advocates worry that because of current political tensions, many eligible students of all races could lose access to this critical service.

    The program leader who spoke with Inside Higher Ed said that until grant awards are sent out, her rural institution will lack $278,000. As a result, she will likely have to tell 27 students that the classes they have already signed up for, the workshops they were promised and the conferences they planned to attend will not be possible.

    “This is the semester that our seniors’ grad applications are due, so to just yank the rug out from underneath them and say, ‘You’re on your own’ in this critical time is just cruel,” she said. “It’s also, in my opinion, a really shortsighted way of the administration understanding national security and participating in the global economy.”

    Tara Ruttley, a McNair alumna who studied neuroscience and now works in the space industry, always knew she wanted a Ph.D. but wasn’t sure how to get there before she saw a poster advertising the grant program at Colorado State University. Through McNair she was able to pursue a paid research internship, present her findings at conferences, receive guidance on application essays and then give back to younger students. If funding were to be cut, Ruttley said, other aspiring graduate students won’t be so lucky.

    “I’m kind of a scrapper, so I might have figured it out, but it definitely would have been delayed. The entire package wouldn’t have been as strong and it probably would have taken me a lot longer to get to where I was going,” she explained. “There’s a whole generation of scientists we may never see from varied backgrounds across the country.”

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  • We cannot afford to dismantle Head Start, a program that builds futures, strengthens families and delivers proven returns

    We cannot afford to dismantle Head Start, a program that builds futures, strengthens families and delivers proven returns

    The first words I uttered after successfully defending my dissertation were, “Wow, what a ride. From Head Start to Ph.D.!” Saying them reminded me where it all began: sitting cross-legged with a picture book at the Westside Head Start Center, just a few blocks from my childhood home in Jackson, Mississippi. 

    I don’t remember every detail from those early years, but I remember the feeling: I was happy at Head Start. I remember the books, the music, the joy. That five-minute bus ride from our house to the Westside Center turned out to be the shortest distance between potential and achievement. 

    And my story is not unique. Every year, hundreds of thousands of children — kids whose names we may never know, though our futures depend on them — walk through Head Start’s doors. Like me, they find structure, literacy, curiosity and belonging.  

    For many families, Head Start is the first place outside the home where a child’s potential is nurtured and celebrated. Yet, this program that builds futures and strengthens families is now under threat, and it’s imperative that we protect it. 

    Years later, while training for high school cross-country meets, I’d run past the park next to the center and pause, flooded with memories. Head Start laid the foundation for everything that followed. It gave me structure, sparked my curiosity and built my early literacy skills. It even fed my short-lived obsession with chocolate milk.  

    More than that, Head Start made me feel seen and valued. 

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

    There’s a clear, unbroken line between the early lessons I learned at Head Start and the doctoral dissertation I defended decades later. Head Start didn’t just teach me my ABCs — it taught me that learning could be joyful, that I was capable and that I belonged in a classroom.  

    That belief carried me through elementary school, Yale and George Washington University and to a Ph.D. in public policy and public administration. Now, as part of my research at the Urban Institute, I’m working to expand access to high-quality early learning, because I know firsthand what a difference it makes.  

    Research backs up what my story shows: Investments in Head Start and high-quality early childhood education change lives by improving health and educational achievement in later years, and benefit the economy. Yet today there is growing skepticism about the value of Head Start, reflecting an ongoing reluctance to give early childhood education the respect it deserves.  

    If Head Start funding is cut, thousands of children — especially from communities like mine in Jackson, where families worked hard but opportunities were limited — could lose access to a program that helps level the playing field. These are the children of young parents and single parents, of working families who may not have many other options but still dare to dream big for their kids.  

    And that is why I am worried. Funding for Head Start has been under threat. Although President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal 2026 budget would maintain Head Start funding at its current $12.3 billion, Project 2025, the influential conservative policy document, calls for eliminating the program. The administration recently announced that Head Start would no longer enroll undocumented children, which a group of Democratic attorneys general say will force some programs to close.  

    Related: Head Start is in turmoil 

    I feel compelled to speak out because, for our family, Head Start wasn’t just a preschool — it was the beginning of everything. For me, it meant a future I never could have imagined. For my mother, Head Start meant peace of mind — knowing her son was in a nurturing, educational environment during the critical developmental years. My mother, Nicole, brought character, heart and an unwavering belief in my potential — and Head Start helped carry that forward. 

    My mother was just 18 when she enrolled me in Head Start. “A young mother with big dreams and limited resources,” she recounted to me recently, adding that she had “showed up to an open house with a baby in my arms and hope in my heart.” 

    Soon afterward, Mrs. Helen Robinson, who was in charge of the Head Start in Jackson, entered our lives. She visited our home regularly, bringing books, activities and reassurance. A little yellow school bus picked me up each morning. 

    Head Start didn’t just support me, though. It also supported my mother and gave her tips and confidence. She took me to the library regularly and made sure I was always surrounded by books and learning materials that would challenge and inspire me. 

    It helped my mother and countless others like her gain insight into child development, early learning and what it means to advocate for their children’s future.  

    Twenty-five years after those early mornings when I climbed onto the Head Start bus, we both still think about how different our lives might have been without that opportunity. Head Start stood beside us, and that support changed our lives. 

    As we debate national priorities, we must ask ourselves: Can we afford to dismantle a program that builds futures, strengthens families and delivers proven returns? 

    My family provides living proof of Head Start’s power.  

    This isn’t just our story. It is the story of millions of others and could be the story of millions more if we choose to protect and invest in what works. 

    Travis Reginal holds a doctorate in public policy and public administration and is a graduate of the Head Start program, Yale University and George Washington University. He is a former Urban Institute researcher. 

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected]. 

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

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Landmark free preschool program reaches too few kids

    Landmark free preschool program reaches too few kids

    In the 1980s, a public interest law group sued the state of New Jersey, saying that the way it funded education left its low-income, urban school districts at a disadvantage compared to wealthier, suburban districts.

    The lawsuit, Abbott v. Burke, yielded a number of different decisions, including a requirement that the state offer free, full-day, high-quality preschool for children ages 3 and 4 in 31 school districts.

    This new school year marks the 26th since the program was created. Researchers have found that children who attend the preschool program are better prepared for school later on, but enrollment has been dwindling. And with New Jersey leaders now focused on bringing preschool to all districts, supporters worry that the early learning program focused on children in low-income areas may not get the attention it needs.

    Park perk for kids

    Did you know every fourth grader and their family can get free admission to national parks, monuments and forests? The Sierra Club’s Outdoors for All program launched in 2015 and offers free passes each school year. Vouchers for students can be downloaded through the program’s official website. 

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

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Ohio enacted a law to regulate online program managers. Here’s what it does.

    Ohio enacted a law to regulate online program managers. Here’s what it does.

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    In June, Ohio became the second state to regulate how colleges can use third-party vendors to help launch and operate their online degree programs. 

    Under a new law, both public and private colleges in Ohio must disclose on their websites for their online programs when they are using vendors to help run those offerings. Staff who work for these vendors, known as online program managers, must also identify themselves when talking to students. And it requires colleges to report OPM contracts annually to the state’s higher education chancellor. 

    The law, part of a larger state budget bill, additionally prohibits OPMs from making decisions about or disbursing student financial aid. 

    “Ohio’s law is a step in the right direction,” said Amber Villalobos, a fellow at The Century Foundation, a left-leaning think tank. “It’s great to see transparency laws because students will know who’s running their program, who’s teaching their programs.”

    The new law is the latest sign that states may take on a greater role in regulating OPM contracts, heeding calls by consumer advocates for stronger government oversight. 

    However, Villalobos said Ohio lawmakers could have improved the legislation by barring colleges from entering agreements that give OPMs a cut of tuition revenue for each student they recruit into an online program. Minnesota, the first state to pass a law regulating OPMs in 2024, prohibited its public colleges from striking tuition-share deals with these companies if they provide marketing or recruiting services. 

    U.S. law bars colleges that receive federal funding from giving incentive-based compensation to companies that recruit students into their programs. However, in 2011, federal guidance created an exception for colleges that enter tuition-share agreements with OPMs for recruiting services — but only if they are part of a larger bundle of services, such as curricular design and help with clinical placements. 

    But these deals have led to OPMs using misleading recruitment and marketing practices to enroll students and fill seats, Villalobos said. 

    “When tuition-sharing is used for marketing or recruiting purposes we’ve seen issues like predatory recruitment,” she said. 

    OPMs under scrutiny

    OPMs help colleges quickly set up and market online programs, said Phil Hill, an ed tech consultant. That’s important since launching a successful online program catering to nontraditional working adults can be challenging for colleges that typically enroll 18- to 24-year-olds, Hill said. 

    “It gives them a way to operate in the online space based on what students expect, but do it right away,” Hill said.

    However, OPM contracts have been subject to lawsuits and federal scrutiny in recent years. 

    In Ohio, for instance, legislators passed the new state law following Eastern Gateway Community College’s closure in 2024 after it offered tuition-free online college programs with an OPM. 

    After the college began working with the for-profit company Student Resource Center, its enrollment soared from just 3,182 students in fall 2014 to 45,173 enrollees by the fall 2021, according to federal data. Former employees of the college accused the relationship of turning the college into an education mill, Inside Higher Ed reported at the time. 

    By early 2022, the rapid enrollment growth and the college’s relationship with the Student Resource Center had attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of Education. 

    The federal agency alleged that year that the college’s free college initiative illegally charged students with Pell Grants more than those without. In response, the Education Department placed the college on Heightened Cash Monitoring 2 status, which forced the institution to pay its students’ federal financial aid out of pocket before seeking reimbursement from the agency. 

    In 2023, Eastern Gateway reached a deal with the Education Department to end its free college program. Its board of trustees voted to shutter the institution the following year.

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  • HHS Ends Minority Biomedical Research Support Program

    HHS Ends Minority Biomedical Research Support Program

    The Health and Human Services Department has terminated the Minority Biomedical Research Support program, which provided colleges and universities grants to increase the number of minority faculty, students and investigators conducting biomedical research.

    In a notice published Monday in the Federal Register, HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the cancellation is to comply with two anti–diversity, equity and inclusion executive orders President Trump signed in January on his first two days back in office, plus the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action in college admissions decisions. The change is effective Sept. 25.

    “The MBRS program prioritizes racial classifications in awarding federal funding,” including by relying on “‘minority student enrollment’ to determine applicant eligibility,” Kennedy wrote. And, though the Supreme Court ruling focused on university admissions, Kennedy wrote that “the principles identified in Students for Fair Admissions also apply to the federal government and require repeal of the MBRS program.”

    STAT reported the move earlier. Rochelle Newman, a University of Maryland psychologist who used the grant to pay undergraduate researchers and train them, told STAT that “cutting of these programs means that an entire generation of students will end up being lost to science.”

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