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If Bill Schluter had his way, cellphones would be banned five days a week. Schluter is head of Tatnall Upper School, a private high school in the U.S. state of Delaware. He wants cellphones out of school.
As increasing numbers of young people seem tied to their phones, researchers have found correlations between cellphone use and cases of depression, anxiety, cyberbullying and decreasing attention span.
A 2019 study by the nonprofit organization Common Sense found that 84% of teenagers in the United States already possess a cellphone.
Psychologist Jean Twenge, in her 2017 book “iGen“, wrote that increased phone use by teenagers directly correlates to a recent increase in adolescent anxiety, depression and inability to focus.
Teens themselves, though, think cellphones have a place in the classroom — if used responsibly and with permission.
“I noticed people use them a lot in math class when they forget their calculator,” said Tatnall student Camille Johnson. “If their math teacher allows them to pull out their phone just for the calculator portion, they use it for that as long as you know they’re not being silly and going on other apps. We had a physics lab the other day where we were needing to use it to record our lab.”
Social media replaces human connections
Research also suggests that a hybrid class model that integrates technology into classwork, such as Teach to One or Google Classroom, leads to successful test scores as it personalizes the learning journey.
Twenge found that phones hinder teenagers’ ability to socially engage with each other. Schulter agreed. “Your ability to talk to each other, hear each other and have productive conversations is lessened with cellphones,” he said.
Twenge also found that the recent rise of technological advancements of cellphones and the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged teenagers to shut themselves in and only engage with their devices, as social media has replaced other forms of entertainment such as magazines and books. This leads to a wired, smartphone-dominant society, causing a significant spike in teenage mental health problems.
A June 2024 Pew Research Center survey shows that 72% of public school teachers report that phones are a major distraction in class and make learning less effective. And a March 2024 report from Thorn, a nonprofit organization that works to fight online sexual abuse of children and teens, emphasized a disturbing increase in the creation and distribution of AI-generated child pornography.
The report said that with its ease of use, almost anyone can generate intimate deepfake images of others, whether it be of someone they know or a stranger. Child predators or children interested in their peers can create these pictures with the click of a button.
These images are commonly used in “sextortion”, a form of extortion in which the creator or owner of the photos threatens to publicly release them if the victim refuses their demands.
Abuse of technology
Schluter recalled a story about a local and reputable school in which a male student used AI to superimpose nude pictures of his female classmates from the shoulder up to distribute online, resulting in chaos among the school board. “Board members of the school have resigned and everybody’s at each other’s throats,” he said.
In recent years, schools have responded to the cell phone issue. In many states across the country, such as California, New York, Maine and Pennsylvania, school districts have been able to limit the usage of cell phones among students, whether that be a phone-free day or an outright ban.
My high school, The Tatnall School, has implemented phone-free Wednesdays into the school week, forbidding students from having a cellphone in sight anytime during the day.
Schluter said that another local high school has banned smartphones five days a week.
“They started right off the school year with having a couple days in the school year, and then within a month, they had gone to a cellphone free policy at the school in its entirety, and it’s working great from all sources,” he said.
Resistance to phone bans
Many students, and parents, aren’t entirely on board with banning phones, even one day a week. “It just so happens that every single Wednesday, I’m like, oh my gosh, I need to do something really quick, and I can’t have my phone,” Johnson said.
She admitted that without a phone people learn to be more present in the moment. “But I don’t believe in completely banning them,” she said.
Other students noted that the cellphone policy has caused some problems. Some use their phones as keys to their cars, for example, and having their phones confiscated makes that difficult. Some students have have seen teachers collecting phones from students even when they were simply outdoors during lunch.
Many parents are concerned that smartphone bans limit communication between them and their children, fearing they cannot contact them during an emergency. With a disturbing number of recent school shootings, this fear is understandable. To dampen parents’ worries, school faculty assure them that communication between parent and child will most likely be unnecessary if school safety precautions are followed.
“If we’re cellphone free, the school would, if we do a good job of maintaining our safety precautions for the school, we would be a safe environment,” Schluter said.
Finding a happy medium
Naturally, parents still worry for their child’s safety and desire to keep constant contact, even if it’s a simple text that tells them that their child is safe.
While many educators and some parents believe that phones only impair learning and have no place in a productive academic environment, others argue that the correct classroom model can allow cellphones to enhance education.
Consider online programs such as Duolingo or Google Classroom. These apps prove that technology can be effectively integrated into lesson plans to teach new skills while indulging the attachment young people have to phones and capturing their attention, a precious resource. If teachers worry about students using their cellphones for non-academic purposes, they can employ programs to restrict access to certain websites or apps.
So what is the best best course of action to solve this problem? While the issues related to cellphones prove problematic, many believe that phones aren’t necessarily the root cause. The spike in cellphone usage may merely be an effect of the issues often associated with them.
“Cellphones may be a symptom and not the cause of the shift, but the two are very interrelated,” Schluter said.
Bans are only as effective as their enforcement and only encourage some teens to find ways around the bans. And despite teachers’ efforts to hold students responsible for their actions, this is also not a guaranteed fix.
Perhaps the best solution is a happy medium. Schools can allow teachers to create their own classroom phone policies and punish as they see fit. Or they can limit cell phone use while establishing specific areas or periods when people can be on their phones.
No matter which solution is most effective, technology is improving, and social media and smartphones are on track to become increasingly prevalent in our lives.
“High school education has changed in huge ways in the past 30 or 40 years, and cellphones have been have been part of that,” Schluter said. “But I’m curious to know, not how we get back to the way things were in the 1990s necessarily, but to an atmosphere where students are more engaged.”
Three questions to consider:
1. Why do many schools trying to ban students’ use of phones?
2. In what ways can phones by used responsibly in a class?
According to WeAreHigherEd.org, there are now 46 schools where student visas have been revoked. Arizona State tops the list at 50, followed by the University of Wisconsin-Madision (13), UC Davis (12), Rutgers (12), and Johns Hopkins (12) . The website includes profiles of a number of those students who have been detained. If you know of someone who has been abducted, you can report it here.
Reports have surfaced of a significant increase in the number of international student visas being revoked and students being detained across various universities in the United States. This follows heightened immigration scrutiny, particularly under the administration of Donald Trump. According to Senator Marco Rubio, more than 300 international student visas have been pulled in recent months, primarily targeting students involved in political activism or minor infractions. WeAreHigherEd has named 30 schools where students’ visas have been revoked.
University of California System (UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley): Universities within the University of California system, which hosts a large international student population, have reported multiple visa cancellations. These revocations have affected students involved in pro-Palestinian protests, political activism, or perceived violations of U.S. immigration policies. For instance, the University of California has seen as many as 20 students affected in recent weeks.
Columbia University: At Columbia University, the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a student activist, has gained significant media attention. Khalil, who was detained and faced deportation, exemplifies the growing concerns over student rights and the growing impact of politically charged visa revocations.
Tufts University: Tufts University is currently battling the Trump administration over the case of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish graduate student whose visa was revoked. Her detention and the ensuing legal battles highlight the growing tensions between academic freedom and government policy. Tufts and its student body are advocating for Öztürk’s release and seeking clarification on the legal processes involved.
University of Minnesota: At the University of Minnesota, one international graduate student was detained as part of an ongoing federal crackdown on visa violations. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions continue to raise concerns over the rights of international students to remain in the country, especially as visa renewals and compliance checks become more stringent.
Arizona State University: Arizona State University has also reported incidents of international students having their visas revoked without prior notice. These revocations have affected students from various countries, creating uncertainty within the international student community at the university.
Cornell University: At Cornell University, international students have similarly faced unexpected visa cancellations. This has raised concerns about the ability of universities to adequately support their international student populations, as students are left to navigate the complexities of visa status without sufficient notice or explanation.
North Carolina State University: North Carolina State University is another institution where international students have had their visas revoked without notice. The university has expressed concern over the lack of clarity from immigration authorities, which has left students in a precarious situation.
University of Oregon: The University of Oregon has experienced several cases of international students having their visas revoked. This has been particularly troubling for students who were actively pursuing their education in the U.S. and now face the prospect of deportation or being forced to leave the country unexpectedly.
University of Texas: At the University of Texas, international students have faced visa issues, with several reports of revocations and detentions, affecting students who are working toward completing their degrees. This has sparked protests and advocacy efforts from both students and university administration, seeking more transparency in the process.
University of Colorado: The University of Colorado has similarly reported instances of international student visa revocations, particularly affecting those involved in political activism. The university has been working to support students impacted by these actions, although many are left in limbo regarding their ability to continue their studies.
University of Michigan: The University of Michigan has also been impacted by a wave of visa revocations. Similar to other institutions, students involved in political protests or activism have found themselves under scrutiny, facing the risk of detention or deportation. Students, faculty, and staff are pushing for clearer policies and legal protections to support international students, who are increasingly at risk due to the political environment.
The Broader Implications
These incidents of visa revocation and detentions are seen as part of a broader trend of increasing immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. Critics argue that these actions infringe upon students’ rights, potentially violating freedom of speech and academic freedom. International students, especially those participating in protests or political discourse, have found themselves at risk of being detained or deported, with little prior notice or transparency regarding the reasons for such actions.
Moreover, the economic impact of these actions is significant. In 2023, a record 253,355 student visa applications were denied, representing a 36% refusal rate. This has major implications not only for the affected students but also for U.S. universities that rely heavily on international students for tuition revenue. The financial loss could be as much as $7.6 billion in tuition fees and living expenses, further emphasizing the broader consequences of these policies.
Legal and Administrative Responses
Many universities are rallying behind their international student populations, with advocacy efforts from institutions like Tufts University and Columbia University. These universities have criticized the abruptness of the visa cancellations and detentions, calling for more transparency and due process.
However, despite these efforts, the political climate surrounding U.S. immigration remains volatile, and it is unclear whether policy changes will result in more lenient or more restrictive measures for international students.
Conclusion
These stories underscore the fragile position of international students in the U.S. today. With incidents of detentions and visa revocations increasing, students face significant challenges navigating the complexities of U.S. immigration law, particularly those involved in political or activist circles. University administrations and students alike continue to call for clearer policies, protections for international student rights, and more transparent practices to avoid the unintended consequences of politically motivated visa actions.
This issue remains ongoing, with much at stake for both
The conflict between the state of Maine and the Trump administration over transgender student athletes reached a new pivot point on Monday. As the first of several deadlines set by the federal government has now expired, whether Maine can continue to allow trans athletes to participate in school sports appears likely to be decided by the courts.
Two separate federal agencies determined that Maine is in violation of Title IX based on the Trump administration’s interpretation of the anti-sex discrimination protection.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued a final warning Monday to the Maine Department of Education regarding its noncompliance with a federal directive for allowing trans girls to participate in girls’ sports.
If the state does not propose an agreement that’s acceptable to the office by April 11, the case will be referred to the Department of Justice, the letter said.
Meanwhile, a separate investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ civil rights office that found Maine in violation of Title IX for “continuing to unlawfully allow” trans girls to compete in girl’s sports has been referred to the U.S. Department of Justice, according to a Monday social media post from the agency.
In a letter dated March 17, HHS had given Maine a deadline of 10 days to comply with federal guidance. Monday marked ten business days from that warning.
Both agencies determined that Maine had violated federal law after dayslong investigations that included no interviews, while typical investigations take months and are eventually settled with resolution agreements. The probes were launched after Gov. Janet Mills and President Donald Trump had a heated exchange over the state’s trans athlete policy. Millions of dollars in federal funding might be at risk, depending on how the cases proceed.
“We just need an answer at this point as to, ‘Does the Trump administration have the authority to do what it’s doing when it comes to fast tracking the removal of federal funds?’” said Jackie Wernz, a former OCR lawyer for the Education Department who now represents school districts nationwide in these types of cases.
“This is just unprecedented, and we’re not following the process that we’re used to. So I think it’s going to be really helpful for courts to start weighing in on whether or not they have the authority to do this.”
Meanwhile, Republican state lawmakers said in a news conference on Tuesday that they want the state to repeal trans students’ rights to athletics, locker rooms and bathrooms, and to roll back inclusion of gender as a protected class in the Maine Human Rights Act.
“The problem is that the term gender identity and the Human Rights Act is being interpreted way too broadly by the left,” said Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook). “And what it’s saying is there’s no boundary between men’s and women’s spaces.”
Rep. Michael Soboleski (R- Phillips) said he is introducing a bill to remove consideration of gender identity from the act, and asked Democrats and Mills to support the legislation in order to avoid the risk of losing federal funding.
Earlier this year, Iowa became the first state in the nation to remove civil rights from a state law when its Legislature voted to remove gender identity from its civil rights act.
“This is not sustainable,” Stewart said. “We’re a poor state. We are heavily reliant on federal money. The governor needs to move on this.”
On March 19, the Department of Education’s civil rights office notified Maine of its noncompliance and proposed a resolution agreement that would require the state to rescind its support of trans athletes, which is currently required by the Maine Human Rights Act. A Cumberland-area school district and the Maine Principals Association, which runs student athletics, that were also found in violation have already refused to sign the agreement.
This development is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to enforce Title IX provisions concerning gender and athletics. Earlier this year, the administration launched investigations in several other states for similar policies allowing trans athletes to compete in alignment with their gender identity.
Title IX, the federal law banning sex-based discrimination, does not reference trans people directly, but the Trump administration has interpreted Maine’s policy as discrimination against cisgender girls.
Rachel Perera, a fellow in the governance studies program for the Brown Center on Education Policy at national think tank The Brookings Institution, said the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX leaves room for questioning. If the policy goes to trial, she said federal courts may come up with a clearer interpretation.
“It’s going to be really important to see how Maine proceeds, because they’re sort of setting the tone in terms of these other states and other localities who are going to be trying to navigate these very same dynamics,” she said.
Maine Morning Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: [email protected].
BOSTON (March 31, 2025) – In recent months, almost 2,000 schools and districts have purchased or renewed licenses for Lexia English Language Development (Lexia English) fromLexia, aCambium Learning Group brand. Using powerful speech recognition technology, the program supports students in grades K-6 to build their linguistic confidence in academic English.
“More than 162,000 students and 77,000 educators at 7,400 schools used the program during the 2024 school year. In addition, those students practiced academic conversations 4.3 million times in the program,” said Lexia President, Nick Gaehde. “The numbers show just how much students and educators have needed access to a culturally responsive language learning solution.”
One of those educators who used the program is Lynmara Colón, the director of Student Opportunity and Multilingual Services at Prince William County Schools in Virginia. After a pilot, the district has allowed individual middle and elementary schools to purchase Lexia English during the 2024-2025 school year. Prince William County Schools serves more than 20,000 English learners who speak 140 languages. “We are the 10th most diverse district in the nation,” Colón said. “But when I try to find tools for diverse students, there’s not a lot that meets the specific needs of the student population we serve.”
Colón noted that the program had boosted student growth to the point of reducing her worries about providing staff with a high-quality tool focused on helping Emergent Bilingual students. She expressed appreciation for the way the program helps her forecast and make sense of language acquisition data. “With Lexia, I can have visibility into how they’re doing with language comprehension,” she said. “I always know to expect the best from our Lexia partners. I have high expectations, and they never disappoint.”
Lexia English’s approach to English language learning is to empower emergent bilinguals by honoring their heritage languages and offering culturally responsive, adaptive learning pathways to foster academic and linguistic growth. Seventeen characters with diverse backgrounds help students practice speaking skills by engaging with content in academic subjects such as math, science, social studies, and general knowledge.
Gaehde concluded, “With Lexia English, educators can celebrate multilingualism in the classroom, providing students with the tools to succeed in both English language development and overall academic achievement.”
About Lexia
Lexia®, a Cambium Learning® Group brand, is transforming literacy education, driving change in 1 of every 3 school districts across the United States. For more than 40 years, Lexia has been a thought leader in literacy education, delivering award-winning, research-based solutions grounded in the science of reading. With a full spectrum of offerings, including professional learning, curriculum, and embedded assessment tools, Lexia provides educators with Structured Literacy solutions that are proven effective and designed to drive meaningful literacy outcomes. By empowering educators with unparalleled ease of use and the knowledge and tools they need, Lexia helps more students unlock their potential to read, write, and speak with confidence. For more information, visit lexialearning.com.
About Cambium Learning Group
Cambium Learning Group is the education essentials company, providing award-winning education technology and services for K-12 educators and students. With an intentional collection of respected global brands, Cambium serves as a leader, helping millions of educators and students feel more seen, valued, and supported every day. In everything it does, the company focuses on the elements that are most essential to the success of education, delivering simpler, more certain solutions that make a meaningful difference right now.
To learn more, visit www.cambiumlearning.com or follow Cambium onFacebook,LinkedIn, andX. The Cambium family of brands includes: Cambium Assessment®, Lexia®, Learning A-Z®, ExploreLearning®, and Time4Learning®.
eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.
Maraida Caraballo Martinez has been an educator in Puerto Rico for 28 years and the principal of the elementary school Escuela de la Communidad Jaime C. Rodriguez for the past seven. She never knows how much money her school in Yabucoa will receive from the government each year because it isn’t based on the number of children enrolled. One year she got $36,000; another year, it was $12,000.
But for the first time as an educator, Caraballo noticed a big difference during the Biden administration. Because of an infusion of federal dollars into the island’s education system, Caraballo received a $250,000 grant, an unprecedented amount of money. She used it to buy books and computers for the library, white boards and printers for classrooms, to beef up a robotics program and build a multipurpose sports court for her students. “It meant a huge difference for the school,” Caraballo said.
Yabucoa, a small town in southeast Puerto Rico, was one of the regions hardest hit by Hurricane Maria in 2017. And this school community, like hundreds of others in Puerto Rico, has experienced near constant disruption since then. A series of natural disasters, including hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and landslides, followed by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, has pounded the island and interrupted learning. There has also been constant churn of local education secretaries — seven in the past eight years. The Puerto Rican education system — the seventh-largest school district in the United States — has been made more vulnerable by the island’s overwhelming debt, mass emigration and a crippled power grid.
Maraida Caraballo Martinez has been an educator in Puerto Rico for 28 years and is now the principal of an elementary school. Her school has been slated for closure three times because of mass emigration from the island. Credit: Kavitha Cardoza for The Hechinger Report
Under President Joe Biden, there were tentative gains, buttressed by billions of dollars and sustained personal attention from top federal education officials, many experts and educators on the island said. Now they worry that it will all be dismantled with the change in the White House. President Donald Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the U.S. territory, having reportedly said that it was “dirty and the people were poor.” During his first term, he withheld billions of dollars in federal aid after Hurricane Maria and has suggested selling the island or swapping it for Greenland.
A recent executive order to make English the official language has worried people on the island, where only 1 in 5 people speak fluent English, and Spanish is the medium of instruction in schools. Trump is seeking to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and has already madesweeping cuts to the agency, which will have widespread implications across the island. Even if federal funds — which last year made up more than two thirds of funding for the Puerto Rican Department of Education, or PRDE — were transferred directly to the local government, it would likely lead to worse outcomes for the most vulnerable children, say educators and policymakers. The PRDE has historically been plagued by political interference, widespread bureaucracy and a lack of transparency.
And the local education department is not as technologically advanced as other state education departments, nor as able to disseminate best practices. For example, Puerto Rico does not have a “per pupil formula,” a calculation commonly used on the mainland to determine the amount of money each student receives for their education. Robert Mujica is the executive director of the Puerto Rico Financial Oversight and Management Board, first convened under President Barack Obama in 2016 to deal with the island’s financial morass. Mujica said Puerto Rico’s current allocation of education funds is opaque. “How the funds are distributed is perceived as a political process,” he said. “There’s no transparency and there’s no clarity.”
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In 2021, Miguel Cardona, Biden’s secretary of education, promised “a new day” for Puerto Rico. “For too long, Puerto Rico’s students and educators were abandoned,” he said. During his tenure, Cardona signed off on almost $6 billion in federal dollars for the island’s educational system, leading to a historic pay increase for teachers, funding for after-school tutoring programs, hiring of hundreds of school mental health professionals and the creation of a pilot program to decentralize the PRDE.
Cardona designated a senior adviser, Chris Soto, to be his point person for the island’s education system to underscore the federal commitment. During nearly four years in office, he made more than 50 trips to the island. Carlos Rodriguez Silvestre, the executive director of the Flamboyan Foundation, a nonprofit in Puerto Rico that has led children’s literacy efforts on the island, said the level of respect and sustained interest felt like a partnership, not a top-down mandate. “I’ve never seen that kind of attention to education in Puerto Rico,” he said. “Soto practically lived on the island.”
Soto also worked closely with Victor Manuel Bonilla Sánchez, the president of the teachers union, Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico, or AMPR, which resulted in a deal in which educators received $1,000 more a month to their base salary, a nearly 30 percent increase for the average teacher.“It was the largest salary increase in the history of teachers in Puerto Rico,” Bonilla said, though even with the increase, teachers here still make far less money than teachers on the mainland.
One of the biggest complaints Soto said he heard was how rigid and bureaucratic the Puerto Rico Department of Education was, despite a 2018 education reform law that allows for more local control. The education agency — the largest unit of government on the island, with the most employees and the biggest budget — was set up so that the central office had to sign off on everything. So Soto created and oversaw a pilot program in Ponce, a region on the island’s southern coast, focusing on decentralization.
For the first time, the local community elected an advisory board of education, and superintendent candidates had to apply rather than be appointed, Soto said. The superintendent was given the authority to sign off on budget requests directly rather than sending them through officials in San Juan, as well as the flexibility to spend money in his region based on individual schools’ needs.
In the past, that wasn’t a consideration: For example, Yadira Sanchez, a psychologist who has worked in Puerto Rican education for more than 20 years, remembers when a school got dozens of new air conditioners even though it didn’t need it. “They already had functioning air conditioners,” she said, “so that money was lost.”
The pilot project also focused on increasing efficiency. For example, children with disabilities are now evaluated at their schools rather than having to visit a special center. And Soto says he tried to remove politics and increase transparency around spending in the PRDE as well. “You can improve invoices, but if your political friends are getting the work, then you don’t have a good school system,” he said.
A school bus under a tree that fell during Hurricane Maria, which hit the island of Puerto Rico in September 2017. More than a year later, it had not been removed. Credit: Al Bello/Getty Images for Lumix
Under Biden, Puerto Rico also received a competitive U.S. Department of Education grant for $10.5 million for community schools, another milestone. And the federal department started including data on the territory in some education statistics collected. “Puerto Rico wasn’t even on these trackers, so we started to dig into how do we improve the data systems? Unraveling the data issue meant that Puerto Rico can properly get recognized,” Soto said.
But already there are plans to undo Cardona’s signature effort in Ponce. The island’s newly elected governor, Jenniffer González Colón, is a Republican and a Trump supporter. The popular secretary of education, Eliezer Ramos Parés, returned earlier this year to head the department after leading it from April 2021 to July 2023 when the governor unexpectedly asked him to resign — not an unusual occurrence within the island’s government, where political appointments can end suddenly and with little public debate. He told The Hechinger Report that the program won’t continue in its current form, calling it “inefficient.”
“The pilot isn’t really effective,” he said, noting that politics can influence spending decisions not only at the central level but at the regional level as well. “We want to have some controls.” He also said expanding the effort across the island would cost tens of millions of dollars. Instead, Ramos said he was looking at more limited approaches to decentralization, around some human resource and procurement functions. He said he was also exploring a per pupil funding formula for Puerto Rico and looking at lessons from other large school districts such as New York City and Hawaii.
While education has been the largest budget item on the island for years, it’s still far less than any of the 50 states spend on each student. Puerto Rico spends $9,500 per student, compared with an average of $18,600 in the states.
The U.S. Department of Education, which supplements local and state funding for students in poverty and with disabilities, has an outsized role in Puerto Rico schools. On the island, 55 percent of children live below the poverty line, compared with 17 percent in the 50 states; for students in special education, the figures are 35 percent and 15 percent, respectively. In total, during fiscal year 2024, more than 68 percent of the education budget on the island comes from federal funding, compared to 11 percent in U.S. states. The department also administers Pell Grants for low-income students — some 72 percent of Puerto Rican students apply — and supports professional development efforts and initiatives for Puerto Rican children who move back and forth between the mainland and territory.
Linda McMahon, Trump’s new education secretary, has reportedly said that the government will continue to meet its “statutory obligations” to students even as the department shuts down or transfers some operations and lays off staff. The U.S. Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment.
Some say the Biden administration’s pouring billions of dollars into a troubled education system with little accountability has created unrealistic expectations and there’s no plan for what happens after money is spent. Mujica, the executive director of the oversight board, said the infusion of funds postponed tough decisions by the Puerto Rican government. “When you have so much money, it papers over a lot of problems. You didn’t have to deal with some of the challenges that are fundamental to the system.” And he said there is little discussion of what happens when that money runs out. “How are you going to bridge that gap? Either those programs go away or we’re going to have to find the funding for them,” Mujica said.
He said efforts like the one in Ponce to bring decision making closer to where the students’ needs are is “vitally important.” Still, he said he’s not sure the money improved student outcomes. “This was a huge opportunity to make fundamental changes and investments that will yield long-term results. I’m not sure that we’ve seen the metrics to support that.”
Puerto Rico is one of the most educationally impoverished regions, with academic outcomes well below the mainland. On the math portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, a test that students across the U.S. take, just 2 percent of fourth graders in Puerto Rico were proficient, the highest score ever recorded for the island, and zero percent of eighth graders were. Puerto Rican students don’t take the NAEP for reading because they learn in Spanish, not English, though results shared by Ramos at a press conference in 2022 showed only 1 percent of third graders were reading at grade level.
There are some encouraging efforts. Flamboyan Foundation, the nonprofit in Puerto Rico, has been leading an island-wide coalition of 70 partners to improve K-3 literacy, including through professional development. Teacher training through the territory’s education department has often been spotty or optional.
The organization now works closely with the University of Puerto Rico and, as part of that effort, oversees spending of $3 million in literacy training. Approximately 1,500 or a third of Puerto Rico’s K-5 teachers have undergone the rigorous training. Educators were given $500 as an incentive for participating, along with books for their classrooms and three credit hours in continuing education. “It was a lot of quality hours. This was not the ‘spray and pray’ approach,” said Silvestre. That effort will continue, according to Ramos, who called it “very effective.”
A new reading test for first through third graders the nonprofit helped design showed that between the 2023 and 2024 school years, most children were below grade level but made growth in every grade. “But we still have a long way to go so that this data can get to teachers in a timely manner and in a way that they can actually act on it,” Silvestre said.
Kristin Ehrgood, Flamboyan Foundation’s CEO, said it’s too soon to see dramatic gains. “It’s really hard to see a ton of positive outcomes in such a short period of time with significant distrust that has been built over years,” she said. She said they weren’t sure how the Trump administration may work with or fund Puerto Rico’s education system but that the Biden administration had built a lot of goodwill. “There is a lot of opportunity that could be built on, if a new administration chooses to do that.”
Another hopeful sign is that the oversight board, which was widely protested when it was formed, has cut the island’s debt from $73 billion to $31 billion. And last year board members increased education spending by 3 percent. Mujica said the board is focused on making sure that any investment translates into improved outcomes for students: “Our view is resources have to go into the classroom.”
Betty A. Rosa, education commissioner and president of the University of the State of New York and a member of the oversight board, said leadership churn in Puerto Rico drives its educational instability. Every new leader is invested in “rebuilding, restructuring, reimagining, pick your word,” she said. “There is no consistency.” Unlike her New York state position, the Puerto Rican education secretary and other positions are political appointments. “If you have permanent governance, then even when the leadership changes, the work continues.”
Ramos, who experienced this instability when the previous governor unexpectedly asked to resign in 2023, said he met McMahon, the new U.S. secretary of education, in Washington, D.C., and that they had a “pleasant conversation.” “She knows about Puerto Rico, she’s concerned about Puerto Rico, and she demonstrated full support in the Puerto Rico mission,” he said. He said McMahon wanted PRDE to offer more bilingual classes, to expose more students to English. Whether there will be changes in funding or anything else remains to be seen. “We have to look at what happens in the next few weeks and months and how that vision and policy could affect Puerto Rico,” Ramos said.
Ramos was well-liked by educators during his first stint as education secretary. He will also have a lot of decisions to make, including whether to expand public charter schools and close down traditional public schools as the island’s public school enrollment continues to decline precipitously. In the past, both those issues led to fierce and widespread protests.
Soto says he’s realistic about the incoming administration having “different views, both ideologically and policywise,” but he’s hopeful the people of Puerto Rico won’t want to go back to the old way of doing things. “Somebody said, ‘You guys took the genie out of the bottle and it’s going to be hard to put that back’ as it relates to a student-centered school system,” Soto said.
Cardona, whose grandparents are from the island, said Puerto Rico had seen “academic flatlining” for years. “We cannot accept that the students are performing less than we know they are capable of,” he told The Hechinger Report, just before he signed off as the nation’s top education official. “We started change; it needs to continue.”
Principal Carabello’s small school of 150 students and 14 teachers has been slated for closure three times already, though each time it has been spared in part because of community support. She’s hopeful that Ramos, with whom she’s worked previously, will turn things around. “He knows the education system,” she said. “He’s a brilliant person, open to listen.”
Escuela de la Communidad Jaime C. Rodriguez is a Montessori school in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, that did not have any sports facilities for its students. It recently began work on a multipurpose sports center, made possible by federal funds under former President Joe Biden. Credit: Kavitha Cardoza for The Hechinger Report
But the long hours of the past several years have taken a toll on her. She is routinely in school from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. “You come in when it’s dark and you leave when it’s dark,” she said. There have been many new platforms to learn and new projects to implement. She wants to retire but can’t afford to. After decades of the local government underfunding the pension system, allowances that offset the high price of goods and services on the island were cut and pension plans were frozen.
Now instead of retiring with 75 percent of her salary, Carabello will receive only 50 percent, $2,195 a month. She is entitled to Social Security benefits, but it isn’t enough to make up for the lost pension. “Who can live with $2,000 in one month? Nobody. It’s too hard. And my house still needs 12 years more to pay.”
Carabello, who is always so strong and so optimistic around her students, teared up. But it’s rare that she allows herself time to think about herself. “I have a great community. I have great teachers and I feel happy with what I do,” she said.
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Lawmakers want to turn the tide on the growing number of unprepared and uncertified teachers by restricting who can lead Texas classrooms. But school leaders worry those limits will leave them with fewer options to refill their teacher ranks.
Tucked inside the Texas House’s $7.6 billion school finance package is a provision that would ban uncertified teachers from instructing core classes in public schools. House Bill 2 gives districts until fall 2026 to certify their K-5 math and reading teachers and until fall 2027 to certify teachers in other academic classes.
Texas would help uncertified teachers pay for the cost of getting credentialed. Under HB 2, those who participate in an in-school training and mentoring program would receive a one-time $10,000 payment and those who go through a traditional university or alternative certification program would get $3,000. Special education and emergent bilingual teachers would get their certification fees waived. Educator training experts say itcould be the biggest financial investment Texas made in teacher preparation. Rep. Brad Buckley, the Salado Republican who authored the bill, has signaled the House Public Education Committee will vote on HB 2 on Tuesday.
District leaders, once reluctant to hire uncertified teachers, now rely on them often to respond to the state’s growing teacher shortage. And while they agree with the spirit of the legislation, some worry the bill would ask too much too soon of districts and doesn’t offer a meaningful solution to replace uncertified teachers who leave the profession.
“What’s going to happen when we’re no longer able to hire uncertified teachers? Class sizes have to go up, programs have to disappear…. We won’t have a choice,” said David Vroonland, the former superintendent of the Mesquite school district near Dallas and the Frenship school district near Lubbock. “There will be negative consequences if we don’t put in place serious recruitment efforts.”
A floodgate of uncertified teachers
Nowadays, superintendents often go to job fairs to recruit teachers and come out empty-handed. There are not as many Texans who want to be teachers as there used to be.
The salary in Texas is about $9,000 less than the national average, so people choose better-paying careers. Teachers say they are overworked, sometimes navigating unwieldy class sizes and using weekends to catch up on grading.
Heath Morrison started to see the pool of teacher applicants shrink years ago when he was at the helm of Montgomery ISD. Many teachers left the job during the COVID-19 pandemic, which accelerated the problem.
“This teacher shortage is getting more and more pronounced,” said Morrison, who is now the CEO of Teachers of Tomorrow, a popular alternative teacher certification program. “The reality of most school districts across the country is you’re not making a whole lot more money 10 years into your job than you were when you first entered … And so that becomes a deterrent.”
As the pool of certified teachers shrunk, districts found a stopgap solution: bringing on uncertified teachers. Uncertified teachers accounted for roughly 38% of newly hired instructors last year, with many concentrated in rural districts.
The Texas Legislature facilitated the flood of uncertified teachers. A 2015 law lets public schools get exemptions from requirements like teacher certification, school start dates and class sizes — the same exemptions allowed for open enrollment charter schools.
Usually, to teach in Texas classrooms, candidates must obtain a certification by earning a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university, completing an educator preparation program and passing teacher certification exams.
Teacher preparation experts say certifications give teachers the tools to lead a high quality classroom. To pass certification tests, teaching candidates learn how to plan for lessons and manage discipline in a classroom.
But the 2015 law allowed districts to hire uncertified teachers by presenting a so-called “district of innovation plan” to show they were struggling to meet credential requirements because of a teacher shortage. By 2018, more than 600 rural and urban districts had gotten teacher certification exemptions.
“Now, what we’ve seen is everyone can demonstrate a shortage,” said Jacob Kirksey, a researcher at Texas Tech University. “Almost every district in Texas is a district of innovation. That is what has allowed for the influx of uncertified teachers. Everybody is getting that waiver for certification requirements.”
This session, House lawmakers are steadfast on undoing the loophole they created after new research from Kirksey sounded the alarm on the impacts of unprepared teachers on student learning. Students with new uncertified teachers lost about four months of learning in reading and three months in math, his analysis found. They missed class more than students with certified teachers, a signal of disengagement.
Uncertified teachers are also less likely to stick with the job long-term, disrupting school stability.
“The state should act urgently on how to address the number of uncertified teachers in classrooms,” said Kate Greer, a policy director at Commit Partnership. The bill “rights a wrong that we’ve had in the state for a long time.”
The price of getting certified
Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican who sits on the House Public Education Committee, said his wife has worked as an uncertified art teacher at Allen ISD. She started a program to get certified this winter and had to pay $5,000 out of pocket.
That cost may be “not only a hurdle but an impediment for someone who wants to teach and is called and equipped to teach,” Leach said earlier this month during a committee hearing on HB 2.
House lawmakers are proposing to lower the financial barriers that keep Texans who want to become teachers from getting certified.
“Quality preparation takes longer, is harder and it’s more expensive. In the past, we’ve given [uncertified candidates] an opportunity just to walk into the classroom,” said Jean Streepey, the chair of the State Board for Educator Certification. “How do we help teachers at the beginning of their journey to choose something that’s longer, harder and more expensive?”
Streepey sat on the teacher vacancy task force that Gov. Greg Abbott established in 2022 to recommend fixes to retention and recruitment challenges at Texas schools. The task force’s recommendations, such as prioritizing raises and improving training, have fingerprints all over the Texas House’s school finance package.
Under HB 2, districts would see money flow in when they put uncertified teachers on the path to certification. And those financial rewards would be higher depending on the quality of the certification program.
Schools with instructors who complete yearlong teacher residencies — which include classroom training and are widely seen as the gold standard for preparing teacher candidates — would receive bigger financial rewards than those with teachers who finish traditional university or alternative certification programs.
Even with the financial help, lawmakers are making a tall order. In two years, the more than 35,000 uncertified teachers in the state would have to get their credential or be replaced with new, certified teachers.
“The shortages have grown to be so great that I think none of us have a really firm handle on the measures that it’s going to take to turn things around.” said Michael Marder, the executive director of UTeach, a UT-Austin teacher preparatory program. “There is financial support in HB 2 to try to move us back towards the previous situation. However, I just don’t know whether the amounts that are laid out there are sufficient.”
Restrictions like “handcuffs”
Only one in five uncertified teachers from 2017 to 2020 went on to get a credential within their first three years of teaching. Texas can expect a jump in uncertified teachers going through teacher preparatory programs because of the financial resources and pressure on schools through HB 2, Marder said.
But for every teacher who does not get credentialed, school leaders will have to go out and find new teachers. And they will have to look from a smaller pool.
The restrictions on uncertified teachers “handcuffs us,”said Gilbert Trevino, the superintendent at Floydada Collegiate ISD, which sits in a rural farming town in West Texas. In recent years, recruiters with his district have gone out to job fairs and hired uncertified teachers with a college degree and field experience in the subjects they want to teach in.
Rural schools across the state have acutely experienced the challenges of the teacher shortage — and have leaned on uncertified teachers more heavily than their urban peers.
“We have to recruit locally and grow our own or hire people who have connections or roots in the community,” Trevino said. “If we hire a teacher straight out of Texas Tech University, we may have them for a year. … And then they may get on at Lubbock ISD or Plainview ISD, where there’s more of a social life.”
Floydada Collegiate ISD recruits local high school students who are working toward their associate’s degree through what is known as a Grown Your Own Teacher program. But Trevino says HB 2 does not give him the time to use this program to replace uncertified teachers. From recruitment to graduation, it takes at least three years before students can lead a classroom on their own, he said.
School leaders fear if they can’t fill all their vacancies, they’ll be pushed to increase class sizes or ask their teachers to prepare lessons for multiple subjects.
“Our smaller districts are already doing that, where teachers have multiple preps,” Trevino said. “Things are already hard on our teachers. So if you add more to their plate, how likely are they to remain in the profession or remain in this district?”
At Wylie ISD in Taylor County, it’s been difficult to find teachers to keep up with student growth. Uncertified teachers in recent years have made up a large number of teacher applicants, according to Cameron Wiley, a school board trustee.
Wiley said restrictions on uncertified teachers is a “good end goal” but would compound the district’s struggles.
“It limits the pot of people that’s already small to a smaller pot. That’s just going to make it more difficult to recruit,” Wiley said. “And if we have a hard time finding people to come in, or we’re not allowed to hire certain people to take some of that pressure off, those class sizes are just going to get bigger.”
Learning suffers when class sizes get too big because students are not able to get the attention they need.
“This bill, it’s just another obstacle that we as districts are having to maneuver around and hurl over,” Wiley said. “We’re not addressing the root cause [recruitment]. We’re just putting a Band-Aid on it right now.”
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) recently announced that it has become the new steward of Engaging Schools’ extensive body of educational resources. With Engaging Schools set to close in early 2025 after more than four decades of impact, CASEL will ensure the organization’s valuable tools, books, and frameworks remain available to educators worldwide.
As part of this transition, CASEL is making these resources freely accessible to the public. Over time, CASEL will integrate elements of Engaging Schools’ work into several areas including the free Guide for Schoolwide SEL to further advance high-quality, evidence-based SEL implementation in schools and districts.
“For more than 40 years, Engaging Schools has helped educators create safe and supportive learning environments where students thrive,” said Aaliyah A. Samuel, president and CEO of CASEL. “We are honored to carry forward their legacy by making these resources widely available and embedding them into our work to create school communities that prioritize academic, social, and emotional development.”
Engaging Schools has long been recognized for its contributions to fostering inclusive school climates, strengthening restorative and equitable discipline, and advancing engaging teaching practices.
“We take immense pride in the lasting impact of Engaging Schools’ work,” said Larry Dieringer, Executive Director of Engaging Schools. “Though our organization’s chapter is closing, we are deeply grateful to CASEL for ensuring our resources continue to benefit educators and students for years to come.”
For more than 30 years, CASEL has been a trusted leader in advancing SEL through research, practice, and policy. By integrating Engaging Schools’ resources into its offerings, CASEL reaffirms its commitment to supporting educators with the tools they need to create engaging, inclusive, and academically rich learning environments.
Kevin is a forward-thinking media executive with more than 25 years of experience building brands and audiences online, in print, and face to face. He is an acclaimed writer, editor, and commentator covering the intersection of society and technology, especially education technology. You can reach Kevin at [email protected]
Republican politicians who accuse public school teachers of indoctrinating students with a “woke agenda” are pushing to bring religious chaplains into the same schools to provide counseling to students.
“I think Jesus is a lot better than a psychologist,” Rep. David Marshall, R-Snowflake, said during a March 11 meeting of the Arizona House of Representatives’ Education Committee.
Marshall said that he’s been a chaplain who provides counseling for 26 years.
Senate Bill 1269, sponsored by Flagstaff Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers, was modeled after similar legislation passed in recent years in Texas and Florida.
The proposal would give school districts the option of allowing volunteer religious chaplains to provide counseling and programs to public school students. Districts that decide to allow chaplains would be required to provide to parents a list of the volunteer chaplains at each school and their religious affiliation, and parents would be required to give permission for their child to receive support from a chaplain.
Despite ample concerns that the proposal violates the First Amendment’sEstablishment Clause and that it would open up schools to legal liability for any bad mental health advice a chaplain might provide, the bill has already passed through the Senate on a party-line vote. The House Education Committee also approved it along party lines.
Rogers told the Education Committee that the existence of any requirement for the separation of church and state in U.S. law “was a myth,” adding that she sees no harm in bringing religion into public schools.
Democrats on the committee raised the alarm that Rogers’ bill would violate the Establishment Clause by allowing chaplains with religious affiliations to counsel students, while not providing the same kinds of services to students who don’t follow a religion or who follow a less-common religion with no chaplains available to the school.
An amendment to the bill, proposed by committee Chairman Matt Gress, a Phoenix Republican, requires that the chaplains be authorized to conduct religious activities by a religious group that believes in a supernatural being. The amendment would also allow a volunteer chaplain to be denied from the list if the school’s principal believes their counsel would be contrary to the school’s teachings.
Both of these changes would allow districts to exclude chaplains from The Satanic Temple of Arizona, a group that doesn’t believe in a higher power but promotes empathy and has chapters across the country that challenge the intertwining of Christianity and government.
Oliver Spires, a minister with The Satanic Temple of Arizona, voiced his opposition to Rogers’ bill during a Feb. 5 Senate Education Committee meeting.
The legislation, Spires said, would disproportionately impact students from minority religions who see Christian chaplains providing support to their peers while no chaplains representing their religion are available.
“If a district listed a Satanist on their chaplain list, would they have your support?” he asked the committee members.
Gress’s amendment would preclude that.
Gaelle Esposito, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, told committee members on Tuesday that school counselors are required to undergo specialized training to prepare them to help students — requirements that religious chaplains wouldn’t have to meet, even though they’d be providing similar services.
“They will simply not be equipped to support students dealing with serious matters like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self harm or suicidal ideation,” Esposito said. “Religious training is not a substitute for academic and professional training in counseling, health care or mental health… Even with the best intentions, chaplains may provide inappropriate responses or interventions that could harm students.”
But as Democrats on the House Education Committee argued that Arizona should provide more funding for trained counselors and social workers to help students with mental health issues, the Republicans on the panel said that students are actually struggling with mental health issues because they don’t have enough religion in their lives.
“I’ve heard that there is a mental health crisis afflicting kids,” Gress, a former school board member, said. “Now, I don’t necessarily think in many of these cases that something is medically wrong with these kids. I think, perhaps, there is a spiritual deficit that needs to be addressed.”
Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, said he’s been frustrated by the federal courts’ interpretation of the First Amendment to require the separation of church and state, claiming it has made the government hostile to religion instead of protecting it.
“I heard comments here today that this is going to harm kids — harm kids by being exposed to religion? That is absolutely the opposite of what is happening here today in our society,” Olson said. “We have become a secular society, and that is damaging our society. We need to have opportunities for people to look to a higher power, and what better way than what is described here in this bill?”
Democratic Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, of Tucson, called SB1269 “outrageous” and “incredibly inappropriate.”
And Rep. Stephanie Simacek, of Phoenix, pointed out that the courts have repeatedly ruled against allowing religious leaders to be invited to share their faith with public school students. She described Rogers’ bill as indoctrination that gives preferential treatment to students who have religious beliefs over those who don’t
“No one is saying that you may not go and celebrate your God, however you see fit,” Simacek, a former teacher and school board member, said. “But this is not the place, in public education, where our students go to learn math, reading and writing and history.”
Florida’s school chaplain law, which went into effect last July and is similar to Rogers’ proposal, has received ample pushback from First Amendment advocacy groups, as well as some church groups who said that allowing untrained chaplains to provide mental health support to students would have unintended negative consequences.
The option to bring chaplains into schools in Florida has not been particularly popular, with several large school districts deciding not to implement a program allowing them.
Proposed legislation similar to SB 1269 has been introduced in red states across the country this year, including in Indiana, Nebraska, Iowa, Montana and North Dakota.
The bill will next be considered by the full House of Representatives. If it passes the chamber, it will return to the Senate for a final vote before heading to Gov. Katie Hobbs.
Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: [email protected].
