Tag: Schools

  • Plenty of schools have no-zeroes policies. And most teachers hate it, a new survey finds

    Plenty of schools have no-zeroes policies. And most teachers hate it, a new survey finds

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

    About one in four teachers say their schools don’t give students zeroes. And nearly all of them hate it.

    The collection of practices known as equitable grading, which includes not giving students zeroes, not taking off points for lateness, and letting students retake tests, has spread in the aftermath of the pandemic. But it wasn’t known how widespread the practices were.

    A new nationally representative survey released Wednesday finds equitable grading practices are fairly common, though nowhere near universal. More than half of K-12 teachers said their school or district used at least one equitable grading practice.

    The most common practice — and the one that drew the most heated opposition in the fall 2024 survey — is not giving students zeroes for missing assignments or failed tests. Just over a quarter of teachers said their school or district has a no-zeroes policy.

    Around 3 in 10 teachers said their school or district allowed students to retake tests without penalty, and a similar share said they did not deduct points when students turned in work late. About 1 in 10 teachers said they were not permitted to factor class participation or homework into students’ final grades.

    Only 6% of teachers said their school used four or more equitable grading practices.

    That was surprising to Adam Tyner, who co-authored the new report for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, in partnership with the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization. He expected more schools would be following a “whole package” of grading reforms supported by advocates like former teacher and education consultant Joe Feldman, who wrote the influential book “Grading for Equity.”

    “It’s not like this has swept the country,” said Tyner, who has studied grading practices. He argues that some policies meant to create equity lead to grade inflation and don’t benefit students.

    The findings come as many schools are rethinking what students should have to do to get a high school diploma, and how much emphasis should be put on grades. At the same time, many schools continue to struggle with student disengagement and historically high rates of absenteeism following the pandemic. As a result, they’re trying to hold students accountable for their work without making it impossible to catch up on missed assignments.

    Though ideas about how to grade students more fairly predate the pandemic, several large districts started rethinking their grading practices following that disruption, as more students struggled to meet strict deadlines or do their homework.

    Proponents of equitable grading say it’s important for students to be able to show what they know over time, and that just a few zeroes averaged into a grade can make it difficult for students to ever catch up. When students don’t see a path to passing a class, it can make them less motivated or stop trying altogether.

    Still, some teachers have pushed back, arguing that no-zeroes policies can hurt student motivation, too.

    That showed up in the recent survey.

    Eight in 10 teachers said giving students partial credit for assignments they didn’t turn in was harmful to student engagement. Opposition to no-zeroes policies came from teachers of various racial backgrounds, experience levels, and who worked with different demographics of students.

    No-zeroes policies can take various forms but often mean that the lowest possible grade is a 50 on a 100-point scale. Some schools use software that will automatically convert lower grades to a 50, one teacher wrote on the survey.

    Schools that enrolled mostly students of color were more likely to have no-zeroes policies, the survey found. And middle schools were more likely than high schools and elementary schools to have no-zeroes policies, no-late-penalty policies, and retake policies.

    Researchers weren’t sure why those policies popped up more in middle schools.

    But Katherine Holden, a former middle school principal in Oregon’s Ashland School District who trains school districts on equitable grading practices, has some guesses.

    High schools may be more worried that changing their grading practices will make it harder for students to get into college, Holden said — a misconception in her eyes. And districts may see middle schoolers as especially likely to benefit from things like clear grading rubrics and multiple chances to show what they know, as they are still developing their organization and time-management skills.

    In the open-ended section of the survey, several teachers expressed concerns that no-zeroes policies were unfair and contributed to low student motivation.

    “Students are now doing below-average work or no work at all and are walking out with a C or B,” one teacher told researchers.

    “Most teachers can’t stand the ‘gifty fifty,’” said another.

    More than half of teachers said letting students turn in work late without any penalty was harmful to student engagement.

    “[The policy] removes the incentive for students to ever turn work in on time, and then it becomes difficult to pass back graded work because of cheating,” one teacher said.

    But teachers were more evenly divided on whether allowing students to retake tests was harmful or not.

    “Allowing retakes without penalty encourages a growth mindset, but it also promotes avoidance and procrastination,” one teacher said.

    Another said teachers end up grading almost every assignment more than once because students have no reason to give their best effort the first time.

    The report’s authors recommend getting rid of blanket policies in favor of letting individual teachers make those calls. Research has shown that other grading reforms, such as grading written assignments anonymously or using grading rubrics, can reduce bias.

    Still, teachers don’t agree on the best approach to grading. In the survey, 58% of teachers said it was more important to have clear schoolwide policies to ensure fair student grading — though the question didn’t indicate what that policy should look like — while the rest preferred using their professional judgment.

    “There are ways to combat bias, there are ways to make grading more fair, and we’re not against any of that,” Tyner said. “What we’re really concerned about is when we’re lowering standards, or lowering expectations. … Accountability is always a balancing act.”

    Nicole Paxton, the principal of Mountain Vista Community School, a K-8 school in Colorado’s Harrison School District 2, has seen that balancing act in action.

    Her district adopted a policy a few years ago that requires teachers to grade students on a 50-100 scale. Students get at least a 50% if they turn in work, but they get a “missing” grade if they don’t do the assignment. Middle and high schoolers are allowed to make up missing or incomplete assignments. But it has to be done within the same quarter, and teachers can deduct up to 10% for late assignments.

    Paxton thinks the policy was the right move for her district. She says she’s seen it motivate kids who are struggling to keep trying, when before they stopped doing their work because they didn’t think they could ever bounce back from a few zeroes.

    “As adults, in the real world, we get to show what we know and learn in our careers,” Paxton said. “And I think that kids are able to do that in our building, too.”

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

    For more news on classroom trends, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub.

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  • PowerSchool hacker sentenced. What can schools take away from the incident?

    PowerSchool hacker sentenced. What can schools take away from the incident?

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    After pleading guilty to hacking and extorting from ed tech giant PowerSchool, 19-year-old Matthew Lane was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison and nearly $14.1 million in restitution. 

    The Massachusetts college student was accused of using an employee’s credentials to gain unauthorized access to the cloud-based K-12 software provider’s network in September 2024 and extorting $2.85 million in Bitcoin from the company in December 2024, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said in May. PowerSchool wasn’t initially identified in legal documents, but was later confirmed to have been the victim.

    Since PowerSchool began notifying districts of a data breach in January 2025, it’s been revealed that sensitive data was leaked for more than 60 million students and 10 million teachers. A court filing said Lane’s access to this student and teacher data included names, email addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, medical information, residential addresses, parent and guardian information and passwords. 

    Lane allegedly told PowerSchool that if it didn’t hand over the nearly $2.85 million ransom, he would leak the stolen information “worldwide.”  

    The breach shocked district leaders, as it seemed that PowerSchool had been doing all the right things to keep its data secure, said Doug Levin, co-founder and national director of the K12 Security Information eXchange, a national K-12 cybersecurity nonprofit. For instance, he said, PowerSchool had conducted audits and assured that its networks storing school districts’ information were secure before the 2024 data breach.

    The company even publicly touted the importance of K-12 cybersecurity at the White House, he said. 

    PowerSchool is still facing multiple lawsuits that claim the company was negligent during the cyberattack and failed to provide timely notice to impacted users. 

    A PowerSchool spokesperson told K-12 Dive in a Thursday statement that the company “appreciates the efforts of the prosecutors and law enforcement who brought this individual to justice.” Since the data breach, the company said, it has strengthened its systems by adding more security layers and implementing time-based access controls. 

    Can’t put the genie back in the bottle

    Although Lane has been held accountable for the PowerSchool cyberattack and sentenced to prison, “the damage is done” from the leak of the school districts’ sensitive data, Levin said. “There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle.” 

    K-12 cybersecurity remains “an ongoing problem,” and cyberattacks against schools won’t stop just because someone was held accountable for the PowerSchool incident, Levin said. 

    Between July 2023 and December 2024, 82% of K-12 schools said they had experienced a cyber incident, according to a March report from the nonprofit Center for Internet Security. 

    As trust eroded, conversations shifted to ed tech

    The PowerSchool data breach “fundamentally shook” school systems’ trust in big ed tech vendors, Levin said. 

    Before that incident, he said, a lot of the conversations in K-12 cybersecurity focused on how schools could better protect themselves through efforts like strengthening firewalls and implementing multifactor authentication. 

    While those are important strategies, the reality is that schools rely on a large number of vendors that hold their sensitive information. “Schools are only as strong as their weakest link,” Levin said, “and if it turns out the weakest link is a vendor, as we’ve seen in these cases, it causes folks to rethink what it means to be cybersecure.”

    More questioning on districts’ data retention policies 

    In the PowerSchool case, some of the exposed data taken from school districts was decades old. That, Levin said, suggests that keeping data for extended periods of time may present an unacceptable level of risk — especially when there’s no way to reach people whose data may have been leaked.

    As a result, K-12 leaders are talking more about how and whether to minimize the data collected — and how long to hold onto sensitive information. 

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  • Schools Should Help Students Be Human

    Schools Should Help Students Be Human

    One of the great ironies and great frustrations of my career teaching first-year college writing was having students enter our class armed with a whole host of writing strategies which they had been explicitly told they needed to know “for college,” and yet those strategies—primarily the following of prescriptive templates—were entirely unsuited to the experience students were going to have over the next 15 weeks of our course (and beyond).

    I explored and diagnosed these frustrations in Why They Can’t Write, and while many other writing teachers in both high school and college shared that they’d seen and been equally (or more) frustrated by the same things. In the intervening years, there’s been some progress, but frankly, not enough, primarily because the structural factors that distorted how writing is taught precollege have not been addressed.

    As long as writing is primarily framed as workforce preparation to be tested through standardization and quantification, students will struggle when invited into a more nuanced conversation that requires them to mine their own thoughts and experiences of the world and put those thoughts and experiences in juxtaposition with the ideas of others. The good news, in my experience, is that once invited into this struggle, many students are enthusiastic to engage, at least once they genuinely believe that you are interested in the contours of their minds and their experiences.

    This divide between the driving ethos of schools and schooling, as often seen in high school and the ideals of deep humanistic inquiry (ideally) animating postsecondary education courses, is the subject of a highly recommended piece by Anna E. Clark, who has taught at both the high school and university level, published as part of a recent special series at Public Books focused on higher education.

    Clark calls for a “higher ed and secondary ed alliance” based in the values we all at least claim to share: free inquiry, self-determination and an appreciation for lives that are more than the “skills” we’re supposed to bring to our employers.

    Something I can’t help but note is that the challenges college instructors are having getting students to steer clear of outsourcing their thinking to large language models would be significantly lessened if students had a greater familiarity with thinking during their secondary education years. Unfortunately, the system of indefinite future reward that has been reduced to pure transactions in exchange for grades and credentials has signaled that the outputs of the homework machine are satisfactory, so why not just give in?

    When I go to campuses and schools and have the opportunity to speak to students, I try to list all kinds of reasons why they shouldn’t just give in, reasons which, in the end, boil down to the fact that being a big dumb-dumb who doesn’t know anything and can’t do anything without the aid of a predictive text-generation machine is simply an unfulfilling and unpleasant way to go through life.

    In short, they will not be happy, even if they find ways to navigate their “work” with the aid of AI, because humans simply need more than this from our existences.

    I can now add another reason to my list: According to a raft of business insiders cited in a recent article at Inc. it is the liberal arts degree whose value is going to rise in this age of AI.

    In a world where machines can handle the technical knowledge, the only differentiator is being human.

    This is not news to those of us with those degrees, like my sister-in-law, who took her liberal arts degree from Denison University all the way to a general counsel job at a Fortune 300 company, or someone else with a far humbler résumé … me.

    As I wrote in 2013 in this very space, the key to my success as an adult who has had to repeatedly adapt to a changing world is my liberal arts degrees, degrees that armed me with foundational and enduring skills that have served me quite well.

    But, of course, it is about more than these skills. My pursuit of these degrees also allowed me to consider what a good life should be. That knowledge has put me in a position where—knock wood—I wake up just about every morning looking forward to what I have to do that day.

    This is true even as the things I most care about—education, reading/writing, uh … democracy—appear to be inexorably crumbling around me. Perhaps this is because my knowledge of the value of humanistic study as something more than a route to a good job makes me more willing to fight for its continuation.

    Sometimes when I encounter some hand-wringing about the inevitability of AI and the uncertainty of the future, I want to remind the fretful that we actually have a very sound idea of what we should be emphasizing, the same stuff we always should have been emphasizing—teaching, learning, living, being human.

    We have clear notions of what this looks like. The main question now is if we have the collective will to move toward that future, or if we will give in to something much darker, much less satisfying and much less human.

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  • How D.C. Public Schools Are Reimagining What’s Possible for Every Student – The 74

    How D.C. Public Schools Are Reimagining What’s Possible for Every Student – The 74


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    Every morning in the District of Columbia, nearly 100,000 students step into 251 public schools with hopes and ambitions for their future. After years of pandemic disruption, recent results show clear signs of progress in how students are recovering and advancing.

    In our roles as deputy mayor for education and state superintendent, we see something remarkable taking shape — a citywide education system leading the nation in how to reimagine what’s possible for every child.

    This year’s statewide assessment results tell a clear story of momentum. On the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment of Progress in Education, students made the largest gains in English Language Arts and math proficiency since the pandemic. Forty percent of schools raised proficiency by at least 5 points in one of these subjects, and more than 60% showed measurable progress in both. Across the city, 137 of 223 tested schools boosted English scores, while 141 schools improved in math.

    ELA proficiency has now surpassed pre-COVID levels, increasing from 37.5% in 2019 to 37.6% in 2025. Math proficiency reached a record high since COVID, rising from 19.4% in 2022 to 26.4% this year. This is evidence that students are not only recovering, but moving forward at a faster pace than before the pandemic.

    National data confirms this progress. The Harvard Center for Education Policy and Research’s 2024 Education Recovery Scorecard ranked D.C. first in the nation for learning recovery in both math and reading for grades 3 to 8 between 2022 and 2024. In that two-year period, D.C. students gained back the equivalent of half a grade level in math and a quarter of a grade level in reading. Just a few years ago, D.C. ranked 32nd in math recovery since 2019; today, it leads the country.

    Federal relief dollars helped make this possible. D.C. received more than $600 million in K-12 pandemic recovery funds, about $6,800 per student — nearly double the national average of $3,700. Research shows that targeting these dollars toward tutoring, summer learning and other evidence-based strategies contributed directly to the rebound.

    Together, these results demonstrate what families and educators across the city already feel in classrooms: Students are making meaningful, historic gains in learning.

    Several factors are driving this progress. Since 2015, local per-student funding has increased from $16,032 to $28,040 — a 75% rise — with more money provided for serving students with the greatest needs.

    D.C.’s early education stands above national enrollment levels, with 95% of 4-year-olds and 82% of 3-year-olds citywide enrolled in pre-K. At the high school level, more students are graduating in four years than in 2010-11, with nearly a 20- point increase since 2010-11, growing from 58.6% to 76.1%. These students now graduate with college credits, industry certifications and real-world experience in high-demand fields through career and technical Education programs, dual enrollment and our growing network of citywide Advanced Technical Centers, preparing them for success in their next chapter.

    The Education Through Employment Pathways initiative enables the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education to connect data from pre-K-12 with postsecondary outcomes to better identify which programs propel students forward in college and careers, helping D.C. make future investments accordingly.

    Teachers are a cornerstone of this progress. Thanks to big investments in recent years, D.C. Public School educators now earn an average salary of $109,000, among the highest in the nation, with comparable pay in charter schools. Investments in professional development, coaching, structured literacy training, high-quality instructional materials in literacy and math and high-impact tutoring have also helped to strengthen classroom instruction, so students feel challenged, supported and inspired. At the same time, D.C. is tackling barriers outside the classroom, securing school-based mental health supports, providing safe passage to schools and expanding the District’s Out of School Time programming. As a result, chronic absenteeism overall has declined 18.3% between 2021-22 and 2023-24, while profound chronic absenteeism — a student missing 30% or more of school days — is down 34.2% over the same time period. 

    The vast majority of families receive one of their top choices of district and charter schools through a universal enrollment lottery, helping drive D.C.’s national leadership in parent satisfaction. This system, combined with investments in quality and variety, has helped drive the city’s sustained enrollment growth since the 2008-09 school year and added more than 5,000 students after COVID. This is at a time when many large districts across the country experienced declines.

    D.C.’s education success isn’t just about test scores. It’s about the child who now walks into class with confidence because tutoring makes reading click. It’s about the high schooler graduating with a resume that includes a paid internship and college credits already earned. It’s about showing the nation that D.C. students — no matter their background or income — can succeed at the highest levels.

    D.C.’s experience shows how large urban education systems can rebound and thrive when funding is deep and sustained, resources meet student needs, teachers are well supported and compensated, and learning starts early.

    While challenges remain, the data show encouraging momentum that is worth studying nationally. D.C.’s educational vision invariably focuses on ensuring every child is prepared for higher education and a family-sustaining career, while making certain that the city continues to be the nation’s talent capital.

    D.C.’s public education leaders can keep proving to the nation what happens when a city dreams big for every student, invests strategically and stays the course: Students and schools will surpass expectations.

    Paul Kihn is deputy mayor for education in the District of Columbia. Dr. Antoinette Mitchell is state superintendent of education for the District of Columbia.


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  • UNC Merges Information and Data Science Schools, Names New AI Vice Provost

    UNC Merges Information and Data Science Schools, Names New AI Vice Provost

    Manning Hall at University of North Carolina Chapel HillUNCThe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced last week that it will merge the School of Information and Library Science and the School of Data Science and Society into a single, yet-to-be-named institution focused on applied technology, information science and artificial intelligence.

    The merger, announced in a joint letter from Chancellor Lee H. Roberts and Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost James W. Dean Jr., represents what administrators called “a bold step forward” in positioning Carolina as a national leader in data and AI education.

    Dr. Stanley Ahalt, current dean of the School of Data Science and Society, will serve as inaugural dean of the new school. Dr. Jeffrey Bardzell, dean of the School of Information and Library Science, will continue leading SILS through the transition while also assuming a newly created secondary appointment as Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer and Vice Provost for AI.

    “Information technologies, especially generative AI, are having a transformational impact,” the letter stated. “This new school is a bold step forward in our commitment to preparing students for a world increasingly shaped by data, information and artificial intelligence.”

    The AI vice provost position, which will become full-time once the new school is operational, will coordinate the university’s response to artificial intelligence across all campus units.

    “Dean Bardzell has been a key voice informing our thinking about AI campuswide,” Roberts and Dean wrote. “We are grateful to have his experience in the classroom, administration and research guiding our efforts.”

    The announcement comes as universities nationwide grapple with integrating AI into curriculum and operations. UNC joins a growing number of institutions restructuring academic units to address what administrators describe as rapid technological change.

    While the decision to merge has been finalized, administrators said that implementation plans remain under development. The university will establish a task force, advisory committee and multiple working groups to determine operational details.

    “Faculty, staff and students will be engaged throughout,” the announcement stated. Both schools will maintain current academic programs during the transition, with administrators expressing hope the merger will support enrollment growth and expanded impact.

    SILS, established in 1931, has approximately 600 students across bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs, with strengths in information ethics, library science and human-centered information design.

    SDSS, founded in 2019, has grown to roughly 400 students and focuses on computational methods, statistical analysis and data science applications across disciplines.

    “Both SILS and SDSS bring distinct strengths and areas of excellence to Carolina — technical expertise, humanistic inquiry and a deep understanding of the societal implications of emerging technologies,” administrators wrote.

    The letter noted that the merger is “driven by long-term possibilities” rather than budget constraints, with a focus on growth and expanding both schools’ “powerhouse academic programs.”

    University officials did not provide a timeline for completing the merger or naming the new school. They also did not specify budget details or projected enrollment targets.

    The announcement marks the latest in a series of administrative restructuring efforts at UNC-Chapel Hill, which has seen several organizational changes in recent years as it responds to shifting academic priorities and funding models.

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

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

    Key points:

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

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

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

    Indicators of success against ransomware

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

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

    Gaps still need to be addressed

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

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

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

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

    Holding on to the gains

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

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

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

    This press release originally appeared online.

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  • We Don’t Need to Retreat From the Challenge of AI in Schools

    We Don’t Need to Retreat From the Challenge of AI in Schools

    One of the chief pleasures of traveling to schools and campuses to talk about More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI and my approaches to how we should approach the teaching of writing is getting the chance to see what other places are doing with the challenge of working in a world of generative AI technology.

    My travels so far this semester have been very encouraging. It seems clear that we are in a new phase of reasoned consideration following on an earlier period of worry and uncertainty. I never saw outright panic, but there was a whiff of doom in the air.

    There may be a selection bias in terms of the institutions that would invite someone like me to come work with them, but there is a clear impulse to figure out how to move forward according to institutional values, rather than being stuck in a defensive posture.

    As I declared way back in December 2022, “ChatGPT can’t kill anything worth preserving.” The work of what must be preserved and how is definitely underway.

    I want to share some impressions of what I think is working well at the institutions that are moving forward, so others may consider how they might want to do this work on their own campuses.

    Going on Offense by Living Your Values

    One clear commonality for successfully addressing the current challenges is by identifying the core institutional values and then making them central to the ongoing discussions about how instruction and institutional operations must evolve.

    As one example, at my recent visit to Iona University, I was introduced to their framework of agency, expression and responsibility.

    “Agency” is one of my favorite words when talking about learning, period, and in this case it means communicating to students that it is ultimately the students themselves who must choose the path of their own educations, including the use of AI technology. I’ve recently been speaking more and more about AI in education as a demand-side issue, where students need to see the pitfalls of outsourcing their learning. Agency puts the responsibility where it belongs: on students themselves.

    Expression represents a belief that the ultimate goal of one’s education is to develop our unique voice as part of the larger world in which we work and live. Writing isn’t just producing text but using the tools of expression—including text—to convey our points of view to the world. Where LLMs use substitutes for or obscure our personal expression, they should be avoided.

    Responsibility is related to agency in the “with great power comes great responsibility” sense. Students are encouraged to consider the practical and ethical dimensions of using the technology.

    At other stops I’ve seen similar orientations, though often with wrinkles unique to local contexts. One common value is rather than retreating to assessments that can be monitored in order to prevent cheating, the goal is to figure out how to give life to the kinds of educational experiences we know to be meaningful to learning.

    If you start with the values, things like policy can be evaluated against something meaningful and enduring. The conversations become more productive because everyone is working from a shared base.

    I know this can be done, because I’ve been visiting institutions working on this problem for more than 18 months, and the progress is real.

    Collective Spirit and Collaborative Action

    Another common sign of progress is institutional leadership that communicates a desire to take a collective approach to tackle the issues and then puts specific, tangible resources behind this call to make collaborative action more possible and effective.

    Several institutions I’ve visited have carved out spots for some version of AI faculty fellows, where these fellows are given freedom to explore the technology and its specific implications to their disciplines, before coming back to a group and institutional setting where this learning is shared.

    To work, these must be more than groups tasked to figure out how to integrate AI technology into the university. I have not visited any institution that has done this—they are unlikely to invite someone like me—but I have been corresponding with people whose institutions are doing this who are looking for advice, and it seems like a sure route to a divided institution.

    At my Iona visit, they took this approach to the next level by putting on a one-day conference and inviting community educators from all walks to hear not just yours truly, but also the AI fellows and other faculty discuss a variety of issues.

    These conferences don’t solve every problem in a day, but simply demonstrating to the broader public that you’re working the problem is deeply encouraging.

    Room and Respect for Difference

    One of my favorite parts of my visits is the chance to talk with the faculty on a campus who have been wrestling with the same challenges I’m spending my time on. At the base level, we share the same values when it comes to what learning looks like and the importance of things like agency and transparency to achieving those things.

    But when it comes to the application and use of generative AI technology to achieve these outcomes, there are often significant differences. I share my perspective, they share theirs, and while I don’t think we necessarily change each other’s minds, a great appreciation for a different perspective is achieved.

    It’s a model of what I always based my courses in, the academic conversation, where the goal of writing and speaking is to gradually increase the amount of illumination on the subject at hand. We’re having a discussion, not a “debate.”

    I am far more skeptical and circumspect about the utility of generative AI when it comes to teaching and learning than many. I often point out that anyone who is using the technology productively today established a whole host of capacities (or what I call a “practice”) in the absence of this technology, so it stands to reason that we should still be educated primarily without interacting with or using the technology.

    But I’ve also seen tangible demonstrations of integrating the capacities of generative AI tools in ways that seem to genuinely open potential new avenues. These people need to keep experimenting, just as those of us who want to find ways to do our work in the absence of AI should be empowered to do so.

    Do More Than ‘Doing School’

    Maybe this belongs as part of the first point of “going on offense,” but the successes I’ve seen have come from a willingness to fundamentally question the system of schooling that has resulted in students primarily viewing their educations through a transactional lens.

    In many cases, generative AI outputs satisfy the transaction of school in ways that mean students learn literally nothing. We’ve all read the viral articles about students using AI for everything they do.

    But I can report from my visits to many different institutions and talking to people working at many more that this is not universally true. Many students are eager to engage in activities that help them learn. It then becomes the responsibility of schools and instructors to give students something worth doing.

    Retreating to analog forms because they can be policed is a missed opportunity to rethink and redo things we know were not working particularly well.

    There is not endpoint to this rethinking. Frankly, I find this energizing, and it’s clear lots of others do, too. This energy is something we can use to help students.

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  • Ethnic Studies Mandate in California Schools Stalls Over Money, Politics – The 74

    Ethnic Studies Mandate in California Schools Stalls Over Money, Politics – The 74


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    This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

    This fall, every high school in California was supposed to offer ethnic studies — a one-semester class focused on the struggles and triumphs of marginalized communities.

    But the class appears stalled, at least for now, after the state budget omitted funding for it and the increasingly polarized political climate dampened some districts’ appetite for anything that hints at controversy.

    “Right now, it’s a mixed bag. Some school districts have already implemented the course, and some school districts are using the current circumstances as a rationale not to move forward,” said Albert Camarillo, a Stanford history professor and founder of the university’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. “But I’m hopeful. This fight has been going on for a long time.”

    California passed the ethnic studies mandate in 2021, following years of debate and fine-tuning of curriculum. The class was meant to focus on the cultures and histories of African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Latinos, all of whom have faced oppression in California. The state’s curriculum also encourages schools to add additional lessons based on their student populations, such as Hmong or Armenian.

    The course would have been required for high school graduation, beginning with the Class of 2030.

    But the state never allotted money for the course, which meant the mandate hasn’t gone into effect. The Senate Appropriations Committee estimated that the cost to hire and train teachers and purchase textbooks and other materials would be $276 million. Some school districts have used their own money to train teachers and have started offering the class anyway.

    Accusations of antisemitism

    Meanwhile, fights have erupted across the state over who and who isn’t included in the curriculum. Some ethnic studies teachers incorporated lessons on the Gaza conflict and made other changes put forth by a group of educators and activists called the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium. That’s led to accusations of antisemitism in dozens of school districts.

    Antisemitism has been on the rise generally in California, not just in schools. Statewide, anti-Jewish hate crime rose 7.3% last year, according to the California Department of Justice. In Los Angeles County, hate crimes — including slurs— against Jewish people rose 91% last year, to the highest number ever recorded, according to the county’s Commission on Human Relations.

    Those numbers in part prompted a pair of legislators to propose a bill addressing antisemitism in California public schools. Assembly Bill 715, which is now headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom, would beef up the discrimination complaint process in schools and create a statewide antisemitism coordinator to ensure schools comply. Another bill, which died, would have directly addressed antisemitism in ethnic studies classes by placing restrictions on curriculum.

    ‘On life support’

    But the delays and public controversies have taken a toll. No one has tracked how many schools offer ethnic studies, or how many require it, but some say the momentum is lost.

    “It’s already on life support and this could be one more arrow,” said Tab Berg, a political consultant based in the Sacramento area.

    Berg has been a critic of ethnic studies, saying it’s divisive. A better way to encourage cultural understanding is to eliminate segregation in schools and ensure the existing social studies curriculum is comprehensive and accurate, he said. “We should absolutely find ways to help students appreciate and understand other cultures. But not in a way that leads to further polarization of the school community.”

    Carol Kocivar, former head of the state PTA and a San Francisco-based education writer, also thinks the class may be stalled indefinitely.

    “I think the people who supported ethnic studies didn’t realize they were opening a can of worms,” Kocivar said. “Until there’s an agreement on the ideological guardrails, I just don’t see it moving forward on a broad scale.”

    Kocivar supports the ethnic studies curriculum generally, but thinks it should be woven into existing classes like English, history and foreign language. That would leave room in students’ schedules for electives while still ensuring they learn the histories of marginalized communities.

    Schools moving ahead

    In Orange County, nearly all high schools are offering ethnic studies as a stand-alone elective course or paired with a required class like English or history. Teachers use curriculum written by their districts with public input, drawn from the state’s recommended curriculum. They also have the option of adding lessons on Vietnamese, Hmong or Cambodian culture, reflecting the county’s ethnic makeup.

    “The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Marika Manos, manager of history and social science for the Orange County Department of Education. “Students see themselves in the curriculum and in the broader story of America. … It’s a wonderful opportunity for them to get some joy in their day.”

    A handful of districts are waiting to see if the state authorizes funding, but the rest have found their own money to hire and train teachers and purchase materials. There was some pushback against Santa Ana Unified when two Jewish civil rights groups sued, claiming the district’s ethnic studies courses contained antisemetic material. The district settled earlier this year and changed the course curriculum.

    Polarized political climate

    Camarillo, the Stanford professor, said the national political climate “no question” has had a significant effect on the ethnic studies rollout. Parents might have genuine concerns about what’s being taught, “but we’re also seeing the impact of extremist groups that are fomenting distrust in our schools.”

    He pointed to book bans, attacks on “woke” curriculum and other so-called culture war issues playing out in schools nationwide.

    But the fight over ethnic studies has been going on for decades, since the first student activists pushed for the course at San Francisco State in the 1960s, and he’s hopeful that the current obstacles, especially the fights over antisemitism, will eventually resolve.

    “I hate to see what’s happening but I think there’s hope for a resolution,” he said. “Ethnic studies can help us understand and appreciate each other, communicate, make connections. I’ve seen it play out in the classroom and it’s a beautiful thing.”

    ‘A really special class’

    In Oakland, Summer Johnson has been teaching ethnic studies for three years at Arise High School, a charter school in the Fruitvale district. She uses a combination of liberated ethnic studies and other curricula and her own lesson plans.

    She covers topics like identity, stereotypes and bias; oppression and resistance; and cultural assets, or “the beautiful things in your community,” she said. They also learn the origins of the class itself, starting with the fight for ethnic studies at San Francisco State.

    Students read articles and write papers, conduct research, do art projects and give oral presentations, discuss issues and take field trips. She pushes the students to “ask questions, be curious, have the tough conversations. This is the place for that.”

    She’s had no complaints from parents, but sometimes at the beginning of the semester, students question the value of the class.

    “When that happens, we have a discussion,” Johnson said. “By the end of the class, students learn about themselves and their classmates and learn to express their opinions. Overall students respond really well.”

    Johnson, who has a social studies teaching credential, sought out training to teach ethnic studies and feels that’s critical for the course to be successful. Teachers need to know the material, but they also need to know how to facilitate sensitive conversations and encourage students to open up to their peers.

    “It’s a really special class. I’d love to see it expand to all schools,” Johnson said. “The purpose is for students to have empathy for each other and knowledge of themselves and their communities. And that’s important.”

    This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.


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  • Cosmetology schools and other certificate programs got exemption from rules on graduates’ earning levels

    Cosmetology schools and other certificate programs got exemption from rules on graduates’ earning levels

     

    Remiah Ward’s shift at the SmartStyle salon inside Walmart was almost over, and she’d barely made $30 in tips from the haircuts she’d done that day. It wasn’t unusual — a year after her graduation from beauty school, tips plus minimum wage weren’t enough to cover her rent.

    She scarcely had time to eat and sleep before she had to drive back to the same Walmart in central Florida to stock shelves on the night shift. That job paid $14 an hour, but it meant she sometimes spent 18 hours a day in the same building. She worked six days a week but still struggled to catch up on bills and sleep. 

    The admissions officer at the American Institute of Beauty, where she enrolled straight out of high school, had sold her on a different dream. She would easily earn enough to pay back the $10,000 she borrowed to attend, she said she was told. Ward had no way of knowing that stylists from her school earn $20,200 a year, on average, four years after graduating. Seven years later, her debt, plus interest, is still unpaid.

    In July, Republicans in Congress pushed through policies aimed at ensuring that what happened to Ward wouldn’t happen to other Americans on the government’s dime; colleges whose graduates don’t earn at least as much as someone with a high school diploma will now risk losing access to federal student loans. But one group managed to slip through the cracks — thousands of schools like the American Institute of Beauty were exempt. 

    Remiah Ward worked two jobs while trying to make it as a hair stylist but never made enough to pay her all her bills and has had to put her dream career on hold. Credit: Courtesy Remiah Ward

    Certificate schools succeeded in getting a carve-out. The industry breathed a collective sigh of relief, and with good reason. At least 1,280 certificate-granting programs, which enrolled more than 220,000 students, would have been at risk of losing federal student loan funding if they had been included in the bill, according to a Hechinger Report analysis of federal data. [See table.] About 80% of those are for-profit programs, and 45 percent are cosmetology schools.

    “There is this very strange donut hole in accountability where workforce programs are held accountable, two-year degree programs are held accountable, but everything in between gets off without any accountability,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.

    The schools spared are known as certificate programs and, with their promise of an affordable and relatively quick path to economic security, are the fastest growing part of higher education. They usually take about a year to complete and train people to be hair-stylists, welders, medical assistants and cooks, among other jobs.

    As with traditional colleges, there are big differences in quality among certificate programs. Some hair stylists can make a middle-class living if they work in a busy salon. But for people who have to pay back hefty student loans, the low wages for stylists in the early years can be an insurmountable obstacle.

    Ward found herself facing that dilemma. When she could no longer sustain the lack of sleep from her double shifts at Walmart, she pressed pause on her styling career and took a job with Amazon, loading and unloading planes. She wasn’t ready to give up her dream career, though, so in addition to her 10-hour days moving boxes, she took part-time gigs at local hair salons. She didn’t have family to help pay rent, not to mention loan payments, so she couldn’t afford to work fulltime at a salon, which is essential to build up a regular clientele — and bigger tips. Without that, she couldn’t get much beyond minimum wage. 

    A representative from the American Institute of Beauty denied that Ward was told she would easily repay her loan.

    “No admissions representative, not at AIB or elsewhere, would ever make such a statement,” Denise Herman, general counsel and assistant vice president of AIB, said in an email. 

    The high cost of many for-profit cosmetology schools — tuition can be upward of $20,000, usually for a one-year program  — can leave former students mired in debt. In May, the government released data showing 850 colleges where at least a third of borrowers haven’t made a loan payment for 90 days or more, putting them on track to default. About 42 percent of those were for-profit cosmetology and barbering schools (including AIB).

    Brittany Mcnew says she loves working as a stylist but that her income takes a hit when traffic is slow in her salon in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Credit: Meredith Kolodner/The Hechinger Report

    Herman blamed the Biden administration policy that after the pandemic let borrowers forgo payments without any penalty.

    “Debtors became ‘comfortable’ not making payments,” said Herman. “AIB provides the graduate with the information graduates need to make their payments. What that graduate decides to pay, or not pay, is not influenced by AIB.”

    Under the “big beautiful bill” passed in July, two- and four-year colleges must ensure that, after four years, graduates on average make at least as much as someone in their state who has only a high school diploma. The colleges must inform students if they fail that test, and if it happens for two out of three years, the college will be ineligible to receive federal loan funds.

    Some for-profit certificate schools lobbied hard for an exemption. The American Association of Career Schools, which represents proprietary cosmetology schools, spent $120,000 lobbying the Education Department and Congress, including on the “big beautiful bill,” in the first six months of this year. At the group’s major lobbying event in April, Sen. Bill Cassidy, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was the keynote speaker.

    Cassidy declined to answer questions about why certificate programs were excluded, but a fact sheet from his committee noted that they are already covered by something else, the gainful employment rule, which is also being challenged by the for-profit cosmetology industry.

    That federal gainful employment regulation, updated in 2023, requires in essence that graduates from career-oriented schools earn enough to be able to pay back their loans and earn more than a high school graduate. It also requires that consumers, like Ward, be given more information about how graduates from all colleges fare in the workplace.

    The rule posed an existential threat to a huge swath of cosmetology schools.

    In 2023, the American Association of Career Schools sued to block the gainful employment rule. 

    “AACS supports fair and reasonable accountability measures,” Cecil Kidd, the AACS’s executive director, said in an email. “However, we strongly object to arbitrary or discriminatory policies such as the US Department of Education’s Gainful Employment rule, which unfairly targets career schools while exempting many public and private non-profit institutions that fail to meet comparable outcomes.”

    He pointed to public comments in which AACS has argued that the rule imposes an unfair burden on cosmetology schools since stylists are predominantly women, who are more likely to have “personal commitments” that affect their earnings, and who rely on tips that are often pocketed as unreported income.

    Cameron Vandenboom is a successful hair stylist but says the high cost of her private beauty school wasn’t worth thousands of dollars in student debt: “I absolutely should have gone to community college.” Credit: Courtesy Shanna Kaye Photo

    In a twist that surprised advocates on both sides, the Education Department in May asked the court to effectively dismiss AACS’ lawsuit. 

    If the court rules in favor of the cosmetology schools, certificate programs will be free of all accountability requirements on their graduates’ earning levels, because they got the carveout in July. 

    Even if the court rules against cosmetology schools, advocates are pessimistic that the Trump administration will implement the gainful rules. The first Trump administration got rid of the original rules back in 2019 and Nicholas Kent, now the U.S. undersecretary of education, was previously the chief policy officer for Career Education Colleges and Universities, or CECU, the trade group that represents for-profit colleges, including certificate programs. He is a well-known critic of the rule.

    “I would be very surprised, if the unlikely scenario plays out that the Biden rule is upheld, that this Department of Education would just say, OK, the court has spoken,” said Jason Altmire, CECU’s executive director. “We are not opposed to accountability for certificate programs, so long as it’s fair to everybody and we have a voice in how you’re measuring programs.”  

    Altmire said CECU didn’t lobby for certificate programs to be carved out of Congress’ bill, but did argue against the earnings formula that Congress landed on. Altmire said it doesn’t take into account part-time work and the gender gap in wages.

    One objection from AACS, raised by CECU as well, is that the earnings measured don’t include tips, which are crucial to hair stylists’ income. Analyzed without including tips, 576 of 724 cosmetology schools in the Hechinger Report analysis would fail Congress’ earnings test. But even if tips were included and raised stylists’ income by 20 percent, 526 cosmetology schools would still fail.

    Earlier this year, Remiah Ward made the difficult decision to leave Florida and move to Kentucky, where the cost of living was more forgiving. She’s working from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. at an aluminum factory for $19.50 an hour. 

    One day, she might go back to styling after her debt is paid off. Like many former beauty school students, she wishes she’d had more information when she decided to enroll.

    “They really sugar-coated it. I was 18 years old, and I needed a trade that I was already pretty good at,” said Ward, who is now 26. “Everybody thinks they’re going to make a high return, and it’s just not the reality.”

    Marina Villeneuve contributed data analysis to this story. 

    This story about cosmetology schools produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger higher-education 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.

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  • Explore the earnings for graduates of beauty schools, other certificate programs

    Explore the earnings for graduates of beauty schools, other certificate programs

    Schools that train hairstylists, dental assistants and health aides will be able to keep getting federal student loan dollars even if the professionals they turn out don’t end up earning any more than a high school graduate.

    That’s because programs like those, which don’t end in a college degree, were granted an exemption from new accountability measures under President Donald Trump’s ”big, beautiful bill.” 

    A Hechinger Report analysis of federal data found at least 1,280 such certificate programs could have been at risk of their students losing access to federal student loans — but a successful lobbying effort excluded them from the accountability measures. 

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    Under the new law, most graduates of associate, bachelor’s and graduate degree programs must earn at least as much as someone who has only a high school diploma. If programs fail to hit that benchmark for two out of three years, their students will no longer be eligible for federal student loans. (And the schools must warn students of this possibility if they miss the mark for just one year). Without that borrowing power, many students could not afford to attend. And without those students, some of the schools might not survive. 

    Using the table below, see which certificate programs might have been flagged under the Trump law if not for the exemption. If graduates of a particular program ended up earning less than adults with only a high school diploma, that program could have faced losing eligibility for federal student loans under the Trump law.

    Methodology

    What exactly does the “big, beautiful bill” call for?

    The legislation requires the Department of Education to compare earnings of working adults who have only a high school diploma to the earnings of adults four years after they complete a degree program or graduate certificate. If a postsecondary program’s graduates fail to outearn adults with only high school degrees for two out of three years, students can no longer obtain federal student loans to attend that program. 

    The law also sets up an appeals process and a way for programs to apply to regain eligibility for federal student loans.

    What data was analyzed? 

    The law directs the education secretary to use census data to calculate median earnings for working adults with only a high school degree in the state where a program is located. The Department of Education will release regulations that spell out exactly how to do that math. For example, the law does not spell out whether it will look at census data averaged out over 12 months or a longer period of time. 

    For earnings data for high school graduates, The Hechinger Report relied on calculations from the Department of Education, which were derived from the 2022 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates Public Use Microdata Sample from the U.S. Census Bureau.

    To calculate median earnings for graduates, the law directs the Education Department to put together earnings data for a cohort of at least 30 graduates who received federal student aid for postsecondary education — which typically includes grants, loans or work-study. Graduates are excluded if they’re currently enrolled in another higher education program. If there are fewer than 30 students in a cohort, the Education Department can lump together several years of data to get to 30 students.

    To get earnings data for graduates of certificate programs, Hechinger used a federal database known as College Scorecard. We downloaded field of study data for the 2022-23 school year. From this data, The Hechinger Report extracted information about certificate programs, at their main campuses, and included only programs that had median earnings data. The federal database suppresses earnings data for small programs. That left 4,431 currently operating certificate programs. 

    How was a program determined to be at possible risk of failing the accountability measure?

    For each program, The Hechinger Report compared median graduate earnings to the high school graduate earnings data of the state where the program was located. If the graduates earned less, the program was considered to be at risk.  

    Under the law, postsecondary programs that don’t meet the earnings benchmark for one year have to inform all current students that they are at risk of losing their eligibility for federal student loans. 

    Are there any limitations to the data? 

    The “big, beautiful bill” takes online programs into account by considering whether students live in the same state where their academic program is based. Under the law, student earnings are compared with national data rather than state data when fewer than half of enrolled students live in the state where the school is located, which may be the case for online programs. 

    The Hechinger Report’s analysis instead compares every program with state earnings. That’s because the College Scorecard field of study data set is limited and only includes information about graduates employed within the same state as the institution, not whether enrolled students live in the same state as the program. In addition, College Scorecard data provides earnings data for all graduates without a breakdown for whether they receive federal aid.

    Also, the Hechinger database looks at the available median earnings of all students four years after graduation for the school year 2022-23, regardless of the number of graduates. Though College Scorecard suppresses data on smaller programs, median earnings data is available for programs with 16 or more working graduates. The “big, beautiful bill” directs the Department of Education to instead lump together years of data to create cohorts of at least 30 students.

    Contact investigative reporter Marina Villeneuve at 212-678-3430 or [email protected] or on Signal at mvilleneuve.78

    This story about beauty schools was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger 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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