Tag: support

  • How AI is streamlining special education

    How AI is streamlining special education

    Key points:

    Districts nationwide are grappling with increased special education demands amid persistent staff shortages and compliance pressures. At the intersection of technology and student support, Maura Connor, chief operating officer of Better Speech, is leading the launch of Streamline, an AI-powered special education management platform designed to ease administrative burdens and enhance service delivery.

    In this Q&A, Connor discusses the realistic, responsible ways AI can empower educators, optimize workflows, and foster stronger connections between schools and families.

    1. Many districts are experiencing an increase in special education caseloads while struggling with staff shortages and retention. From your perspective, where can AI most realistically help relieve pressure on special educators without compromising their quality of service?

    AI is most impactful when it handles time-intensive, repetitive tasks that don’t require nuanced human judgment. For example, AI can assist in drafting initial progress or intervention notes and tracking intervention outcomes to help identify students who may need additional support. By automating these administrative tasks, special educators and service providers can spend more time delivering direct instruction or therapy, collaborating with colleagues, and planning individualized support for students.

    Importantly, AI is a tool that augments, not replaces, human expertise. It can relieve pressure in the special education ecosystem while allowing educators to maintain the high-quality services students need.

    2. Special education leaders need to balance efficiency with compliance when it comes to IEP evaluations and goals. How can AI help schools and districts with this?

    AI can standardize data collection and analysis, ensuring evaluations capture all legally required components while reducing the manual burden. Advanced AI analytics can also flag potential compliance gaps before they become serious risks and help identify patterns across a student’s performance.

    For case managers and providers, especially those new to special education, AI can accelerate skill-building by helping draft legally-defensible, evidence-based IEP goals and recommendations. Rather than spending hours on formatting and documentation, this allows educators and administrators to focus on meaningful decision-making, personalized student support, and family engagement.

    3. Beyond easing paperwork, what are some practical ways school and district leaders can use AI to reallocate staff time toward more student-facing work?

    AI can help leaders identify trends and bottlenecks across their special education programs, such as caseload imbalances, scheduling inefficiencies, budget planning, or capacity in high-demand intervention areas. By surfacing these insights, districts can make data-informed staffing adjustments, prioritize coaching and professional development, and streamline workflows so teachers and service providers are freed up for individual instruction, small-group interventions, and collaborative planning.

    Essentially, AI can turn administrative time into actionable intelligence that translates directly into better targeted student support.

    4. When it comes to parent engagement, how can AI support stronger, more transparent communication between schools and families?

    Parent engagement in the special education process can be a sensitive experience for districts and families alike. And, it’s a critical challenge we often hear about from leaders and teachers.

    AI relieves some of the pressure by generating clear, real-time updates on student progress. In this way, AI can increase transparency and communication, helping families stay informed and engaged without overwhelming staff through repetitive outreach. For example, automated notifications about milestones, progress toward IEP goals, or upcoming meetings can ensure families receive timely, understandable information.

    AI can also assist in translating materials for non-English-speaking families, creating more equitable access to information and empowering parents to be active partners in their child’s education.

    5. Given the growing availability and use of generative AI tools, how can school and district leaders set guardrails to ensure educators use these tools ethically and securely?

    Responsible and ethical use of AI in education starts with districts setting clear policies and engaging in targeted professional development. Leaders should define boundaries around student data privacy, clarify when AI outputs require human review, and provide training on responsible AI use. AI should always enhance staff capacity without compromising student safety or the integrity of decision-making. Since AI can “hallucinate,” it is absolutely critical that educators and providers use their own professional and clinical judgment in reviewing and approving any recommendations generated by AI. Districts should also consider using a proprietary, evidence-based LLM engine instead of open-source AI tools to lessen this risk.

    Establishing guardrails also means monitoring usage, maintaining transparency with families, and fostering a culture where AI is a support, not a replacement, for professional and clinical judgment.

    6. Overall, what role can AI-powered analytics play in helping school and district leaders make more data-driven, proactive decisions?

    AI-powered analytics can transform reactive management into proactive planning. By aggregating and analyzing multiple data points–from academic performance to intervention outcomes–leaders can identify trends and potential compliance issues before they become legal risks. District leaders can also allocate resources more strategically and design targeted programs for students who need the most support or readily plan for coverage or extra resources when settings need to increase capacity.

    Overall, AI’s predictive capability can help districts move beyond compliance toward strategic continuous improvement, ensuring every decision is informed by actionable insights rather than intuition alone.

    Maura Connor is Chief Operating Officer of Better Speech, where she leads the launch of Streamline, an AI-powered special education management platform that reduces administrative burden and empowers schools to better support students and families. With extensive leadership experience across education and healthcare technology, she specializes in scaling organizations, driving innovation, and advancing solutions that improve outcomes for children and communities.

    Laura Ascione
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  • 10 ways to strengthen family-school partnerships and support learning

    10 ways to strengthen family-school partnerships and support learning

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    Clear family-school communications and robust supports for students with learning differences are just a few ways education systems can improve family-school connections to support student outcomes, nonprofit Learning Heroes said in a report released Tuesday.

    One of the biggest barriers to family-school partnerships is what the report calls a “perception gap,” or when families believe their child is performing at higher academic levels than what’s really occurring. 

    In fact, about 88% of parents in a 2023 survey said they thought their child was at or above grade level in math and reading. In reality, the actual share of children performing at this level is closer to 30%, as shown by 8th grade performance on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress.

    Although parents carry significant influence over their child’s education, they can’t help fix a problem they don’t know exists, the report said.

    “Parents today have unprecedented voice and choice in their children’s education, yet, too often, lack the information to make confident, informed decisions,” said Bibb Hubbard, founder and CEO of Learning Heroes, in a Tuesday statement. 

    The organization used 10 years of research on family-school partnerships to inform best practices that improve these relationships with the aim of driving student success.

    “With a decade of insights from parents, students, teachers, and principals, we have a clearer roadmap for creating schools and communities that work in true partnership with families and help every child thrive,” Hubbard said.

    The Learning Heroes report offered these 10 suggestions for strengthening family-school partnerships.  

    Give parents accurate information on student performance

    When parents know their child needs support, they are more likely to seek academic supports, such as tutoring and summer math or reading programs. They are also more likely to prioritize school attendance. 

    The report highlights state-level efforts in Texas, Arkansas and Virginia to provide parents videos, tools, and guides to bolster understanding of student grades and test scores. This also allows for comparisons with students across the state to help parents gauge their child’s college or career readiness.

    Share multiple points of learning data

    Results from annual state tests and other standardized or formative assessments can give families a fuller picture of their child’s strengths and needs.

    Some 79% of parents said their children earn Bs and better, the report said, leading most parents to think their child is performing on grade level. However, report cards can include factors other than academic achievement, such as classroom participation, effort and completion of assignments, that don’t necessarily comport with grade-level performance. 

    “As it stands, too many report cards are still sending false signals, and many families, trusting the information they’ve been given, simply aren’t aware that their students may be behind,” the report said.

    Provide parents access to information

    Ensuring parents are aware of their child’s progress — not just through a quarterly report card, but through conversations with teachers and other means — can help parents take action to help their child improve.

    Allow teachers time to connect with parents

    Schools should prioritize parent-teacher teams by safeguarding the time teachers need to communicate with parents, as well as needed preparation time. One example is to allow one-to-one conversations between parents and teachers at back to school nights.

    For instance, Prodeo Academy, a charter network in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, serving about 1,000 students, prioritized candid conversations, data-sharing and family-teacher conferences during the 2023-24 school year. These activities resulted in a notable increase among parents who recognized their child wasn’t working at grade level, the report said.

    Avoid family engagement as a standalone goal

    Integrating family engagement into overall school strategies for attendance, literacy and math achievement and other priorities will help educators and parents connect this effort to overall school outcomes. 

    For example, home visits can improve attendance, and student action plans created jointly by teachers and parents could help boost achievement.

    Provide pathways to postsecondary success

    Whether students attend college or go right into the workplace after high school graduation, schools should guide parents and students about the opportunities available. Access to Advanced Placement courses, dual enrollment, career awareness experiences and career and technical education can all help students discover their passions and start planning for their futures.

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  • How can universities best win back public support?

    How can universities best win back public support?

    This blog was kindly authored by Professor Annabel Kiernan, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Education and Student Experience at Goldsmiths University. It follows her speech at a HEPI event with the same title as this blog, held at the 2025 Conservative Party Conference.

    To accept this question at its face and to understand what universities can and should do to build back public support, we need to look at how we got here. In broad terms, universities are not the only institutions whose role, purpose and efficacy are being challenged. There has been a wider breakdown of trust between the public and a wide range of local and national infrastructure, both public and private – from water and train companies, to the courts and local government.

    In part, this is the inevitable consequence of two periods of significant financial stress – firstly from the 2008 financial crash and its resulting ten-year austerity programme, followed swiftly by the post-COVID cost-of-living crisis. The economic bite for the personal and public purse and the knock-on impact of such economic dislocation has been a considerable shrinking of the wider public realm and a gnawing away at the previous slowly progressive move towards a more ‘bread and roses’ type of social compact for all: of needing the fundamentals of life (bread), but also making available what brings beauty, culture and wellbeing (roses) to wider society, irrespective of economic circumstance. The shrinking of the public realm has pushed back this access to public goods.

    Many education institutions, including universities, have attempted to be a buttress for this impact – whether that’s filling in social, behavioural, skills and knowledge gaps from lost learning, responding to increased mental health pressures, trying to mitigate, where possible, the impacts of poverty and other generalised impacts of closures of youth centres, libraries, museums and so on.

    Clearly then, universities play a key role in delivering progress to individuals and the broader public. They are core to economic and social growth, delivering these while managing the public’s varied aspirations and differing expectations. The expansion of higher education was sought to widen the benefits of a university education and experience. Even before the Blair expansion in the 2000s, my own family – my mum, the eldest of six, with a miner and a housewife as parents – were beneficiaries, with all six children going to university during the 1970s and 1980s. Despite both leaving school at 14, my grandparents knew that university was the route to a different life. It paid off for all six brothers and sisters, and here I am today, the eldest grandchild of that mobility, a Deputy Vice Chancellor contributing a HEPI blog on public trust in universities.

    But, whilst the cost of university entry has now significantly increased, the mobility pay off, or graduate premium, appears more challenged. This is despite the OECD’s Education at a Glance 2025 report  showing that, over the course of a lifetime, attending university still delivers financially. In times of heightened economic stress, however, the public needs more immediacy in the financial payoff and surety in the belief that infrastructure delivers a high-quality service. We can see the political articulation of the need to see, feel and believe things work and have tangible benefits for individuals, their families and communities now. People’s sacrifices need to matter, and their investment needs to pay off.

    So what do universities do to play their part?

    As a sector, we work very hard on our civic role, but we need to be more porous. We can’t be seen to effectively privatise public space. We need to be of our places, and lead the charge on building solutions and helping people to navigate change – from how we work with local communities to how we contribute to global challenges. In other words, we need to reemphasise our role in sustaining the social, cultural and intellectual infrastructure of society,

    To support that civic role, we need to offer more seamless education journeys and be accessible for learners throughout their lifetime. That means accelerating the ways in which we work in partnership with each other, with colleges, schools, employers and local authorities. Lifelong education is a philosophy, not just a government policy. The Lifelong Learning Entitlement needs to align with a wide range of policies. For example, now that ‘skills’ is situated with the Department for Work and Pensions, what harm in referring people to a bit of modular learning to get their employment on track rather than piecemeal training or benefit sanctions? Universities are a public infrastructure, so we need to connect well with other infrastructure to deliver our part of the ecosystem for individual and collective economic and social gains.

    We must remain intentional, be high quality, deliver an excellent experience. There should continue to be robust regulation of bad actors. We should deliver success for all our students and we shouldn’t be a homogeneous model; learners take different pathways through higher learning and need to access it in different ways, through different modes and will have different needs for flexibility. There are specialisms and expertise in research and teaching, and these should remain available as choices. There has been much written about the detrimental impact of out-of-town shopping centres on our high streets. Similarly, if all universities have to deliver at scale for efficiencies, the impact of closures on the towns and cities of smaller, more specialist institutions would be devastating.   

    At this moment, we need to emphasise our value in relation to the individual economic benefit gained from the investment of a student loan. In other words, highly paid graduate employment. I’m not sure how potent the arguments for the collective economic benefit of universities currently are. Personal storytelling of meaningful impacts, like that of my own family, may have traction in our university locales.

    Overall, we need to continue to deliver and continue to engage. We work hard in these spaces already, but we need to tell our story differently and continue to adapt our model.

    Importantly, universities have a central part to play in delivering space for reflection, intellectual enquiry, creative and critical action and solutions which will help to navigate us, the public, through these significant and challenging periods of rapid economic, political and technological transition.

    As Oppenheim wrote in his 1911 poem:

    Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses.

    What better challenge for universities to continue to rise to.

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  • Teaching isn’t about perfection, it’s about showing up–here’s how to do that

    Teaching isn’t about perfection, it’s about showing up–here’s how to do that

    Key points:

    When I walked into my first classroom almost a decade ago, I had no idea how many “first days” I would experience–and how each one would teach me something new.

    Growing up–first in the Virgin Islands and then later in Florida–I always felt pulled toward teaching. Tutoring was my introduction, and I realized early that I was a helper by nature. Still, my path into the classroom wasn’t straightforward–I changed majors in college, tried different things, and it wasn’t until six months after graduation that a friend pointed me toward Teach For America. That leap took me all the way to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, far from home and family, but I was fortunate to find a strong cohort of fellow teachers and mentors who grounded me.

    Those early years weren’t easy. Being away from home, balancing the demands of teaching, and later, raising two kids of my own–it could feel overwhelming. My mentors kept me steady, reminding me that teaching is about community and connection. That lesson has never left me. 

    As I started this school year–my eighth first day of school at the front of the classroom–I’m reflecting on other lessons learned that help me help my students thrive.

    Connection is the key to everything. If students know you believe in them, they’ll start believing in themselves. I think of one student in particular who was failing in my class repeatedly, and finally passed–not because I’m a miracle worker, but because we built trust. I bought into him, and eventually, he bought into himself. Those are the moments that make the long days and sacrifices worth it.

    Make your classroom a safe space to learn. I teach 10th-grade biology and 11th-grade dual-enrollment engineering; these are subjects that can seem intimidating to young people. I tell my students that I want to hear each and every one of their ideas. No one’s brains are alike. My brain isn’t like yours, and yours isn’t like your neighbor’s. Listening to everyone’s thoughts, processes, and ideas helps us expand our own thinking and understanding. Especially with a subject matter like science, I want students to know that there is no shame in exploring different ideas together. In fact, that’s what makes this kind of work exciting.

    Lean on your network. We preach the importance of continuous learning to our students, and rightfully so. There is always room to grow in every subject. I believe teachers need to model this for our students. I lean heavily on my support system: my mentors, my master teacher, and other educators and coaches. They are always there to bounce ideas off of, helping me continue to strengthen my lessons and outcomes. This also builds community; two of my mentors, Sabreen Thorne and Marie Mullen, are Teach For America Greater Baton Rouge alumnae who still work for the organization and still make the effort to keep in touch, invite me to community events, and offer me words of wisdom.

    I’m proud that these approaches have been working. This past year, our school, Plaquemine High School, saw the most improved test scores in the Iberville Parish School District. It wasn’t magic–it was the collective effort of teachers and students who decided we could do better, together. I was also honored to receive the Shell Science Lab Regional Makeover grant, which provides us with resources to upgrade our science lab. We’ll be able to provide the equipment our students deserve. Science classrooms should be safe spaces where every idea matters, where students feel empowered to experiment, question, and create. This grant will help us bring that vision to life.

    Eight years in, I’ve learned that teaching isn’t about perfection. It’s about showing up, reflecting, leaning on others, and never losing sight of why we’re here: to open doors for kids. Every year, every day, is another chance to do just that.

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  • The higher education sector needs an honest broker to support structural change

    The higher education sector needs an honest broker to support structural change

    Of all the current headwinds faced by the higher education sector, one of the most challenging is a lack of expertise and experience in the area of structural change.

    In an environment where radical collaboration and merger are increasingly seen – rightly or wrongly – as a solution to the sector’s financial challenges, the expertise needed to broker and execute a successful merger or other collaboration seems to be patchy.

    As, arguably, are the somewhat different competences required to steward the longer term strategic integration of two or more distinct institutions, each with their own teaching and research portfolios and cultures. The answer to the question “who has done this before?” can only be answered in the affirmative by a handful of people.

    This issue was acknowledged in Mills & Reeve’s joint report with Wonkhe Connect More with the following insight from a one of the heads of institution we interviewed:

    We all have a skills matrix for boards and for courts and for councils. I think, increasingly, that needs to reflect people who’ve got some expertise and some background in this space…I don’t think there are many vice chancellors who would necessarily have the skills, the knowledge, and the background. Really, this is new territory, potentially, for us, it’s new turf.

    Of course, it wasn’t always thus. One of the ironies of the current dearth of experience is that large numbers of providers are themselves the product of historic mergers and collaborations. Taking the long view, the history of many providers is a complex genealogy, a narrative of mergers past and more recent.

    In part, the steady decline in institutional experience of these things was the natural result of a relatively benign financial environment. It’s easy to forget in the current climate but the period of low inflation and cheap borrowing meant that, at an institutional level, there was little impetus to challenge the operating model and, of course, the introduction of a marketised funding model meant that competition, rather than collaboration, was very much the order of the day.

    That marketised model was also accompanied by a marked shift in approach from the regulator. While HEFCE adopted a relatively low-key approach to mergers and collaboration – generally leaving the impetus to come together to institutions themselves – it did publish guidance on mergers and had a collaboration and restructuring fund to assist institutions to explore and implement structural change.

    Crucially, HEFCE was widely accepted to be a neutral broker who would help facilitate institutions coming together – and it had the funding to help smooth the path. By contrast, OfS, in its response to a question from the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee, made it clear that it does not consider itself to have “the remit, powers or funding to intervene to prevent closure or to facilitate mergers or acquisitions.”

    Skills gap

    Where, then, does that leave providers? Typically, there is a reliance on the institution’s executive team, in particular, the vice chancellor, to steer the merger. But most higher education executives are not from the business world with experience in mergers and to a significant degree they have a conflict of interest. There is also a need to continue with their day jobs and manage business as usual in case the merger doesn’t happen.

    The next most obvious port of call is to look for expertise among their own governing bodies, and, specifically, their external members. After all, one of the main motivations of having lay external members is to draw upon their expertise and to fill gaps which (understandably enough) exist within the skill sets of senior management teams and the institution more widely.

    The problem, however, is that merger and radical collaboration require a very particular set of skills. It’s very easy for universities to get starry-eyed about a governor just because they happen to be an investment banker, an accountant, or have experience of public sector mergers in the NHS, for example. But the skills required in a university merger or a complex debt restructuring are very specific and even a governing body which is well-stocked with members from across different professional services and backgrounds cannot assume that its trustees have the requisite expertise to drive forward a merger of two institutions.

    Of course, an institution can buy in a certain level of expertise. But what perhaps can’t always be replicated by professional advice are the experience and war stories of those who have lived and breathed mergers and collaborations from the inside – particularly from the education and adjacent sectors. In Mills & Reeve’s joint report with KPMG UK – Radical collaboration: a playbook – we drew out some of those lived experiences in the form of case studies. However, written case studies need to be seasoned with real-life personal experience. What is really needed when scoping a potential merger or other kind of radical collaboration is access to a “hive mind” of critical friends.

    An HE Commissioner model

    Other sectors have taken a strategic approach to developing this expertise. The Further Education Commissioner is the most obvious parallel. Between 2015 and 2019 the FE sector saw 57 mergers, three federations, three joint FE and HE institutions and 23 academy conversions. If most of UK higher education no longer has institutional memory of mergers, FE has it in bucket loads.

    The FE Commissioner and their team offer a range of services to FE colleges – ranging from informal chats and financial health checks, through to more formal invention assessments. Their team – a mix of former leaders and finance professionals from within the sector – have genuinely seen and done it all before. Higher education deserves the same deep pool of knowledge to draw on, especially if the worst case scenario of institutional insolvency and/or disorderly market exit is to be avoided.

    For this to work successfully in HE there would need to be some level of funding and a decision as to whether a commissioner’s role might sit within DfE or OfS. Our sense – particularly given the size and complexity of universities and the involvement of key stakeholders such as banks and private placement bondholders – is that there will still be a large role played by private sector consultants, lawyers, and accountants. However, there is room for a more collegiate level of engagement from DfE and OfS than arguably exists at present.

    As well as pooling expertise on how to collaborate, placing an HE commissioner role on a formal footing might also allow it to broker conversations between providers seeking to work together more closely – something which, in our experience, is done very hesitantly at present, both because of the fear of breaching competition rules and, more generally, because every potential collaboration partner is, in a very real sense, also a competitor.

    What can’t be underestimated is how urgently this function is needed. Providers are capable of doing this alone, as recent examples such as the Anglia Ruskin/Writtle and St George’s/City mergers testify. However, how much better for the long-term future of the sector it would surely be if providers had ready access to some critical friends and some “protected” spaces to have conversations about how best to achieve and implement forms of radical collaboration.

    This article is published in association with Mills & Reeve. 

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  • Next gen learning spaces: UDL in action

    Next gen learning spaces: UDL in action

    Key points:

    By embracing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles in purchasing decisions, school leaders can create learning spaces that not only accommodate students with disabilities but enhance the educational experience for all learners while delivering exceptional returns on investment (ROI).

    Strangely enough, the concept of UDL all started with curb cuts. Disability activists in the 1960s were advocating for adding curb cuts at intersections so that users of wheelchairs could cross streets independently. Once curb cuts became commonplace, there was a surprising secondary effect: Curb cuts did not just benefit the lives of those in wheelchairs, they benefited parents with strollers, kids on bikes, older adults using canes, delivery workers with carts, and travelers using rolling suitcases. What had been designed for one specific group ended up accidentally benefiting many others.

    UDL is founded on this idea of the “curb-cut effect.” UDL focuses on designing classrooms and schools to provide multiple ways for students to learn. While the original focus was making the curriculum accessible to multiple types of learners, UDL also informs the physical design of classrooms and schools. Procurement professionals are focusing on furniture and technology purchases that provide flexible, accessible, and supportive environments so that all learners can benefit. Today entire conferences, such as EDspaces, focus on classroom and school design to improve learning outcomes.

    There is now a solid research base indicating that the design of learning spaces is a critical factor in educational success: Learning space design changes can significantly influence student engagement, well-being, and academic achievement. While we focus on obvious benefits for specific types of learners, we often find unexpected ways that all students benefit. Adjustable desks designed for wheelchair users can improve focus and reduce fatigue in many students, especially those with ADHD. Providing captions on videos, first made available for deaf students, benefit ELL and other students struggling to learn to read.

    Applying UDL to school purchasing decisions

    UDL represents a paradigm shift from retrofitting solutions for individual students to proactively designing inclusive environments from the ground up. Strategic purchasing focuses on choosing furniture and tech tools that provide multiple means of engagement that can motivate and support all types of learners.

    Furniture that works for everyone

    Modern classroom furniture has evolved far beyond the traditional one-size-fits-all model. Flexible seating options such as stability balls, wobble cushions, and standing desks can transform classroom dynamics. While these options support students with ADHD or sensory processing needs, they also provide choice and movement opportunities that enhance engagement for neurotypical students. Research consistently shows that physical comfort directly correlates with cognitive performance and attention span.

    Modular furniture systems offer exceptional value by adapting to changing needs throughout the school year. Tables and desks that can be easily reconfigured support collaborative learning, individual work, and various teaching methodologies. Storage solutions with clear labeling systems and accessible heights benefit students with visual impairments and executive functioning challenges while helping all students maintain organization and independence.

    Technology that opens doors for all learners

    Assistive technology has evolved from specialized, expensive solutions to mainstream tools that benefit diverse learners. Screen readers like NVDA and JAWS remain essential for students with visual impairments, but their availability also supports students with dyslexia who benefit from auditory reinforcement of text. When procuring software licenses, prioritize platforms with built-in accessibility features rather than purchasing separate assistive tools.

    Voice-to-text technology exemplifies the UDL principle perfectly. While crucial for students with fine motor challenges or dysgraphia, these tools also benefit students who process information verbally, ELL learners practicing pronunciation, and any student working through complex ideas more efficiently through speech than typing.

    Adaptive keyboards and alternative input devices address various physical needs while offering all students options for comfortable, efficient interaction with technology. Consider keyboards with larger keys, customizable layouts, or touchscreen interfaces that can serve multiple purposes across your student population.

    Interactive displays and tablets with built-in accessibility features provide multiple means of engagement and expression. Touch interfaces support students with motor difficulties while offering kinesthetic learning opportunities for all students. When evaluating these technologies, prioritize devices with robust accessibility settings including font size adjustment, color contrast options, and alternative navigation methods.

    Maximizing your procurement impact

    Strategic procurement for UDL requires thinking beyond individual products to consider system-wide compatibility and scalability. Prioritize vendors who demonstrate commitment to accessibility standards and provide comprehensive training on using accessibility features. The most advanced assistive technology becomes worthless without proper implementation and support.

    Conduct needs assessments that go beyond compliance requirements to understand your learning community’s diverse needs. Engage with special education teams, occupational therapists, and technology specialists during the procurement process. Their insights can prevent costly mistakes and identify opportunities for solutions that serve multiple populations.

    Consider total cost of ownership when evaluating options. Adjustable-height desks may cost more initially but can eliminate the need for specialized furniture for individual students. Similarly, mainstream technology with robust accessibility features often costs less than specialized assistive devices while serving broader populations.

    Pilot programs prove invaluable for testing solutions before large-scale implementation. Start with small purchases to evaluate effectiveness, durability, and user satisfaction across diverse learners. Document outcomes to build compelling cases for broader adoption.

    The business case for UDL

    Procurement decisions guided by UDL principles deliver measurable returns on investment. Reduced need for individualized accommodations decreases administrative overhead while improving response times for student needs. Universal solutions eliminate the stigma associated with specialized equipment, promoting inclusive classroom cultures that benefit all learners.

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  • Celebrating heritage means honoring students’ languages

    Celebrating heritage means honoring students’ languages

    Key points:

    Every year, Hispanic Heritage Month offers the United States a chance to honor the profound and varied contributions of Latino communities. We celebrate scientists like Ellen Ochoa, the first Latina woman in space, and activists like Dolores Huerta, who fought tirelessly for workers’ rights. We use this month to recognize the cultural richness that Spanish-speaking families bring to our communities, including everything from vibrant festivals to innovative businesses that strengthen our local economies.

    But there’s a paradox at play.

    While we spotlight Hispanic heritage in public spaces, many classrooms across the country require Spanish-speaking students to set aside the very heart of their cultural identity: their language.

    This contradiction is especially personal for me. I moved from Puerto Rico to the mainland United States as an adult in hopes of building a better future for myself and my family. The transition was far from easy. My accent often became a challenge in ways I never expected, because people judged my intelligence or questioned my education based solely on how I spoke. I could communicate effectively, yet my words were filtered through stereotypes.

    Over time, I found deep fulfillment working in a state that recognizes the value of bilingual education. Texas, where I now live, continues to expand biliteracy pathways for students. This commitment honors both home languages and English, opening global opportunities for children while preserving ties to their history, family, and identity.

    That commitment to expanding pathways for English Learners (EL) is urgently needed. Texas is home to more than 1.3 million ELs, which is nearly a quarter of all students in the state, the highest share in the nation. Nationwide, there are more than 5 million ELs comprising nearly 11 percent of the U.S. public school students; about 76 percent of ELs are Spanish speakers. Those figures represent millions of children who walk into classrooms every day carrying the gift of another language. If we are serious about celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, we must be serious about honoring and cultivating that gift.

    A true celebration of Hispanic heritage requires more than flags and food. It requires acknowledging that students’ home languages are essential to their academic success, not obstacles to overcome. Research consistently shows that bilingualism is a cognitive asset. Those who are exposed to two languages at an early age outperform their monolingual peers on tests of cognitive function in adolescence and adulthood. Students who maintain and develop their native language while learning English perform better academically, not worse. Yet too often, our educational systems operate as if English is the only language that matters.

    One powerful way to shift this mindset is rethinking the materials students encounter every day. High-quality instructional materials should act as both mirrors and windows–mirrors in which students see themselves reflected, and windows through which they explore new perspectives and possibilities. Meeting state academic standards is only part of the equation: Materials must also align with language development standards and reflect the cultural and linguistic diversity of our communities.

    So, what should instructional materials look like if we truly want to honor language as culture?

    • Instructional materials should meet students at varying levels of language proficiency while never lowering expectations for academic rigor.
    • Effective materials include strategies for vocabulary development, visuals that scaffold comprehension, bilingual glossaries, and structured opportunities for academic discourse.
    • Literature and history selections should incorporate and reflect Latino voices and perspectives, not as “add-ons” during heritage month, but as integral elements of the curriculum throughout the year.

    But materials alone are not enough. The process by which schools and districts choose them matters just as much. Curriculum teams and administrators must center EL experiences in every adoption decision. That means intentionally including the voices of bilingual educators, EL specialists, and, especially, parents and families. Their life experiences offer insights into the most effective ways to support students.

    Everyone has a role to play. Teachers should feel empowered to advocate for materials that support bilingual learners; policymakers must ensure funding and policies that prioritize high-quality, linguistically supportive instructional resources; and communities should demand that investments in education align with the linguistic realities of our students.

    Because here is the truth: When we honor students’ languages, we are not only affirming their culture; we are investing in their future. A child who is able to read, write, and think in two languages has an advantage that will serve them for life. They will be better prepared to navigate an interconnected world, and they carry with them the ability to bridge communities.

    This year, let’s move beyond celebrating what Latino communities have already contributed to America and start investing in what they can become when we truly support and honor them year-round. That begins with valuing language as culture–and making sure our classrooms do the same.

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  • Rural Americans support more government spending on child care

    Rural Americans support more government spending on child care

    Hello! This is Christina Samuels, the early education editor here at Hechinger.

    By now, I hope you’ve had a chance to read my colleague Jackie Mader’s story about the important role that Head Start plays in rural communities. While Jackie set her story in western Ohio, she also interviewed Head Start parents and leaders in other parts of the country and collected their views for a follow-up article.

    In a fortunate bit of timing, the advocacy group First Five Years Fund published the results of a survey it commissioned on rural Americans and their feelings on child care access and affordability. Like the people Jackie interviewed, the survey respondents, more than half of whom identified as supporters of President Donald Trump, said they had very positive views of Head Start. The federally funded free child care program received positive marks from 71 percent of rural Republicans, 73 percent of rural independents and 92 percent of rural Democrats.

    The survey also found that 4 out of 5 respondents felt that finding quality child care is a major or critical problem in their part of the country. Two-thirds of those surveyed felt that spending on child care and early education programs is a good use of taxpayer dollars, and a little more than half said they’d like to see more federal dollars going to such programs.

    First Five Years Fund was particularly interested in getting respondents to share their thoughts on Head Start, said Sarah Rubinfield, the managing director of government affairs for First Five Years Fund. The program has been buffeted by regional office closures and cuts driven by the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. 

    “We recognize that these are communities that often have few options for early learning and care,” Rubinfield said.

    In the survey, rural residents said they strongly supported not just the child care offered by Head Start, but the wraparound services such as healthy meals and snacks and the program’s support for children with developmental disabilities. Though Head Start programs are federally funded, community organizations are the ones in charge of spending priorities.

    “Rural voters want action. They support funding for Head Start and for child care. They want Congress to do more,” Rubinfield said. Though the “big beautiful bill” signed into law in July expands the child care tax credit for low-income families, survey respondents “recognized that things were not solved,” she added.

    The First Five Years Fund survey was released just a few days before a congressional standoff led to a government shutdown. The shutdown is not expected to touch Head Start immediately, said Tommy Sheridan, the deputy director of the National Head Start Association, in an interview with The New York Times. The 1,600 Head Start programs across the country receive money at different points throughout the calendar year; eight programs serving about 7,500 children were slated to receive their federal funding on Oct. 1, Sheridan told the Times. All should be able to continue operating, as long as the shutdown doesn’t last more than a few weeks, he said. 

    “We’re watching with careful concern but trying not to panic,” Rubinfield said. “We know the impacts may not be immediate, but the longer this goes on, the harder the impacts may be for families and programs.”

    This story about rural Americans 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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  • What educators need to know

    What educators need to know

    Key points:

    Literacy has always been the foundation of learning, but for middle school students, the stakes are especially high. These years mark the critical shift from learning to read to reading to learn.

    When students enter sixth, seventh, or eighth grade still struggling with foundational skills, every subject becomes harder–science labs, social studies texts, even math word problems require reading proficiency. For educators, the challenge is not just addressing gaps but also building the confidence that helps adolescents believe they can succeed.

    The confidence gap

    By middle school, many students are keenly aware when they’re behind their peers in reading. Interventions that feel too elementary can undermine motivation. As Dr. Michelle D. Barrett, Senior Vice President of Research, Policy, and Impact at Edmentum, explained:

    “If you have a student who’s in the middle grades and still has gaps in foundational reading skills, they need to be provided with age-appropriate curriculum and instruction. You can’t give them something that feels babyish–that only discourages them.”

    Designing for engagement

    Research shows that engagement is just as important as instruction, particularly for adolescents. “If students aren’t engaged, if they’re not showing up to school, then you have a real problem,” Barrett said. “It’s about making sure that even if students have gaps, they’re still being supported with curriculum that feels relevant and engaging.”

    To meet that need, digital programs like Edmentum’s Exact Path tailor both design and content to the learner’s age. “A middle schooler doesn’t want the cartoony things our first graders get,” Barrett noted. “That kind of thing really does matter–not just for engagement, but also for their confidence and willingness to keep going.”

    Measuring what works

    Educators also need strong data to target interventions. “It’s all about how you’re differentiating for those students,” Barrett said. “You’ve got to have great assessments, engaging content that’s evidence-based, and a way for students to feel and understand success.”

    Exact Path begins with universal screening, then builds personalized learning paths grounded in research-based reading progressions. More than 60 studies in the past two years have shown consistent results. “When students complete eight skills per semester, we see significant growth across grade levels–whether measured by NWEA MAP, STAR, or state assessments,” Barrett added.

    That growth extends across diverse groups. “In one large urban district, we found the effect sizes for students receiving special education services were twice that of their peers,” Barrett said. “That tells us the program can be a really effective literacy intervention for students most at risk.”

    Layering supports for greater impact

    Barrett emphasized that literacy progress is strongest when multiple supports are combined. “With digital curriculum, students do better. But with a teacher on top of that digital curriculum, they do even better. Add intensive tutoring, and outcomes improve again,” she said.

    Progress monitoring and recognition also help build confidence. “Students are going to persist when they can experience success,” Barrett added. “Celebrating growth, even in small increments, matters for motivation.”

    A shared mission

    While tools like Exact Path provide research-backed support, Barrett stressed that literacy improvement is ultimately a shared responsibility. “District leaders should be asking: How is this program serving students across different backgrounds? Is it working for multilingual learners, students with IEPs, students who are at risk?” she said.

    The broader goal, she emphasized, is preparing students for lifelong learning. “Middle school is such an important time. If we can help students build literacy and confidence there, we’re not just improving test scores–we’re giving them the skills to succeed in every subject, and in life.”

    Laura Ascione
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  • How can universities win back public support?

    How can universities win back public support?

    This blog outlines a speech given by Professor Sasha Roseneil, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Sussex at a HEPI panel at the Labour Party Conference on the 29 September 2025

    ‘How can universities win back public support?’ was the question set for a panel discussion of Vice-Chancellors at the 2025 Labour Party Conference yesterday. But, with all due respect to HEPI’s Director, Nick Hillman, who posed this question, I do not accept its premise.

    There is compelling evidence from multiple sources to suggest that key stakeholders – students, prospective students, parents, and grandparents – are strongly supportive of higher education.

    First and foremost, students are very positive about their experience at university. The overall positivity score in the 2025 National Student Survey, which gathers the opinions of all final year students, was 86%, with 87% of students positive about teaching on their course, and 88% reporting that they felt able to express their ideas, beliefs and opinions at university. All over 85%. And HEPI and Advance HE’s 2025 Student Academic Experience Survey found that, whilst tuition fees are clearly not popular, more students consider that they receive good value for their fees than not – 37% versus 29% feeling that they receive poor value for money.

    Second, young people continue to want to go to university: the number of people applying to university was 1.3% higher for 2025 entry than the year before, with a record number of 18-year-old applicants, and 2% increase on 2024, and a 4.7% increase in the number of 19-year-olds (and only mature student applicants declining).

    And, according to a recent YouGov survey sponsored by University Alliance, members of the public across the political spectrum overwhelmingly want university for their loved ones: 84% of parents and grandparents want their children to go to university, and only 8% are against. Amongst Conservative voters, 90% want their children or grandchildren to go to university, the same as Green voters, slightly higher than the 89% of Labour voters, and slightly lower than the 93% of Liberal Democrat voters, with 72% of Reform voters also wanting their young family members to go to university.

    The YouGov survey didn’t ask why – but I would suggest that it is implicitly understood by members of the public that higher education opens up worlds and improves lives for individuals, and that graduates are generally wealthier over their lifetimes, healthier, and happier than non-graduates. People might not have read David Willetts’ report for the Resolution Foundation but they seem to have tacit knowledge of its findings.

    So where does the idea that universities have lost public support come from?

    Above all, it comes from the media – from a cacophony of newspapers that feed a daily diet of anti-university stories, circulating and recirculating the same ideas. It is my contention that these stories are grounded in one key thing – a more or less explicit rejection of the democratisation and expansion of access to higher education that has taken place over the past twenty years, and that has been part of the wider processes of cultural and social liberalisation and equalisation that have been in train since the late 1960s.

    Steeped in nostalgia for the days when higher education was the preserve of a privately and grammar school educated elite, some newspapers hark back to a time when university guaranteed access to the upper echelons of society. Their view is often based on an implicit understanding of university education as being about the reproduction and transmission of established bodies of knowledge, and thus the wider status quo. From this standpoint, they have waged a long and relentless campaign against universities. Universities are presented as one of the biggest social problems of our time, as the propagators of ‘woke ideologies’, as the source of blame for the reduction in the graduate premium, and for the failure of some graduates to rapidly realise their career or income aspirations.

    Such stories are written by journalists who almost all went to university themselves (although to a limited range of universities) and have children whom they expect to go to a similarly limited range of universities. It is other people’s children going to university that is the problem, taking places away from those who should naturally enter their preferred universities. And it’s the ideas and identities that those young people might encounter, and that they might develop for themselves, at university that  concerns them.

    There were, of course, similar concerns several decades ago about what went on in the new universities that were established in the 1960s – but far fewer young people were exposed to the university experience in those days and it cost the public purse much less to educate them. But perhaps most importantly, the middle class was rapidly expanding and the middle class parents’ ‘fear of falling’ – that their children will not achieve the social and economic status that they have been born into –  was not at all prevalent in the way that it is today.[1]

    Those earlier generations of students were, of course, also much more generously supported in their studies, and therefore much more able to take full advantage of all that higher education had to offer, and much less likely to have to undertake the very significant amount of paid work that today’s students are doing – at very real cost to the time they have for independent study. And they didn’t have to pay the fees that lead to questions about student attitudes to value for money.

    And so there is now a discourse that suffuses public culture that going to university is a waste of time and money, that only some universities are worth going to, and only some courses are worth studying. And, by implication, only some students are worth educating to a higher level. The more young people go to university and the more widespread across society the expectation and desire to go to university, the louder and more vociferous the attacks on higher education.

    The idea that universities lack public support also provides ‘look over here’ distraction from the real problem that faces higher education – an unprecedented funding crisis. Across the country, universities are engaging in repeated rounds of ever deeper cuts, losing thousands – tens of thousands – of highly skilled jobs, and closing courses and departments. There is no national oversight of the impact of this on subject provision across the country, on students’ ability to access higher education in the full range of subjects locally (which impacts disproportionately on students from lower socio-economic backgrounds and from marginalised groups, who are much more likely to study close to home), on regional economies, and on our sovereign capability in critical industries and priority growth areas.

    Last week’s report from the Institute of Physics sounded the alarm bell in relation to the health of this vital, foundational STEM discipline, and the British Academy has done the same for the humanities and the social sciences – particularly modern foreign languages, linguistics, anthropology and classics, with English, history and drama likely to follow soon.

    If this were any other sector in which the UK was an undisputed world leader, and the rapid helter-skelter unplanned contraction which will cause enormous harm to the economies and civic life of cities and regions around the country, there would be stories in the news every day about the crisis. And there would be urgent government action to intervene.

    Instead, universities are lambasted every day in the press and then told by government that we are independent autonomous bodies that need to solve our financial problems ourselves. This is despite the fact that universities are increasingly heavily regulated, and despite our main sources of income being home student fees, which are determined by government, and international student fees, the source of which has been under attack because international students are an easy target in the context of commitments to reduce net migration, and which is further threatened by the imposition of an international student levy.

    The reality is that universities cannot solve our problems ourselves, either individually or collectively. We are all seeking greater efficiencies. We are all looking at how we can cut back on everything that is not absolutely essential to the student experience in the here and now.We are all considering carefully how we might collaborate with others to do more with less. Research is being radically squeezed, and labs and equipment are not being repaired and renewed, in order to try to ensure our financial survival.

    But what now really must be called out is the failure of the competitive quasi-market model under which higher education operates. It is this that is source of our problems, and we need government to act.

    The question then really should be: how can universities win government support to enable us to fulfil our primary purpose of education and research for the common good?

    And the answer to that has to be by means of careful, rational, evidenced argument – with a flourish of rhetoric – of the sort that universities were established to propagate and which is so vital to the future of liberal democracy. We need to articulate and demonstrate our value, our vital importance, and our need for calm, considered and creative policy attention.

    The global excellence of UK universities rests on decades, and in some cases, several centuries, of public investment in knowledge creation and learning for the public good. But that quality is in imminent danger. We urgently need government action to support our universities to continue conducting the world-leading research, catalysing the growth-producing innovation, and providing the transformative education and advanced skills that we are capable of doing – before it is too late.

     There is active, deliberate government-led destruction of higher education and research taking place elsewhere. Don’t let’s do that here too by falling for the idea that the public doesn’t care about universities, and by failing to act in time.

    [1] Ehrenreich, Barbara. Fear of falling: The inner life of the middle class. Twelve, 2020

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