Tag: Teachers

  • Overrepresentation of female teachers and gender differences in PISA 2022: what cross-national evidence can and cannot tell us

    Overrepresentation of female teachers and gender differences in PISA 2022: what cross-national evidence can and cannot tell us

    Over the weekend HEPI published blogs on AI in legal education and knowledge and skills in higher education.

    Today’s blog was kindly authored by Hans Luyten, University of Twente, Netherlands ([email protected]).

    Across many education systems, secondary-school teaching remains a predominantly female profession. While this fact is well known, less is understood about whether the gender composition of the teaching workforce relates to gender differences in student achievement at the system level. My recently published paper, Overrepresentation of Female Teachers in Secondary Education and Gender Achievement Gaps in PISA 2022 (Studies in Educational Evaluation), takes up this question using recent international data.

    The study investigates whether gender differences in reading, mathematics, and science among 15-year-olds vary according to the extent to which women are overrepresented among secondary-school teachers, relative to their share in each country’s labour force.

    Data and analytical approach

    The analysis draws on two international datasets:

    1. PISA 2022: Providing country-level average scores for 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science. Gender achievement gaps are operationalised as the difference between the average score for girls and that for boys.
    2. Labour-market data: Measuring the proportion of women among secondary-school teachers in each country and the proportion of women in the wider labour force.

    Female overrepresentation is defined as the difference between these two proportions.

    Although the analysis focuses on statistical correlations at the country level, it does not rely on simple bivariate associations. A wide range of control variables is included to account for differences between countries in:

    • Students’ out-of-school lives, such as gender differences in family support;
    • School resources, such as the availability of computers;
    • School staff characteristics, such as the percentage of certified teachers.

    These controls help ensure that the observed relationships are not simply reflections of broader cross-national differences in socioeconomic conditions or school quality.

    Key findings

    Three main results emerge from the analysis:

    First, gender achievement gaps tend to be larger in favour of girls in countries where women are more strongly overrepresented among secondary-school teachers.

    Second, this association holds across all three domains (reading, mathematics, and science), although the size and direction of the gender gap differs by subject.

    Third, the relationship becomes more pronounced as the degree of female overrepresentation increases. Countries with only modest overrepresentation tend to have smaller gender gaps, whereas those with large overrepresentation tend to have wider gaps.

    These findings concern gender differences in performance, not the absolute levels of boys’ or girls’ achievement. The study does not examine, and therefore does not draw conclusions about, whether boys or girls perform better or worse in absolute terms in countries with different levels of female teacher overrepresentation.

    Interpreting the results

    The analysis identifies a robust statistical association at the country level, after accounting for a broad set of background variables. However, as with any cross-national correlational study, it cannot establish causality. Other country-specific characteristics (cultural, institutional, or organisational) may also contribute to the observed patterns.

    It is also important to note that the study addresses a different question from research that examines the effects of individual teachers’ gender on the achievement of individual students. Earlier classroom- and school-level studies often find little or no systematic effect of teacher gender on student outcomes. The present study, by contrast, examines the overall gender composition of the teaching workforce and its relation to system-level gender achievement gaps.

    Implications

    Although the findings do not directly point to specific policy interventions, they suggest that the gender composition of the secondary-school teaching workforce is a feature of educational systems that merits closer attention when interpreting international variation in gender gaps. Teacher demographics form part of the broader context within which student achievement develops, and system-level gender imbalances may interact with other structural characteristics in shaping performance differences between girls and boys.

    Final remarks

    The full paper provides a detailed description of the data, analyses, and limitations. It is available open access at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2025.101544

    I hope this summary brings the findings to a wider audience and encourages further research on how system-level characteristics relate to gender differences in educational outcomes.

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  • With preschool teachers in short supply, cities, states turn to apprenticeships 

    With preschool teachers in short supply, cities, states turn to apprenticeships 

    by Nirvi Shah, The Hechinger Report
    December 5, 2025

    SAN FRANCISCO — In a playground outside a YMCA, Mayra Aguilar rolled purple modeling dough into balls that fit easily into the palms of the toddlers sitting across from her. She helped a little girl named Wynter unclasp a bicycle helmet that she’d put on to zoom around the space on a tricycle. 

    Aguilar smiled, the sun glinting off her saucer-sized gold hoop earrings. “Say, ‘Thank you, teacher,’” Aguilar prompted Wynter, who was just shy of 3. Other toddlers crowded around Wynter and Aguilar and a big plastic bin of Crayola Dough, and Aguilar took the moment to teach another brief lesson. “Wynter, we share,” Aguilar pressed, scooting the tub between kids. “Say, ‘Can you pass it to me?’” 

    Aguilar and Wynter are both new at this. Wynter has been in the structured setting of a child care center only since mid-August. Aguilar started teaching preschoolers and toddlers, part-time, in February. 

    It has been life-changing, in different ways, for them both. Wynter, an only child, is learning to share, count and recognize her letters. Aguilar is being paid to work and earning her first college credits — building the foundation for a new career, all while learning new ways to interact with her own three kids.

    Early educators are generally in short supply, and many who attempt this work quickly quit. The pay is on par with wages at fast food restaurants and big box stores, or even less. Yet unlike some other jobs with better pay, working with small children and infants usually requires some kind of education beyond a high school diploma. Moving up the ladder and pay scale often requires a degree. 

    What’s different for Aguilar compared to so many other people trying out this profession is that she is an apprentice — a training arrangement more commonly associated with welders, machinists and pipefitters. Apprentice programs for early childhood education have been in place in different parts of the country for at least a decade, but San Francisco’s program stands out. It is unusually well, and sustainably, funded by a real estate tax voters approved in 2018. The money raised is meant to cover the cost of programs that train early childhood educators and to boost pay enough so teachers can see themselves doing it for the long term. 

    Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues.

    Some policy experts see apprenticeships as a potential game changer for the early educator workforce. The layers of support they provide can keep frazzled newcomers from giving up, and required coursework may cost them nothing. “We want it to be a position people want to go into as opposed to one that puts you in poverty,” said Cheryl Horney, who oversees the Early Learning Program that employs apprentices at Wu Yee Children’s Services in San Francisco, including the site where Aguilar works.

    Aguilar, 32, is paid to work 20 hours a week at the Wu Yee Children’s Services’ Bayview Early Learning Center, tucked inside a Y in a residential neighborhood a little under a mile from San Francisco Bay. She works alongside a mentor teacher who supports and coaches her. The apprenticeship covers the online classes, designed just for her and other apprentices and taught live from City College of San Francisco, that Aguilar takes a few nights a week. She was given all the tools needed for her courses, including a laptop, which she also uses for homework and discussions with other apprentices outside of class. 

    After high school, Aguilar had tried college, a medical assistant program that she quit after a few months. That was more than 10 years ago. She hadn’t touched a computer in all that time. When she was enrolling her youngest daughter at another Wu Yee location, Aguilar saw a flyer about the apprenticeship program and applied. She is finding this work to be a far better fit: “This — I think I can do it. This, I like it.” 

    The need for more early educators is longstanding, and in recent years there’s been a push for early educators to get postsecondary training, both to support young children’s development and so the roles command higher salaries. For example, a 2007 change in federal law required at least half of teachers working in Head Start to have bachelor’s degrees in early childhood education by 2013, a goal the program met.

    Despite efforts to professionalize the workforce, salaries for those who work with young children remain low: 87 percent of U.S. jobs pay more than a preschool teacher earns on average; 98 percent pay more than what early child care workers earn. In 2022, Head Start lead teachers earned $37,685 a year on average. 

    Apprenticeships are seen as one way to disrupt that stubborn reality: Would-be teachers are paid while being trained for everything from entry-level roles that require a small number of college credits or training to jobs, like running a child care center, that require degrees and come with more responsibility and even higher pay. According to a June 2023 report from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank, 35 states have some kind of early childhood educator apprenticeship program at the city, regional or state level, and more states are developing their own programs. U.S. Department of Labor data shows that more than 1,000 early educator apprentices have completed their programs since the 2021 fiscal year. Early Care & Educator Pathways to Success, which has received Labor Department grants to help set up apprenticeship programs, estimates the numbers are far larger given its work has cultivated hundreds of apprentices in 21 states, including  Alaska, California, Connecticut and Nebraska.

    These programs can be complicated to launch, however. They sometimes require painstaking work to find colleges that will provide coursework specific to local regulations and at hours that work for apprentices who may be in classrooms much of the workday as well as tending to their own children. They require money to pay the apprentices — on top of whatever it already costs to run child care centers and pay existing staff. The apprentices also typically need other layers of support: coaching, computers, sometimes child care and even meals for apprentices’ own kids as they study and take exams.

    In San Francisco, Horney advocated for her employer to set up an apprenticeship program for staffers at its 12 Head Start centers even before the tax money became available. She recalled losing teachers to chain retailers like Costco and Walgreens where they found less stressful jobs with more generous benefits. When she arrived in San Francisco to work in the classroom, with five years of experience and a bachelor’s degree, she was paid $15 an hour. “Now the lowest salary we pay is $28.67 for any sort of educator,” she said, and the wages and apprenticeships are even drawing people from other counties and stabilizing the San Francisco early educator workforce. “It has helped immensely.”

    Other parts of the country have seen success with similar initiatives.

    The YWCA Metro St. Louis in Missouri, which hasn’t had a single teacher vacancy for the last two years at the child care centers it oversees, credits its apprenticeship program. In Guilford County, North Carolina, vacancies and staff turnover were a plague until recently, but an apprenticeship program for entry-level early educators has kept new teachers on the job. 

    Elsewhere, there is hope for those kinds of results. In the Oklahoma City area, an apprenticeship program started in 2023 just yielded its first graduate, who worked in a child care center for two years and completed a 288-hour training program. Curtiss Mays, who created the program for teachers at the group of Head Start centers he oversees, was in the midst of trying to hire 11 educators just as the first apprentice earned a credential that allows her to back up other teachers. 

    “It’s a pretty major project,” Mays said. “We hope it’s the start of something really good.” Mays worked with the Oklahoma Department of Labor to set up the apprenticeship program, which he said has already pulled one person out of homelessness and is helping to lure more aspiring teachers. It will pay for education all the way through a bachelor’s degree if apprentices stick with it. 

    Apprenticeship programs can be costly to run, but bipartisan federal legislation to support them has never gained traction. (Advocates note that apprenticeships can cost far less than a traditional four-year college degree.) Labor Department money for organizations that help set up and grow early childhood educator apprenticeships helped increase the number of apprentices in so-called registered apprenticeship programs — ones that are proven and validated by the federal agency. But some of those grants were axed by the Trump administration in May. 

    In San Francisco, while setting up apprenticeships was as labor intensive as in many other places, the 2018 real estate tax provides a new and deep well of money to propel the early educator apprentice effort. The money pays for all of the things that are letting Aguilar and dozens of others in the county earn at least 12 college credits this year. In two semesters, Aguilar will have the credentials to be an associate teacher in any early education program in California. Other apprentices across San Francisco, in Head Start centers, family-owned child care programs, even some religious providers, can work toward associate or bachelor’s degrees using the new tax revenue to pay for it. 

    Related: The child care worker shortage is reaching crisis proportions nationally. Could Milwaukee provide the answer?

    Long before the ballot measure across the bay in San Francisco, Pamm Shaw dreamed up the forerunner of an early educator apprenticeship program in a moment of desperation.  

    It was over a decade ago, and Shaw, who was then working at the YMCA East Bay overseeing a collection of Head Start centers, said her agency was awarded a grant to add spaces for about 100 additional infants. Except her existing staff didn’t want to work with children younger than 3. So Shaw sent notices to the roughly 1,000 families with children enrolled in YMCA East Bay Head Start programs at the time and convinced about 20 people, largely parents of children enrolled in Head Start, to consider the role. She pulled together the training that would qualify the parents to become early educators — 12 college credits in six months.

    The education piece, Shaw realized, was a huge draw. Some of the parents had spent 10 years working toward associate degrees on their own without completing them. Giving them the chance to earn those degrees in manageable chunks — while getting paid and receiving raises relatively quickly as their education advanced — proved a powerful recruitment tool. “It changed their lives,” Shaw said. And these new teachers had their eyes opened to how what they would be doing wasn’t just babysitting. They took away lessons they used with their own children — who in turn took notice of their parents studying. “It’s actually child care,” said Shaw. “So much happens in the first year of life that you never get to see again. Never, ever, ever.” 

    It changed Shaw’s life, too, and inspired many other apprenticeship programs all over. Her role morphed into fundraising to build out the apprenticeship pipeline. The program, now baked into the YMCA of the East Bay system, reflected the overall early educator workforce: It was made up entirely of women, mostly women of color, some of them immigrants and many first-generation college students. By the time Shaw retired a few years ago, more than 500 people in the Berkeley area had completed the early educator apprenticeship program. 

    Erica Davis, a single mom, is one of its success stories. When she met Shaw, Davis said, she was relying on public assistance and jobs caring for other people’s children, while taking care of a daughter with significant medical needs, as well as her toddler-age son. Davis was at a Head Start dropping off paperwork for the family of a child in her care when an employee told Davis her young son might be eligible for Head Start too. He was, and as Davis enrolled him, she learned about Shaw’s apprenticeship program. Davis missed the first window to apply, but as she put it, “I was blowing their phone up. I needed to get in.” 

    That was 2020. By this spring, Davis will have earned her bachelor’s degree from Cal State East Bay. She works full-time at a Richmond, California, Head Start center while taking classes and supporting her kids, now in high school and elementary school. She can afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment, owns a car and no longer relies on state or federal assistance to pay bills. She’s on the dean’s list, and, she said proudly, she can squat 205. 

    “I didn’t take my education seriously,” Davis, 41, said of her younger self. “I feel like I’m playing catch-up now.” She is in her element at the YMCA of the East Bay Richmond Parkway Early Learning Center, reading to children, working on potty training and leading the kids through coloring-and-pasting exercises. She has even become an informal coach for newer apprentices. The network and family feel of these apprenticeships is some of what helps many succeed, she said. “I have a sad story, but it turned into something beautiful.”

    Related: The dark future of American child care

    While Davis said she prefers the flexibility of taking classes at her own pace, other apprentices thrive in the kind of classes Aguilar attends, with a live instructor who starts off leading students in a mindfulness exercise. That is the same approach to teaching apprentices at EDvance College in San Francisco, which works exclusively with early childhood apprentices, according to its president and CEO, Lygia Stebbing. 

    The college provides general education classes in reading, math and science for apprentices pursuing degrees, taught through an early childhood lens so it feels approachable and relevant. And every lesson can be applied nearly in real time, unlike other paths to degrees, in which in-person teaching experience comes only after many classes, Stebbing said. Before beginning classes, apprentices get a crash course in using technology, from distinguishing between a tablet and a laptop to using Google Docs and Zoom, “so they can jump right into things,” she said. A writing coach and other student support staff are available in the evenings, when apprentices are taking courses or doing homework. Because many of the apprentices are older than typical college students and may even have used up their federal Pell Grants and other financial aid taking courses without earning a degree, the college works with foundations and local government agencies to offset the cost of courses so graduates don’t end up in debt.        

    “We’ve really put the student at the center,” Stebbing said.   

    For Mayra Aguilar, her mentor teacher Jetoria Washington is a lifeline who can help her unstick an issue with any aspect of the apprenticeship — in the classes she takes or the classroom where she works. Taking courses online means she can be home with her own kids in the evenings. Earning money for the hours she spends in the classroom means she is not going into debt to earn the credential she needs to find a full-time job. The constellation of support has helped her shift from feeling in over her head to feeling ready to keep working toward a college degree.        

    And she is having fun. On the playground, one of the kids had the idea to trace another with sidewalk chalk, working on their pencil grip as much as they were playing. Except it wasn’t just the other kids: They traced Aguilar, too. When it was time to go back inside, powdery green and pink lines crisscrossed the back of her brown pants and black blouse. She wasn’t bothered.   

    “I love the kids,” she said. “They always make me laugh.”       

    Aguilar has even picked up skills that she uses with her own children, something many apprentices describe.        

    Now, she sometimes says to her youngest daughter, “Catch a bubble.” That’s preschool speak for “Be quiet.” When a teacher needs the toddlers’ attention, kids hear this phrase, then fill their cheeks with air.        

    Most of the time, at home and at work, a brief silence follows. Then the kids look up, ready to hear what comes next.    

    Contact staff writer Nirvi Shah at 212-678-3445, on Signal at NirviShah.14 or [email protected]. 

    Reporting on this story was supported by the Higher Ed Media Fellowship. 

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

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  • Child care workers are building a network of resistance against Immigration and Customs Enforcement

    Child care workers are building a network of resistance against Immigration and Customs Enforcement

    This story was produced by The 19th and reprinted with permission.

    The mother was just arriving to pick up her girls at their elementary school in Chicago when someone with a bullhorn at the nearby shopping center let everyone know: ICE is here. 

    The white van screeched to a halt right next to where she was parked, and three Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents piled out. They said something in English that she couldn’t decipher, then arrested her on the spot. Her family later said they never asked about her documentation.

    She was only able to get one phone call out before she was taken away. “The girls,” was all she said to her sister. Her daughters, a third grader and a fourth grader, were still waiting for her inside the school.

    Luckily, the girls’ child care provider had prepared for this very moment.

    Sandra had been taking care of the girls since they were babies, and now watched them after school. She’d been encouraging the family to get American passports for the kids and signed documents detailing their wishes should the mother be detained.

    When Sandra got the call that day in September, she headed straight to the school to pick up the girls. 

    Since President Donald Trump won a second term, Sandra has been prepping the 10 families at her home-based day care, including some who lack permanent legal status, for the possibility that they may be detained. (The 19th is only using Sandra’s first name and not naming the mother to protect their identities.) 

    She’s worked with families to get temporary guardianship papers sorted and put a plan in place in case they were detained and their kids were left behind. She even had a psychologist come and speak to the families about the events that had been unfolding across the country to help the children understand that there are certain situations their parents can’t control, and give them the opportunity to talk through their fears that, one day, mamá and papá might not be there to pick them up. 

    Read more

    And for two elementary school kids, that day did come. Sandra met them outside the school.

    “When they saw me, they knew something wasn’t right,” Sandra said in Spanish. “Are we never going to see our mom again?” they asked. 

    For all her planning, she was speechless.

    “One prepares for these things, but still doesn’t have the words on what to say,” Sandra said. 

    Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues. 

    After that day, Sandra worked with the mother’s sister to get the girls situated to fly to Texas, where their mother, who had full custody of them, was being detained, and then eventually to Mexico. She hasn’t heard from them in over a month. The girls were born in the United States and know nothing of Mexico. 

    “I think about them in a strange country,” Sandra said. “‘Who is going to care for them like I do?’ Now with this situation I get sad because I think they are the ones who are going to suffer.”

    In this year of immigration raids, child care providers have stepped up to keep families unified amid incredible uncertainty. Some are agreeing to be temporary guardians for kids should something happen to their parents. The workers themselves are also under threat — 1 in 5 child care workers are immigrant women, most of them Latinas, who are also having to prepare in case they are detained, particularly while children are in their care. Already, child care workers across the country have been detained and deported.

    “The immigration and the child care movements, they are one in the same now,” said Anali Alegria, the director of federal advocacy and media relations at the Child Care for Every Family Network, a national child care advocacy group. “Child care is not just something that keeps the economy going, while it does. It’s also really integral to people’s community and family lives. And so when you’re destabilizing it, you’re also destabilizing something much more fundamental and very tender to that child and that family’s life.” 

    A loose network of resistance has emerged, with detailed protection plans, ICE lookout patrols, and Signal or Whatsapp chats. Home-based providers like Sandra have been especially involved in that effort because their work often means their lives are even more intertwined with the families they care for. 

    “All the families we have in our program, I consider them family. We arrive in this country and we don’t have family, and when we get support, advice or the simple act of caring for kids, as child care providers we are essential in many of these families — even more in these times,” said Sandra, who has been caring for children in the United States for 25 years. All the families she cares for are Latinx, 70 percent without permanent legal status.

    Related: 1 in 5 child care workers is an immigrant. Trump’s deportations and raids have many terrified

    According to advocacy groups, child care providers are increasingly being asked to look after kids in case they are detained, typically because they are the only trusted person the family knows with U.S. citizenship or legal permanent residence. Parents are asking child care workers to be emergency contacts, short-term guardians and, in some cases, even long-term guardians. 

    “We heard this under the first Trump administration, and we’re hearing it much more now. It’s not so much a matter of if, but when, right now, and it used to be the other way around,” said Wendy Cervantes, the director of immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy, an anti-poverty nonprofit. “It adds just additional stress and trauma because they deeply care about these kids. Many of them have kids of their own and obviously have modest incomes, so as much as they want to say, ‘yes’, they can’t in some cases.” 

    The question was posed to Claudia Pellecer a couple weeks ago. A home-based child care provider in Chicago for 17 years, Pellecer cares for numerous Latinx families, at least one of whom doesn’t have permanent legal status. 

    In October, one of those moms was due to appear before ICE for a regular check-in as part of her ongoing asylum case. But she knew that many have been detained at those appointments this year.

    The mother asked Pellecer to be her 1-year-old son’s legal guardian should she be taken away.

    “I couldn’t say no because I am human, I am a mother,” Pellecer said.

    Claudia Pellecer, who runs a small daycare for young children out of her home, stands for a portrait outside her house. Credit: Jamie Kelter Davis for The 19th

    They got to work getting the baby a passport and filling out the necessary guardianship paperwork. Pellecer kept the originals and copies. The mother closed her bank account, cleaned out her apartment and prepped two bags, one for her and one for the baby. If the mother was deported, Pellecer would fly with him to meet her in Ecuador, they agreed.

    The day of the appointment, she dropped the baby off with Pellecer and set the final plan. Her appointment was at 1 p.m. “If at 6 p.m. you haven’t heard from me, that means I was detained,” she told Pellecer, who cried and wished her luck.

    At the appointment, the judge asked her three sets of questions:

    “Why are you here?”

    “Are you working? Do you have a family?”

    “Do you have proof of what happened to you in your country?”

    Related: Child care centers were off limit to immigration authorities. How that’s changed

    Claudia Pellecer plays games with children in the living room of her home daycare, where she cares for up to eight young children a day. Credit: Jamie Kelter Davis for The 19th

    The judge agreed to let her stay and told her to continue working. The mother won’t have a court date again until 2027.

    “We learned our lesson,” Pellecer said. “We had to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

    But their relief was short-lived. Recent events in Chicago have sent child care workers and families into panic, as the people who have tried to keep families together are now being targeted. 

    Resistance networks have sprung up rapidly in Chicago in recent weeks after a child care worker was followed to Spanish immersion day care Rayito de Sol on the city’s North Side and arrested in front of children and other teachers. The arrest was caught on camera and has sparked demonstrations across the city. 

    Erin Horetski, whose son, Harrison, was cared for by the worker who was arrested at Rayito de Sol in early November, said parents there had been worried ICE might one day target them because the center specifically hired Spanish-speaking staff.

    The morning of the arrest, parents were texting each other once they heard ICE was in the shopping center where the day care is located.

    Children crawl on a colorful rug while playing educational games at Claudia Pellecer’s home daycare. Credit: Jamie Kelter Davis for The 19th

    Her husband was just arriving to drop off their boys as ICE was leaving. The first thing out of his mouth when he called her: “They took Miss Diana.”

    Agents entered the school without a warrant to arrest infant class teacher Diana Patricia Santillana Galeano, an immigrant from Colombia. DHS said part of the reason for her arrest was because she helped bring her two teenage children across the southern U.S. border this year. “Facilitating human smuggling is a crime,” DHS said. Santillana Galeano fled Colombia fearing for her safety in 2023, filed for asylum and was given a work permit through November 2029, according to court documents. She has no known criminal record. After her arrest, a federal judge ruled that her detention without access to a bond hearing was illegal and she was released November 12.

    Horetski said the incident, the first known ICE arrest inside a day care, has spurred the community to action. A GoFundMe account set up by Horetski to support Santillana Galeano, has raised more than $150,000.

    Horetski said what’s been lost in the story of what happened at Rayito is the humanity of the person at the center of it, someone she said was “like a second mother” to her son.

    “At the end of the day, she was a person and a friend and a mother and provider to our kids — I think we need to remember that,” Horetski said. 

    Related: They crossed the border for better schools. Now, some families are leaving the US

    Now, the parents are the ones coming together to put in place a safety plan for the teachers, most of whom have continued to come to the school and care for their children. 

    They are working on establishing a safe passage patrol, setting up parents with whistles at the front of the school to stand guard during arrival and dismissal time to ensure teachers can come and go to their cars or to public transit safely. Parents are also establishing escorts for teachers who may need a ride to work or someone to accompany them on the bus or the train. A meal train set up by the parents is helping to send food to the teachers through Thanksgiving, and two local restaurants have pitched in with discounts. Some of the parents are also lawyers who are considering setting up a legal clinic to ensure workers know their rights, Horetski said.

    A young child watches an educational TV show in the living room of Claudia Pellecer’s home daycare in Chicago. Credit: Jamie Kelter Davis for The 19th

    Figuring out how to come together to support teachers and the children who now have questions about safety is something that “continues to circle in all of our minds and brains,” Horeski said. “It’s hard to not have the answers or know how to best move forward. We’re in such uncharted territory that you’re like, ‘Where do you go from here?’ So we’re kind of paving that because this is the first time that something like this has happened.”

    Prep is top of mind now for organizers including at the Service Employees International Union, where Sandra and Pellecer are members, who are convening emergency child care worker trainings to set up procedures, such as posted signs that say ICE cannot enter without a warrant, showing them what the warrants must include to be binding, helping them set a designated person to speak to ICE should they enter and talking to their families to offer support. 

    Cervantes has been doing this work since Trump’s first term, when it was clear immigration was going to be a key focus for the president. This year has been different, though. Child care centers were previously protected under a “sensitive locations” directive that advised ICE to not conduct enforcement in places like schools and day cares. But Trump removed that protection on his first day in office this year, signaling a more aggressive approach to ICE enforcement was coming.

    Cervantes and her team are currently in the midst of a research project about child care workers across the country, conversations that are also illuminating for them just how dire the situation has become for providers.

    “We are asking providers to make protocols for what is basically a man-made disaster,” she said. “They shouldn’t have to worry about protecting children and staff from the government.”

    Since you made it to the bottom of this article, we have a small favor to ask. 

    We’re in the midst of our end-of-year campaign, our most important fundraising effort of the year. Thanks to NewsMatch, every dollar you give will be doubled through December 31.

    If you believe stories like the one you just finished matter, please consider pitching in what you can. This effort helps ensure our reporting and resources stay free and accessible to everyone—teachers, parents, policymakers—invested in the future of education.

    Thank you. 
    Liz Willen
    Editor in chief

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  • Funding high-quality teacher preparation programs should be the highest priority for policymakers

    Funding high-quality teacher preparation programs should be the highest priority for policymakers

    by Sharif El-Mekki and Heather Kirkpatrick, The Hechinger Report
    November 25, 2025

    By dismantling the Department of Education, the Trump administration claims to be returning control of education to the states. 

    And while states and local school districts are doing their best to understand the new environments they are working in, they have an opportunity amidst the chaos to focus on what is most essential and prioritize how education dollars are spent.  

    That means recruiting and retaining more well-prepared teachers with their new budget autonomy. Myriad factors affect student learning, but research shows that the primary variable within a school’s control is the teacher. Other than parents, teachers are the adults who spend the most time with our children. Good teachers have been shown to singularly motivate students.  

    And that’s why, amidst the chaos of our current education politics, there is great opportunity. 

    Until recently, recruiting, preparing and retaining enough great teachers has not been a priority in policy or funding choices. That has been a mistake, because attracting additional teachers and preparing them to be truly excellent is arguably the single biggest lever policymakers can use to demonstrate their commitment to high-quality public schools. 

    Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter. 

    Great teachers, especially whole schools full of great teachers, do not just happen. We develop them through quality preparation and meaningful opportunities to practice the profession. When teachers are well-prepared, students thrive. Rigorous teacher preparation translates into stronger instruction, higher K-12 student achievement and a more resilient, equitable education system. 

    Teachers, like firefighters and police officers, are public servants. We rightly invest public dollars to train firefighters and police officers because their service is essential to the safety and well-being of our communities. Yet teachers — who shape our future through our kids — are too often asked to shoulder the costs of their own preparation. 

    Funding high-quality teacher preparation should be as nonnegotiable as funding other vital public service professions, especially because we face a teacher shortage — particularly in STEM fields, special education and rural and urban schools.  

    This is in no small part because many potential teaching candidates cannot afford the necessary education and credentialing. 

    Our current workforce systems were not built for today’s teaching candidates. They were not designed to support students who are financially vulnerable, part-time or first-generation, or those with caregiving responsibilities.  

    Yet the majority of tomorrow’s education workforce will likely come from these groups, all of whom have faced systemic barriers in accumulating the generational wealth needed to pursue degrees in higher education. 

    Some states have responded to this need by developing strong teacher development pathways. For example, California has committed hundreds of millions to growing the teacher pipeline through targeted residency programs and preparation initiatives, and its policies have enabled it to recruit and support more future teachers, including greater numbers of educators from historically underrepresented communities. 

    Pennsylvania has created more pathways into the education field with expedited credentialing and apprenticeships for high school students, and is investing millions of dollars in stipends for student teachers. 

    It has had success bringing more Black candidates into the teaching profession, which will likely improve student outcomes: Black boys from low-income families who have a Black teacher in third through fifth grades are 18 percent more interested in pursuing college and 29 percent less likely to drop out of high school, research shows. Pennsylvania also passed a senate bill﷟HYPERLINK “https://www.senatorhughes.com/big-win-in-harrisburg-creating-the-teacher-diversity-pipeline/” that paved the way for students who complete high school courses on education and teaching to be eligible for career and technical education credits. 

    At least half a dozen other states also provide various degrees of financial support for would-be teachers, including stipends, tuition assistance and fee waivers for credentialing.  

    One example is a one-year teacher residency program model, which recruits and prepares people in historically underserved communities to earn a mster’s degree and teaching credential.  

    Related: Federal policies risk worsening an already dire rural teacher shortage 

    Opening new pathways to teaching by providing financial support has two dramatic effects. First, when teachers stay in education, these earnings compound over time as alumni become mentor teachers and administrators, earning more each year.  

    Second, these new pathways can also improve student achievement, thanks to policies that support new teachers in rigorous teacher education programs. 

    For example, the Teaching Academy model, which operates in several states, including Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan, attracts, cultivates and supports high school students on the path to becoming educators, giving schools and districts an opportunity to build robust education programs that serve as strong foundations for meaningful and long-term careers in education, and providing aspiring educators a head start to becoming great teachers. Participants in the program are eligible for college scholarships, professional coaching and retention bonuses.  

    California, Pennsylvania and these other states have begun this work. We hope to encourage other state lawmakers to seize the opportunities arising from recent federal changes and use their power to invest in what matters most to student achievement —teachers and teacher preparation pathways. 

    Sharif El-Mekki is founder & CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development in Pennsylvania. Heather Kirkpatrick is president and CEO Alder Graduate School in California. 

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected]. 

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

    This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-funding-high-quality-teacher-preparation-programs-should-be-the-highest-priority-for-policymakers/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org”>The Hechinger Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>

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  • I didn’t think I needed the help or advice, but a new literacy teaching coach from afar gave me the self-confidence I lacked

    I didn’t think I needed the help or advice, but a new literacy teaching coach from afar gave me the self-confidence I lacked

    by Thomas MacCash, The Hechinger Report
    November 24, 2025

    I was the only guy in my education classes at Missouri State University, and until this year I was the only male out of nearly 100 teachers in my school. My approach to teaching is very different, and more often than not was met with a raised brow rather than a listening ear.  

    I teach kindergarten, and there are so few men in early childhood education that visitors to my classroom tend to treat me like a unicorn. They put me in a box of how I am “supposed” to be as a male in education without knowing the details of my approach to teaching.  

    As a result, I’d grown skeptical about receiving outside help. When someone new came into my classroom to provide unsolicited “support,” my immediate thought was always, “OK, great, what are they going to cook up? What are they trying to sell me?” I’d previously had former high school administrators come into my classroom to offer support, but they didn’t have experience with the curriculum I used or with kindergarten. The guidance was well-intentioned, but not relevant. 

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

    My entire view of getting help and support changed when Ashley Broadnax, a literacy coach from New Orleans, nearly 700 miles away, came into my class in St. James, Missouri, population 3,900. Ashley works for The New Teacher Project, or TNTP, a nonprofit aiming to increase students’ economic and social mobility. Once a month for a full academic year, she came in to help us transition to a “science of reading” approach, as part of a special pilot program, the Rural Schools Early Literacy Collaborative. 

    I never thought I would love having a literacy coach and their feedback, but I now believe it is something that can work for many teachers. I hope that as Missouri and other states transition to new ways of teaching reading, more coaches will be available for others who could use the support. The state says that over 15,000 teachers may get trained in the science of reading to help build our knowledge of how children learn to read and what type of instruction is most effective.  

    Ashley had used the curriculum herself and was on hand to provide timely support. This was the first time I received relevant feedback from a former teacher who had firsthand experience with the lessons I was leading.  

    It completely changed my approach and my students’ learning. Although I come from a family of teachers — my mom, grandma and brother all taught — I had started teaching two weeks out of college, and I wasn’t familiar with the new reading curriculum and didn’t have a lot of self-confidence. 

    When Ashley came in for the very first visit, I knew working with her was going to be different. Even though she had never been to St. James, she was sensitive to the rural context where I’ve spent all my life. We’re 90 minutes southwest of St. Louis and a little over an hour southeast of Jefferson City, the state capital. In St. James, you may see a person on a horse riding past a Tesla a few times a year. I’ve seen this world of extremes play out in school open houses and in the learning gaps that exist in my kindergarten classroom.  

    Ashley had researched our community and was open to learning more about our nuances and teaching styles. She was also the first coach I’d met who actually had taught kindergarten, so she knew what worked and what didn’t. As a young teacher with a significant number of students with special needs, I really appreciated this.  

    Related: How coaches for teachers could improve reading instruction, close early academic gaps 

    Ashley provided me with a pathway to follow the new curriculum while also maintaining my unique approach to teaching. Everything came from a place of ensuring that teachers have what they need to be successful, rather than an “I know better than you do” attitude. She would let me know “I loved how you did this” and she’d ask, “Can you extend it in this way?” or tell me, “This was great, here’s how you can structure it a bit further.” 

    Not everything she did to help was profound. But her little tips added up. For example, the curriculum we used came with 10 workbooks for each student as well as stacks of literature, and I needed help integrating it into my lessons.  

    I soon noticed a shift in my ability to teach. I was learning specific ways to help students who were on the cusp of catching on, along with those who weren’t getting it at all.  

    Throughout the course of the year, we saw how our students were more quickly achieving proficiency in English language arts. In my school, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the percentage of kindergartners reading on grade level went from 82 percent in the fall to 98 percent in the spring; the percentage of first graders on grade level went from 41 percent to 84 percent.  

    There were similar gains across the other schools in my county participating in the pilot program; one school had all of its kindergarten and first grade students demonstrate growth on reading assessments. Those students, on average, made gains that were more than double typical annual growth, TNTP found. 

    I attribute a great deal of this progress to the support from Ashley and her peers. I know I am a better educator and teacher for my students. Her support has made a change for the better in my grade and classroom. 

    Thomas MacCash is a kindergarten teacher at Lucy Wortham James Elementary in St. James, Missouri.  

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].  

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

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  • It will take patience and courage to fix K-12 education without the Department of Education

    It will take patience and courage to fix K-12 education without the Department of Education

    by John Katzman, The Hechinger Report
    November 19, 2025

    The Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education this week provides a rare opportunity to rethink our current top-down approach to school governance.

    We should jump on it. It’s not sexy to talk about governance, but we can’t fix K-12 education until we do so, no matter how we feel about the latest changes.

    Since the Department of Education opened in 1980, we’ve doubled per-pupil spending, and now spend about twice as much per student as does the average country in the European Union. Yet despite that funding — and the reforms, reports and technologies introduced over the past 45 years — U.S. students consistently underperform on international benchmarks. And people are opting out: 22 percent of U.S. district students are now chronically absent, while record numbers of families are opting out of those schools, choosing charters, private schools and homeschooling.

    Most federal and state reform approaches have been focused on curricular standards and have accomplished little. The many billions spent on the Common Core standards coincided with — or triggered — a 13-year decline in academic performance. The underlying principles of the standards movement — that every student should learn the same things at the same time, that we know what those things are and that they don’t change over time — have made our schools even less compelling while narrowing instruction to what gets tested.

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

    We need to address the real problem: how federal, state and district rules combine to create a dense fog of regulations and directives that often conflict or constrain one another. Educators are losing a rigged game: It’s not that they’re doing the wrong things, it’s that governance makes them unresponsive, bureaucratic, ineffective and paralyzed — can you name an industry that spends less on research and development?

    Fixing governance won’t be simple, but it shouldn’t take more than 13 years to do it: three years to design a better system of state governance and 10 more to thoroughly test and debug it.

    I would start by bringing together experts from a variety of disciplines, ideally at a new “Center for K-12 Governance” at a university’s school of education or school of public policy, and give them three years to think through a comprehensive set of state laws and regulations to manage schools.

    The center would convene experts from inside and outside of education, in small groups focused on topics including labor, funding, data, evaluation, transportation, construction, athletics, counseling, technology, curricula and connections to higher education and the workforce. Its frameworks would address various educational and funding alternatives currently in use, including independent, charter and parochial schools, home schooling and Education Savings Accounts, all of which speak to the role of parents in making choices about their children’s education.

    Each group would start with the questions and not the answers, and there are hundreds of really interesting questions to be considered: What are the various goals of our K-12 schools and how do we authentically measure schools against them? What choices do we give parents, and what information might help them make the right decisions for their kids? How do we allow for new approaches to attract, support and pay great teachers and administrators? How does money follow each student? What data do we collect and how do we use it?

    After careful consideration, the center would hand its proposed statutes to a governor committed to running a long-term pilot to fully test the model. He or she would create a small alternative department of education, which would oversee a few hundred volunteer schools matched to a control group of similar schools running under the state’s legacy regime; both groups would include schools with a range of demographic and performance profiles. The two systems could run side by side for up to a decade.

    Related: Schools confront a new reality: They can’t count on federal money

    Each year, the state would assess the two departments’ performance against metrics like graduation and college-completion rates, teacher retention, income trajectories, civic participation, student and parent satisfaction, and, yes, NAEP scores. Under intense scrutiny by interested parties, both groups would be free to tweak their playbooks and evaluate solutions against a range of real-world outcomes. Once definitive longitudinal data comes in, the state would shutter one department and move the governance of its schools over to the other, perhaps launching a new test with an even better system.

    This all may seem like a lot of work, but it’s a patient approach to a root problem. Schools remain the nation’s most local public square; they determine income mobility, civic health and democratic resilience. If we fail to rewire the system now to support them properly, we guarantee their continued decline, to the detriment of students and society. Instead of celebrating students, teachers and principals who succeed despite the odds, we should address why we made those odds so steep.

    That’s why we should use this moment to draft and test something audacious, and give the next Supreme Court a happier education case to decide: how to retire a legacy system that finally lost a fair fight.

    John Katzman has founded and run three large ed tech companies: The Princeton Review, 2U and Noodle. He has worked closely with many large school districts and has served on the boards of NAPCS and NAIS.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about fixing K-12 education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

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  • Do male teachers make a difference? Not as much as some think

    Do male teachers make a difference? Not as much as some think

    by Jill Barshay, The Hechinger Report
    November 17, 2025

    The teaching profession is one of the most female-dominated in the United States. Among elementary school teachers, 89 percent are women, and in kindergarten, that number is almost 97 percent.

    Many sociologists, writers and parents have questioned whether this imbalance hinders young boys at the start of their education. Are female teachers less understanding of boys’ need to horse around? Or would male role models inspire boys to learn their letters and times tables? Some advocates point to research that lays out why boys ought to do better with male teachers.

    But a new national analysis finds no evidence that boys perform or behave better with male teachers in elementary school. This challenges a widespread belief that boys thrive more when taught by men, and it raises questions about efforts, such as one in New York City, to spend extra to recruit them.

    “I was surprised,” said Paul Morgan, a professor at the University at Albany and a co-author of the study. “I’ve raised two boys, and my assumption would be that having male teachers is beneficial because boys tend to be more rambunctious, more active, a little less easy to direct in academic tasks.”

    Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

    “We’re not saying gender matching doesn’t work,” Morgan added. “We’re saying we’re not observing it in K through fifth grade.”

    Middle and high school students might see more benefits. Earlier research is mixed and inconclusive. A 2007 analysis by Stanford professor Thomas Dee found academic benefits for eighth-grade boys and girls when taught by teachers of their same gender. And studies where researchers observe and interview a small number of students often show how students feel more supported by same-gender teachers. Yet many quantitative studies, like this newest one, have failed to detect measurable benefits for boys. At least 10 since 2014 have found zero or minimal effects. Benefits for girls are more consistent.

    This latest study, “Fixed Effect Estimates of Teacher-Student Gender Matching During Elementary School,” is a working paper not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal.* Morgan and co-author Eric Hu, a research scientist at Albany, shared a draft with me.

    Morgan and Hu analyzed a U.S. Education Department dataset that followed a nationally representative group of 8,000 students from kindergarten in 2010 through fifth grade in 2017. Half were boys and half were girls. 

    More than two-thirds — 68 percent — of the 4,000 boys never had a male teacher in those years while 32 percent had at least one. (The study focused only on main classroom teachers, not extras like gym or music.)

    Among the 1,300 boys who had both male and female teachers, the researchers compared each boy’s performance and behavior across those years. For instance, if Jacob had female teachers in kindergarten, first, second and fifth grades, but male teachers in third and fourth, his average scores and behavior were compared between the teachers of different genders.

    Related: Plenty of Black college students want to be teachers, but something keeps derailing them

    The researchers found no differences in reading, math or science achievement — or in behavioral and social measures. Teachers rated students on traits like impulsiveness, cooperation, anxiety, empathy and self-control. The children also took annual executive function tests. The results did not vary by the teacher’s gender.

    Most studies on male teachers focus on older students. The authors noted one other elementary-level study, in Florida, that also found no academic benefit for boys. This new research confirms that finding and adds that there seems to be no behavioral or social benefits either.

    For students at these young ages, 11 and under, the researchers also didn’t find academic benefits for girls with female teachers. But there were two non-academic ones: Girls taught by women showed stronger interpersonal skills (getting along, helping others, caring about feelings) and a greater eagerness to learn (represented by skills such as keeping organized and following rules).

    When the researchers combined race and gender, the results grew more complex. Black girls taught by women scored higher on an executive function test but lower in science. Asian boys taught by men scored higher on executive function but had lower ratings on interpersonal skills. Black boys showed no measurable differences when taught by male teachers. (Previous research has sometimes found benefits for Black students taught by Black teachers and sometimes hasn’t.)**

    Related: Bright black students taught by black teachers are more likely to get into gifted-and-talented classrooms

    Even if data show no academic or behavioral benefits for students, there may still be compelling reasons to diversify the teaching workforce, just as in other professions. But we shouldn’t expect these efforts to move the needle on student outcomes.

    “If you had scarce resources and were trying to place your bets,” Morgan said, “then based on this study, maybe elementary school isn’t where you should focus your recruitment efforts” to hire more men.

    To paraphrase Boyz II Men, it’s so hard to say goodbye — to the idea that young boys need male teachers.

    *Clarification: The article has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal but has undergone some peer review.

    **Correction: An earlier version incorrectly characterized how researchers analyzed what happened to students of different races. The researchers focused only on the gender of the teachers, but drilled down to see how students of different races responded to teachers of different genders. 

    Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or [email protected].

    This story about male teachers was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

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  • A Teacher’s Take on Game-Based Learning – The 74

    A Teacher’s Take on Game-Based Learning – The 74


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    I see it every fall: A student suddenly needs to go to the bathroom mid-lesson. Another zones out completely, distracting nearby classmates during a lesson. Tears well up as a child struggles with a problem they just can’t get through.

    These are the telltale signs of math anxiety creeping back into my classroom, and it’s heartbreakingly common. Between 70% and 78% of students experience a decline in math skills over the summer across elementary grades. By the time they reach fifth grade, students can lag behind their peers by two to three years.

    That means students are missing out on crucial math skills that form the foundation for everything that comes later. As many teachers can attest, math remains one of the hardest subjects to teach because the basics aren’t always as black and white as they seem.

    I’ve had to look for new ways to break down those barriers and ease the pressure. That’s why I’ve leaned into game-based learning. It takes something stressful and makes it approachable. In teaching math, that makes all the difference.

    I first brought games into my math block because I wanted to try something different. A student suggested we review a concept with a math game he had used, and I decided to give it a shot.

    There are plenty of games: Math Reveal, Quizizz and Coolmath among them. In my class we use Prodigy, which allows students to play as wizards exploring different fantasy worlds. They progress through the game by engaging in math-based quests and battles, answering a series of math questions to power spells, cast attacks or heal their wizard. Behind the scenes, the platform analyzes each student’s strengths and gaps, then adjusts and tailors content to the appropriate learning level.

    The benefits were clear almost immediately, and the atmosphere in my classroom shifted. Kids who normally avoided eye contact were leaning in, laughing and actually asking to do math. It was a small change at first, but it began breaking down the anxiety that had been holding students back.

    Their anxiety turns into curiosity, and their avoidance shifts into active participation. Students knew they could make mistakes, try again and keep moving without the fear of failure they often carried into traditional lessons.

    Over time, I’ve learned that these games weren’t just fun. They were powerful teaching tools. Game-based learning platforms helped students review after new lessons and revisit older concepts to keep their skills sharp. As a result, when we moved on to fractions or multi-step problems, they weren’t burdened by forgotten fundamentals.

    Now, I incorporate game-based learning throughout my curriculum. I may introduce a new lesson with a quick round or have students partner up to practice and reinforce a concept. Before a test, I can assign relevant game modules that give students a low-stakes way to practice and prepare.

    I noticed students catching up quicker than in previous years. At the start of one school year, I had eight students who were pulled out of my class for extra math help. By the end of the year, only two needed the extra support.

    And let’s be honest: These tools have helped me, too. Teaching math can be overwhelming, especially with constant pressure to get every student up to speed and prepared for benchmark tests.

    Game-based learning became a comforting resource for me because it offers new ways to personalize lessons and celebrate small wins. As students play, I can track their learning in real time to see which skills they’ve mastered, where they’re struggling and how their performance is shifting over time. Students can move at their own pace now, and I can step into the role of guide rather than taskmaster.

    Like any classroom tool, game-based learning works best when you use it with intention. Over the years, I’ve learned some strategies that make it more than just “play time.”

    • Play along: When I first started using game-based learning platforms, I didn’t fully understand how each game worked or the way they built in rewards, challenges, and storylines that keep kids engaged.

      That changed when I created my own character and began playing alongside my students. Suddenly, when a student shouted, “I just beat the Puppet Master!” I knew exactly what that meant, and I could celebrate and learn with them.

      By experiencing the games myself, I learned how to implement them in the classroom. I could see firsthand how to weave them into lessons, when to use them for review versus pre-teaching, and how to keep the fun from becoming a distraction.

    • Assign with purpose: I don’t just let students log in and click around. I strategically tie games to the key concepts we’re learning that week or use them to revisit skills. For example, I might assign a short warm-up where they tackle problems from earlier in the year so they’re never losing touch with old material. Cyclical practice helps build long-term retention while lowering the stress of new concepts.
    • Differentiate lessons: One of the biggest wins with game-based learning is how easy it is to differentiate and personalize learning. In any classroom, I have students at wildly different levels: Some need extra review, others are ready to race ahead. With games, I can assign work that meets each child where they are.

      That flexibility saves me time, but more importantly, it saves students from unnecessary stress. They can master concepts step by step, and I can gently move them up without overwhelming them.

    When I first introduced game-based learning, I didn’t know what to expect. It felt like one more thing to manage. But I let students guide me, and the results spoke for themselves. They were more engaged, less anxious and more willing to try.

    For teachers who are unsure, my advice is simple: Give it a chance. Watch your students light up when math feels less like a hurdle and more like a game. For me, the greatest reward has been seeing kids who once dreaded math start to relax, build confidence and move from “I can’t do this” to “Can we play again?”

    Game-based learning isn’t about replacing rigor. It’s about sparking curiosity, reducing fear and creating the kind of engagement that fosters a genuine love of learning. Most of all, it reminds us — and our students — that math can, and should, be fun.


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  • Teachers Create Tool to Help NYC Families Find Childcare

    Teachers Create Tool to Help NYC Families Find Childcare

    Educators tap two tech firms to create NYC Childcare Navigator, a free platform that cuts through the chaos.

    A one-stop shop

    Frustrated by the maze of agencies, websites, and applications families face to find childcare and possible financial support, New York City teachers said, “Enough!”

    The United Federation of Teachers, the union that represents more than 200,000 educators and professionals in New York City, teamed up with two tech firms to build a better approach: NYC Childcare Navigator.

    Navigator is a platform that connects New York City families to upwards of 12,000 childcare options across the five boroughs. It offers instant eligibility checks for money-saving programs, step-by-step application support, and the most comprehensive directory of childcare providers in the city — all in one free, easy-to-use website.

    The union created the tool as a benefit for its own members, but it was so successful that the union opened it up to all New York City residents in October. 

    “We couldn’t gatekeep something that we knew so many New York City families needed,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers.

    Centralizing tailored childcare

    The union partnered with Mirza, a city-based tech firm that builds platforms to connect low-wage workers with local, state, and federal benefits, including for childcare.

    “We wanted to get meaningful benefits to parents, but there wasn’t a single place that would allow a parent to see all the options available. That felt like a big missing piece. But it also pointed toward a solution,” said Siran Cao, CEO and Co-Founder of Mirza, who said she was inspired by how her own mother navigated a new country and the impact that a few well-timed bits of financial support had on her own family.

    The union then introduced Upfront, a software company that consolidates multiple sources of childcare providers into a single, centralized database. The result: parents using the NYC Childcare Navigator can see every licensed program in NYC (center, home, and school-based), searchable by zip code, child’s age, availability, languages spoken, special needs, and many other filters. For the first time, childcare providers can claim a dedicated page to share current information about their specific childcare services.

    “It’s everything in a single location instead of having to make dozens of calls and scour multiple, incomplete websites,” said Levin-Robinson, who said she was motivated by how challenging it was to find care for her own children.

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  • Rural teacher shortages could get worse thanks to Trump’s visa fee

    Rural teacher shortages could get worse thanks to Trump’s visa fee

    by Ariel Gilreath, The Hechinger Report
    November 7, 2025

    HALIFAX COUNTY, N.C. — When Ivy McFarland first traveled from her native Honduras to teach elementary Spanish in North Carolina, she spent a week in Chapel Hill for orientation. By the end of that week, McFarland realized the college town on the outskirts of Raleigh was nowhere near where she’d actually be teaching.

    On the car ride to her school district, the city faded into the suburbs. Those suburbs turned into farmland. The farmland stretched into more farmland, until, two hours later, she made it to her new home in rural Halifax County.

    “I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is far,’” McFarland said. “It was shocking when I got here, and then I felt like I wanted to go back home.”

    Nine years later, she’s come to think of Halifax County as home.

    In this stretch of rural North Carolina, teachers hail from around the globe: Jamaica, the Philippines, Honduras, Guyana. Of the 17 teachers who work at Everetts Elementary School in the Halifax County school district, two are from the United States. 

    In this rural school district surrounded by rural school districts, recruiting teachers has become a nearly impossible task. With few educators applying for jobs, schools like Everetts Elementary have relied on international teachers to fill the void. Districtwide, 101 of 156 educators are international. 

    “We’ve tried recruiting locally, and it just has not worked for us,” said Carolyn Mitchell, executive director of human resources in the eastern North Carolina district of about 2,100 students. “Halifax is a rural area, and a lot of people just don’t want to work in rural areas. If they’re not people who are from here and want to return, it’s challenging.” 

    Around the country, many rural schools are contending with a shortage of teacher applicants that has ballooned into a crisis in recent years. Fewer students are enrolling in teacher training programs, leading to a shrinking pipeline that’s made filling vacancies one of the most challenging problems for school leaders to solve in districts with smaller tax bases and fewer resources than their suburban and urban peers. In certain grade levels and subject areas — like math and special education positions — the challenge is particularly acute. Now, some of the levers rural schools have used to boost their teacher recruitment efforts are also disappearing.

    This spring, the federal Department of Education eliminated teacher residency and training grants for rural schools. In September, President Donald Trump announced a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications — visas hundreds of schools like Everetts Elementary use to hire international teachers for hard-to-staff positions — saying industries were using the visas to replace American workers with “lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.” A lawsuit filed by a coalition of education, union, nonprofit and other groups is challenging the fee, citing teacher shortages. Rural schools are also bracing for more cuts to federal funding next year.

    “We’re not only talking about a recruitment and retention problem. We’re talking about the collapse of the rural teacher workforce,” said Melissa Sadorf, executive director of the National Rural Education Association.

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

    Most of Halifax’s international teachers arrive on H-1B visas, which allow them to work in the U.S. for about five years with the possibility of a green card at the end of that period. About one-third of the district’s international teachers have J-1 visas, which let them work in the country for three years with the possibility of renewing it for two more. At the end of those five years, educators on J-1 visas are required to return to their home countries.

    A few years ago, Halifax County Schools decided to shift from hiring teachers on J-1 visas in favor of H-1B, hoping it would reduce teacher turnover and keep educators in their classrooms for longer. The results have been mixed, Mitchell said, because within a few years, some of their teachers ended up transferring to bigger, higher-paying districts anyway. 

    There are trade-offs for the teachers, too. Mishcah Knight came to the U.S. from Jamaica both to expand her skills and increase her pay as an educator. In the rural North Carolina county, finding transportation has been the biggest challenge for Knight, who teaches second grade. 

    She lacks a credit history needed to buy a car, leaving her reliant on carpooling to work. A single taxi driver serves the area, which doesn’t have public transit, Uber or Lyft. “Sometimes, he’s in Virginia,” Knight said. “It’s lucky when we actually get him to take us somewhere.”

    Being away from family also takes its toll on teachers. Nar Bell Dizon, who has taught music at Everetts Elementary since 2023, had to leave his wife and son back home in the Philippines. He visits in the summer, but during the school year, he sees them only through video calls. 

    “This is what life is — not everything is smooth,” Dizon said. “There will always be struggles and sacrifices.”

    Dizon’s first year in Everetts Elementary School was hard — it took time adapting to a different teaching style and classroom management. Now that he’s in his third year, he feels like he’s gotten his feet beneath him. 

    “When you can build a rapport with your students, things become easier,” Dizon said.

    When her international teachers are able to stay for longer, the students perform better, said Chastity Kinsey, principal of Everetts Elementary. “I know the benefit the teachers bring to the classroom,” Kinsey said. “After the first year or two, they normally take off like rock stars.” 

    Related: Trump’s cuts to teacher training leave rural school districts, aspiring educators in the lurch 

    Trump’s new fee does not address any of the challenges the Halifax district had with the H-1B visa, and it effectively slams the door on future hires. Now, the district will have to rely on J-1 visas to recruit new international teachers, meaning the educators will have to leave just as they’ve acclimated to their classrooms.

    “We just can’t afford to,” Mitchell said of paying the $100,000 fee. Other districts, she said, might turn to waivers allowing them to increase class sizes and hire fewer teachers, among other strategies.

    Since the applicant pool began drying up about a decade ago, the make-up of the district’s teaching staff has slowly shifted to international teachers. 

    At the heart of the problem is that when a position opens up, few, if any, citizens apply, said Katina Lynch, principal of Aurelian Springs Institute of Global Learning, an elementary school in Halifax County. 

    When Lynch had to hire a new fourth grade teacher this summer, she received three applications: Only one was a licensed teacher from the U.S.

    Nationally, about 1 in 8 teaching positions are either vacant or filled by teachers who are not certified for the position, according to data from the nonprofit Learning Policy Institute, published in July. In addition to fewer college students graduating with degrees in education, diminished public perception of the teaching profession and political polarization of schools are to blame, school leaders said. In some states, the growth of charter and private school options has made competing for teachers even harder. On top of a widening pay gap between rural and urban districts, it’s a perfect storm for schools in more remote parts of the country, said Sadorf.

    In rural Bunker Hill, Illinois, where more than 500 students attend two schools, some positions have gone unfilled for years. “We’ve posted for a school psychologist for years, never had anybody apply. We posted for a special ed teacher — have not had anybody apply. We’ve posted for a high school math teacher two years in a row,” said Superintendent Todd Dugan. “No applicants.”

    As a result, students often end up with a long-term substitute or an unlicensed student teacher. 

    When teachers do arrive in the district, Dugan works hard to try to get them to stick around. He pairs new teachers with experienced mentors, and uses federal funding to help those who want master’s degrees to afford them. 

    He also formed a calendar committee to give teachers input on which days they get off during the year. “More than pay, having at least a little bit of involvement, control and say in your work environment will cause people to stay,” said Dugan. It seems to be working: Bunker Hill’s teacher retention rate is more than 92 percent. 

    Related: Schools confront a new reality: They can’t count on federal money 

    Schools across the country face the same challenges to varying degrees. Several years ago, the Everett Area School District in southern Pennsylvania would receive 30 to 50 applications for a given position at its elementary schools, Superintendent Dave Burkett said. Now, they’re lucky if they get three or four.

    Last year, the district learned that a middle school science teacher would retire that summer. Just three people applied for the opening, and only one was certified for the role.

    “We offered the job before that person even left the building,” Burkett said. The candidate accepted it, but when it was time to fill out paperwork that summer, the teacher had taken a different job in a bigger district.

    One way Burkett has tried to address the shortage is to hire a permanent, full-time substitute teacher in each of its buildings. If a vacancy opens up that they haven’t been able to fill, the full-time substitute can step in until a permanent replacement is found. The permanent substitute makes more than a traditional sub and also receives health insurance. 

    Sadorf, with the National Rural Education Association, says other ways to help include introducing students to teacher training pathways starting in high school, building “grow-your-own” programs to train local people for teaching jobs, and offering loan forgiveness and housing support.

    Sadorf’s organization is in favor of creating an educator-specific visa track that would allow international teachers to be in communities for longer. The group is also in favor of exempting schools from the $100,000 H-1B fee. “Stabilizing federal support is something that really needs to be focused on at the federal level,” Sadorf said.

    At Everetts Elementary in Halifax County, McFarland, the educator from Honduras, is among the most senior teachers in the school. She has adapted to the rural community, where she met and fell in love with her now-husband. She gets asked sometimes why she hasn’t moved to a bigger city.

    “Education has taken me places I’ve never expected,” McFarland said. “For me, being here, there’s a reason for it. I see the difference I can make.”

    Contact staff writer Ariel Gilreath on Signal at arielgilreath.46 or at [email protected].

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

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