Instead of being asked to score at least a on tests of English Language Arts, mathematics, social studies, science and one optional exam, New York students will be assessed using standards. 

It is yet unclear as to who will be evaluating whether they can be considered:

• academically prepared
• creative innovators
• critical thinkers
• effective communicators
• global citizens
• reflective and future-focused

It is also unclear what the criteria for succeeding in each category will be.

When I asked parent subscribers to my mailing list how they felt about the shift, the answers split starkly into two camps.

There were those who cheered. Josh Kross, father of two high schoolers and one graduate, wrote, “Regents are outdated. Good riddance.” Moria Herbst added, “Other states don’t have them. Certainly not in Massachusetts, where I grew up. And Massachusetts does just fine!”

“I am deeply in favor of moving away from a standardized testing model,” said E.J., the Washington Heights parent of a first grader. “While Portrait of a Graduate is still being worked on as to how it will actually function, I’m encouraged by the idea and the possibility of it being a more complete picture of the human we’re sending out into the world.”

Other parents, however, were less enthused.

“Portrait of a Graduate is so fuzzy as to be meaningless,” wrote Rachel Fremmer, dismissively. “I didn’t think standards could be lowered any further, but they have been.” 

“It seems like a process that will make things more subjective for teachers, and thus less fair for many students,” opined Marina. “This seems like a vague requirement that will allow parents with resources even more leverage.”

Yiatin Chu, mom of a ninth grader, went even further, saying, “For those who criticize the Regents as a low bar/waste of time, why aren’t we improving it and making it more rigorous instead? Portrait of a Graduate is aspirational — over 40% of eighth grade students are entering high school not reading at grade level. I see the change to these graduation metrics for HS graduation as a way for the system to push kids out the door.”

New York City already faces the issues of straight A students being unable to perform equally well — or even pass — state elementary and middle school tests, not to mention high school Regents exams.

“Without objective tests, there is no way to gauge what kids are actually learning,” Diane Rubenstein predicted. “This will allow the (Department of Education) to give kids nothing in the classroom. This will give (them) cover to not teach.”

“Removing this requirement dilutes education standards even further,” agreed AW. “It plays very well into the current administration’s program of ‘equity,’ aka ‘mediocrity for all.’ It disincentivizes kids from learning and teaches them that if something is hard, just protest and it will be removed from your path, even to your detriment.”

For many parents, the perceived lowering of standards will hurt city students when it comes to competing not just nationally, but internationally.

“If USA high schools become less competitive, that’s not good for the next generation,” Jenny worried, while Ella added, “Our kids will fall behind other countries. We are already falling behind in the world. My kids cannot compete with foreign students.”

Of the that currently have high-school exit exams in place, New Jersey ranked No. 2 in the country for educational achievement for 2025, Virginia was No. 13, Ohio was No. 15, Florida was No. 19, Texas No. 31 and Louisiana No. 35. (Massachusetts, which got rid of its exit exams in 2025, is, as noted above, ranked No. 1. However, that ranking was achieved while the state still had its exit exam up through last year.)

In New York, while students will no longer be required to sit for Regents exams in order to graduate, they will still have the option of taking them in order to earn a .

This could have the effect of widening the gaps between students, rather than improving equity. Colleges and employers will be able to see who earned a Regents diploma and who opted to bypass established standards via a more subjective metric, which could imply less academic rigor.

Like those rejected from colleges that went SAT/ACT scores because they realized those were a reliable predictor of applicants’ capabilities, students who choose not to take the Regents exams could find themselves negatively perceived and penalized.

“I understand the growing pressure to move away from standardized testing, but we still need a meaningful way to measure student progress and evaluate our schools,” ventured Stephanie Cuba, the mother of children in seventh and ninth grades. “Education policy should be deliberate and comprehensive, not a series of reactive decisions. If you’re going to dismantle the old system, you need a clear, credible plan to replace it. Without that, we’re operating without a compass.”

Right now, with Profile of a Graduate details vague and , New York risks graduating multiple cohorts whose achievements will not be properly valued. The repercussions might follow them for years.

Dual-enrollment programs are open to students at all levels of academic proficiency, not just the certified high achievers. In fact, that low-income teens and others historically underrepresented in higher education experience the biggest positive impacts from being given early access to college work.

So, if so many of the teens who need early access to college-level work the most are earning credits before graduation, it begs the question: Is high school necessary?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to send students directly to community college after middle school, so they might begin accruing credits toward a college degree while covering the same material they would learn in high school anyway? 

I have written before about how my son dropped out of his highly ranked high school due to boredom but wasn’t allowed to enroll at CUNY without a diploma. Being able to head straight to college after eighth grade would have been a game changer for him, and for our family.

Cost, of course, is a factor. But New York state already has a that subsidizes a community college education for students ages 25 to 55 entering in-demand fields. Why not extend it to 14- to 24-year-olds? It should make no difference, from a financial perspective, if the state is paying for a student to attend a public high school or a community college. 

It could even end up saving money in the long run, as the student would substitute two years in community college for a traditional four-year 9-12 education. Students who transferred to community college after ninth, 10th or 11th grade — whenever they felt ready — would still spend fewer years in the public education system, while the academic result would stay the same.

But the benefits of allowing willing students to bypass high school entirely and enroll directly in community college wouldn’t be limited to bureaucratic economizing. For instance:

• It would help families save money on college expenses, if the student could transfer community college credits to a four-year college.
  
•  It would lower dropout rates for bored students like my son, and for the kid who is constantly asking, “Why do I need to learn this?” College courses are much better at demonstrating why students need to learn the material, especially if it’s part of a major they have chosen. And the earlier students commence their college career, the .��

• In the case of New York, it would help prevent brain drain. All three of my children attended college out of state. The situation likely would have been different if they’d been able to do two free years of community college as soon as they were ready for it, and then seamlessly transfer to a four-year State University of New York school.��

• It would bolster community college enrollment and help those schools remain sustainable. Currently, students attending CUNY’s Kingsborough Community College are high-schoolers. Under-18 students also make up the majority at five other community colleges statewide.
  
• It would make community college an equally valued and desired education destination, not something to be mocked. One of my son’s high school teachers would taunt his class that if they didn’t study hard, they’d end up “stuck” at the nearby community college. As a parent, I was furious with the demeaning description.

• If even a fraction of New York City high schoolers opted to go straight to community college, it would help with the looming mandate for smaller class sizes. With fewer students entering ninth grade, the district wouldn’t need to scramble as much for extra teachers and physical space to meet the 2027 requirement, and it would open up seats at some of the most coveted high schools to students who might have been shut out otherwise. Fewer families would leave for private schools, which would bolster the city’s public school enrollment numbers.

• Finally, over a lifetime, college graduates than adults with only a high school diploma. The earlier students can finish college and enter the job market, the earlier — and more — they can start earning.��

This doesn’t mean that students who wish to follow the traditional high school-to-college route should be blocked from doing so. Those who decide the community college route is not a good fit for them should have the option of returning to traditional high school, too.

But allowing teenagers who believe they are ready to skip high school for college to do so would be a win-win for students, for families and for the public school system at every level.

For , Lower Lab, an Upper East Side Gifted & Talented school was ranked number one by US News. Also in the top 10 were four citywide G&T programs. Each school exclusively accepts students who have been designated as “gifted.”

Rounding out the top 10, however, are Success Academy – Bushwick and Success Academy – Bensonhurst, public charter schools that accept students by lottery, while also prioritizing English Language Learners (ELL).

On the surface, these schools couldn’t be more different. Number one, , has only 13% of students qualifying for Free or Reduced Price Lunch (FRL), and 1% ELLs. Number 10, , conversely,  has 65% of its students qualifying for free or reduced price lunch, and 26% who are English language learners. 

But the selective G&T schools and the unscreened charter schools have one characteristic in common: An expectation that their students can succeed.

The book, describes an experiment where “researchers falsely told teachers some of their students had been identified as potential high achievers. The students were in fact chosen at random.”

At the end of the year, the “students that were chosen were more likely to make larger gains in their academic performance,” with those “7-8 years old gaining an average of 10 verbal IQ points.”

This study concluded that “when teachers expected certain children would show greater intellectual development, those children did show greater intellectual development.”

At the G&T schools, teachers have every reason to believe their students are capable of performing at the highest levels.

Parents have seen this firsthand.

“I strongly believe that when teachers are told their students are gifted, they begin to treat them as gifted — and this changes everything,” asserts mom Natalya Tseytlin. “In a gifted classroom, if a student struggles, teachers don’t assume it’s because of laziness or inability; they respond with patience and extra attention. In a regular class, that student might not receive the same support or challenge, because the teacher sees the child as average. 

Tseytlin said her son started his first grade gifted and talented program with limited English skills. But because his teacher offered consistent support and believed in him, he excelled. 

“Today he is performing at the same level as his peers,” she said.

“I don’t think the expectations at (my child’s) G&T school are so high that only gifted kids can meet them,” another parent, who only asked to be identified as M.K. opined. “Regular schools don’t ‘push’ kids enough to reach their potential. Those G&T schools that do push, get results because most kids are capable of this level of learning without being ‘gifted.’ If teachers treat students as capable, students will indeed meet expectations.”

The belief that all students can perform at a “gifted” level is sacrosanct at Success Academy.

“Success Academy is Gifted for All,” CEO Eva Moskowitz affirms. “When adult expectations are high, our scholars — mostly low-income, Black and Hispanic — can meet the highest academic standards.”

The same is true at Harlem Academy, a kindergarten through 8th grade private school for students whose potential might otherwise go unrealized. 

“It’s tough to decouple the influence of high-quality programming from high expectations,” concedes Head of School Vinny Dotoli, “but authentically challenging students is central to the ethos of our school. When great teachers set ambitious goals and provide the structure and support to reach them, it almost always makes a lasting difference in student achievement.”

Parents with children in schools where high expectations aren’t the norm would love to see changes. 

“I have a daughter in a dual language program in East Harlem,” Maria McCune relates. “A neighbor who used to attend our school changed his daughter to a G&T program at another school in East Harlem. He immediately noticed a difference in the quality of instruction and in his daughter’s performance (MUCH improved). I participate in my daughter’s School Leadership Team and I have seen the apathy teachers there exhibit. It is concerning. When I tried to provide feedback about improving the educational experience, teachers/staff often became defensive. It is this that leads me to want to pursue G&T for my daughter.”

For Tiffany Ma, the solution is obvious. “Our second grader that transferred into G&T writes much neater and does her homework much more happily since she’s in an environment where academics and homework is valued by other classmates and parents. We should expand G&T programs. It’s regular programming that shouldn’t exist.”

Yet New York City seems headed in the opposite direction. Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani has vowed to get rid of elementary school G&T programs  that begin in kindergarten. He would wait until students enter third grade, even though the research referenced above specifically mentioned children 7 and 8 years of age( i.e. second graders), as being the biggest beneficiaries of high expectations. , as well. 

This move would lower the academic standards and expectations of all schools, which deeply concerns parents like McCune. She fears “Children like my daughter may be left as collateral damage of an educational experience that falls short of setting them up for significant academic success.”

The top schools in NYC have repeatedly demonstrated that high expectations are key to helping all students reach their full potential.

We need more such schools, be they public G&T, charter, or private. And more teachers who believe in all our kids.

This has sent many subscribers to my into a panic. Not because they necessarily believe their children are gifted, but because a G&T program is often the only chance to give students an education slightly better than what’s otherwise offered in a city where almost fail to meet an already for grade-level performance. 

Testing in second grade for a third grade G&T entry, however, would put NYC in line with other districts. New Jersey districts test kids in first and second grades. also begins in second grade and continues admissions testing up through middle school. 

But a bigger issue than when to open G&T is when to close it. Once children have been labeled “gifted,” it doesn’t seem that they are ever retested for the duration of their academic career. Furthermore, in many places, if children miss the optimal window for demonstrating “giftedness,” their academic options grow more limited.

Is that a sensible policy? A new in the journal Intelligence & Cognitive Abilities suggests otherwise:

[C]lassifications [of giftedness] are largely unwarranted. Those showing high cognitive ability at early childhood might lose their marks as they age. Conversely, those showing average cognitive ability may increase their marks as they age…. Of those scoring one standard deviation above the mean at age 7, only a tiny minority preserve their high-ability marks afterwards. Moreover, some children scoring below the standards of high ability at age 7 move upward in the cognitive distribution.

What does this mean for education policy?

For some, it suggests schools should scrap all G&T programs for kids under 12, as that’s when what the authors describe as general cognitive ability begins to stabilize. This is the approach NYC attempted — and failed to accomplish — in . 

For others, it means retesting those already in G&T programs and, if their score dips below the threshold, booting them back to general ed. Some NYC parents have privately forwarded me communications from their schools pushing to remove a child from advanced classes due to underperformance. Similar scenarios have popped up on across the country, including students being .

But my position when it comes to education has always been more, not less. Instead of cutting NYC G&T programs because not enough Hispanic or Black students are enrolled, as repeatedly advocated by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, I lobbied for opening more such programs, so more children would have access.

In that same vein, students should be tested before age 7 — and again after. 

If students show high ability after third grade, they should be moved into a G&T program. In NYC, this is almost impossible due to space limitations. As it is, at the kindergarten level, over 9,000 students applied for only 2,500 spots. There wasn’t enough room to accommodate even all those who qualified at age 5, much less those who might meet the criteria down the road. But this is a solvable problem. General education classrooms can be converted for G&T based on the number of students eligible for a seat. As the overall student population wouldn’t increase, just changing the classification shouldn’t cost the district any more money, at any grade level.

The trickier question comes from what to do with students who previously qualified as “gifted” but, upon retesting, no longer score as high. In a scarcity model, where there are only so many spots to go around, the instinct might be to return them to general ed.

However, I would venture that a child who has been keeping up with the work in a “gifted” classroom should be allowed to remain, in spite of a newly recalculated score. 

This way, the system would accommodate both those who’ve demonstrated the potential to do higher-level work and those who are already doing it. Does it really matter if they’re called “high potential” or “high achieving,” as long as they’re capable? 

This approach would be especially beneficial for underrepresented, low-income and minority students. While advocates for getting rid of all G&T programs claim they are doing it for the welfare of the kids, research, including in the paper quoted above, shows the opposite. Underrepresented, low-income and minority students actually benefit the most from engaging with what the paper’s authors call “cognitively demanding activities.” For these kids, the “fade out effect” and drop in General Cognitive Ability scores upon being removed from a rigorous environment is actually more pronounced if they are returned to a less intellectually stimulating classroom. 

In fact, the earlier such students are placed in G&T programs, the better they tend to perform in the long run, up through high school.

A robust G&T system would work for all students. It would both identify young high achievers — whether they are naturally “gifted” or have simply been exposed to more of what’s on the test — and expand to make room for late bloomers. It would regularly retest children to make sure they are at the correct academic level and offer those with high potential the opportunity to tackle more challenging work, while rewarding hard workers with the opportunity to keep doing it — regardless of an IQ score that seesaws at least until age 21.

It’s a system that would always offer more. Never less. 

When I asked families on my 4,000-plus-member how they felt about the new restriction, I received answers ranging from enthusiasm to concern. 

“Phones and smartwatches in classrooms and school hallways are more than just a distraction — they’re a barrier to learning, focus and social development,” according to Manhattan’s Arwynn H.J. 

“Bring on the ban,” cheered Bronx parent and teacher Jackie Marashlian. “My high school students were ready to air-scroll me toward the ceiling with their fingers, so bored with whatever it was I was trying to impart to them. One day we had a WiFi glitch and I saw my students’ beautiful eyes for the very first time. Bring kids back to face-to-face interaction and socializing during lunch breaks.” 

“As a middle school teacher in the Bronx and parent of an eighth grader, I think the cellphone ban is fantastic,” agreed Debra. “While my son is ‘devastated’ he can’t have his phone, it scares me that he’s said he doesn’t know what to do at lunch/recess without a phone. Kids have become so reliant on technology, even when they are with their peers, that often they are not really WITH their peers; they are all just staring at their phones. I hope the cellphone ban leads more students to be both physically and mentally present.”

For mom Elaine Daly, the phone ban affects her more than her special-needs daughter. “My child is 11 and knows she is not to use the phone in school. My parental controls blocks, locks and limits access. But I need her phone to be on so I can also track her, since the NYCSchools bus app always says: Driver offline.”

Jen C., who reported the ban has been going well with her child in elementary school, sees a bigger issue for her high school-age son. “He has homework online and likes to get started during his free periods. However, he’s not allowed to use his laptop, and there are not enough school issued laptops. I feel that teachers should give off-line work, or the school needs to give access to laptops.”

Parents of older students were the ones most likely to be against the blanket edict.

“You can’t have the same policy for kids 6 years old and for 17 years old,” mom Pilar Ruiz Cobo raged. “This policy is crazy for seniors. Yesterday, my daughter had her first college adviser class, and only five kids could work because the rest didn’t remember their passwords to Naviance and the Common App. The verification code was sent only to their phones. Children who don’t study, don’t study with and without phones, now the children who actually work have to work double at home.”

A Queens mom pinpointed another problem. “Many high school students leave the premises for lunch, and my son’s school is one of those. He said they’re not allowed to take their phones. Children need to use phones outside of school for various reasons; to use phone pay, to contact their parents for lunch money or any updates, etc…”

The policy varies from school to school. At some, students are allowed to request their phones back when temporarily leaving the premises. However, the larger the school, the less likely it is to have enough staff to handle such exchanges.

“An interesting aspect of this policy is that although it was presented as a smartphone ban, it’s actually much more expansive, including tablets and laptops,” pointed out dad Adam C. “This presents a challenge for high school students who rely on laptops for receiving, completing and submitting assignments through Google Classroom.”

“They say parents have to provide their own laptop pouch (there are none similar to Yonder), and they can’t store laptops in backpacks,” confirmed Queens mom Y.N. “My son has afterschool sports activities and likes to do his homework on his laptop in between. I think he’ll have to take it with him and hope they don’t confiscate.”

“While I’m not opposed to keeping students off platforms like Snapchat during school hours,” Adam continued, “They should be able to connect a laptop to a school-managed Wi-Fi network for school-related purposes, and the current policy doesn’t provide the schools with much leeway around this.”

But Y.N. doesn’t believe that’s accurate. “I already voiced my concern to the Student Leadership Team (SLT). At the , they said these rules are fluid. Because the regulations came after the SLTs were done for the year, the chancellor said they should be able to change them. She said a plan had to be made before Day One, but it doesn’t mean that adjustments can’t be made at the school level. ‘Tinkering’ was the word they kept using.”

If that’s the case, perhaps NYC can pull back from its traditional one-size-fits-all approach and allow individual schools to “tinker” and set limitations based on the needs and feedback of their community, adjusting policy based on grade level, academic requirements and a multitude of other factors.

What happened to nearly triple the number of identified “gifted” students in NYC in a single year?

The difference was the screening method. In 2020, as in the dozen years beforehand, 4-year-olds were tested using the and the . Those who scored above the 97th percentile were eligible to apply to citywide “accelerated” programs. Those who scored above the 90th were eligible for districtwide “” classes.

But in 2021, the process was changed. Now, instead of a test, students in public school pre-K programs qualify based on evaluations by their teachers, and there is no differentiation between those eligible for “accelerated” or “enriched” programs.

In , the last year for which figures are available, 9,227 students were deemed qualified to enter the gifted-and-talented placement lottery. But for the last decade there have only been about 2,500 spots citywide. Over 6,700 “gifted” students weren’t offered a seat. 

That’s a shame, because, based on their overwhelming responses to the city’s G&T recommendation questionnaires, NYC teachers believe the vast majority of their young students – a statistically impressive 85% – would thrive doing work beyond what is offered in a regular classroom.

When evaluating students for a G&T recommendation, teachers are asked, among other things, whether the child:

• Is curious about new experiences, information, activities, and/or people;
  
• Asks questions and communicates about the environment, people, events and/or everyday experiences in and out of the classroom;
  
• Explores books alone and/or with other children;
  
• Plays with objects and manipulatives via hands-on exploration in and outside of the classroom setting;
  
• Engages in pretend/imaginary play;
  
• Engages in artistic expression, e.g. music, dance, drawing, painting, cutting, and/or creating
  
• Enjoys playing alone (enjoys own company) as well as with other children.

illustrates how such “gifted” characteristics can be applied to … anybody.

has demonstrated that when teachers are told their students are “gifted,” they treat them differently — and by the end of the year, those children are performing at a “gifted” level.

Extrapolating that 85% of incoming kindergartners to the 70,000 or so kids enrolled at every grade level in NYC, that would mean there are 59,500 “gifted” students in each academic year, for a whopping total of 773,500 “gifted” K-12 students in the New York City public school system.

And extending those calculations to the whole of the United States, then 85% of 74 million — i.e. 62,900,000 — 5- through 18-year-olds are capable of doing work above grade level. With that in mind, academic expectations could be raised across the board, and teachers would implement the new, higher standards filled with confidence that the majority of their students would rise to the occasion. NYC teachers have already said as much on their evaluations.

What would happen if NYC were to provide a G&T seat to every student whom its own teachers deemed qualified? If it were subsequently confirmed that over 773,500 students in a 930,000-plus student school system are capable of doing “advanced” work, can parents, activists and everyone invested in making education the best it can possibly be for all expect to see such higher-level curriculum extended to all students — in NYC and, eventually, across America?

As for the minority who weren’t recommended for “advanced” instruction, the combination of Pygmalion Effect and the classrooms should raise their proficiency, as well.

Isn’t it worth a try?

In New York City, America’s largest school district, the birthday cut-off is even later: Dec. 31. One-third of children are . This is a cause of concern for many families.

The city Department of Education doesn’t see it as a problem. In an email, a spokesperson told me its official stance is, “We work to provide all families access to a world-class education, and we work closely with families to ensure students’ placements are academically and developmentally appropriate, in alignment with state guidelines. Our policies allow for flexibility, our kindergarten curriculum is responsive to the needs of our younger learners, and our dedicated educators are prepared to support every student.”

Not all are appeased.

“I have a 4-year-old who will start kindergarten this fall but doesn’t turn 5 until after Thanksgiving,” worried mom CK told me. “I think it’s a big disservice to these kids. The amount of sitting isn’t developmentally appropriate, and the lack of free play is concerning.”

Parents are justified in their concerns. As the summarized in June:

Several studies have concluded that kids who are youngest in their class are disproportionately diagnosed with ADHD. A Michigan study found that kindergartners who are the youngest in their grade are 60% more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than the oldest in their grade. And it doesn’t affect just kindergarteners: A North Carolina study found that in fifth and eighth grade, the youngest children were almost twice as likely as the oldest to be prescribed medication for ADHD.

The research didn’t sit well with some teachers. One blasted my social media inquiry seeking views on redshirting by writing, “ADHD is a very serious IEP (Individualized Education Plan) and we don’t hand them out like candy.”

Others, however, agreed.

“My daughter was one of the youngest in her class,” wrote an anonymous mother. “The teacher and school counselor mislabeled her with psychological disorders that both NY special education testing and private neurological tests did not support.”

“More of my students with an IEP have a birthday in the second half of the calendar year,” confirmed Mary C., who has been a special ed teacher for 12 years. “I understand where an incoming K parent would be concerned that their December baby is much younger than a June baby.”

That was the case with Upper West Side parent KE’s son. “He is the youngest and smallest boy in the grade,” she wrote. “He started kindergarten at 4 years old, still sucking his thumb. The physical, emotional, social, psychological and other developmental differences between a 5-year-old born in January and a 4-year-old born in December impacts everything from holding a pencil to kicking a ball, to the length of time one can sit and concentrate. It was too early, too soon and too young, but we literally had no choice in the matter in order to enroll him.”

The problems that pop up with younger students can reverberate .

Pree Kaur lamented that her daughter “is always the younger one and is not as mentally developed as her peers, so she always feels as if something is wrong with her.”

The Riverdale dad of a son born in November wrote, “He had some difficulty following his teacher’s instructions in first grade, and his teacher repeatedly pointed out that he has difficulty sitting still, staying focused, etc. We had him evaluated by a pediatric developmental specialist and he was diagnosed with ADHD. I really struggle with the whole situation, as I believe if we were able to get him to go to school a year later, matters may have been different.”

“My daughter attended a citywide gifted program. She was doing great, but it came with a price,” confessed Annie Tate. “She was high-functioning until high school, where she was overwhelmed and was diagnosed with ADHD, a diagnosis I believe she wouldn’t have received if I didn’t send her to school at 4 years, 8 months. She would have matured emotionally and physically to be a healthier, happier child.”

Pediatric occupational therapist KJL sees this situation frequently: “Children with ADHD have a 30% delay in executive function compared to their peers. Combine that with young ages, and these children are set up to fail.”

When I posed the question of allowing parents to hold back their children on my , the most frequent response I received was, “SOMEONE has to be the youngest.”

That’s true. But the situation can still be ameliorated.

Grades with multiple classes can be broken up into three- or four-month bands, so students are learning with a narrower-aged peer group.

Repeating a year should be a more acceptable option, unlike the situation faced by mom Heather Hooks: “My son was very behind academically in first grade. The school refused to hold him back and cited studies on ‘retention’ being not good for kids in the long run. I found these didn’t take into consideration that this was not straight retention, but redshirting an ADHD kid. Other studies were significantly different, and suggested these kids have better outcomes and are less likely to be medicated.”

Another mom was told her daughter “wasn’t behind enough,” despite the child’s pleas that “it’s too much for my head.”

Any steps taken to help New York City’s youngest learners would provide the largest experimental sample size in the country, making those results potentially beneficial for students across America.

Based on what happens in NYC, the educational system can stop treating children as developmentally identical and schools as one-size-fits-all, giving families more options.

As Maureen Yusuf-Morales, who has worked at public, charter and independent schools, suggests, “Parents with children born after September should be allowed choice with guidance based on developmental milestones, as opposed to birthdays being the only hard-and-fast rule.”

But I wasn’t just a passive observer. While my children were in public schools, I was also an advocate. Here are three things I learned after 20-plus years:

There is So, So Much to Advocate For

Because of my children, I’ve advocated for advanced academic opportunities for all students, especially those in underserved communities. Because of my children’s experiences, I realized that school cannot be one-size-fits all, and that there is more than one way to get the education you crave for your kids — even if it means abandoning the traditional system altogether. And, because of my children’s example, I learned that you can, in fact, fight City Hall — and win.

Thanks especially to my daughter, I became caught up in battles to from school to school, to challenge and remove ineffectual teachers and, most recently, to fight for a school to stay .

Whatever issue you care about, somewhere in the public schools, someone is doing something to make it more difficult, even impossible. And those students, families, and teachers need your advocacy.

There Is No Quick Fix

My husband, a middle school teacher, warned me from the start, “Remember, anything you do to improve a school, you’re doing it for someone else’s kids, not yours. By the time any changes take place, your kids will be long gone.”

He was right. Despite parents advocating to follow and reopen schools that had been closed by COVID-19 as early as June 2020, , and , didn’t return to full in-person learning until September 2021. This decision led to what is now being called COVID’s — students who are struggling academically and socially, and many who have simply stopped showing up. 

A similar, pandemic-influenced decision came when the city used COVID as an opportunity in 2020 to get rid of screens, which employed grades and test scores, for middle school admissions and severely weaken them for high schools. Affected families pushed back immediately, but it wasn’t until September 2022 when some districts were allowed to go back to minimal screening for the incoming September 2023 class. There are still than were available pre-pandemic.

Unfortunately, those parents who had campaigned against the initial rollback couldn’t take advantage of the subsequent, hard-won change, as their children had aged out of the affected grades. But they had made a difference for the next class of kids.

Parents Can’t Do It Alone

There is still so much to be done. Current issues in New York City range from the watering down of gifted-and-talented programs to the cutting back of sports to a mandate for smaller class sizes that requires the hiring of over 3,000 “high-quality, experienced” teachers out of thin air. It is also resulting in the loss of music and art rooms, as well as gyms, as schools scramble for new space to accommodate these smaller classes.

But — and here is the most important thing I’ve learned after 20-plus years of advocacy — public school parents alone can’t make a difference. 

Enrollment in the NYC public school system is dropping precipitously, down to around from a high of . That includes kids in universal 3K and 4K; take them out, and NYC in reality is down to around ). But even when the kid count stood at over a million, that still wasn’t enough parental pressure to make a meaningful dent with NYC politicians. 

On the other hand, there are over across the five boroughs. According to market researcher YouGov, , during the 2024 election cycle, “Fewer than one in five voters choose education as one of their top three issues.”

That’s not a lot of voters to hold elected officials accountable. Which is why parents can’t be the only ones in this fight. They need help from those who think they have no skin in the game.

Everyone has skin in the game.

All citizens should care about education, because everyone has no choice but to live in a society of people who have been educated — for better or for worse. The goal is to make it better.

While the low number of voters who care about educational issues is the bad news, there’s also good news in turn out for non-presidential year elections, like the one scheduled for 2025.

This bad civic engagement improves the odds for those who do vote, because it makes every ballot count that much more. Which means those who have an interest in education can have an outsized impact on policy.

Still, again, parents can’t do it alone. They need allies. They need people who care about what’s best for all kids in NYC and across the country, not just their own. And who possess the patience to stick with it for the long haul, even after their children have graduated.

This will necessitate the hiring of 3,700 public school teachers, as well as the creation of hundreds of new classrooms within already overcrowded buildings. Parents have concerns about how the process will play out.

Many absolutely see the benefits of smaller classes. 

“At a school with much larger class size … teachers don’t have the time to teach the complex writing and reasoning skills students need,” says dad Thomas Fiorella Jr. “I don’t know that my public school student wrote more than a few pages of expository writing all year in their public school with 33 kids per class.”

The issue of extra space looms large, however. Smaller classes require distributing the same number of students across more classrooms, and acquiring more supplies, from desks to chairs to books to science kits, to to stock those classrooms.

“I am optimistic the smaller class sizes will benefit kids academically and socially, though how are schools going to allocate space for additional classrooms?” an anonymous parent asked. “Most of the rooms are already in use. Are they going to be the trailers? If so, are those going to be parked in front of the school in the yard? How are they going to allocate class times for each group to have specials including music, science, STEAM, art, gym, as well as the enrichment activities of dance, chess, drama?”

“There isn’t additional … spending in the school budgets at the moment” for equipment, etc., admitted the PTA president of an Upper West Side school. “Our school has some unused space that will be brought online and some previously used furniture that will be used again.”

But not all schools have the luxury of repurposing unused spaces.

“We don’t have the space to split up classrooms,” fumed a parent of a child attending TAG Young Scholars in East Harlem. “To get enough classrooms, we are considering destroying specialty classrooms (e.g. music, science, etc.) to convert them into general population classrooms — so goodbye, high-quality specialty classes (either completely or severely altering their curriculum quality). It’s not like the music teacher can carry all instruments from class to class. It’s shocking to realize how incompetently this policy change was shoved down from the top.”

, Mayor Eric Adams promised extra funding to schools that submitted a detailed plan for shrinking class sizes by adding new teachers. In May, 741 schools learned they’d to begin hiring.

However, not all schools took advantage of Adams’ offer, opting instead to shrink existing classes by not replacing students who leave and admitting smaller cohorts moving forward.

A parent in Queens District 24 explained that their school “decided not to go for the extra teacher funding because they would have to get rid of the science, art and music classrooms — which seems so wrong! Something isn’t working here. Why would anyone want to cut art, science or music from schools to get an extra teacher?”

As for the 741 schools that did receive funding to hire additional teachers, parents expressed trepidation that hiring so many new ones all at once means most will be inexperienced.

“I am thrilled there’ll be smaller class sizes, though I do have concerns as to the qualifications of these new teachers and where they will be sourced from,” worried another parent who asked to remain anonymous. “Last year, my daughter had a first-year teacher, and it was not a successful year.”

Still other parents fear there simply won’t be enough teachers to go around, experienced or otherwise, considering that NYC is already in the midst of a .

“At our (school leadership team) meeting, the principal shared that my daughter’s middle school received funding to hire six new teachers, a tall order for any school,” wrote Jessica Schilling, Brooklyn mother of two. “No one I know wants to work in public schools right now. Later that week, I learned my son’s high school, which has more than twice the student population of my daughter’s, was also hiring. It feels like a citywide scramble for a shrinking pool of talent.”

Within-district competition for teachers is not a new phenomenon. Decades of has focused on the issue of low-performing, usually poorer, schools for high-performing, usually wealthier ones. This leaves the neediest students with the and, sometimes, . 

With popular schools like Beacon HS, Bronx Science HS, Brooklyn Latin HS and Booker T. Washington MS, among many others, putting out the call for more teachers, it stands to reason that some of those currently employed at less selective schools will jump ship, leaving their students in a lurch.

“We recognize concerns that experienced teachers may be attracted to higher-performing schools, leaving underserved schools with less experienced educators,” conceded Jenna Lyle, deputy press secretary at the city Department of Education. “Addressing this is a priority for us, and our strategic efforts, including targeted recruitment, retention incentives and professional development, are specifically designed to ensure that all schools — especially those in high-need areas — have access to high-quality, experienced educators.”

Those strategic efforts include an , where seven weeks of training over the summer qualifies candidates to begin work in the fall. (Though it also requires some time travel, as “Training begins in June 2025 and concludes in early August 2024.”) It seems difficult to imagine that a few weeks of theoretical instruction, without any classroom experience, would be enough to instantly create the “high-quality, experienced educator” promised in Lyle’s statement, much less dozens of them in one swoop. (It is, in fact, one of the leveled against organizations like Teach for America and .) It appears equally unlikely that principals at high-performing schools would prefer to hire these new teachers over more experienced ones, leaving the inexperienced educators to be placed, as traditionally happens, in the weaker, neediest classrooms.

“The biggest problem NYC and other urban school districts have is not attracting candidates, but keeping them over time,” counters Leonie Haimson of . “There are showing class size is a key component for what teachers are looking for in a job … and several studies show lower teacher attrition with smaller classes. This means in the medium to long term, all students, but especially the ones in the highest-need schools, will benefit from more experienced and effective teachers.”

Whether that proves to be true in the medium to long term has yet to be seen. In the short term, Lyle promises, “We are working diligently with our union partners, educators and staff to support schools as they staff up ahead of next school year and ensure every student has access to the quality education that they deserve.”

The majority of parents who replied to the query I posted on my 4,000-plus-member mailing list were enthused about the concept of smaller class size in theory, but very worried about how it would be implemented in practice. After decades of broken promises ranging from pandemic school closures to expanding gifted-and-talented programs to a flip-flopping cell phone policy, NYC families are not feeling confident that the department will follow through on its latest pledge, or that it’s even mathematically achievable to begin with.

How to Listen So Teachers Will Talk

Parents see one side of their child. Teachers see another. My husband, a teacher, advised that the best thing to do is, “Listen. Don’t bring up any issues first. You don’t want the teacher to mirror you. You want them to provide information of their own. Always ask for numbers to go with words. It’s nice that they’re a joy to have in class. But that doesn’t tell you how they’re really doing. Ask for hard data.” 

When to Listen to Teachers

Teachers know things about kids that parents don’t. When my oldest was 4, his preschool teacher informed us, “He can read.”

“Oh, no,” we dismissed. “He just memorized a lot of sight words. He can’t read.”

He could read.

A few years later, that same child was in his school’s lowest math group. He was struggling. His teachers recommended we move him up a level. That made no sense to me. The teachers moved him up anyway. His performance improved. They had intuited that he was bored and tuning out, and that he’d do better if presented with the material faster. They were right. I was wrong.

When Not to Listen to Teachers

From the time my daughter was in second grade, her teachers would show me sloppy, dashed-off written work, full of misspellings, random transitions and sentences that stopped in the middle of a thought, and lament, “What comes out her mouth doesn’t match what she puts on the paper. She must have a learning disability.”

“No,” I’d say. “She just doesn’t check her work.”

Her teachers would look at me with sympathy – another deluded mother – and promise, “We’ll send her to the learning specialist. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

A few weeks later, I’d get the follow-up phone call. “We heard back from the learning specialist. It appears she just doesn’t check her work.”

When Not to Listen to Your Child

A similar situation popped up with my younger son. His teacher reported he’d gotten a D. “It might be a learning issue.”

“It is a learning issue,” I confirmed. “He didn’t learn the material.”

My son insisted the work was too hard, he didn’t understand it, he couldn’t do it. That same week, he was invited to join his dance school’s pre-professional program. I replied, “It’s a multi-hour-a-week commitment. You can’t accept if it takes you hours to finish one homework assignment.”

His learning issue miraculously cleared up.

Yes, teachers very often spot problems parents are oblivious to. With my oldest, we didn’t realize he’d suffered a hearing loss/auditory processing disorder. It took professionals to point that out. We’re grateful for the intervention. 

But with the two younger ones, it was laziness. Both were willing to hide behind inaccurate diagnoses, and their teachers were happy to cut them the accordant slack. I was the one forced to call them all out on it.

When to Listen to Your Child

Then there was the time I really got it wrong. Third grade was a nightmare for my middle child. He’d made a mortal enemy. They fought, using words and fists. The teacher advised us that this was a personality conflict between two boys who’d taken a strong dislike to each other; both were equally at fault. My son insisted the other kid started it, but the teacher was blaming my son disproportionately.

Years later, in conversation with other parents from that grade, I learned that the boy my son was feuding with had targeted other kids. We’d all been convinced by the school that this was an individual issue when it was a widespread one. My son, I was told, defended other kids against this bully.

Even more heartbreaking, my older son confided, “I saw it. The teacher was picking on him.”

My son told me. But I’d believed his teacher, instead.

Reasons to Attend Conferences

In New York City, attendance at parent-teacher conferences is since before the pandemic. In 2016, reported that while 89% of families nationwide attended elementary school conferences, that number dropped to 57% by high school. A fellow senior year mom told me she just couldn’t summon up the enthusiasm to attend her child’s final, spring semester conference.

Here’s why I went to every single parent-teacher conference: because I wanted to hear how my children were doing. I wanted to hold my children accountable. I wanted to hold their teachers accountable. I wanted the teachers to know my children had someone looking out for them. Despite how I failed my middle one in third grade. I learned. I’ve tried to do better since.

Reason to Attend the Final Conference

But the primary reason my husband and I logged into our final parent-teacher conference was that we wanted to say thank you.

Thank you to the English teacher who made Bronte and Shakespeare compelling to jaded seniors and spent many more hours advising the school play than his union contact mandated (including a midnight run to Home Depot).

Thank you to the marine biology teacher who brought in live samples. Thank you to the coach who launched an Ultimate Frisbee team with no budget, and to the AP Government teacher who gamely tried to connect lessons on how the system should work with how it actually did.

Thank you, especially, to the AP Calculus teacher who saw our daughter for office hours in the morning before school and then again in the afternoon. When we told him how thrilled we were with her B in the class, we said, “We know how hard you both have been working.”

Parent-teacher conferences can be a chance to see your child through fresh eyes, to find out what issues they’re having, to decide on a plan of action — and to push back when you don’t agree with the school’s perspective. It can be a chance to stand up for your child, and an opportunity to let your child know they were in the wrong. And it can be your best chance to say thank you to the people who contributed to the adult your child will become.

Their parents are desperate for options when it comes to accommodating children capable of doing above grade-level work. In a city of close to 1 million students, where, in some neighborhoods, half are scoring in the top 10th percentile on IQ tests, that equals thousands of underserved kids.

Several states, including Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia, offer an . A few more, like Arizona, Florida and Kentucky, have a variation, like an Individual Service Plan or a Gifted Student Service Plan.

I asked subscribers to my whether they would support a situation like the one currently available in , where giftedness is bundled under special education and all students who qualify receive an IEP.

Provisions of this law include:

• “Special education” means the following: Specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, to meet the unique needs of an exceptional child

• Each gifted child shall be permitted to test out of, or work at an individual rate, and receive credit for required or prerequisite courses, or both, at all grade levels, if so specified in that child’s individualized education program. Any gifted child may receive credit for college study at the college or high school level, or both. If a gifted child chooses to receive college credit, however, the student shall be responsible for the college tuition costs.

This arrangement would have been particularly useful for my family and might have kept my middle child from dropping out of high school when he wasn’t allowed to take the higher-level classes he wanted. I tried to enroll him in college but hit a bureaucratic wall when they wouldn’t accept him without a high school diploma, even though he scored higher on standardized tests than the average student the college accepted.

The majority of my fellow NYC parents were in favor of a similar statute for New York state.

“Absolutely! This is so necessary,” cheered mother of three Laura B. “Gifted children definitely have special needs and they should be educated at the level they deserve. I fully support a bill like this for NYC.” 

“It would be amazing if public school could provide material at [gifted kids’] level,” sighed A.K. a mother of two, “instead of the cookie-cutter curriculum they shove down the throats of all students.”

Elaine Daly, parent, social worker and school counselor, did express concerns about how these children would be identified. “Would [the IEP assessment] be designed with the understanding that traditional tests are not the only standard of gifted?”

A lack of qualified teachers is what worries mom Iona Baldini. “I’m concerned that schools don’t have teachers who can work with gifted kids. There are very few teachers that can meet gifted kids at their level. I think we need infrastructure and a different mindset to teach gifted students.”

Gayle Doyle, a one-time gifted child herself, isn’t concerned. “Part of being gifted means that you are challenging and learning yourself. In fourth grade, our class implemented a “test out” for math. You took the test before the unit, and if you scored above a certain level, you didn’t have to go through that lesson and were given more advanced work to do independently. I tested out of all the units. I was able to go into the hallway during math lessons where I worked on more challenging math problems. It was completely self-led, the teachers only had to provide problems for me to work on, but there was no instruction. I found it better this way, and this was done a while ago without IEPs.”

Finally, a parent who asked to be identified as KC sees another bright side to offering IEPs for gifted kids. “There is a lot of prejudice against kids with an IEP by other parents. The number of times I’ve heard them complain about having their “gen ed” kid being in a class with an IEP kid (like mine) is too disappointing to list. That’s because there’s an assumption that IEP always means my kids have a negative trait that will ‘hold their [kid] back.’ A law like this *might* help these parents realize that there are equally deserving IEP students who should have their skills nurtured.”

Assessing students and implementing individualized education plans is an expense few school districts, especially NYC, which is losing enrollment — and thus funding — can afford. An obvious, cost-effective solution would be to offer a higher-level curriculum for all. This across the board upgrade should be enough for most of those currently considered “advanced.” But pleas to that effect have fallen on deaf ears for decades. The curriculum is, instead, dumbed down, most recently with the as a graduation requirement. 

If the only way parents can get an appropriate education for their academically gifted child is by demanding the same “” currently only available to those classified as “” by the U.S. Department of Education, then that’s what they may need to resort to. I realize it would put extra strain on an already overtaxed system, and it would cost more. I would rather not go that route. It’s the worst possible option for everyone, families and schools, in terms of expense and effort. But it feels like NYC parents have been left with no alternatives.

We live at the entrance of a suburban neighborhood, and my son’s transportation van picks him up each day to drive him to his specialty school for youth with complex medical and special education needs. Bus driver Steve and bus monitor Carol have been escorting my son to and from school for the better part of five years. They are a dream team.

And, for the better part of five years, I have watched cars speed by as we load my son into his van. Steve has escalated his response to these delinquent drivers over the years. He flashes his lights. He beeps the horn. He rolls down his window and motions with his arms to stop. He yells out at the drivers. He calls in license plates on his radio to dispatch. He alerts the dispatchers to watch video from the cameras that are installed on his bus, to see if they can identify the dangerous drivers.

Despite his best efforts, none of it seems to make any difference. 

Perhaps that’s not surprising. Even though to pass a stopped school bus with its stop sign out and red lights flashing, upward of 242,000 drivers illegally pass yellow school buses each day in the United States, with more than occurring each school year. 

And that’s just for yellow school buses. But not all school buses are yellow.

For every school district’s fleet of yellow buses, there are an average of that transport some of the 7.5 million students, ages 3 to 21, who receive and benefit from additional support on their way to and from school. They represent 15% of all students in that age range in the United States.

Although all school transportation vans have a black School Bus sign on top, flashing red lights and a stop sign arm that extends during boarding, most of them are not yellow. 

And that seems to make matters worse.

One morning, bus driver Steve opened his door and literally forced a minivan that was speeding by us to stop. The driver was a mom who lives just a few houses away. She was holding her phone in her hand, and her three school-aged children were in the car. 

She looked bewildered, even though she has driven by us nearly every day for years. On this day, after I secured my son in his car seat, I walked over and re-introduced myself. I explained that our bus driver was asking her to stop because I was loading my son onto his school bus. 

“That is not a school bus,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I didn’t know I was supposed to stop.”

In her defense, she’s not alone. In my observations, drivers are just as likely to begrudgingly pull over and shout “I didn’t know I was supposed to stop” as they are to continue past us as though they didn’t see us in the first place. It doesn’t matter if it’s an elderly neighbor, a new driver, someone running late, a busy parent on the phone, even a public works employee driving an official town vehicle. Next to none of them stop.

My observations check out: A of over 3,500 drivers showed that people likely illegally pass stopped yellow school buses because they didn’t care (30.5%), were in a hurry (25.5%), didn’t know the law (24.3%) or were distracted (12.2%).

And that data is, of course, based on yellow school buses. Because for all the reports that have been written on the prevalence of illegal passing of school buses from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there is not a single mention of special education transportation vans.

Not one.

So here is a public-service announcement for drivers in every neighborhood in the nation: Not all school buses are yellow. And, no matter the color or the size of the vehicle being used to bring students to and from school, when the school bus lights are on and the stop arm is out, you are required to stop. 

Please don’t wait until a child is struck by a car driving illegally past a school transportation van to make this an issue you care about. 

With many colleges dropping standardized testing for applicants, transcripts featuring calculus — preferably Advanced Placement — have come to . However, of American high school students have no access to calculus whatsoever. As a result, of science, technology, engineering and math majors who arrive at college needing to take precalculus manage to earn a STEM bachelor’s degree, while those who didn’t progress past algebra 2 in high school have a less than 40% chance of earning any four-year degree whatsoever.

This problem begins in middle school. As I learned with my daughter, students who are not offered algebra 1 until ninth grade are de facto removed from the advanced math track. They will take geometry in 10th grade, algebra 2 in 11th and pre-calculus — not calc — in 12th. 

That may not be an insurmountable impediment for non-STEM majors, though it still affects which colleges all applicants ultimately get accepted to. But how many 14-year-olds are absolutely certain of their future career goals? My daughter had no interest in STEM until the summer between her junior and senior years of high school, when she participated in a introducing female and minority students to engineering. She’s now applying to college as an electrical engineering major, something that would be more difficult if she’d stayed on the curriculum path that terminated before calculus.

My husband insisted on keeping all doors open for our daughter, which is something all students deserve. In order to make that happen, however, all students would need to be able to take algebra 1 before high school. 

, only about 20% of middle schools offer algebra 1 to all their students, while 60% report some availability. And those opportunities are . A 2023-24 survey by the Rand Corp. determined that “nearly half of the wealthiest schools offered algebra to all of their eighth grade students, regardless of math ability, compared with about a third of the poorest schools.”

My daughter, as I’ve written before, is not a natural mathematician. She was fortunate that her middle school offered eighth grade algebra to all students. If she’d attended a program that didn’t have the course available, or one that dictated who could sign up based on prior mathematical knowledge, her future options might have narrowed as early as elementary school, when she wasn’t performing at the top of the class. If she’d gone to a high-poverty school instead of a wealthy one, she likely would have had no chance to give eighth grade algebra a try.

only about 24% of American eighth graders were enrolled in algebra 1, though that doesn’t necessarily mean they all .

What this all shows is that at least 75% of American public school kids are going to have a harder time getting into — and succeeding — at a college STEM program than if they’d enrolled having completed calculus. This is especially true for low-income and minority students, who would benefit most from a rigorous college education and a high-paying career.

That’s unconscionable. That’s unacceptable.

School is supposed to be about expanding opportunities, not limiting them. 

That tension is personal: parents and caregivers come to the job with the hang-ups we’ve amassed since childhood. We’re famously prone to imposing some version of those onto our own kids — however hard we try to free them. 

The tension is also social and cultural — even political. We’re all trying to teach our kids to stand up for themselves in the tough, pushy, sometimes violent world out there even as we coach them toward leaning vulnerably into grace, compassion, sharing and forgiveness. And a lot of it involves hiding uglier truths about the world from them. But even that only works for so long, because they’ll eventually outgrow our abilities to deceive and distract — and nothing builds resentment in adulthood like realizing how much you were lied to in childhood. 

This is beautiful, impossible work. We’re all messing up all the time, no matter how hard we push and strive — and no matter how much we try to let go and back off. 

Parenting is even harder in moments of public fear and stress. As a father of two, I spent much of Donald Trump’s first term wrestling to guard my children’s faith in virtues like patience, kindness, honesty, personal integrity and responsibility. I tried to coach them into believing in the power of peaceful, democratic institutions that represent the will of the public. I tried, in other words, to swim upstream against the prevailing Trumpist political currents. 

Now I’m a father of three. I’m dreading the implications of his second term — for my kids, for the work of raising them, for our schools and for our democracy. It’s a much more difficult project this time. How can families teach our children to believe in a better, kinder, fairer world … when they see glory, honor and power repeatedly rendered to a man like this? Can advocates for better educational opportunities for all children build a safer, kinder country with Trump unavoidably at its helm?

It’s hard to imagine. His return has launched a genuinely bleak era driven by a movement that targets and marginalizes people — — to gain power, whether they’re immigrants or transgender kids who just want to use the bathroom in peace. This is a nightmare for parents trying to raise their kids to be fundamentally polite, to stand up for the weak among us, to choose grace over scorn and peace over violence. 

If you think this is overwrought, please remember that Trump’s first arrival in office a national spike in behavior at schools. We’re seeing this time . That’s not an accident. Trump is persistently, constantly a bully, one who reserves , and   any woman who with the slightest .

This is incessant intimidation that any middle schooler would recognize, that any parent would hate to see imposed on their kid. It’s sexism that any young girl would instantly view as infuriating and behavior that any decent parent or caregiver would find unacceptable in their son.

What’s more, Trump is cynically nihilistic. That’s why many of the president-elect’s colleagues . He has been caught and never admits his deceit, even when hurt other people. This year, Trump baselessly accused Haitian immigrants in Ohio of stealing and eating pets: innocent people — immigrants and native-born Americans alike — , some closing . Note: immigrants community members than native-born Americans.

Trump’s responses to the pandemic were probably his most consequential distortions. He and insisted that the pandemic was under control and easily manageable. He promoted and , unscientific “treatments” — . People because believed . 

Any family would recognize a kid with Trump’s penchant for selfish betrayal and willful deceit as a terrible friend or classmate. No family would want an adult who treated people so carelessly in charge of their child’s safety or well-being. 

, Trump’s is . He routinely muses about using force against political opponents, journalists, and protestors. Not coincidentally, in an October 2024 poll, were sure that there would be a peaceful transfer of power after the election, what was once an unshakeable tenet of our democracy.

Even if you’re confident that you can set a strong enough example for kids to be a bulwark against this behavior, that still won’t solve for the most substantive issue: Trumpist politics have consistently failed to address the very real problems that the U.S. faces — including and particularly the ones preoccupying U.S. young adults. 

For instance, while a 2023 poll showed that American kids are , Trump and his party are pushing to , , , and close the Department of Education. None of these are real solutions. 

Families in my community tell me they’re struggling to explain the present state of American democracy to their children. One says their middle schooler keeps bringing them media articles where Trump supporters express surprise that their preferred candidate absolutely plans to follow through on his campaign promises around , , and . “Why did they vote for him then?” they say their kid asks. “What did they think would happen?” 

Trump has put families in a terrible situation. It’s hard to explain why men who violently assaulted law enforcement en route to desecrating the U.S. Capitol are touted as heroes and . It’s hard to look at all the violent, undemocratic vengeance Trump has promised and insist to kids that nonviolent politics is core to our democracy. 

See, kids are relatively sophisticated risk detectors — they know real dangers from partisan hysteria. That’s why it’s particularly difficult to tell them to be patient now and to trust in the democratic process, to believe that the adults will get their acts together and work on real problems. It’s hard to believe that the system will self-correct after you’ve spent another math period under your desk because there’s another active shooter in the neighborhood, or even worse — , as just happened again last week in Madison, Wisconsin. 

Nonetheless, the vast majority of families in my social orbit are grimly hoping they can perhaps pretend the situation away. They’re hoping that Trump won’t be who he’s been for the past decade, that he’ll step up instead and act like a prudent statesman that they can safely ignore. Most are planning to actively distract their kids from American public discourse, to try to keep them from internalizing the next four years as “normal.” 

A lot of education reformers sound similar notes. They’d like to set all this aside and just get on with their lives and careers and work with Trump to overhaul the federal role in education or expand school choice or somesuch. They’d like to pretend like Trump’s behavior can be tolerated or ignored. 

I guess I hope they’re right. But I think we all know they aren’t — and so do the kids. 

The views expressed here are the author’s alone and not those of any organization with which he is affiliated.

High schools in states that start after Labor Day end up with fewer instructional days before the exams than those that open their doors in mid-August, and sometimes even in late July. Does this discrepancy create a difference in results?

Having had three children in NYC public high schools, where classes start in September, I’ve repeatedly heard from their teachers that they don’t have enough time to cover all the material on the AP tests.

My daughter reports of her AP Calculus class, “We have to do a lesson a day. Every time we take a test we are, technically, falling behind, because it takes a whole period. So we’re learning new material (sometimes in a different unit) while still studying for the test on material we’ve already moved on from.”

I asked fellow NYC moms and dads whether the same was true at their schools.

“My student goes to Stuyvesant,” an NYC mom confirmed. “The AP European History class follows a ridiculously regimented schedule. The entire year is already mapped out to the day. This is surely an artifact of the tight timeline the teacher is forced to follow to cover the material before the spring exam.”

“I experienced it as a student in the early ’90s in a post-Labor Day-start school system,” Elizabeth Jones Polkovitz, another NYC public school parent, said. “It’s a month of instruction or more! It can make a really big difference for Calc BC in particular. We really had to rush sequences and series. And we had to rush through sections of [AP U.S. History]. My kid experienced the same. The end of [these classes] were a sprint for both of us, 30 years apart.”

A contributor with a student in an NYC private school revealed that her child’s teacher “often has students do a unit or two of work in summer before school starts for many of the AP classes.”

This is not a problem exclusive to NYC. National message boards like find parents lamenting: Living in a state that goes back after Labor Day and having multiple kids take AP, I have seen firsthand how teachers push topics together to try to get everything to fit in. 

While over on Reddit, teachers and students :

• Schools that don’t start until late August and early September are at a disadvantage. States that start school in early August get an extra month of instructional time before AP tests.

• We don’t start until after Labor Day. I teach AP Calc AB, and it is impossible to cover all of the material without feeling like I have to rush every lesson.

• To teach my AP class using the minimum recommended time described by the College Board, I would have to see my students for over 27 more class periods than I currently have.

• My school started around Aug. 3. My friend in New York started after Labor Day. I had an entire month to teach the same material for the same AP test.

• I’m in NY and recently learned that the states that start school sooner (August, like AZ) get 40 weeks to prep for the exam, versus our 32.

• My AP Biology teacher … told us that we would have to study the last part of the course ourselves.

• There were … not enough instruction days to cover all the material. [My teacher] would choose a few chapters that were purely homework, and then have one or two optional afterschool workshops to go over the material.

It’s out of concern for this AP inequity, among other factors, that of U.S. public school students now begin class before Labor Day.

: An earlier start to the school year… lets students and teachers have the maximum amount of instructional time prior to the start of standardized tests and assessments.

: The early start calendar gives… AP students more learning time before taking exams in the spring. (The district changed to a September start but planned “to offer more learning time for AP … students during ‘Saturday academies’ and summer school.”)

And : It… gives students more time to prepare for… Advanced Placement exams.

The assumption is that more time to prepare for AP tests will lead to better outcomes.

Surprisingly, the data doesn’t show that.

The with the “highest percentage of public high school graduates scoring a 3 or higher on an AP exam,” according to the College Board, are Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey, all of which begin school at the end of August or after Labor Day. The three lowest-scoring states, Oklahoma, Kansas and Mississippi, start , and in , respectively. 

Not coincidentally, the wealthiest states by are Massachusetts, Connecticut (ranked No. 5 by AP scores), New York and New Jersey. Mississippi is the poorest, with Oklahoma and Kansas placing in the bottom half.

The College Board by socioeconomic status in 2021. But a concluded, “the performance levels for low-income test-takers has not dramatically shifted from the early 2000s: 60% of students from this demographic group only earned a 1 or 2 out of a possible 5 on the exam.” It’s highly unlikely that’s changed since.

So maybe all that cramming isn’t necessary if you live in a high-income state. For low-income students, some teachers may generously schedule extra study sessions to fit in material they don’t have time to cover. But students of means, even if their teachers decline to go above and beyond, will still do just fine — because their families can simply hire a .

Despite what seems like inequity, success on AP exams may have less to do with when classes begin and more with whether you live in a state where students can afford to learn everything they need outside of them.

When I was growing up, a question like this would have been deflected with, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” But with the internet at nearly every child’s fingertips, vague answers won’t suffice anymore. Kids are curious, and if their parents don’t provide answers, a query to Alexa or a Google search will.

I explained the basics of pregnancy, which she already understood, and described abortion as a medical procedure that ends a pregnancy. We discussed the spectrum of beliefs on when, if ever, abortion is acceptable, and compared the laws in our home state of New York with those in Mississippi, where abortion access has been severely restricted. This led to a discussion of federalism, which I broke down in terms she could grasp: how states can set different laws based on local political opinions and lawmakers.

My goal wasn’t to push my own views, but to give her the tools to think critically about the issue. Like so many other moments in parenting, this conversation wasn’t about giving her the “right” answer — it was about guiding her to ask questions and take a broad look at things.

Talking about abortion, or any political topic, is daunting. But with at least , and with the presidential and vice presidential candidates being asked about the issue in multiple forums, kids will inevitably encounter these terms and concepts.

In today’s polarized climate, parents often feel ill-equipped to navigate these weighty subjects with their children, so . But these discussions are too important to avoid. The responsibility of raising informed, engaged citizens falls on the family. 

Parents shape how their children perceive politics. While schools might cover civics basics, conversations at home are where kids truly start to understand and navigate the wider world around them. It’s where they learn that politics isn’t just something shown on TV or happening in Washington, D.C. — it affects their lives and futures. And parents get only four — or fewer — presidential elections to focus on how high-stakes political discussions ought to look before their kids reach voting age.

Here are three strategies for making political discussions with kids more meaningful during election season:

First, recognize your role. Children look to their parents to make sense of the world, politics included. Families are their first teachers — not because they have all the answers, but because they can model the importance of coming together to explore questions about government and politics. If kids see their parents avoiding political topics because they’re uncomfortable, they’ll likely shy away from them too. But by approaching these subjects with curiosity, children will learn to question, debate and seek out different perspectives. These skills will serve them not only in their civic engagement, but in all areas of life. 

Second, restrain your negativity. It’s easy for parents, or anyone, to slip into negativity, especially when discussing politicians they don’t like. But constantly disparaging politics or government can shrink children’s desire to engage with civic life. If all they hear is how broken the system is, why get involved? Instead, model productive political discourse — teaching them to disagree respectfully and value different perspectives.

Third, humanize government. Don’t let politics become an abstract thing: Introduce your kids to the people who represent them, whether it’s by attending a local event or writing a letter to an elected official. Show them that politicians are accessible and that their work has a direct impact on their constituents’ lives. These interactions help kids see government not as a distant, faceless entity, but as real people working (or sometimes failing) to solve problems. 

It is the job of parents to help kids understand politics is part of life. Navigating these conversations is necessary for raising children prepared to shape a better political climate. So, when your child asks, “What is an abortion?” or “Why are you voting?” — don’t brush it off. Don’t assume they’re too young. Welcome the conversation. It might be challenging, but it’s a necessary step in raising the next generation of engaged citizens. They are the ones who will inherit American democracy; make sure they’re prepared to lead it toward a brighter future.

Dominique Bryant made the switch for her 10-year-old after two years of watching him struggle with reading. She first noticed how far behind Malcolm was in second grade when he couldn’t read the instructions on a homework assignment. 

“I looked in his face and he just was so defeated. I said ‘I’ve got to do something else,’” she said. Now her two daughters, Ebony and Aviana, attend the school as well.

One way Burbrella stands out in a growing marketplace of unconventional school options is by grouping students of similar ages and learning needs together in pods — a format that a lot of families became familiar with during the pandemic. The school, however, takes a more mainstream approach to measuring how well students learn math and reading. Teachers turn to some of the same assessments still used in traditional public schools, like the Iowa tests to pinpoint students’ skills when they first enroll and i-Ready to monitor progress throughout the year. 

“We look for their strengths, their interests, and we integrate that into play, nature and projects — just to really make learning fun — but also to close the gaps they have academically,” said Dominique Burgess, the school’s founder.

Her reliance on widely used assessments is not unique in the expanding universe of school choice options, according to a from Vela, a nonprofit that promotes and provides grants to such programs. Most leaders of unconventional schools use methods like observation, student presentations and projects to track progress, but more than half also use standardized tests or assessments built into online curriculum — like DreamBox and Zearn. Leaders of such programs say parents are their number one audience for the data. But with more states allowing families to use public funds for tuition at microschools and other private school programs, there’s also for greater transparency into how students stack up against their peers in district schools.

Burgess, previously a public and charter school educator, doesn’t have a problem with that. 

“I think we’re at a very pivotal point in this whole movement,” said Burgess, who also has an online program that serves students from 19 states. “A lot of what we’re doing needs a light shined on it — not just for parents to say ‘Oh, it’s something different. Let me go try it’ — but more so the country can see this might be the new way of educating kids and providing families with choice.”

Vela, with a network of 3,000 founders of alternative schools, was “uniquely positioned” to survey leaders on how their schools define and measure student success, said Meredith Olson, president and CEO. 

Of the 223 programs that responded, 70% said they track academic progress, but ranked developing students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills as more important than reading and literacy skills — 74% and 66%, respectively. Nearly 40% of the school programs said they measure math skills, and 13% said they don’t track anything. 

Programs using digital tools are more likely to capture student assessment data using education technology from Khan Academy than any other program, Vela found in its survey. More than half of school founders said they use the popular website, with much smaller percentages using Lexia for reading (24%) or Zearn for math (15%).

Laurie Hensley, who runs the Learning Essentials microschool on an acre of property southeast of Phoenix, doesn’t let her students move to the next level until they score at least 90% in Lexia. Sometimes she “has a little chat” with parents if their child still can’t master a lesson after multiple attempts.

“But most of the time kids are progressing,” said Hensley, who worked as a paraprofessional in a charter school before launching her own program five years ago. “The whole point of being out of a public school is that they progress, even if it’s slower. As long as they’re moving forward, I don’t worry about them.”

Doug Harris, a Tulane University economist who studies school choice, including education savings accounts, said he’s not surprised that many microschool leaders rely on Khan Academy to tell them how students are performing. 

“Microschools have only one or two teachers and they can’t be expert in, or create assessments for, such a wide variety of material,” he said. But even if public funds are paying for students to attend a microschool, the public won’t necessarily see that data. “Khan doesn’t provide useful info to anyone but those families and educators in the school.” 

That’s not good enough for many opponents of ESAs, especially those in Arizona, which places no academic requirements on private programs that serve students with public funds. Criticism has spiked in recent months as the state makes to accommodate growth in the program. 

Holding microschools accountable

“Microschools propped up by taxpayer funds should be held to the same standards as public schools, which means they should take the same tests and post the same level of results,” said Beth Lewis, executive director of Save Our Schools Arizona, a public school advocacy organization that strongly opposes the state’s ESA program. “Otherwise, it’s not really about school choice at all, since parents don’t have access to any information about the microschool’s academics. And taxpayers have zero information about their return on investment.”

Jenn Kelly, who runs Education Through Adventure microschool in Scottsdale, agrees that ESA-funded programs should be held accountable for student achievement. But she thinks portfolios full of student work provide a more accurate picture than tests. The question, she said, is who would review the assignments.  

The state education department’s ESA staff “is already overloaded with purchasing and vendor pay requests,” said Kelly, a former special education teacher in district, charter and Catholic schools. “What happens if a child does not show any growth … from year to year? Does the state pull the ESA funding for that child? Every answer raises more questions.”

Unlike Arizona, some states with ESAs or vouchers, like West Virginia and North Carolina, require programs to administer either state tests, or another standardized assessment, and submit the data to the state. 

In West Virginia, Michael Parsons, who runs Vandalia Community School in Charleston, said he’s interested in how students in his school compare with those in other microschools, as well as those in public schools. But he’s most concerned about his students making progress. 

“Most important as a teacher is accountability to my students and their growth, and as an administrator, accountability to my staff,” he said. “If I can keep those two things on par, then accountability to parents, taxpayers, regulators happens by default.”

At Burbrella, Burgess said she could have given the same end-of-grade assessments that students in North Carolina public schools take, allowing for a direct comparison, but she described them as “not kid-friendly” and decided against it. 

One reason parents seek out is because they feel public schools have a narrow focus on testing. 

Bryant remembers how stressed her oldest daughter Ebony would get before state tests in New York City, where they lived before relocating to Burlington.

“She freezes up and does terribly. Compared to her performance in school, it was like night and day,” she said. At Burbrella, assessments don’t create the same level of anxiety. “It’s more like, ‘We’re going to assess where you are, and then we’re gonna work from there.’ ”   

Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation, Stand Together Trust and the Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation provide financial support to Vela and to The 74. 

The shift from summer vacation to going back to school can be tough for children and their families. Beyond adjusting to new routines, the transition requires handling a mix of emotions. While some kids might feel excited about new teachers and classmates, others may experience anxiety, sadness or uncertainty about the upcoming school year.

The results come from a that polled 1,518 parents of K-12 public school students conducted by the National Parents Union between May 7-11. 

“We can point to the fact that parents still feel good about schools,” said founding president and The 74 contributor Keri Rodrigues “[and] still feel good about teachers … There’s a lot of bright spots around the fact that parents are still fully invested in public education and that — contrary to what we might be hearing from the voucher folks — that there’s no fear of parents completely walking away from America’s public education system and moving towards ‘do-it-yourself’ methods.” 

Vouchers, which let parents use taxpayer money to send their kids to private schools, have in the last several years. At the same time, more parents are experimenting with alternative schooling methods, including homeschooling and microschools. 

The majority of parents (72%) also expressed confidence in their kids’ principals and schools for meeting overall expectations. 

But, according to the survey — dubbed “The Parent Report Card” — as parents considered the outer echelons of the education system, their confidence began to wane. Just over half rated their superintendents and school boards favorably, a figure that continued to drop for state governors (45%), U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona (32%) and President Joe Biden (33%). That last number is lower than the president’s overall 37% approval rating among respondents nationwide, according to a Reuters/Ipsos released June 28.

Rodrigues said this is evidence of the disconnect between families and those in power at the state and federal level. 

“I always encourage [elected officials] to go back and listen to the people who are experiencing what is going on in classrooms: our young people,” Rodrigues said. “If you have a problem with parent and family engagement, talk to the parents and families. They will tell you why they’re not engaged. [You] need to do the work, too.”

There has been a significant gap — averaging 31 percentage points — between parents’ favorable views of their own child’s education and Americans’ more critical take on U.S. education at large since at least 1999, according to almost 25 years of The most recent data from last year’s survey saw the second-largest gap to date: 40 points, second only to the 42-point divide in 2000.  

Megan Brenan, senior researcher at Gallup, credits this almost-record setting number to underlying parisian divides, with Republicans expressing the lowest satisfaction with the public education system at large (25%) to date. This also marked the largest gap in history between Democrat and Republican satisfaction, with a 19 percentage point difference. 

“We’re seeing the biggest partisan gaps on a whole lot of measures right now,” she said, reflecting America’s deep polarization. 

According to last year’s Gallup survey, only 36% of Americans are satisfied with K-12 education quality, matching a record low in 2000. Despite this, parents remain mostly pleased with the education their oldest child is receiving, with just over three-quarters reporting they are completely or somewhat satisfied, numbers that reflect historical averages. The vast majority of parents also support their children’s teachers, with the majority rating their performance as excellent (36%) or good (37%).

“This is kind of a pattern that we see over a number of measures where Americans are much more likely to rate national measures lower than their own,” Brenan said. “So we see this with crime: that people say, ‘Oh, crime in the U.S. is at a high, but my neighborhood is fine.’ We see it with their own congressmen. It’s very much like, ‘I hate Congress but my congressman deserves to be re-elected.’ And if you look at the trend in education, then you also see this is something which has held up throughout …. I think it’s just [that] they can relate more to their own personal situation than they can to the national picture.”

One reason why may be that schools are often the centers of communities, said Joshua Cowen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University. 

“That’s where you start to see this point of personal contact that matters to people in terms of what they want to protect,” he continued. “When it’s framed as this large, bureaucratic, nebulous system, then that’s where I think you see these negative results. But [it’s different] when you’re talking about your community, your kids, your football team, maybe your employer or your spouse’s employer.”

When thinking about the role these views on education might play in November’s presidential election, though, Brenan, the Gallup researcher, argued that there are a number of other issues eclipsing education in voters’ minds. 

“The fact that they’re personally satisfied with their own children’s education might have something to do with that,” she said, adding, “I think education is always there as an issue kind of in the background. And unless these other matters — like immigration and the economy — are solved before election day, I’m not sure this is the year that education is going to get its due.”

Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation provides financial support to the National Parents Union and to The 74.

Regardless of a family’s political views, here are some ways for parents, caregivers, teachers and anyone in the orbit of kids to help them navigate this frightening and confusing time. 

Manage media exposure. This is particularly important when there is breaking news. Do not leave news feeds streaming in the background. Read your news instead of watching it (even if you believe you’re out of earshot). Start your kids’ streaming apps first and then invite them into the room. Otherwise, there’s a risk that news images will appear unexpectedly on the screen.

Watch your kids for signs of emotional stress. It’s possible your kids may know about the news and be upset, but won’t tell you directly. Listen to and notice their behavior. Are they acting differently than usual? They may even talk to their toys when they think no one is watching. Use a feelings chart or gently probe with questions like, “If you were a color today, what color would you be?”

Open a gentle conversation. Some topics, like the election, are inevitable, so make a plan to engage in conversation with your child. If you need to process your own thoughts and feelings, do so first, in private. When talking to your child, use simple sentences that are age-appropriate. Answer questions honestly, but limit graphic details. Share your feelings and talk about what you do to help you feel better (e.g. reading a happy book, sending a thank you note to first responders). Follow the child’s lead for when the conversation is over; this will probably happen sooner than you think, because kids flow easily from one thing to another.  

Be prepared for unexpected questions and follow-ups. Kids will ask questions whenever they come to mind, even hours or days after the initial conversation. Here are five steps that can help:

• Breathe. If you panic, nothing productive will happen.
  
• Gather information. Ask simple questions to find out what the child knows (“Where did you hear that?” “Tell me more?”). If other parents are involved, check in with them for more information. If technology is involved, look at the devices to find out what might have been watched or said.
  
• Assess the child’s mental and physical health to determine if they need additional support.
  
• Create an action plan. Given what you learned in steps 2 and 3, pause to plan what you want to say, when the right time is for the conversation and whether you need additional resources (such as the help of a therapist) or tools (such as device passwords or monitoring tools). Put the plan into place. 
• Check in regularly to make sure the child is doing ok, if they have additional questions, if they’ve heard additional info, or if anything else is bothering them.

In many cases, steps 1 through 4 can happen in rapid succession. If you need time to develop the plan and know your child is not actively upset, you can say, “It’s important to talk about this, but I’m distracted/need more time to plan. How about we talk about it tonight?” The child knows they’re heard and that their question will be addressed.  

Emphasize safety. Throughout these conversations, help the child see that they are safe (assuming this is true for you). Kids are taught that the president is the parent of the country. The idea of something happening to a parent is scary. So when the life of the former president is threatened, it can rock a child’s sense of safety. Help kids understand that they’re safe by reminding them about the police, Secret Service and other protectors. 

Lay the groundwork when visiting with others. When heading out with friends or in public, mention in advance that you’d like to avoid political conversations or upsetting subjects while the kids are around. If someone raises a topic, a pointed “Hey can we talk about this later?” or “Can we change the topic?” will usually get the point across. 

Turn off the technology. Say, “We’re taking a break from screens for a bit because there’s a lot of scary news on repeat.” This demonstrates a healthy way to cope as well as sharing a bit of digital literacy: that the news will repeat the same information, which can create more stress. Do something enjoyable with your family or find a community activity where you can give back in some way. It shows that there are good people everywhere — far more good people than bad.

Throughout the election season, notice what you say and how you consume media. Just as adults avoid talking about Santa Claus’s existence in front of the kids, be mindful of what you say. Children are listening.

Then came her dyslexia diagnosis. 

My husband and I explained to her, “Mi amor, not everyone’s brain is wired the same way, and yours is having a hard time putting letters and sounds together. This isn’t your fault.”

I told this guidance counselor about my frustration. I knew the most important indicator of lifelong success is the ability to read, and reading-related learning challenges are common. Yet schools aren’t set up to support these students. It didn’t make sense.

Individual instruction is the best way for struggling readers to catch up, but affordable options were hard to come by.

“You’re just a mom,” he said, dismissively. “There’s nothing you can do.” 

I wouldn’t just give up and hope my daughter would eventually read well enough to get by. 

Most kids don’t learn to read alone, and no child should be expected to somehow figure it out. My family became a team, navigating this challenge together: switching schools multiple times, finding specialized centers, doing hours of research. I sold my business so I could dedicate myself to Lucy — scheduling intensive instructional intervention while ensuring she could be a kid. I started a book club for her and went to soccer and swimming lessons so she could see her friends. 

Today, Lucy is an honor roll high school student and a strong reader. But getting here was a lonely, humbling road. I heard people talking about my kid having “a problem.” I was doing everything I could, but doing it alone was so difficult. It’s partly why I founded here in Miami in 2020. I know what it’s like to have a struggling child and little guidance. And I now know from experience, it doesn’t have to be like that. 

The Lucy Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit advocating for and providing science-backed reading instruction. A full-time team of five — curriculum specialist, operations director, learning specialist, executive assistant and me — runs the show. We have school partnerships, teacher training programs and one-on-one lessons. Five part-time learning specialists are fully trained by my team. In October, we’ll hire six more. 

Our first chair was also a mom whose child has dyslexia. Currently, half of the board comprises moms in similar situations, bringing firsthand experience and dedication. While I lead as CEO, I’m a parent who spends ample time guiding parents with emotional support and effective resources so the whole family will thrive. Our goal is to create a replicable, scalable model that serves all children.

The Lucy Project has served more than 375 students from 36 Miami-Dade schools and has worked with four Title I schools in underserved communities: Kinlock Park, W.J. Bryan, Goulds and Norwood elementary schools.

The project harnesses the Science of Reading to enhance literacy skills among children, particularly in underserved communities. It’s the backbone of The Lucy Project’s professional learning and student programs, as Science of Reading moves everyone forward. It is crucial for many and essential for some. 

Lessons are fun, interactive and responsive to each student’s changing needs. Learning specialists break down reading and spelling into smaller skills and help students build on them over time. Early intervention is everything. While the majority of second- and third-graders reached grade-level proficiency within one school year, remediation makes the biggest impact in kindergarten. 

Norwood Elementary’s partnership launched the first Literacy Hub, which included summer professional learning for two kindergarten teachers and coaching throughout the year. All students engaged in Structured Literacy lessons in small groups, and those who needed focused support received it one-on-one. At the start of the 2023 school year, 52% of kindergartners were on grade level. By year’s end, that number was .

The Lucy Project also hosts seminars, apprenticeships and professional learning that have empowered more than 100 teachers so they can empower their students. Our team helps Miami-Dade students access daily reading remediation and provides parents with emotional support, guidance through the school system,and referrals to appropriate agencies.

We provide income-based private tutoring on a sliding scale, depending on household income. A mix of corporate and individual donors and grants from foundations fund these programs and make financial assistance possible for families in need. 

To catalyze cutting-edge literacy education, The Lucy Project is hosting a conference, , on July 30. Featuring nationally recognized experts in structured literacy education from leading universities like Stanford and Yale, the event is open to educators and families, who can . The idea is to empower South Florida families and the whole community with practical teaching strategies that provide results.

Having this type of community support network for students and families. It takes a team to ensure every child learns to read and succeed in life. Together, school administrators, educators, literacy specialists, nonprofits, parents and caregivers, and funders who collaborate are a force that can change the world. 

It’s time to start thinking like a team. Because we are.

Gov. Kathy Hochul had earlier announced she’d introduce a bill during the January 2025 legislative session to . The bill would permit phones capable of sending and receiving texts, but not those with internet access.

Objections to allowing K-12 students to use their phones in school stress their addictive nature. Hochul has already signed the , ordering social media companies to ban addictive feeds for those under 18. 

, Florida and Indiana ban cellphones in the classroom, while Ohio directs districts to draft their own policies for “cutting down” on cellphone use and Alabama “strongly encourages limits.” Virginia Gov. GlennYoungkin issued an , instructing his Department of Education to come up with “guidance for public school divisions to adopt local policies and procedures establishing cellphone-free education.” Spokane, Washington, July 10, and the state Board of Education is considering one as well.

Would this be the right move for America’s largest school district? We asked NYC parents to weigh in, and the responses were nearly unanimous.

Brooklyn Mom Lena raved, “I am so unequivocally for the cellphone ban, I can barely contain my enthusiasm. It is insane to me that there are schools in which children are allowed to carry the world’s most addicting distraction in their pocket all day. As full-grown adults, we are suffering from our inability to stop looking at our devices and constantly consuming media in a format we are barely evolved enough to handle — and we want to give that same problem to children without fully formed brains, who already lack the ability to exhibit impulse control?”

“With access to nonstop videos and internet, they have forgotten how to keep themselves occupied,” lamented fellow parent Jessica F. “My son claims there’s nothing to do if he can’t play Minecraft. It has become an obsession.”

With demonstrating a connection between heavy social media use and depression, anxiety, loneliness and suicidal ideation, the majority of parents we heard from were thrilled to know there might soon be a limit on in-school smartphone use. 

“Having their phones at lunch keeps kids, especially socially awkward ones, from interacting with new people,” contributed parent A.F. “They use phones as a crutch and withdraw from socializing. I look forward to my high school-aged daughter being forced to socialize.”

“Although face to face doesn’t make for easier girl drama,” an anonymous mom admitted, “access to quick responses leads to more drama. A lot is said behind a screen that might not have been said face to face.”

Research has also demonstrated that children learn better and with deeper comprehension when .

Dad M.V. said, “I would go a step farther and ask that teachers revert to giving homework assignments on paper, not on computers. Yes, computers are more convenient for teachers and students. But they pose similar addiction and distraction problems.”

Carrie C. recognized the extra burden policing devices would place on educators. 

“I don’t think it’s a good use of teachers’ time or intellect for them to be the ones who have to enforce putting your smartphone away,” she wrote. “But I wouldn’t use that as a reason to shrug your shoulders and conclude that it’s not worth trying to make improvements when possible.”

For mother of three Sophia McShane, however, a ban on phones is unacceptable. 

“I’ve had it with the [city Department of Education] and their constant changes that don’t benefit the children,” she raged. “My eldest goes to school on his own and picks up his siblings from school. A phone is a necessity. The DOE should stick to teaching these kids how to read and write. They’re failing at that but want to focus on phones. It’s ridiculous.”

Travel and safety are the most prevalent arguments for why a school cellphone ban is than the troubles caused by phones.

But Kate L. doesn’t buy it. She argued that, “If (parents) need to contact their child for non-emergency reasons, do so before or after school or during lunch.”

Brooklyn’s Lena went further, saying, “The idea that children need to be immediately accessible to parents all day long is absurd. My middle schooler commutes roughly 40 min on the subway. He has a ‘stupid’ phone in order for me to be in touch with him or him with me to and from school or in case of emergency. If, God forbid, there was an emergency, I have no doubt I could get in contact with him during the day by calling the school. If the argument is, well what if there is a school shooting (again, God forbid), then I think we are trying to solve that problem with the wrong device.”

National polls have run the gamut from opposing cellphones in the classroom to against a ban.

If the largest school district in America goes through with Banks’ cellphone moratorium, would that finally accumulate enough research and evidence to guide definitive policy for the entire country?

The views expressed here are those of the author.

“Team uniforms are purchased by schools,” Jenna Lyle, Department of Education deputy press secretary, tells me. “Other needs, such as equipment and transportation, are funded both by the [DOE] central [office] and also at the school level.”

This is the official party line. But it isn’t the case at all schools, leading to gross inequity across the five boroughs.

To start with, not all schools are granted the right to field a team in all the sports that they request, even if they have enough interested players and guaranteed funding from their school. This is why, in April, David Garcia-Rosen, director of school culture and athletics at Bronx Academy of Letters, an Urban Assembly public 6-12 school, filed a complaint with the United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights charging that:

PSAL is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by adopting a facially neutral policy that is having an adverse disparate impact on students based on race, color or national origin.

He elaborates: “The way to create equity in sports is for every kid to have access to the PSAL through Individual Access. If your school doesn’t have a swim team, you could try out for the swim team at another school. In spring of 2023, thanks to the Individual Access Pilot Program, every single student in NYC finally had access to every single sport they offered. That’s the holy grail of equity.”

Yet, according to his complaint, in fall 2023, the program was amended so that, rather than it being available to every single student, it would instead apply to:

Students who attend schools with fewer than six teams and students in targeted districts with limited access to sports.

“But the DOE has not provided, despite numerous requests from me, what are the target districts,” Garcia-Rosen asserts. “My complaint is showing that Black and Latino students have less access to PSAL than all other students. Black and Latino students are much more likely to go to a school with more than six teams, but way less than the 25 teams than the average white student has access to. All I am asking for is to simply return to the policy of spring 2023. They literally solved the problem less than a year ago, and then re-created the problem.”

But even if PSAL were to reinstate guaranteed Individual Access for all, it would not be enough to bring about true sports equity in NYC schools. 

There would still be the issue of adequate coaching. 

“PSAL coaches are only paid for 10 hours a week,” recounts a mother whose child has participated in PSAL for two years. “Track meets can run for eight hours, and since coaches must go to meets, they don’t go to practice, so kids aren’t getting any training.” She added that at some schools, coaches volunteer their time and even buy necessities with their own money, hoping for eventual reimbursement by the PSAL. Students who can afford it get private coaching outside of school. At others, though, the athletes practice without professional guidance.

Uniforms and transportation to games are another inequitable issue.

Amanda Vender, a mom at Thomas Edison High in Queens, says her children’s “uniforms and transportation are completely provided. I have never had to pay for anything.”

At the same time, members of the rugby team at Columbia Secondary School in Harlem — many of whom live in upper Manhattan — had to get themselves to and from the city championship game in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, by public transportation — a 90-minute trip each way.

At Brooklyn Technical High School, when there isn’t enough money in the budget to pay for uniforms, the Alumni and Parents associations step in. A member explains, “We have a line in our budget dedicated to sports. Coaches often email us directly, and we almost always approve.”

A parent on the PTA of a large, arts-focused high school echoes, “Our PTA has paid for uniforms, balls and bowling alley fees for the bowling team, team hoodies for the table tennis team and various gear for the girls fencing team.”

Schools without robust PTAs and alumni associations, however, are forced to turn to families to cover a variety of shortfalls, or forfeit competing altogether. With over 70% of NYC public school students classified as , it’s obvious that a majority of schools and families do not have the means to pay for the coaching, uniforms, equipment and transportation that PSAL doesn’t cover — even if their school is granted permission to start a team.

“If you want to compete at the college level, you need to go to meets where college coaches can evaluate you,” another parent explains. “But these big meets are only attended by big schools, or else the parents have to fund it. Schools without big teams can’t afford to go, so their athletes don’t get the chance to shine. Tons of schools don’t get to big meets, and their students are the ones who need those college and scholarship opportunities most.”

“Sports is an academic issue,” Garcia-Rosen says. “Kids who participate in sports have higher graduation rates; they’re less likely to be arrested at 5 o’clock, because they’re on sports fields; they’re less likely to get pregnant; they’re less likely to use drugs. All the things we’re trying to avoid with our students, . All schools should have sports.”

Asked to comment regarding the pending civil right complaint, Deputy Press Secretary David Clarke replied, “There has been no scaling back of our commitment to providing equitable access to PSAL sports. We have aggressively expanded the number of new teams by 222 over the past 3 years (146 this year alone), created over 20 shared access programs between schools at different locations, and offered individuals access to try out for teams at other schools, including about 1,500 this year alone.

“The [current] legal stipulation requires we prioritize districts and schools with fewer teams and focuses on adding teams and creating shared access programs, with individual access intended only for students at schools with very limited access to team sports. We ensure students in those districts have the legally required priority access, and then consider other requests, and we found that broadening access beyond what was legally stipulated moved us further away from the goals of the stipulation to increase access on a schoolwide basis. Our very first priority is following the stipulation to ensure that students have equitable access to athletics at or close to their home.” 

Garcis-Rosen disagrees. “They literally renamed the program ‘access’ from ‘all access’ this fall. In the spring of 2023, every student in NYC had ‘guaranteed individual access.’ Under the new PSAL policy, only 8% of Black and Latino students have ‘guaranteed individual access.’ The new policy took guaranteed individual access away from 183,680 Black and Latino students. While adding 222 teams over the past three years is great, there have also been over 100 teams dropped from the PSAL this year alone.”

Launching new teams does nothing to help students enrolled in schools that are too small to field teams of their own, yet too big — or located in the wrong neighborhood — for their athletes to qualify to play at other schools. As the rules stand now, those kids are still blocked from participating.

Creating new teams doesn’t lead to equity if they are not available to all. The only thing that will is making it possible for every student to have access to every team sport, and ensuring that all those teams, whether or not they’re able to obtain outside contributions, are equally funded.

The problem is real and pervasive, proven through data that’s unmistakable. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) that approximately 37% of American fourth graders and 30% of eighth graders score below basic proficiency levels for reading. In fact, only roughly one-third of fourth, eighth and 12th graders are proficient readers.

Parents, let this be a wake-up call. While teachers play a crucial role in helping students succeed, it is parents who hold the key to unlocking a new level of literacy across America. There is no time like the present to change the future, and recognizing the issue is step one.

The ability to read is arguably the most powerful tool on Earth. It allows children (and adults) to make sense of the world. Higher literacy rates are associated with healthier populations, less crime, greater economic growth and higher employment rates. Reading exercises the brain, reduces stress, motivates and teaches empathy. 

Especially compelling for parents working to raise successful, career-ready kids is that literacy bolsters academic success and access to economic opportunity. When children excel in reading, their confidence grows, writing skills improve and comprehension in other subjects, even in math, increases.

has found that people who had higher reading and math skills as children ended up with higher incomes and better housing and jobs as adults. Participants’ reading and math ability at age 7 was linked to their social class a full 35 years later.

The implications are even more reason for parents to take notice and get involved in their child’s reading journey. Building a strong foundation early is crucial. But so is getting help. The earlier a child who needs reading help gets it, the better. Parents can ensure their child’s struggles don’t get overlooked by knowing the signs and advocating for them.

So, what should parents look for?

Signals that a child is struggling to read include trouble breaking words into sounds; limited knowledge of letter names and sounds; difficulty rhyming; skipping words in a sentence; and guessing words rather than trying to sound them out. 

Parents can start to become their child’s champion by contacting the teacher or principal to share their concern and asking for further evaluation. Schools often conduct screening assessments like DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) to determine if a child needs help. If so, they will identify the problem areas, such as phonics, fluency or comprehension, and create a plan that encompasses the type of support and level needed. Parents can also consult their child’s pediatrician, since doctors are well-versed in childhood developmental benchmarks.

But parents can also reinforce at home the reading skills learned at school. Here are suggestions for promoting literacy that have little or no cost.

• Audiobooks: Instead of always playing music in the car, switch it up with an audiobook. These are free and instantly available through free library apps like Libby.
   
• Keep books places kids frequent: Having books around gives kids the opportunity to interact with reading materials on a daily basis. Keep some in the car, bathroom, pretend play areas, living room, bedrooms and other places kids frequent so they always have access. Borrowing library books is free, and many libraries have even done away with late fees.
  
• Letter play: Remember playing with magnetic letters on the fridge? Younger kids still love this. It reinforces letters and sounds through a visual experience. Parents can also write letters in sand or Play-Doh and use foam letters in the bathtub.
  
• Positive association: Sign up for reading challenges sponsored by libraries, where kids earn free rewards. Simply changing your phraseology from “you have to read” to “you get to read” can have an impact on a child’s mindset.
  
• Games and Songs: You can turn anything into a game when it comes to little ones. As they begin reading, encourage your children to read one page and you read the next. Or read and then stop on a word you know your child can supply; shouting it out builds confidence. Build on younger kids’ reading skills with short sing-along videos featuring subtitles that connect what they hear to the words they see. For older kids, try karaoke. Use songs your child isn’t familiar with, so they’ll sing the lyrics by reading off the screen instead of from memory. Both activities promote reading fluency, word recognition and comprehension.
  

Whatever supports parents choose, this March is a great time to start changing the literacy trajectory, improving children’s lives and fostering their lifelong love of reading. This cannot be someone else’s problem. If parents don’t step in, who will?

My daughter, Aries, was one of the students. And I was one of the adults who required educating.

I have written before about my daughter’s struggle with math. My teacher-husband was forced to tutor her at home. My daughter and some fellow students also tried asking their other STEM teachers for help. They did what they could, but, according to my daughter, “They could teach us the math, but since they weren’t making the tests, they weren’t sure what to focus on.”

Matters came to a head before midwinter recess, when the majority of the class failed an exam they’d been led to believe they were prepared for.

My daughter took the initiative to draft an email to her teacher. She ran it by her guidance counselor to make sure it was appropriate. The guidance counselor suggested making it less accusatory and more worried.

The final text read:

Dear (Teacher’s Name Redacted) –

We, the majority of the juniors, are emailing you regarding our concerns about the most recent test.

As you may have noticed when grading it, even the students who completed all of their classwork and all of their homework still struggled.

There were only 3 questions that were similar to the Delta math that we’d been assigned for homework. Because of this, many students who studied hard were still not prepared. The homework led us to believe that the test questions would be different from the ones you ended up using. There were many more of the most difficult questions rather than the ones we’d been assigned for homework.

In class, we spent the entire period working on a total of three questions. On the test, however, there were 10 questions of that nature. We were unprepared to complete 10 such questions in a much reduced time frame. We had never practiced doing so many questions of this type in that amount of time.

Also, in class, it took us a week and a half to complete 25 different types of questions, but, on the test, we were expected to finish 11 such questions in 45 minutes, on top of more questions in areas we hadn’t been prepared for. We are all very worried about the unexpected results of this test, and we are wondering how it will affect our semester grades. In the future, we would all appreciate receiving a more accurate study guide so we can prepare for tests and quizzes by practicing the sorts of problems that will be on our tests and not the material we hadn’t prepared for.

As second-semester Jrs, we are worried about our grades because they are going to be sent to colleges. That’s why we want to work with you to fix and grow from this. This is a new semester and now is the time for us to lay a functional groundwork for the rest of the year as well as be prepared for next year.

Once the text was approved, my daughter sent it to her teacher.

The teacher did not respond during midwinter break. That was to be expected. But there was no response after classes resumed, either.

My daughter returned to her guidance counselor, this time with student representatives from every section this teacher taught.

The guidance counselor spoke to the teacher. The teacher’s response was to show Khan Academy videos during classtime. That wasn’t enough for the students.

My daughter reached out to a member of her school’s newspaper staff who had a strong relationship with the principal. This student escalated their concerns up the administrative chain of command.

The principal sat in on the teacher’s next class. According to my daughter, he looked “disgruntled.”

The following week, there was a new teacher for all the sections. One who, as my daughter delightedly exclaimed, “Makes sense when he talks!”

I supported my daughter in her campaign even though I didn’t expect it to yield results. It never crossed my mind that students might be able to pull off such a coup. 

As an immigrant to the United States, I grew up with two conflicting attitudes toward authority: Those in charge didn’t give a damn about what happened to you … but you should obey them, anyway. They may not have cared if you sank or swam, but rocking the boat guaranteed you’d be thrown overboard. In other words, it’s best to put up with a bad teacher/boss/circumstance, because if you speak up, you’re definitely going to be punished. You can’t fight City Hall!

That fatalist attitude was one of the reasons I allowed my younger son to drop out of high school. He may have, after many, many arguments, convinced me that it was OK to quit an untenable situation. But it took my daughter and her friends to teach me that you could fight back – and win!

I am in awe of what these young people accomplished. They identified their problem, advocated for their position, stuck to their guns and refused to back down until they were presented with a solution that was acceptable to them.

When I told my husband I’d be writing about it, he said, “You’re going to make people angry. They’re going to expect their own schools to be equally as responsive.”

Good. I want them to expect it. I want them to demand it.

I want all American students to know they can challenge their teachers, their principals, the entire education system. They won’t always win. They won’t always be right. But they can and should make their voices heard.

I didn’t believe that. Until some NYC 11th-graders showed me how it’s done.