Sergio Garcia is quick to the scene. He puts on a scuffed firefighter jacket, grabs an oxygen mask and crouches down on hot concrete to start chest compressions on a dummy body. 

At the Los Angeles Unified School District’s career technical education showcase, under an outdoor canopy in blistering Southern California heat, the fire academy student demonstrates CPR to other students who might also be interested in joining. 

Sergio represents one of 23 high schools and six middle schools that showcased a range of career technical education at L.A. Unified, including 15 comprehensive three- or four-year programs that prepare students for industries through real-world experience. The showcase, held last month at the , a private health equity foundation, featured student projects, live demonstrations and skill-based challenges, is part of the district’s “Dream It, Achieve It!” initiative that pairs students with local industry leaders.

“With my degree, I’d rather know I’m going to help people,” said Sergio, a senior and fourth-year deputy chief at the fire academy at Banning High School who is on track to earn a fire science degree at a technical college. “Although it is very physically demanding, the fact that you’re doing good in this world is a bigger gift than anyone could ever ask for.”

Building technical and team-building skills 

At another canopy at the showcase, students cheered a remote-controlled battle of two robots, vying for the prize of a 3D-printed bot, while Madelynne Arevalo helped set up a mini flight simulator. Madelynne, a senior at Fremont High School in Los Angeles, is in the robotics program and is designing a rocket launch for her aerospace engineering project.

“We also compete with other high schools, and the competitions are really fun,” Madelynne said. “I’m really proud of all the models (we made), even if they’re not the final ones we end up using.”

Madelynne remembers designing an elevator system in a robot she worked on for a competition. Although she and her team chose a more time-efficient robot for the event, she said she learned how to develop new technical and team-building skills in a high-stakes environment. 

“It was a lot of our own ideas and a lot of collaboration,” Madelynne said, “and I thought that even if it doesn’t work, at least the process was nice.”

In recent years, L.A. Unified has significantly expanded career technical education to about 435 pathways, from engineering and technology to business and construction, serving nearly 40,000 students. About 1,000 students completed internships in the 2024-2025 school year, and CTE programs have about a 97% graduation rate. 

“CTE careers are the fastest growing careers in the United States, more than students going to a four-year university,” said Jaime Medina, a firefighter and teacher in L.A. Unified’s firefighting program. 

Israel Urbina, a junior at Washington Preparatory High School in Los Angeles, is a third-year student in the photojournalism program. At the showcase, he displayed a photo in which he manipulated light to create different designs, objects and shapes, including one that spelled out his name. 

“Right now, my thing in photography is light painting,” Israel said. “I did a video about it in my photography class, and it’s about all my light paintings and the different ones I’ve done and the different people I’ve done it with.”

Ken Kerbs, a photojournalism teacher at the school, described Israel as nearly an “expert” on light painting. Through years of honing techniques related to perspective, reflections, texture, light and shadow, Kerbs said most of his students leave the program with greater curiosity about the world and a sharper eye for detail. 

“What that says to me is that teaching them the basics is to be sensitive and have a different sensibility about their environment,” Kerbs said. “That’s what makes me come to school in the morning.”

Blessed Thomas-Hill, a senior at Washington Prep, worked with Israel on a film about light painting and wrote poetry for the film’s narrative. She said she chose the photojournalism program because of Kerbs, who helped teach her to be more comfortable expressing herself.  

“I’m an introvert, and talking with people, I really struggle with that a lot,” Blessed said. “I got to know a lot of great friends this year. I’ve got to get closer to more people. It’s made me more sociable.” 

Students ‘rise to the occasion’ 

Blessed said she wants to be an artist and plans to incorporate photography in her personal art. She remembers a field trip to Cal State Northridge, where she learned about a photographer’s protest of immigration raids through his photos of L.A. communities, which inspired her to commit to art. 

“It’s really inspiring in a way because it shows that you’re not just alone in your community,” Blessed said. 

Madelynne said she plans to continue studying robotics and will pursue a college degree in biomedical engineering. Because she had not committed to robotics until her senior year, she felt she was behind many students who had started coding in middle school. 

“At first, I didn’t believe in myself. I didn’t think I was smart enough to do something as complicated as engineering,” Madelynne said, adding that the robotics program led her to Girls Build, a club where girls learn to code and build machines together. 

“Spreading the positivity around has helped me believe more in myself,” she said. 

Sergio, the Banning High fire academy student, said he initially struggled with how physically demanding his training was, but that he learned to build speed and strength with each simulated fire alarm drill. 

“I’ve also learned that when it comes to rising to an occasion, I rise to that occasion. Whether it be someone’s in trouble, I help protect people,”  he said. “This academy has brought out leadership in me, the discipline, the social skills that I wouldn’t have learned any other way.” 

Sergio said he also plans to become certified as a diesel mechanic, because the firefighting program has allowed him to combine two of his interests.  

“I love the whole firefighting part, but I’ve also always loved working on cars. I figured if I’m going to be a mechanic, I might as well do it for a better cause,” Sergio said. “Working on fire engines, so when those firefighters go out and save those lives, I can say I helped with that.”

This story was originally published on EdSource.

When Stamford High School students arrive at their personal finance class, they’re greeted by a stock ticker and a TV monitor showing the day’s business and financial news.

Printed below, on the yellow wall, is a collage of words like “independence,” “generational wealth” and “dream big.” “Your journey to financial freedom starts here,” another wall reads.

This is the school’s recently renovated financial literacy lab. As schools across Connecticut work to meet a new graduation requirement, Stamford — with help from the city’s well-established finance sector — is staying a few steps ahead.

The district already offered personal finance as an elective before the statewide requirement went into effect. Now, it’s upping its game, in part with the help of a $150,000 grant from Stamford-based financial services company Synchrony.

It’s part of $3 million in grants Synchrony has rolled out nationwide under its “Empowering Financial Futures” initiative over the last two years. And it comes as interest in K-12 financial literacy grows around the U.S. 

“Kids need to start to get focused on this, and they need to understand what true financial literacy is,” Sue Bishop, Synchrony’s chief corporate affairs officer, said at the lab’s grand opening last month. 

The company’s grant to Stamford’s public schools went toward purchasing a live stock ticker and two TV monitors, along with dozens of finance-related games, books and activities. The materials will support a now-mandatory personal finance class, which includes topics ranging from household budgeting to investment and loan planning. 

Connecticut Financial Scholars, part of a national organization seeking to bring financial literacy into K-12 education, helped Stamford design the course. Director of Program Support Elisa Oliver said it’s exciting to witness students picking up new skills.

“Seeing kids actually break down a loan amortization calculator,” Oliver marveled. “We’re seeing students having these conversations when they’re 15, 16 years old, which is awesome.”

Toward increasing economic mobility

Connecticut’s financial literacy requirement , with the state legislature voting overwhelmingly in favor. The mandate also received support from Gov. Ned Lamont and state Treasurer Erick Russell. 

“Personal financial management is one of the most important instructional tools that we can give young people to achieve economic independence and stability throughout their lives,” Lamont when the bill was signed into law. “Requiring it to graduate from high school is simply common sense.”

Under the requirement, starting in the fall of 2023, public high school students in the state had to take a half-credit personal finance course to graduate, starting with the class of 2027. The state is using curriculum developed by , a national organization that has developed the most-used personal finance curriculum in the country. 

In an interview with the Connecticut Mirror, Russell said the financial literacy requirement fits into broader wealth-building and financial security efforts supported by the state. He pointed to programs like , and the — the state’s 529 college savings program — as additional examples.

“Having that strong educational foundation and understanding of finances is also key,  so that people can take advantage of some of those opportunities,” he said. “We want to make sure, as we look at this investment from Synchrony and others like it, as we look at the financial education course requirement, that we’re setting people up for long term success in our state.”

In requiring personal finance coursework, Connecticut joined a growing national trend. According to , 39 states currently require students to take a personal finance course before high school graduation.

“As more states adopt these requirements, ensuring educators have the training, tools, and ongoing support to teach personal finance effectively is becoming increasingly important,” Steve Bumbaugh, the council’s CEO, said in a on Monday.

That sentiment is echoed by Connecticut Financial Scholars. In the years since the organization set up shop in the state, it has worked to promote financial literacy education, with a focus on Connecticut’s large cities and higher-need school districts.

The goal is to promote equity in access to financial knowledge in the state, said organization executive director Betsy McNeil.

“Without adequate financial education, students are more likely to struggle with debt or financial stress that really can impact them on a daily basis and can limit their economic mobility,” she said. “We’re looking to equip the students with the really essential financial skills, knowledge, awareness and confidence.”

Bishop, of Synchrony, said the need to teach financial literacy has grown as more and more young people, especially college students, get wrapped up in the world of sports gambling and prediction markets.

“You can get that same high by investing in the stock market or saving in a mutual fund — in a much safer and much more beneficial way,” Bishop said.

Connecticut Financial Scholars is active in a number of schools, using a four-part strategy of curriculum, teacher support, parent engagement and community involvement to further spread its message. 

After the Connecticut personal finance requirement was established, the organization on how to implement financial education curricula in their classrooms.

Efforts like the Stamford High School lab also help, McNeil said, by providing ways for community members and local institutions to support student learning. In the coming months she said she hopes more communities will benefit from this kind of investment.

“We continue to explore and listen for those opportunities in the other communities that we’re in as well,” she said, noting that Stamford is one of the state’s “alliance districts,” a group of under-resourced school districts in Connecticut. 

“This is needed in Stamford, and we recognize and understand it is needed in other communities across the state as well,” McNeil added.

Stamford ahead of the curve

Synchrony’s Bishop said she’s glad the personal finance course also devotes time to more mundane topics, such as building a good credit score. “You honestly cannot live in this country without credit,” she said.

When she graduated high school, Bishop said the extent of her financial literacy was knowing how to balance a checkbook. That didn’t change until her first job, which happened to be at a mutual fund company.

“I was like, ‘I’m not good at math. I’m a communications person. What am I doing?’” Bishop said. “I still say it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because I learned about investing.”

Courses like Stamford’s aim to put that kind of knowledge in the classroom where, in theory, every student will be exposed to it. Bishop said that also has an upside for banks themselves.

“We never want to loan money to someone who can’t pay us back,” she said. “We have a vested interest in developing young people to be responsible adults.”

Stamford High School personal finance teacher Doug Taylor said for the final assessment of the class, students face a “life scenario” in which they manage a household budget while handling unexpected problems like a car breaking down.

“In the end of that cycle, they must have had the budget balanced,” Taylor said.

Stamford senior Nick Sutin said he’s landed a job with a nearby finance company, and he said he gives some credit to the finance classes he’s taken. He said that expertise helped him make a strong impression.

“You already have the background to answer all these types of questions,” Sutin said.

Stamford students who want to study finance topics beyond the state requirement have plenty of opportunities. The high school boasts 12 business teachers, most of whom have business or financial work experience. Their classes include entrepreneurship, business communications and investing. Some students even build stock portfolios and take part in competitions with other high schools.

“This is not vocational. This is finance. This is investments. This is starting a business,” said Dorothea Mackey, the head of Stamford High School’s Career and Technical Education department.

Mackey, who previously worked as an analyst at Chrysler Capital, played a leading role in securing Synchrony’s support for the new financial literacy lab.

“This is just pushing this envelope a little bit forward to make sure that the business education is solidified,” she said.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

Within weeks of ChatGPT’s release, hard rules appeared almost overnight. AI tools were banned throughout departments. Teachers watched what seemed like an existential threat materialize in real time, and they responded the way institutions usually do under pressure: They drew a line and told everyone not to cross it.

Three years later, that line is still there. And at many places, nobody ever asked whether it should be, at least not the people most affected by it.

When I looked into how my Austin, Texas, high school’s AI policy was developed, I found that my administrators made the decision internally. There was no student committee, no open forum, no campuswide survey. The rulebook was simply handed down. In K–12 education, require districts to develop and publish AI policies; when they are published, they’re often developed without proper consideration of all stakeholders, including students themselves.

It’s reasonable to counter that students are minors, that institutions need coherent governance and that not all decisions can go to a committee. But AI policy isn’t a routine curriculum adjustment. It governs what tools students are allowed to use to think, draft, research and communicate — tools that increasingly shape how knowledge is produced and evaluated outside school. Getting those rules wrong produces consequences for students.

Brittany Carr’s situation is a well-known example. In early 2023, the had three assignments flagged by an AI detector. She provided her revision history and explained her process writing deeply personal essays about her cancer diagnosis, her depression and her personal recovery. It wasn’t enough. Fearing that a second accusation could cost her financial aid, she began running every essay through an AI detector herself, rewriting any sentence it marked until her writing voice felt flattened and unfamiliar. By the end of the semester, she left the university.

Carr is not alone. The same NBC News investigation found that students across the country deliberately simplified their vocabulary and avoided complex sentence patterns — not to write better, but to write less like themselves. Creative writing assignments exist to help students find their voice, which they can’t do in fear of an algorithm. Carr’s case shows a student reshaping her writing, and ultimately her education, around a software system she had no role in approving, in a policy she had no voice in developing.

Student involvement would not necessarily have guaranteed a different outcome in Carr’s case. But it might have changed the structure that enabled it. Students could have brought up concerns about relying on automated detectors without corroborating evidence. They could have described how fear of false accusations pushes students toward simpler vocabulary, safer syntax and less intellectual risk. They could have asked what procedural protections exist before a software flag becomes an academic charge.

Instead, at many institutions, enforcement architecture was built first. Conversation came later, if at all.

It doesn’t have to work this way. In Los Altos, California, did more than sit in on policy meetings — they designed and ran community workshops, facilitated discussions between sixth graders and administrators, and built an AI chatbot to help other districts draft policies. 

A found that students overwhelmingly want to be part of decisions about how AI is used in their education — and that many already hold sophisticated views on its risks and potential. The fact that Los Altos made national news tells you how rarely that invitation is extended.

But there is a deeper reason students belong in these conversations: We know something policymakers don’t.

At my high school, I’ve witnessed — and experienced — a secret loop in the learning process: we use  large language model tools like ChatGPT and Claude to genuinely improve learning by unraveling concepts, studying for tests and brainstorming ideas. 

A few days ago, a student asked a question about a formula in my AP Physics C class — and nobody knew the answer. Another student opened his laptop and asked Claude, and after a few minutes of back-and-forth, we had completely straightened out our question, improving everyone’s understanding of how circuits worked. I used an LLM to compile notes from my Multivariable Calculus class, which helped me study and earn a near-perfect score on my test. My friend used ChatGPT to learn Java syntax for a project — not to write code, but to understand the language.

A found that 54% of U.S. teens now use AI chatbots for schoolwork, with the most common uses being research and brainstorming — not copying and pasting answers. But that message hasn’t reached the people writing the rules. This secret loop goes completely disregarded by schools, simply because it’s easier to blanket-ban the technology altogether. The generation that grew up with these tools understands their texture in a way no outside committee can replicate.

These AI policies directly affect students’ outcomes and futures. To exclude them from the conversation is simply undemocratic.

If educational institutions are serious about preparing students for democratic citizenship, that commitment must go beyond coursework and into policy-making. The time to invite students into these critical conversations is now. Will schools treat students as subjects of policy, or as participants in it?

In the past few years, the world has seemed to change faster than ever. Smartphones, AI, social media and the constant flow of information have transformed daily life. Yet one thing has barely changed: the history curriculum in K–12 schools. The world may be moving fast, but history textbooks are not.

The war in Iran shows how badly educators need to change the way we teach the past. We can’t begin with distant history — the 13 colonies, ancient Egypt or classical Greece — and expect students to figure out why any of it matters. We need to begin with the world students are living in now, with the headlines they already see every day. They need to understand what’s happening in Iran before they learn it was once the Persian empire. Once they understand the present, they can begin to understand why the story of how we got here matters.

History explains our nation’s politics, our institutions, our ideas and our wars. But why should students care about how we got to the modern world if they do not understand the modern world in the first place? It is hard to make sense of the past, or even care about it, if you do not understand the present.

And yet, America still teaches history from the colonial period or classical antiquity forward. Our curricula, though not our teachers, assume students will make the connection from past to present on their own. But the worldview of a 14-year-old, fresh out of middle school and getting most of their news from TikTok, will be incomplete at best.

Schools cannot begin with history without first asking what they know about the present: Do they know where Iran is? (.) What kind of government it has? How its economy works? Why the region matters geopolitically? If we asked, we would find that many students know very little about the wider world as it exists right now. That helps explain why they so often struggle to care about its history.

Because classrooms so often teach Ivan the Terrible and Alexander the Great in a vacuum, they get lackluster results. Scores in U.S. history have declined sharply, with just 13% of middle school students performing at grade level. Yet more than 75% of high school students following current events is important to them, and 93% say more opportunities to discuss current events in the classroom.

At our school, in the Bronx, we focus on computer science, technology and internships. But our mission is larger than that: to prepare students to navigate the economy and the world. A year ago, when we looked at our graduating seniors, we found that many knew little about the world they actually live in. That is why we revamped our 9th-grade history curriculum.

Before teaching U.S. and world history, we teach students about the world as it exists today. In 9th grade, they study geography, economic systems, governments and culture in the present. That way, they can understand history as an attempt to explain the world around them, not as a random collection of facts.

We examine major powers and regions — Iran, China, the U.K., Mexico, Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria and the U.S. — and ask basic questions. How does each country’s economy work? What is its political system? How well does it serve the people who live there? What languages do people speak and what religions do they practice? How do states compete for power?

The result is that students have a framework for everything they learn later in high school.

So when federal food assistance was suspended a few months ago and students in my class were struggling to afford groceries, we turned that into a short study of federal systems and how different levels of government work. When the war in Iran began, our students already had baseline knowledge. I asked why they thought we were at war, and they talked about the strategic value of oil and the challenges of an authoritarian theocracy. They were able to think critically about what they saw on TikTok instead of simply absorbing it.

The crisis led to serious classroom conversations. Students were equipped with knowledge.

Rethinking how schools teach history takes on new urgency because social media now delivers global events to students instantly. They see what is happening in the world whether adults are ready for it or not. As educators, we have a responsibility to help them process that information with reason. We want them to think independently, not simply absorb what an algorithm feeds them.

That is especially important in an age of misinformation. It is also more engaging. When students do not see a connection between school and their own lives, absenteeism rises and disengagement follows. Starting from what is relevant to students’ lives and backgrounds is critical if we want to build students who are curious and eager to learn.

To my fellow educators, especially history teachers: I understand the hesitation. In a hyperpolarized political climate, teaching current events can be a scary and thankless task. But we have to be brave.

If our families and our students see that we are helping them make sense of what is happening in the world right now, they will remember why school matters and why our profession matters to our communities and our country. And if more people understand both the world we live in now and how it got this way, we may be able to educate a generation of leaders better prepared for the crises yet to come.

TOPEKA — In what founding document does the phrase “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” appear? Why did the United States enter the Persian Gulf War? Why do U.S. representatives serve shorter terms than U.S. senators?

These are among the 128 questions on the U.S. citizenship test, and they could become study material for Kansas students.

Under a bill that also mandates teaching students about the dangers of communism and socialism, high school freshmen would be required to take a 100-question exam based on the civics test that prospective U.S. citizens take during the American naturalization process.

lumps the test into state-mandated American history and civics classes in public and accredited private and parochial schools, and students would have to pass the test before earning a diploma.

The bill passed the Senate on Thursday in a 26-14 vote. It also requires the State Board of Education to craft curricula that teaches K-12 public school students about “negative impacts of communist and socialist regimes and ideologies.”

The bill is rooted in conservative circles concerned about anti-Americanism and contested statistics that purport Gen Z Americans are attracted to communist and socialist ideals. Sen. Brad Starnes, a Riley Republican and former school superintendent, put forth the bill and assured the House Education Committee on Monday that neither the civics test nor the curricula will replace existing units on American history.

The committee on Tuesday approved an amendment to the bill to add fascism to the curricula.

Research on younger generations’ inclination toward socialist or communist causes is muddy. A 2019 Gallup poll found millennials and Gen Z, ages 18-39, . As a whole, however, Americans still than socialism.

Joshua Reynolds, a policy analyst for Cicero Action, a conservative think tank’s advocacy arm, backed the bill, citing three separate polls indicating favorable views of communism and socialism among 18-39 year olds.

Reynolds cited in testimony a 2020 poll from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation that “63% of Gen Z and Millennials believe that the Declaration of Independence guarantees ‘freedom and equality’ better than the Communist Manifesto, compared to 95% of the Silent Generation.”

Leah Fliter, assistant executive director of advocacy for the Kansas Association of School Boards, said socialism and communism curriculum might be inappropriate and complex for early grades.

“We feel that this bill has been drafted without looking at the Kansas state standards for graduation,” she said Monday.

The Kansas State Board of Education already recommends instruction on communism and socialism, according to Monday testimony from board members Cathy Hopkins and Beryl New. The board, they wrote, “has established history, government and social studies standards that prepare students to be informed, thoughtful, engaged citizens as they enrich their communities, state, nation, world and themselves.”

If passed, both of the bill’s provisions would go into effect July 1, making next school year’s freshmen the first group to be required to pass the civics test as a condition of graduation.

During the naturalization process, most prospective U.S. citizens must complete an interview and citizenship test, which consists of an English portion and civics portion. People must answer at least 12 of 20 civics questions correctly, which are selected at random from a cache of about foundational American events, figures, principles and procedures. Kansas high school students would have to take a 100-question exam containing questions substantially similar to those that appear on the citizenship civics test, the bill said.

Arizona has required its high schoolers to pass a civics exam based on the U.S. citizenship test since 2017, and in 2026 raised the passing threshold, requiring students to answer at least 70 of 100 questions right instead of the original 60. Wisconsin has required the test since 2015.

Arizona only offers the test in English while Wisconsin offers versions in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese.

The Kansas proposal does not specify a designated language. Students could request to take the test as early as seventh grade, and they can take it as many times as necessary to pass. Students must get an 80% or higher on the test to pass.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

As New York City schools ramp up their focus on job readiness programs, a parent board overseeing high schools is calling on the Education Department to implement career aptitude assessments for all ninth and 11th graders.

“It helps with the ever popular question of ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’” said Lawrence Lee, one of the sponsors . “It’s a big world with lots of different options and choices. I think many people look around and think their choices are only what they can see around them.”

, like other schools across the state and nation, are increasingly focusing on career education. There are more than 130 career and technical schools plus over 260 career and technical programs offering internships, apprenticeships, and job-focused courses across the five boroughs. But often, students are left to navigate a complicated application process without guidance on how various programs, electives, internships, career and technical tracks, and postsecondary paths might align with long-term goals, the high school council board members said. They believe the career aptitude assessments can help students reflect on their choices to improve how they select courses and work toward real-world goals.

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“By 11th grade, those decisions directly affect college applications, workforce credentials, and financial planning. Rather than leave those moments to chance, these assessments can give students the agency to better understand their own talents and to see multiple futures for themselves,” said Deborah Alexander, one of the resolution’s sponsors.

Education Department officials said they will review the resolution, but added they currently use platforms that offer interactive career exploration activities and generate tailored career options based on students’ interests.

“This career planning is also embedded in 1:1 advising, ensuring each high schooler receives personalized support in mapping out their next steps,” Education Department spokesperson Isla Gething said in a statement.

The high school council members want students to take “developmentally appropriate, research‐based” assessments in the fall of freshman year and spring of junior year, saying it will help provide more guidance especially for students from historically underserved communities and those learning English as a new language.

“Some students grow up surrounded by professionals who talk openly about their work and pathways, but many do not,” Alexander said. “That difference can shape who sees themselves as an engineer, a nurse, a filmmaker, an entrepreneur, or who never considers those possibilities at all.”

The online career assessment industry has exploded in recent years: An across the country use off-the-shelf advising tools from more than 20 companies, and many others use custom tech tools.

Some research suggests that career aptitude tools can help students better understand their strengths, that might otherwise not have been on their radar. Some experts suggest the tech tools can also help erode , when it comes to career advice.

But evidence of how effective these tools are remains scarce, which is why education research organization MDRC has embarked on a long-term analysis of two of the tech tools, expecting to release results in the summer. Though the tools offer schools a way to advise students without having to hire more counselors — doing deep dives into what kinds of careers fit a student’s aptitudes and personality as well as what kind of degree to pursue and potential salary ranges — they often need, said Rachel Rosen, a senior research associate at MDRC.

“They’re not perfect,” Rosen said of the tools. “They are better if there is a teacher or an adult who will take the information and really work closely with the students on understanding how it can help them think creatively about what the tools are saying.”

While MDRC researchers don’t yet have definitive answers on whether the tool helped reduce bias, they did find that by the time students take the assessments, they already have some of their own assumptions about who they are and what kinds of careers they might do, Rosen said.

“They felt like they knew themselves better than the tool,” she said, and while the tools still had potential, “they need some good adult guidance to go with them.”

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Each has implemented at least one of five strategies to boost student participation and success in the subject, according to in its recent report. 

Some, through these efforts, have reduced the need for remediation at the college level. This is particularly relevant for low-income students and those of color, who are more likely to be placed in these noncredit courses, which can derail their college trajectories. 

Concern over the issue has risen in recent years thanks to COVID: More than 900 students at the needed catch-up math classes in the fall of 2025 compared to just 32 five years earlier. And their lack of understanding wasn’t confined to high school: they were missing material they should have mastered in middle and Other universities reported similar problems.  

“Too often we spend a lot of energy discussing the challenges and constraints related to education or redesigning math,” said Shakiyya Bland, Just Equations’ director of educational partnerships. “This report highlights states that are doing the work, showing what’s possible — and showing results.” 

The report recognized efforts in other regions, too. The Virginia Community College System, for example, saw the need for remedial math plummet from 40% of incoming students to 4% between 2014 and 2021 after it changed how it judged college math readiness and how it teaches students who need additional help, Bland said. 

“Instead of a single placement test that pushed huge numbers into noncredit remedial tracks, colleges started using multiple measures like high school GPA and math coursework, expanding access for more students to go straight into college‑level math with added support,” she said. “That shift, from assuming students weren’t ready to assuming they could succeed with the right help, is what drove the big drop in ‘remedial’ placements.”

Just Equations cited five strategies states can implement to align mathematics from high school to college, including course co-design, where secondary and post-secondary instructors unite to craft high school math sequences.  

The organization said, too, universities should have transparent expectations for incoming freshmen so these students know what is expected of them for various college majors. 

Just Equations also touts the value of senior year transition or readiness courses for high school students: These classes, the organization observes, help ensure students can handle the challenge of college-level work. 

States might also offer dual enrollment courses which allow high school students to earn college credit, saving them time and money, Just Equations concluded. They can also work to ensure public universities recognize new high school mathematics offerings so students are properly credited for those classes. 

Georgia redesigned its math pathway through a partnership with K-12 and higher education math teachers to make sure new high school courses aligned with college entry requirements. The state also added several new courses for high school seniors, including Advanced Placement Statistics and Mathematics of Industry and Government. 

California had given students conflicting guidance about how many years of high school math they needed: State law demanded two while school districts often required three and some colleges recommended four. State universities are now more transparent about what is needed for college success in general and in specific majors.

Just Equations notes Tennessee’s efforts date back 18 years when its high school students were first required to complete four years of math, including Algebra II. The state’s mathematics offerings have been reworked numerous times since then and statistics has emerged as a valuable course for many.

Out West, Utah’s dual-enrollment program made college-level classes more accessible and affordable. The state also expanded the range of math pathways for high school students beyond college algebra, a course that relies heavily on algebraic procedures where students often struggle with the material and finding its relevancy.

Students may now opt for quantitative reasoning, focusing on practical numeracy skills such as personal finance and statistical reasoning or introductory statistics, geared toward life sciences, business and social sciences.

Mike Spencer, secondary mathematics specialist for the state board of education, said the change has been helpful to many students who might otherwise be kept out of college by their inability to pass a course that often had no bearing on their major or career aspiration. 

But, he said, students were reluctant to make the switch. 

“When it was first released, we saw a majority of our students were still taking college algebra, partly because of tradition,” Spencer said. “So, we made a significant effort to help inform students, families and counselors to understand why you would go into each of these.”

Just Equations noted, too, Utah’s university professors help craft high school syllabuses, screen high school teachers to teach college-level courses, and “verify grading consistency using common assessments.” It credits these and other changes for a massive increase in the rate of high school seniors completing four years of math, from 28% in 2012 to 87% in 2020. 

Bland of Just Equations said states should routinely bring together K–12, higher education, and workforce leaders to find the best math pathways for students. And, she said, they should invest in sustained professional development and K–16 longitudinal data to track students into the workforce to learn which math experiences best supported their success. 

Five years ago, Oregon adopted new mathematics standards intended to be “more modern and equitable,” moving away from the three-course sequence of Algebra I, geometry and Algebra II to a required two-year core curriculum focused on algebra, geometry and data/statistics. 

Students can now choose a course of study for a required third year — including mathematical modeling, data science and quantitative reasoning — and an optional fourth year. 

The changes required colleges to revisit their stated requirements. The University of Oregon, for example, mandated Algebra II for all incoming students, but now requires three or more years of high school math, which “could be satisfied by any math course with a primary focus on concepts in algebra, calculus, data science, discreet mathematics, geometry, mathematical analysis, probability or statistics.” 

In addition to the five core states at the heart of the study, Just Equations also lauded North Carolina’s automatic enrollment policy, adopted in 2018, which places students who score high on state assessments into advanced mathematics courses for the following year, eliminating subjective recommendations. More than 95% of the state’s eighth-grade students who scored at the highest level were placed in advanced math courses in 2022–23, up from 87% in 2017–18, before the policy was enacted. 

While these states have made noteworthy progress, critics note problems remain. 

A lack of longitudinal data in Tennessee makes it difficult to understand the impact of the changes that have taken shape there, state officials say. 

“One of the goals that I have over the next year or so is to better track the entire arc of the student journey,” said Juliette Biondi, who directs the state’s Seamless Alignment and Integrated Learning Support program, as documented in the report. “I want to understand how they do in their college math classes. Do they struggle? Does it influence graduation rates?”

Utah, too, can also improve: Rural areas find it hard to recruit and retain qualified teachers for college-level courses, leading them to rely on virtual instruction.

And Jo Boaler, the Stanford professor who helped California reshape its math program, said she regularly observes ineffective teaching practices that undermine K-12 learning.

“All I can see is that we have not built conceptual understanding or number sense well by the end of school,” Boaler told The 74. “When I visit classrooms, I still see students going through uninspiring textbook math. Maybe there has been some improvement but I have not heard about it or seen it yet.”

Disclosure: The Gates Foundation provides financial support to Just Equations and The 74.

Their preparation and evaluation focuses disproportionately on compliance and core academics, not on whether students graduate ready for what comes next. The result is a system that sidelines the very leaders who could drive change. School-level leaders should be the chief architects of high school redesign and high-quality pathways, connecting what students learn in classrooms with the real skills, experiences and credentials they’ll need after graduation. 

Decades of research confirm what common sense suggests: Effective principals and assistant principals drive student success. The has shown that principals are second only to teachers on their impact on student learning. More recent from the UChicago Consortium on School Research finds strong school leaders affect not only high school achievement but also students’ college enrollment and persistence.   

These findings are especially relevant now as educators and policymakers across the country rethink the purpose and structure of high school.  New efforts from the, the , and aim to align education with the demands of today’s economy — emphasizing skills, credentials, and experiences that prepare students for college, career and adult life. But these initiatives will falter if the people responsible for running high schools aren’t prepared.

Despite the key role they play,  principals rarely receive the training or guidance needed to lead this kind of redesign and must simultaneously manage competing district priorities.  of district leaders consistently rank math and reading scores, chronic absenteeism and teacher recruitment as top concerns, while expanding access to career and technical education or dual enrollment programs ranks near the bottom. 

The message seems to be that academic recovery matters, but preparing students for life after graduation is optional. As a result, high school redesign efforts often sit on the margins, disconnected from the day-to-day work of teaching and learning. Principals, pressed by urgent academic demands, lack the time, resources, or cover  to connect those priorities with students’ long-term goals.

If states and districts want high school redesign to succeed, they need to put principals and assistant principals at the center of those efforts. This means aligning preparation, expectations, and accountability around the idea that postsecondary readiness is not a separate responsibility but a core part of the work of principals and assistant principals. 

First, it’s important to break down the silos separating high school redesign from broader school improvement priorities.  Postsecondary readiness is school improvement. Focusing on instructional achievement isn’t mutually exclusive with improving career-connected learning or access to accelerated coursework.  

Matt Gandal, President of Education Strategy Group recently , “If we want to change the trajectory of student performance in high school, we have to do more to inspire them — including showing them the connection between what they’re learning in school and their future goals.” Vermont has developed a framework that shows how this is possible by including mechanisms to help principals and assistant principals plan for increasing access to advanced coursework. 

Second, pathway planning, counselor supervision and high-quality advising need to be part of state school leader standards.  Across states, school leadership standards rarely reference or outline the specific knowledge and skills that secondary principals should develop in order to effectively lead students to postsecondary and workforce success. When these outcomes become part of what schools are held accountable for, principals can lead them with purpose.  Illinois’ offers a strong model by explicitly including college and career readiness as a leadership competency.  

Third, and most critical, the initial preparation, ongoing coaching and peer networks for school leaders should all emphasize high school redesign and pathways.  Skim most state certification for principals and you’ll see mandatory classes on finance, instruction, child psychology and special education law. Licensure and preparation programs should treat college and career readiness as fundamental, not elective. Principals need to learn how to align schedules, curricula and partnerships to help every student graduate with a plan and the experiences to pursue it. They deserve ongoing coaching and peer networks that reinforce this vision.

Promising models exist and show a way forward. For example, since 2021-2022, the has partnered with over 300 school and district leaders through a multi-year coaching and professional learning partnership focused on the conditions that enable postsecondary readiness. This partnership is guided by an overarching research-based for leadership development oriented toward long-term student success. 

Reframing the principal’s job around students’ long-term readiness offers high returns. When principals connect academic learning with meaningful experiences such as dual enrollment, apprenticeships or credential programs, students are more likely to graduate with confidence and purpose. They see school as relevant to their future, not as a disconnected series of requirements. The cost of these changes is modest compared with their potential benefits. The estimates that comprehensive leadership development  can be implemented for about $42 per student. This cost is far less than the price of failed reforms. 

What’s missing is not evidence or funding but alignment: Policymakers and system leaders must decide that empowering principals to lead this work is worth the investment. High school redesign will not succeed through frameworks or pilot programs alone. It will succeed when principals have the preparation, authority and support to make postsecondary readiness central to their mission — and when states and districts create the conditions for them to do so.

Disclosure: The 74 receive financial support from the Wallace Foundation.

This story was originally published by . for their newsletters.

At CART High near Fresno, there is no gum stuck to the floor. The saffron-yellow walls are unmarred by graffiti. Toting laptops, students file calmly down spacious, light-filled hallways to classes like biotechnology and digital marketing. There’s no fighting, no shouting, no bells. No one even cuts class.

It’s hard to believe CART High is a public high school. But in the future, this may be a model for every high school in California.

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“We can see from the data that the big, old-fashioned factory model of high school – where students run from class to class with a locker as their only stable point of contact – is not succeeding,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the State Board of Education. “We need to overhaul the whole idea of what high school can be, and right now we have an opportunity to do so.”

The California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, a state agency, is launching a to redesign high school and middle school. Groups of districts already working on escaping the factory model applied for grant money, and winners will meet, brainstorm, work through challenges and share their experiences statewide, in hopes of inspiring other districts to create innovative high school options. The money will come from $10 million recently allotted in the state budget, as well as state programs promoting career pathways and dual enrollment in high school.

The idea is to move beyond the traditional high school — with its rigid 50-minute periods and stand-alone classes — and replace it with a new type of school that offers work experience, academics tailored to students’ interests, stronger personal connections with staff and multidisciplinary courses that link directly to careers and community needs.

Students sit at tables in a hallway and in an engineering class at the Center for Advanced Research and Technology (CART) in Clovis on Oct. 6, 2025. (Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters/CatchLight Local)

“It should be a joy to go to school every day,” Darling-Hammond said. “That’s what we’re looking for.”

Countless schools in California use elements of this idea, with schools-within-schools that offer career academies or other specialized programs. But very few high schools are devoted completely to it.

How high school came to be

Public high schools have only existed for about a century in the U.S. Education for younger children has existed for hundreds of years, but the idea of school for teenagers only came about in the early 20th century. The original high schools were based loosely on a factory model of efficiency, with learning measured in Carnegie units — 120 hours spent over a year studying a particular topic. at the time in an effort to standardize education, the measure is still used at nearly all high schools and colleges.

But have shown that teenagers learn more in a flexible environment with plenty of hands-on projects and teamwork. Instead of sitting quietly at desks and listening to a teacher, students are more likely to be engaged if they’re allowed some autonomy to pursue topics they’re interested in, with their peers.

Alternative schools — typically, schools for students who aren’t succeeding in traditional school — have been experimenting with this approach for decades. The state’s aim to not only help students graduate, but also pair them with internships, teach them practical life skills and address their emotional well-being. They often have flexible schedules and small classes, with teachers getting to know students and their families personally.

There’s plenty of evidence that traditional high schools may be outdated. In the most recent , nearly half of 11th graders said school “is really boring.” Almost 25% of 11th graders were chronically absent last year.

Academically, the numbers were equally dismal. Just 30% of California 11th graders performed at or above grade level in math last year, with some student groups faring much worse. Although the graduation rate was 87%, fewer than half of those students had finished a college or career preparation track.

“The data speaks for itself,” said Russlynn Ali, head of XQ Institute, which advocates for high school redesign, and a former head of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights under President Barack Obama. “There are young people today who’ve graduated from high school but can’t calculate the tip on a split bill, grasp the main idea in an op-ed piece. The case for change is unmistakeable.”

Transcripts and units

There are a few obstacles to transforming high schools statewide to look like CART. One is higher education. The University of California and California State University require high school students to pass a series of classes, known as A-G, to qualify for admission. Advocates for high school redesign say those requirements are too rigid, and high schools need some flexibility in creating new classes that are more interesting to students and more connected to life outside the classroom. They also say that traditional letter grades, which colleges rely on to admit students, are too limiting and that colleges need to consider a new kind of transcript that more accurately reflects students’ abilities.

Another obstacle is the Carnegie unit, which is an integral part of the way high schools and colleges are structured. Even the Carnegie Foundation has been , arguing that schools should measure students’ progress based on what they know, rather than how much time they’ve spent in a classroom. But so far, colleges have shown little interest in dropping the Carnegie unit.

A school for ‘the C kid’

CART High, which stands for Center for Advanced Research and Technology, opened about 25 years ago in a renovated water pump facility in Clovis. A joint initiative between Clovis Unified and Fresno Unified, the idea was to reach students who were floundering in school and give them some career experience that could also boost the local economy. It wasn’t quite an alternative school, but it wasn’t an honors program, either.

“We weren’t looking for the top students. We were looking for the disengaged kids,” said Staci Bynum, CART’s dean of curriculum and instruction who’s been at the school since its inception. “The C kid is going to excel here.”

CART is open to 11th and 12th graders from both districts, with students selected through a lottery. Last year, more than 2,200 students applied and 1,000 were accepted. Nearly 80% of CART’s enrollment is low-income.

First: An assortment of bones sits on a desk for students to identify during a forensic science lesson. Last: Forensic science Instructor Erin Andrade shows animal skulls to a classroom of students for a lesson at the Center for Advanced Research and Technology (CART) in Clovis on Oct. 6, 2025. (Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters/CatchLight Local)

Students spend half their day at their regular high school taking math, foreign language, art and other classes, and half their day at CART, where they choose an area of focus. Options include law and policy, business, forensics and psychology, among other topics.

Classes, which the school calls labs, are three hours long, and are taught by a trio of teachers who weave in literature and other academic subjects that are relevant to the subject. In biotechnology, for example, students read “The Andromeda Strain” and “The Martian,” and write their own science fiction stories based on concepts they’re learning in class. In the law class, students read Othello or Hamlet then subject characters to a mock trial.

“We work really hard to get kids to see the bigger picture of why they’re learning what they’re learning,” said English teacher Emily Saeteurn. “We want them to have that ‘aha!’ moment.”

Attendance is nearly 100% and discipline problems are almost unheard of, said principal Rick Watson. More than 90% of students scored at least “proficient” on the English portion of the Smarter Balanced test. Students take the math portion at their other high school.

When he’s not running the school, Watson is giving tours. Education officials from around the world often visit, in hopes of replicating the CART model. Numerous CART-inspired schools have opened around California.

“You have kids in comprehensive high schools everywhere who are falling through the cracks,” Watson said. “Comprehensive high schools don’t work for some B, C, D students. The students  have potential but they’re disconnected.They’re desperate for a different model of education.”

Senior Madelyn Quiroga, who’s in the biotechnology class, said she has mediocre grades at her regular high school, but all A’s at CART.

“At my other school, they just throw stuff at you and never really explain it. Here, they actually teach us,” she said. “And it’s all stuff we actually want to know, so it sticks in your brain. Like when I hear someone talk about CRISPR (gene editing technology), it’s like, ‘Oh, I know something about that.’”

Audrey Riede, an 11th grader in the law class, said she’s so inspired she wants to be a defense attorney.

“CART is way better than normal school,” she said. “The teachers aren’t just trying to get you to pass, they really want to make you think. It’s just a totally different environment.”

The state will announce the winning pilot proposals in November.

This article was and was republished under the license.

And bedrock attitudes about attendance seem to be changing. A recent noted that one in four students now doesn’t think being chronically absent from school “is a problem.” The study found that about 40% of school districts consider reducing chronic absenteeism among their top three most pressing challenges. One in 12 ranks it as their biggest challenge. 

As school districts push to lower absenteeism rates, the software company , which helps schools keep track of students and communicate with parents, examined four years of its own attendance intervention data across hundreds of school districts. It analyzed 3.3 million text messages across 15 states, representing 88,000 students and 22,000 educators. 

In a , it finds that improving attendance often comes down to a handful of basic tasks. Here’s a breakdown of the key takeaways:

1: Early intervention works

Contacting families before students become chronically absent is crucial. Once a student crosses the 10% threshold, fixing their attendance becomes much harder, so intervening when students register just three to five absences is most effective. Contacting parents early with a letter improved attendance dramatically, reducing absence rates by 28%.

Researchers found that 51% of students whose families receive just one letter don’t need a second one. The “save rate” for these students suggests that many families simply don’t realize how quickly absences accumulate. 

2: Timing and communication methods matter

Parents are highly responsive to text messages, researchers found, with 73% of texts garnering a response from parents in just 11 minutes. They’ll engage with schools when communication is “accessible, timely and specific.”

“The method does matter,” said Joy Smithson, a SchoolStatus data scientist. “We get a lot higher rates of response with text messages.” Placing a phone call, on the other hand, is “for those more critical conversations,” she said.

Kara Stern, the company’s director of education, agreed. “Not every parent is in a position where they can pick up a phone call during the day. For many people, it might jeopardize your work situation, and so to assume that that’s the best way to reach a parent is not necessarily to be in tune with the actual realities of the parents in your community.”

The best times to text families, the data suggests, are either around 8 a.m., when parents and students are preparing for school, or 2-4 p.m., typically during pickup times. These align with natural breaks in parents’ daily routines, when they’re most likely to check their phones.

The best time of year to engage families is August or September. Parents who hear from schools early maintain higher response rates throughout the year — 77% vs. 71% — and respond, on average, one minute faster. By January, 33% of these parents are still engaging with schools, compared to just 16% of parents who first heard from schools later in the fall term. 

That suggests that early conversations “do extra work,” researchers maintain, establishing trust, opening communication channels and signaling to families that working together matters.

“It’s important to reach out at the beginning of the year, so that you’re not waiting for a crisis,” said Smithson, “because it’s too late to build a relationship at that point.”

3. Plain language outperforms edu-jargon

Researchers found that being specific about how much school a student has missed outperforms vague messages such as, “We’ve noticed some absences.” 

Direct offers of help, such as “Reply if you need support with transportation or health concerns,” also outperform lengthy explanations of attendance policy.

And when students are older, direct messages can be very effective.

“What this data shows us is that connection is really driving so much of a student’s experience,” said Stern. “When a school is able to reach out to the kid and say, ‘Hey, Greg, we missed you today, what’s going on? What do you need to help you come to school?’ that’s a really different experience than having a form letter appear at your house saying, ‘Greg has missed school six days.’” 

She added, “What I hope districts will take away from this report is that communication is intervention,” she said. “It’s not extra work. It’s the work that makes everything else stick.”

4: Three key moments merit extra attention

Students at three moments in their school careers are more likely to be chronically absent: in pre-K, sixth grade and high school. Stern called them “high alert moments.”

Surprisingly, pre-K students have the highest chronic absenteeism rates of any group, mostly due to the high frequency of illness and families underestimating the impact of missing school. 

Sixth grade is “the tipping point,” said Stern, with chronic absenteeism spiking by 3.3 percentage points from fifth to sixth grade, the sharpest increase across all grades.

Smithson said middle-schoolers typically have more autonomy. They’re often getting their first mobile phones. And current sixth-graders, she said, were in kindergarten when COVID hit in 2020. “So just imagine knowing that patterns get established in kindergarten,” she said. For those kindergartners in 2020, school “really got disrupted,” with their baseline experience of school being “categorically different” from what it should have been.

And for many students, the transition from elementary school to middle school represents a shift from a safe, contained environment, where both students and parents are highly engaged, to a less personal one, with less consistency and connectivity, said Stern. Students “don’t know that there is someone who’s really paying attention, who cares that they’re there, who knows what’s happening with them, and so maybe it doesn’t really matter if they’re there or not.”

And middle school can also be the place where many students first experience bullying, which also worsens attendance.

In high school, chronic absence rates more than double, and students have lower response rates to traditional methods like letters, suggesting that schools should contact students directly — actually, they found that direct student messaging could work for students as young as 11. 

A text message to a high school freshman can start a conversation that wouldn’t happen otherwise. Pairing these messages with notes to parents can improve response rates in these critical years, researchers found.

“The chronic absenteeism numbers in high school suggest that kids are really voting with their feet,” said Stern. “And so one way to get them back would be to invite them in to be part of the solution, to say, ‘What is it that is not meeting your needs? How can we include your voice in the process of making high school what you want it to be?’”

In many ways, the new findings echo what researchers like Johns Hopkins University’s and have long suggested. Chang, the founder and executive director of the nonprofit , said Wednesday’s report “reflects what we know from common sense and research. Improving attendance is possible when we use data to take early action as well as determine where we should invest in building relationships so we can partner with students and families to encourage showing up, monitor absences, and address barriers to getting to school.”

But Chang said that while timely, data-informed engagement of families is essential, “it is not always sufficient and should be combined with other strategies for identifying and addressing barriers to getting to school.” Those barriers could exist in the community or in schools and should be addressed in “a comprehensive, systemic approach.”

She suggested that of interventions is sometimes necessary, including “intensive interventions” for students who miss more than 20% of school days. It could include housing supports, a student attendance review board, a community-based, non-criminal truancy court, individualized learning and success plans and even, as a last resort, legal intervention.

Stern and Smithson said the findings boil down, in a larger sense, to the importance of what they call “active noticing” about attendance. 

“I really think that it would be a big plus for faculties to actively notice every week and go through their rosters,” said Stern. “‘Who do we not know? Who can’t speak about this child? Who doesn’t know anything about this student’s life after school? We have someone that we need to actually pay attention to learning more about — who’s suddenly not coming to school, who’s turned it around and suddenly being there?’ ” 

Smithson said the biggest takeaway for educators is that “Timing is everything. Do not wait. Act with urgency. It’s about building those relationships, and it’s just so important — and it’s so important to start right away.”

COLUMBIA — South Carolina high schools posted their highest graduation rate in a decade, but a quarter of students still aren’t ready for college or the workforce, according to released Monday.

Generally, South Carolina’s schools improved , according to the statewide data that gauges how well schools perform based on test scores, classroom surveys and student growth, among other metrics. Education officials applauded a 10-year high in the number of students graduating on time — meaning they graduated four years after entering ninth grade — while saying they would continue pushing for programs to improve how well those students were prepared for life after high school.

“We have to make sure that our diplomas are worth more than the piece of paper that they are written on,” said state Superintendent Ellen Weaver.

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Overall, 270 schools rated “excellent” this year, an increase from 232 last year. The bottom tier of “unsatisfactory” decreased from 49 to 31, and “below average” schools dropped from 186 to 145.

Any time the number of schools in the lowest tier shrinks, that’s good news, since it means children across the state are getting a better education, said Patrick Kelly, a lobbyist with the Palmetto State Teachers Association.

“There’s encouraging information here,” Kelly said of the report cards.

Officials from the state Department of Education and the independent Education Oversight Committee, which is tasked by state law with grading schools, announced the results at Annie Burnside Elementary School in Columbia, which jumped two tiers this year, from “average” to “excellent.”

At the Richland District One school, 83% of the 306 students live in poverty. The school’s big rating boost was due to significant student improvement, as shown by their test scores, and results on a survey about the school’s general environment, according to its report card.

“Our academic gains are no coincidence,” said Principal Janet Campbell. “They are the result of setting measurable goals, challenging our students to reach them and supporting them along the way.”

Graduation rates and readiness

This year, 87% of high schoolers graduated on time, up from 85% last year. That’s worth celebrating, Kelly said.

“Our goal should be for every student in South Carolina who has the ability to earn a high school diploma,” he said.

Three-quarters of students were ready for either college or a career after graduation, a gain of 3 percentage points, . Less than a third were ready for both.

Although the gap between students who are graduating and those who are prepared for what comes next continues to shrink slightly, state officials remain concerned about it, Weaver said.

“At the end of the day, we want our students, when they leave a South Carolina high school, to know that that diploma that they carry is a diploma of value,” Weaver said. “This is a diploma that is going to ensure that they are ready to go onto whatever post-secondary success looks like for them.”

All 11th graders in the state take a test assessing skills commonly needed for jobs, divided into four areas: math, reading, understanding data and “soft skills,” which include aspects of a job such as dressing professionally and working well with others. Results are graded from 1 to 5, with higher scores suggesting students are ready to pursue more careers.

Students are considered career-ready if they receive a score of 3 or higher on that test, earn a technical education certificate, complete a state-approved internship or receive a high enough score on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery to enlist in the military. This year, 73% of students met that benchmark, compared to 70% last year, according to report card data.

College readiness is based on a student’s score on the ACT or SAT college entrance exam, college credit earned through a dual-enrollment course and/or scores on end-of-course Advanced Placement tests.

One-third of graduating students were college-ready, which is on par with at least the past five years, according to state data. The rate of high school students applying for college also continued to decrease, with 59% reporting filling out applications this year, compared with 61% last year.

A gap between graduation rate and readiness for the next step suggests schools are sometimes passing students without actually imparting the skills they need to succeed in life, Kelly said.

For instance, district policies setting teachers can give makes it easier for students to pass their classes, even if they haven’t actually done the work, Kelly said. Alternatives for students who fail tests or classes are sometimes easier, meaning a student can catch up without actually learning the same skills as their peers, he said.

“We’ve put some policies in place that make it harder to evaluate what a student knows and can do,” Kelly said.

Beginning this school year, students can follow a so-called pathway to that build on each other every year, allowing students to learn more advanced skills meant to make it easier to find a job in the field they want to pursue, said , chair of the Education Oversight Committee’s governing board.

“At the same time, we recognize that strengthening the system must go hand-in-hand with addressing the barriers that keep students from wholly engaging in school,” said Allen, who’s also a government relations director for Continental Tire.

Chronic absenteeism and test scores

For example, the number of students who missed at least 10 days of school this year remained a concern, Allen said.

Around 23% of students were chronically absent, essentially the same number as last year. The more days of school a student misses, the less likely they are to perform as expected for their grade level on end-of-year tests, the committee put out last year.

Those tests, in turn, play a role in determining how well a school or a district is performing. Officials and teachers’ advocates credited the Palmetto Literacy Project and a change in how early educators for improving English scores, but , with less than half of third- through eighth-graders able to perform on grade level, according to state testing data.

Just over half the state’s high school students scored at least a C, which is a 70%, on their end-of-course Algebra I exams, often taken freshman year, according to report card data. Nearly 69% passed their English 2 exams, typically taken sophomore year.

While rooting for improvement, teachers’ advocates also warned against depending too heavily on a single exam score in deciding how well teachers and students are performing. A single, high-pressure exam at the end of the year is not necessarily the best indicator of school performance, said Dena Crews, president of the South Carolina Education Association.

“If people are making judgments based on that, they’re missing a whole lot about schools and districts,” Crews said.

Teacher support

The Department of Education plans to focus on teachers in 2026, Weaver said.

“The No. 1 thing that we have to do to support student learning is take care of our teachers,” Weaver said.

She is asking legislators to raise the minimum pay for a first-year teacher to $50,000, up from $48,500. Legislators have increased the pay floor in increments for years, with the stated goal of reaching $50,000.

Weaver is also asking for $5 million to continue a that based on how well their students perform on tests. She also wants to start a program that offers extra pay to exceptional teachers who mentor others. The additional responsibility would be another way to earn more money without leaving the classroom to go into school administration, she said.

Supporting teachers is key in improving how well schools are performing, Kelly said. The promising results in this year’s report cards came after the first since 2019, he added.

“It should not be a surprise to see school performance improve as teacher vacancies go down,” Kelly said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.

Admittedly, I was on the fast track toward becoming one of the or NEETs – youth between the ages 16 to 24 who are “not in education, employment, or training” – who live here in southern Nevada. I was on the verge of becoming a statistic. 

Across the country, , , were considered NEETs. Alarmingly, this propensity to disconnect seems to afflict boys more than girls. , the share of young men aged 18 to 24 who were NEETs increased from 4% to 8%. In my home state of Nevada, the percentage is 19%, the second highest in the country. Moreover, as a male in Nevada, I was 15% more likely to drop out than my sisters. 

Not surprisingly, outcomes for NEETS are troubling. About without a high school diploma are either incarcerated or on parole at any given time. Among African American males, the proportion is closer to 30%. Lower educational attainment is associated with isolation, loneliness, and addiction. 

The trajectory that I had been moving along for those first two years pivoted sharply after I landed my first job. The summer following my sophomore year, I told my parents that I wanted to work. Knowing that I was on the verge of dropping out or failing out of school, my parents were desperate. A grand bargain was struck: I could work as long as I stayed on top of my schoolwork. 

Not only did I stay on top of my schoolwork – I outperformed. Throughout my junior year and beyond, I worked at least 20 hours a week while maintaining a 4.0 grade point average and an above average course load.

Having a job was rewarding and valuable on several fronts. First, my job helped me connect what I was learning in the classroom to the real world. I am applying my health science knowledge to my work as a lifeguard. Additionally, I have invested most of my wages, which has helped me understand the importance of mathematical concepts, such as compounded interest, that previously seemed so irrelevant. Second, my work — both as a lifeguard and an internship with the county government — is teaching me important durable skills: like showing up on time (even when I’m tired), being responsible, and working with people with whom I have nothing in common. 

Finally, my employment has given me confidence and purpose and helped me realize that “” — taken from “Invictus,” a poem by William Ernest Henley that I memorized in fifth grade.

My experience is not unique. Research indicates that students who work and participate in internships, apprenticeships, and employment have better outcomes. One reported that the “evidence to date indicates that summer youth employment programs have the potential to reduce delinquent behavior, enhance academic aspirations and performance, and improve social and emotional development.” 

Youth employment programs are associated with “, who saw improvements in their sense of belonging, ability to contribute to their communities, and conflict resolution skills.”  A found that “private sector job experience significantly increases attendance, reduces course failures, and raises proficiency on statewide exams. Participants are more likely to take the SAT and enroll in college with a shift from two-year to four-year institutions.”  

According to the , “Expanding employment opportunities for opportunity youth — including through proven year-round and summer job training programs — can help improve work readiness, expand professional networks, boost earnings, and reduce interaction with the criminal justice system.” The potential cost of not helping a disconnected youth at $13,900 annually. 

While I have meaningful employment, my experience feels like an outlier, especially among my African American peers. Many friends have been looking for jobs and internships for months without success. Workforce development experts have confirmed my observation—noting that internships and jobs are rare. 

As The 74 has reported, at most 5% of students have the chance for the gold standard of work experiences: apprenticeships or internships.  As of , the U.S. unemployment rate among youth ages 16 to 24 was 10.5%, significantly higher than the national rate of 4.3%. Among African American youth, the rate was over 14%. 

Given the benefits of youth employment and the association with lower crime rates, governments and political leaders should do more to offer incentives to businesses to provide internships and job opportunities. Currently, only a handful of states provide programs to encourage businesses to hire young people. 

In , the state provides an “Experiential Learning Tax Credit Program,” which offers a $2,000 tax credit for every apprentice, pre-apprentice, or student intern that a business employs. has a Work-Based Learning Tax Credit that offers businesses a $2,500 credit if they hire a youth. Earlier this year, there was a to provide $15 million to support NEETs in Nevada. Sadly, the bill didn’t even get a hearing. 

While barriers remain, such as transportation or student schedules,  some states are getting creative to address these. For example, Indiana has that grant students funds to cover the cost of getting to work, and have rolled out more flexible school schedules in some schools so that students can work at an apprenticeship, job, or internship. 

There are millions of young people — especially young boys like me — who are wandering, feeling disconnected, and facing significant barriers. College is expensive. Jobs are hard to come by. There are fewer organized ways to engage. 

As such, opportunities to work and learn – in the form of internships, apprenticeships, and employment opportunities – are the best vehicles to help youth learn about and connect to their interests, and from that, build confidence to explore and connect to their community.  Increasing job opportunities for young people is a proposition that will benefit the entire community. 

The talk was about a big, take-home essay, and Liang, then a sophomore at a Bay Area high school, recalled that it covered the basics: the rubric for grading as well as suggestions for how to use generative AI to keep students honest: They should use it as a “thinking partner” and brainstorming tool.

As he listened, Liang glanced around the classroom and saw that several classmates, laptops open, had already leaped ahead several steps, generating entire drafts of their essays.

Liang said his generation doesn’t engage in moral hand-wringing about AI. “For us, it’s simply a tool that enables us not to have to think for ourselves.”

But with AI’s awesome power comes a side effect that many would rather not consider: It’s killing the trust between teachers and students. 

When students can cheaply and easily outsource their work, he said, why value a teacher’s feedback? And when teachers, relying on sometimes unreliable AI-detection software, believe their students are taking such major shortcuts, the relationship erodes further.

It’s an issue that researchers are just beginning to study, with results that suggest an imminent shakeup in student-teacher relationships: AI, they say, is forcing teachers to rethink how they think about students, assessments and, to a larger extent, learning itself. 

If you ask Liang, now a junior and an experienced — he has penned pieces for The Hill, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and the conservative Daily Wire — AI has already made school more transactional, stripping many students of their desire to learn in favor of simply completing assignments. 

“The incentive system for students is to just get points,” he said in an interview. 

While much of the attention of the past few years has focused on how teachers can detect AI-generated work and put a stop to it, a few researchers are beginning to look at how AI affects student-teacher relationships.

Researcher Jiahui Luo of the Education University of Hong Kong that college students in many cases resent the lack of “two-way transparency” around AI. While they’re required to declare their AI use and even submit chat records in a few cases, Luo wrote, the same level of transparency “is often not observed from the teachers.” That produces a “low-trust environment,” where students feel unsafe to freely explore AI.

In 2024, after being asked by colleagues at Drexel University to help resolve an AI cheating case, researcher , who teaches in the university’s , analyzed college students’ , spanning December 2022 to June 2023, shortly after Open AI unleashed ChatGPT onto the world. He found that many students were beginning to feel the technology was testing the trust they felt from instructors, in many cases eroding it — even if they didn’t rely on AI.

While many students said instructors trusted them and would offer them the benefit of the doubt in suspected cases of AI cheating, others were surprised when they were accused nonetheless. That damaged the trust relationship.

For many, it meant they’d have to work on future assignments “defensively,” Gorichanaz wrote, anticipating cheating accusations. One student even suggested, “Screen recording is a good idea, since the teacher probably won’t have as much trust from now on.” Another complained that their instructor now implicitly trusted AI plagiarism detectors “more than she trusts us.”

In an interview, Gorichanaz said instructors’ trust in AI detectors is a big problem. “That’s the tool that we’re being told is effective, and yet it’s creating this situation of mutual distrust and suspicion, and it makes nobody like each other. It’s like, ‘This is not a good environment.’”

For Gorichanaz, the biggest problem is that AI detectors simply aren’t that reliable — for one thing, they are more likely to flag the papers of English language learners as being written by AI, he said. In one Stanford University , they “consistently” misclassified non-native English writing samples as AI-generated, while accurately identifying the provenance of writing samples by native English speakers.

“We know that there are these kinds of biases in the AI detectors,” Gorichanaz said. That potentially puts “a seed of doubt” in the instructor’s mind, when they should simply be using other ways to guide students’ writing. “So I think it’s worse than just not using them at all.” 

‘It is an enormous wedge in the relationship’

Liz Shulman, an English teacher at Evanston Township High School near Chicago, recently had an experience similar to Liang’s: One of her students covertly relied on AI to help write an essay on Romeo and Juliet, but forgot to delete part of the prompt he’d used. Next to the essay’s title were the words, “Make it sound like an average ninth-grader.”

Asked about it, the student simply shrugged, Shulman recalled in she co-authored with Liang.

In an interview, Shulman said that just three weeks into the new school year, in late August, she had already had to sit down with another student who used AI for an assignment. “I pretty much have to assume that students are going to use it,” she said. “It is an enormous wedge in the relationship, which is so important to build, especially this time of the year.”

Her take: School has transformed since 2020’s long COVID lockdowns, with students recalibrating their expectations. It’s less relational, she said, and “much more transactional.” 

During lockdowns, she said, Google “infiltrated every classroom in America — it was how we pushed out documents to students.” Five years later, if students miss a class because of illness, their “instinct” now is simply to check , the widely used management tool, “rather than coming to me and say, ‘Hey, I was sick. What did we do?’”

That’s a bitter pill for an English teacher who aspires to shift students’ worldviews and beliefs — and who relies heavily on in-class discussions.

“That’s not something you can push out on a Google doc,” Shulman said. “That takes place in the classroom.”

In a sense, she said, AI is contracting where learning can reliably take place: If students can simply turn off their thinking at home and rely on AI tools to complete assignments, that leaves the classroom as the sole place where learning occurs. 

“Because of AI, are we only going to ‘do school’ while we’re in school?” she asked. 

‘We forget all the stuff we learned before’

Accounts of teachers resigned to students cheating with AI are “concerning” and stand in contrast to what a solid body of research says about the importance of teacher agency, said , senior vice president for Innovation and Impact at the Carnegie Foundation.

Teachers, she said, “are not just in a classroom delivering instruction — they’re part of a community. Really wonderful school and system leaders recognize that, and they involve them. They’re engaged in decision making. They have that agency.”

One of the main principles of Carnegie’s , a blueprint for improving secondary education, includes a “culture of trust,” suggesting that schools nurture supportive learning and “positive relationships” for students and educators.

“Education is a deeply social process,” Stafford-Brizard said. “Teaching and learning are social, and schools are social, and so everyone contributing to those can rely on that science of relational trust, the science of relationships. We can pull from that as intentionally as we pull from the science of reading.”

Gorichanaz, the Drexel scholar, said that for all of its newness, generative AI presents educators with what’s really an old challenge: How to understand and prevent cheating. 

“We have this tendency to think AI changed the entire world, and everything’s different and revolutionized and so on,” he said. “But it’s just another step. We forget all the stuff we learned before.”

Specifically, research going back identifies four key reasons why students cheat: They don’t understand the relevance of an assignment to their life, they’re under time pressure, or intimidated by its high stakes, or they don’t feel equipped to succeed.

Even in the age of AI, said Gorichanaz, teachers can lessen the allure of taking shortcuts by solving for these conditions — figuring out, for instance, how to intrinsically motivate students to study by helping them connect with the material for its own sake. They can also help students see how an assignment will help them succeed in a future career. And they can design courses that prioritize deeper learning and competence. 

To alleviate testing pressure, teachers can make assignments more low-stakes and break them up into smaller pieces. They can also give students more opportunities in the classroom to practice the skills and review the knowledge being tested.

And teachers should talk openly about academic honesty and the ethics of cheating.

“I’ve found in my own teaching that if you approach your assignments in that way, then you don’t always have to be the police,” he said. Students are “more incentivized, just by the system, to not cheat.”

With writing, teachers can ask students to submit smaller “checkpoint” assignments, such as outlines and handwritten notes and drafts that classmates can review and comment on. They can also rely more on oral exams and handwritten blue book assignments. 

Shulman, the Chicago-area English teacher, said she and her colleagues are not only moving back to blue books, but to doing “a lot more on paper than we ever used to.” They’re asking students to close their laptops in class and assigning less work to be completed outside of class. 

As for Liang, the high school junior, he said his new English teacher expects all assignments to come in hand-written. But he also noted that a few teachers have fallen under the spell of ChatGPT themselves, using it for class presentations. As one teacher last spring clicked through a slide show, he said, “It was glaringly obvious, because all kids are AI experts, and they can just instantly sniff it out.” 

He added, “There was a palpable feeling of distrust in the room.”

In the first nationwide indicator of how older students have fared since the pandemic, the news is bad, but not surprising: COVID took a bite out of already declining basic skills.

Between 2019 and 2024, scores in both math and reading sank three percentage points, a statistically significant drop, according to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP tests, often called “the Nation’s Report Card.” 

Tested in the spring of 2024, just 22% of seniors were “proficient” or above in math, down from 24% in 2019. And just 35% were proficient in reading, down from 37% in 2019. Higher percentages in 2024 also scored in NAEP’s “below basic” level in both subjects.

The results, released Tuesday by the U.S. Education Department, are “sobering,” said Matthew Soldner, acting commissioner of the . He noted “significant declines in achievement” among the lowest-performing students going back even before the pandemic. In one particularly grim indicator, a larger percentage of the Class of 2024 scored in the tests’ “below basic” level in both math and reading than in any previous assessment dating back decades.

Among other findings: 

• In math, 45% of students scored below basic, compared to 40% in 2019 and 35% in 2013;
• In reading, 32% of students were below basic, up from 30% in 2019 and 28% in 2015;
• 45% reported a “low level of interest and enjoyment” in reading, a slight improvement from 49% in 2019;
• Just 35% met NCES’s standard for being academically prepared for college, down from 37% in 2019. 

Of special concern: female students, who typically outperform their male peers in reading, saw worse results than in 2019, while male students’ reading across all achievement levels were basically flat.

The reading decline among female students aligns with previous findings about the severe toll that both the pandemic and social media have taken on adolescent girls. One found that teen girls were struggling the most relative to other groups when it comes to anxiety and depression, as well as the physical manifestations of these problems, such as headaches and stomach aches.

Morgan Polikoff, a professor of education at the and an author on the study, noted that the poor results “are coming at a terrible time, when there is zero federal effort to improve education through policy and indeed the federal government is withholding education dollars over tired culture war battles.”

‘We have not recovered from COVID’

Dan Goldhaber of the American Institutes for Research said the new results are particularly troublesome in light of the federal government’s $190 billion COVID investment in schools. Given that effort, he said, the five years between 2019 and 2024 should have brought “both sharp drops and recovery” as students lived through the pandemic and schools benefited from unprecedented investment. But except in limited cases, scores never improved.

“These results, to me, are just more confirmation that we have not recovered from COVID,” Goldhaber said. “And my guess is that some of why we haven’t recovered is because of the trends in achievement that we saw in the decade prior to the pandemic.”

Tom Kane of the Harvard Graduate School of Education agreed: “Something fundamental in U.S. schools is broken and we need to fix it,” he said. 

Kane theorized that among top candidates for the malaise are: absenteeism rates that have yet to return to pre-pandemic norms; reduced school system commitments to test-driven accountability, and the effects of social media.

In 2024, 31% of 12th-graders who took the tests reported missing three or more days of school in the prior month, compared to 26% who took the math tests in 2019 and 25% who took reading tests. Kane noted that has found students who miss school make instruction less effective for others when they return because they’re spending teachers’ time getting themselves caught up on what they missed.

Former U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said the past several administrations have squandered the power of the federal government when it comes to education policy, weakening its ability to push improvements.

“When you take your foot off the gas and stop using federal leadership, federal imperative around these performance issues, it shows up,” she said in an interview. Spellings, who now leads the , a Washington, D.C., think tank that encourages civil political discourse between parties, noted that the Every Student Succeeds Act, implemented by President Obama, was “less muscular” than No Child Left Behind, enacted under President George W. Bush and overseen by Spellings. “We know how to use the federal role in smarter ways to the benefit of kids, and we stopped doing it.”

‘Truly a five-alarm fire’

The latest NAEP tests were administered from January through March 2024, to a sampling of students in 1,500 schools nationwide, with 24,300 seniors sitting for reading tests and 19,300 for math. The tests last about an hour and are administered on laptops or tablet computers. They carry no stakes for students, who are, in some cases, just weeks from graduation. As a result, researchers have found that far fewer 12th-graders perceive that they must do well on the tests — a found that 86% of fourth-graders said it’s important, while just 35% of 12th-graders said the same.

But Kane and others said that may be a negligible factor in the poor results, since scores are as low, in many cases, as they’ve ever been. “That can’t be explained by kids just not thinking the test matters,” said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University.

Low stakes notwithstanding, USC’s Polikoff said the results are unsurprising and “no less disappointing” on that account. Seniors’ poor performance, he said, closely matches recent trends from earlier grades and has been on the decline .

Of special concern, he and others said, are the achievement declines of the lowest performing students in both math and reading — especially the unprecedented rise in students performing below basic. “That our lowest achieving students are falling so far behind is truly a five-alarm fire,” he said. 

AIR’s Goldhaber pointed out that much of the overall decline in 12th-grade scores can be attributed to sharp drops by this group. “One of the reasons that the average NAEP tests are coming down,” he said, “is because the bottom is just falling out of the distribution.”

While researchers are just beginning to get their arms around why skills are suffering at the moment, Polikoff agreed that the rise of and social media are at play, as well as declines in and “the current toxic political moment that high schoolers are probably sensitive to and that distracts from real efforts to improve schools.”

Harvard’s Kane said he’s eager to see results from research related to the recent proliferation of school mobile phone bans, but worried that, given the slow pace of academic research, the findings won’t come fast enough to make a difference. “I’m just worried that left to our own, without a concerted, coordinated effort, there’s going to be competing studies about the effect of cell phone bans and it’s going to get caught up in politics. We can’t wait for that. There needs to be a concerted effort to try to form a scientific consensus on what was the effect of the ban, in the next year or two.”

Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education and co-author of on teen disengagement, said COVID’s “ripple effects” are long-lasting, affecting many aspects of students’ lives. “If you have your first couple of years of high school where you really have very little learning happening, it’s not a surprise that you’re going to be performing much worse on your core competencies than other generations,” she said.

Winthrop and a co-author found that teens are disengaging from school “across the board,” in both public and private schools, responding to what they perceive as poor-quality instruction, irrelevant pedagogy and unsupportive environments. 

“But kids who are from higher-income families get second chances when they disengage,” Winthrop said. “Poor kids don’t.”

CRPE’s Lake said the disappointing results are “frustrating,” since she and others have been sounding the alarm for several years now “that if we don’t change course, things will be very bad — and things are very bad.”

The solutions, she said, will come from improving bedrock indicators — instruction and teacher quality, especially for struggling students, as well as ”accountability for adults in the system.”

“If there’s one thing that I’d say people should focus on, it’s the kids who are in free-fall decline,” Lake said. “It’s way more than most people think. Only the top 10% of kids are continuing to do well. All the others are declining. … We know what to do. We just need to figure out how to get it done.”

As grim as the results are, Harvard’s Kane said, they point to the ongoing importance of NAEP at a time when its future is less than certain. Just weeks after the second Trump administration took office, Department of Government Efficiency workers slashed Education Department personnel, firing NCES’s longtime director and reducing its headcount from about 100 employees to three.

But as many states loosen accountability requirements, he said, the federal testing role becomes more, not less, important. Without NAEP, he said, “we could have just coasted along” unaware of the bigger picture.

As the Trump administration works to reconfigure the Institute for Education Sciences, Kane said, “it ought to be a vehicle for answering these questions: ‘What was the effect of the cell phone bans? How do we lower absenteeism?’ And that could be done in partnership with states. But it requires a strategy. It’s not just going to happen. Somebody is going to have to decide that these are priorities and work with states to try to find the answers.”

74 Senior Writer Linda Jacobson contributed to this report.

Disclosures: The Future of High School Network and The 74 both receive financial support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, XQ and the Walton Family Foundation.

We saw this play out at Boston Collegiate Charter School, which serves a socio-economically and racially diverse population of 700 students in grades 5 through 12, as more and more students struggled to stay afloat in their English Language Arts classes. Many students were entering our school without foundational reading skills, and our typical approaches — leveraging rigorous curriculum and scaffolding grade-level texts — weren’t yielding the usual results.

We needed something new, and the strategies we tried and refined this year revealed a lot about our students, our instruction, and what could work for other schools grappling with the same challenges.

The issues with reading have become most acute in our upper grades. We accept new students every year through grade 10, and we’ve found that older students tend to be even further behind in their reading than those entering in fifth or sixth grade. For example, in our 10th grade English class, we have some students reading Antigone, forming thesis statements about the nature of power and loyalty, while others are struggling to decode the meaning of most of the words on each page. 

In response, last year we launched a Literacy Working Group made up of interested teachers and school leaders. Our goal was to figure out how to meet the needs of our adolescent students, especially those significantly behind grade-level. As we explored existing research and strategies, we found plenty of literature on how to teach reading to elementary schoolers but saw substantial gaps when it came to older students. 

We started by diving into frameworks like the , Scarborough’s , and materials from . These models emphasize that literacy is multi-faceted: Phonics, background knowledge, vocabulary, syntax, and comprehension all work together to create strong readers. We identified the key areas we should be working on with students and then pulled in the broader school community to help. 

During our annual, all-staff orientation before students arrive, we spent a significant amount of time laying the groundwork for why this literacy work matters, and how every teacher, regardless of subject, can contribute. We shared tools and strategies like visual maps and categorization of word meanings, word preview exercises, and vocabulary deep-dives. 

We also looked beyond individual lessons to consider school-wide initiatives like a “word of the week” to help celebrate academic language and keep literacy front and center. Throughout the year, we revisited and reinforced effective strategies through biannual teacher-led best practice showcases integrated into our regular schedule of professional development. These sessions provided practical tools for teachers to leverage immediately in their classrooms, while also building consistency across content areas and grade levels.

For students who needed more intensive help with decoding and fluency, we adopted the , a structured, research-based intervention specifically designed for older students. It focuses on multisyllabic word recognition, affixes, fluency, and comprehension strategies. 

While not every student was excited about joining at first, many began to see real progress. A ninth grader who struggled with multisyllabic words had trained herself to essentially skip them as she read, making meaningful comprehension almost impossible and limiting her to a fifth-grade reading level. Strategies she learned during REWARDS intervention enabled her to start decoding longer words; within months, she was reading nearly on grade level. Her whole outlook on reading transformed, as did her confidence. While not typical of every student, we are nevertheless seeing the greatest gains from students like this, who started the year furthest behind. 

To track progress, we’ve been using i-Ready, a diagnostic assessment given to students three times a year. Unlike more-frequent, shorter assessments we’d used in the past, i-Ready has provided more reliable data about where students are starting and how far they’re progressing. There is a strong correlation between students’ scores and their performance on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exam, which the state’s students are required to take in grades 3 through 8, as well as grade 10. 

On average, i-Ready testing shows that students two or more grade levels behind were making more than a year’s worth of growth in just a few months. While some students are still behind benchmark, the chasm has closed significantly, and they are now within striking distance of grade-level proficiency, giving them a renewed sense of confidence and a real shot at long-term academic success. 

Literacy development is not a one-year fix, but by investing in the right resources and supporting teachers to address students’ reading deficits, we’re making the small but steady gains that show genuine advancement. The progress we’ve seen is a testament to what’s possible when schools take a collective, research-based approach to adolescent literacy. 

While much funding and attention focuses on early childhood literacy skills, we are committed to serving our students, adolescent learners who still need fundamental literacy support.  They also deserve the targeted, thoughtful intervention that empowers them to be fluent readers and full participants in their own learning. 

Struggling with debilitating anxiety, only heightened by the realities of a chronically under-resourced public education system, I didn’t even think I’d reach age 18. By 10th grade, in a large public high school in Nashville, Tennessee, I understood one thing: School made me miserable. Why would any student, regardless of capability or potential, want to continue down a path that agonized her?

I needed a fundamental reset. When I was 16, my mom decided it would be best to move back to her hometown of Elizabethton, Tennessee, nearly 300 miles across the state. At the height of the pandemic, we packed up our car, rented a house online, and settled into a small, weathered, and historic town nestled in a valley of the Appalachian Mountains.

Even after moving across the state and starting at Elizabethton High School (EHS) — an XQ School that was less than half the size of my last school — I begged my mom to let me enroll in an online high school instead. This was my chance for a fresh start. Why would I want to go back to a system, albeit in a new town, that I suffered so greatly from?

“Let’s just go talk to the school counselor,” my mom would say.

“We can always do the online school thing, you know, if you hate it here so much,” my aunt would reassure me.

Every muscle in my body fought against walking through the doors of EHS — where many of my family members had graduated. I didn’t want to be a Cyclone. I was convinced that only misery awaited me on the other side. The debilitating, school-induced anxiety began knocking at my door.

Reluctantly, I agreed to a meeting with the school counselor, and two days before the start of the school year, I was enrolled as an 11th grader, expected to report to first-period Spanish on Monday.

What I didn’t expect, however, was the school principal, Jon Minton, walking me to class that fateful Monday, after receiving word of an anxious transfer student from Nashville. This was the first act of kindness of many at EHS, and these acts of kindness have extended far beyond my graduation.

At my old, 2,200-student high school, I never had a sense of community. Isolation, loneliness, and a lack of purpose were the defining characteristics of my first high school experience. Teachers and staff members were overworked and overwhelmed, busy trying to navigate the challenges of our large and diverse high school to form one-on-one connections. Looking back, I can see how important the connections I made at Elizabethton were in helping me find my path. Since then, I’ve learned that my experience is backed by science. that relationships between students and educators, built on mutual respect, are essential to student success.

As , EHS embraces XQ design principles—among them, the importance of caring, trusting relationships between students and the adults around them. For me, those relationships began to take shape the moment I stepped through the door.

Dr. Minton walked me to my Spanish class, taught by Maggie Booher, a recent college graduate and a brand-new educator about to teach her first class ever. I didn’t see the principal much after that, but knowing that he knew me and had my best interests in mind eased my anxieties in a way I had never experienced.

Like me, Ms. Booher was completely new to the school community. Her energy was infectious, spreading kindness in her classroom and in every part of our school. Throughout my time at EHS, she remained someone I knew I could go to if I needed anything at all.

Within my first five minutes at EHS, I’d made two invaluable connections.

Later that day, my counselor, examining my transcript, placed me in a class dedicated to creating our annual yearbook,a class I got credit for. This one decision was responsible for a chain of events that eventually led me to the path I’m on today.

The yearbook class met in the back of the library. I ate my lunch surrounded by books, often making my way through those doors. There’s sometimes a stigma around students eating lunch in the library, but being able to eat in a comfortable environment where I felt safe, understood, and free from judgment influenced my success as a student. The library was a safe place, and it’s where I met Dustin Hensley. 

Calling Mr. Hensley a librarian doesn’t do him justice; he embodies the ideals of a true educator and mentor. He’s an adjunct professor at East Tennessee State University (ETSU), the school I now call home, and the school he encouraged me to apply to. An advocate for student voice and innovative learning, Mr. Hensley created a safe environment for all students within the walls of the library. He has continued to look out for me and send opportunities my way, even years after my graduation. Mr. Hensley’s influence — his “keeping tabs” on me — is why I’m an intern at the XQ Institute today.

Being in the yearbook class made me realize a few things: I love getting to know people through interviews, I enjoy writing for something other than an English class, and I’m passionate about creating tangible, impactful content. These revelations led me to study media and communication at ETSU, and in December, I’ll become the first member of my family to graduate from college.

The yearbook class was taught by Daniel Proffitt. He recognized my interest in journalism, and by my senior year, through his connections, I was already writing for our local newspaper, the Elizabethton Star.

I also managed a team of underclassmen in the class, a leadership opportunity that reflects XQ’s principle of youth voice and choice and one I couldn’t have dreamed of at my previous high school. Mr. Proffitt assisted me with multiple projects in college, another tribute to the impactful relationships I gained at EHS.

In the afternoon, I had one of my final classes: an advanced creative writing course. Sara Hardin became both my advanced creative writing and English teacher. She always pushed me to write in varying styles — poetry, playwriting, prose — nothing was off limits. She taught me about the Transcendentalists, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and how their thinking revolutionized an age. On one occasion, I recall taking a self-quiz in her class: “Are You a Transcendentalist?” The results were in, and I belonged in the woods with Emerson.

Mrs. Hardin’s classes participated in a competition each fall, in collaboration with a local theater, where students write a play and have the chance for actors to perform their script on stage. During my first semester at EHS, my play placed in the top five—a first for Mrs. Hardin in 20 years. The pandemic kept us from attending the event, but Mrs. Hardin made sure to save me a seat the next year, even though I was no longer in her class.

In my senior year, I was awarded a scholarship to attend ETSU. It was a full-circle moment for me, accepting an award in my favorite place, the library, for a school that I wanted to go to — especially when, a couple of years earlier, I didn’t want to go to college at all. 

At that moment, I understood my journey was far from over.

I’d walked into the doors of EHS as a student who felt disconnected and disengaged from school, feeling anxious and alone in my journey, but I walked across the stage as a completely new person—a confident, supported, lifelong learner on my path to higher education.

I used to sit in the back of the classroom, trying my best to avoid eye contact with my teacher, but now I sit in the front row of each class, raising my hand at every opportunity.

The two years I spent at EHS changed my life. My mom and I occasionally wonder: Where would I be if I had never had the opportunity to attend EHS and develop the support system that I still have to this day?

I’ll never know. But here is something I know for sure: I’m proud to have graduated from EHS—and even prouder to be a third-generation Cyclone. 

On the day of my graduation, Mrs. Hardin handed me a note. “Don’t stop writing!” 

I’m happy to report, I took her advice. 

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Are you a good communicator? Can you effectively lead a team of your peers? Can you think critically about issues, ask questions, and find solutions to complex problems? If so, we’re looking for you. Apply now if you can show evidence of teamwork, creativity, and a strong work ethic. We don’t need “good test-takers” or the highest GPA. No experience? No problem. We will train you. We want employees who know how to learn, think, and lead. We want employees with the skills to help our company succeed both now and in the future. Are you up for the challenge? 

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Today’s education system fails to adequately prepare many students for college and the workforce. One found less than a quarter of high school graduates believe their schooling prepared them for life after graduation. Meanwhile, employers want candidates with “21^st Century Skills,” but are coming up short.

In recent years, however, there has been a promising shift as many states re-evaluate how to prepare students for the world. and hundreds of districts have created “Portraits of a Graduate” outlining the skills students should have by graduation such as communication, problem-solving, critical thinking and collaboration. 

Meanwhile, the landscape of K-12 assessments is also shifting. Last year when New York to eliminate the requirement that students pass the Regents Exam in order to graduate, it a of states that have ended reliance solely on exit exams as a condition of graduation. Instead, states are increasingly embracing measures such as which measure both what students know and whether they can apply that knowledge. These students demonstrate their skills through completing a project or performing a certain activity, which can include. essays, portfolios or research papers.

With the right support, these changes can effectively prepare students for the workforce of tomorrow. We have seen this happen in schools that have taken a project-based learning approach to instruction and assessment.

For instance, the rural Adair County School District in Kentucky launched an initiative to help students build skills outlined in the state’s portrait of a graduate and create a “culture of inquiry.” In one project, high school English and business classes, led by teachers Amy South and JR Thompson, worked together to research local industries and community businesses, interview business owners, analyze marketing strategies and develop comprehensive plans for promoting the community and its local businesses to outsiders.

As part of the process, students were introduced to the concept of a “strong hook” to capture interest and then divided into two teams. Each team worked collaboratively to propose a value proposition and refine their marketing strategies. They were then required to pitch their ideas and plans, ultimately narrowing down their focus to two distinct community projects. They presented their final pitches live to a jury, which selected one — a Marketing Day Vendor Fair — to be implemented in the community. The project culminated in students hosting an event at the high school showcasing local businesses

The Thomas Edison CTE High School in Queens, New York, is currently a for the New York State Department of Education, training other schools to develop performance-based assessments. It uses a project-based learning model in which students engage in real-world and personally meaningful projects. It developed a framework and “essential skills” rubric that assesses both how well students know the content and whether they can demonstrate essential skills of communication, collaboration, feedback and reflection, design thinking and professionalism. 

These are just two examples of schools that are leading the way in making sure students are prepared for the world by the time they graduate. We need more stories like this. Instead of focusing on cuts to education, we need to continue the momentum happening in New York and elsewhere by supporting and growing these innovative programs.

We call on parents, caregivers, students, schools, districts, boards of education, policy makers and government agencies to focus on these key areas to ensure the momentum continues and the changes last

• Professional development and capacity building: Institutions must ensure all teachers have ample time for professional development around performance-based curriculum and assessments as well as ongoing professional support. Buy-in at all levels is required in order to strengthen the system and build the capacity needed to make the shift toward building and measuring real-world skills.
  
• Funding: Re-defining student success — and how to assess it — will require investment. State leaders must ensure that there is funding to provide the staffing, training, curriculum and resources to support implementing performance-based assessments.
  
• Stakeholder alignment: K-12 schools, local industries and higher education institutions must be aligned on which skills are important for career and college readiness. 
  
• Communications: Some students may resist performance-based assessments because they have learned how to navigate the current system and do well on tests. Communicating effectively to students and families will help to shift mindsets and make the process smoother.  

Change is slow, but worth it. It will take persistence. There must be a willingness from all involved to hold the line and know it might take 10 years for this new way of assessing student learning to fully take hold.

We are experiencing a rare opportunity to change education and improve student success. This work must be intentional, evidence-based, and supported at all levels. We implore education leaders, policy makers, schools, districts and communities to lay the groundwork now to ensure students have a successful future and can respond to the “letter to high school and college graduates” with a resounding “Yes.”  

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

When 18-year-old Edgar Brito thinks about what he’ll do in the future, mechanical engineering is high on the list.

The senior at Washington state’s Toppenish High School first considered the career after he joined a STEM group in middle school. In a ninth grade class, he researched the earning potential for a STEM degree (“so much more money”) and the demand for mechanical engineers (“exploding”).

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So Brito took some engineering classes at his high school, became president of his state’s Technology Student Association, and is starting at the University of Washington this fall on a pre-science track.

Brito’s experience is what state education leaders hoped for when they replaced the high school exit exam with . When he graduates in June, Brito will have completed several diploma pathways, including ones aimed at preparing for college and building career skills.

But his experience isn’t necessarily typical. He has friends who have no idea what pathway they’re on — or if they’re on one at all. The requirements could be clearer and advisers could spend more time talking about them with students, he said.

“Making sure that we know exactly what our pathway is and what it means to be on a pathway would have definitely helped out a lot more students,” Brito said.

Five years after Washington rolled out its pathways, they appear to have helped more students who aren’t college-bound to graduate, . But the system has also created new issues and replicated some old ones.

For the Class of 2023 — the most recent year with available data — around 1 in 5 seniors didn’t have a pathway. That meant they weren’t on track to graduate within four years and at risk of dropping out. Some students relied on pandemic-era waivers that don’t exist anymore. That’s similar to the share of students who didn’t graduate on time in 2019, the final year of the exit exam.

Asian and white students are much more likely to complete one of the math and English pathways, considered the college-prep route, while Native students, English learners, and students with disabilities are more likely to have no graduation pathway.

“The implementation of graduation pathways has reinforced that the student groups who are the furthest from educational justice are completing the requirement at lower rates,” .

Across the state, students don’t have equal access to the pathways. Many schools, especially smaller and rural ones, struggle to offer more than a handful of career and technical education classes. Some career pathways train students for low-paying jobs with little opportunity for advancement. Some students get funneled to the military pathway, despite having no aspirations to serve, because the aptitude test is easier to pass. Many teens, like Brito’s friends, find the pathways confusing.

Washington is not alone. . And some, at their pathways. Many have struggled to address the same big questions, including what exactly high school is for, and what students should need to do to earn a diploma.

Now the state board of education is .

Piling on more ways for students to graduate is not the answer, said Brian Jeffries, the policy director at the Partnership for Learning, an education foundation affiliated with the Washington Roundtable, which is made up of executives from across the state.

“Let’s better prepare our students to meet the pathways, [rather] than keep creating a smorgasbord or a cafeteria of options, which too often turn into trapdoors,” said Jeffries, who sits on the . Until disadvantaged kids have access to better instruction and more support, he said, “we’re going to keep spinning this wheel.”

The path to 100 high school graduation pathways

Back in the early 2000s, many states raised the bar to graduate from high school with the hope it would get more kids to college. As a result, by 2012,, including Washington state.

But as student debt soared and some questioned the value of higher education, schools abandoned that college-for-all mentality. Critics of exit exams argued that they blocked too many disadvantaged students from graduating.

In Washington state’s final year of the exit exam, around 1 in 10 high school seniors didn’t pass the English language arts portion, and 1 in 5 didn’t pass the math test, . The law that nixed the exit exam had broad support from the Washington teachers union, state education officials, and parents. Lawmakers passed it unanimously.

Just six states require an exit exam now, with and dropping their tests this school year.

But absent an exit exam, on what students should have to do to prove they’re ready to graduate.

Nationwide, there are now more than 100 ways to graduate from high school, according to a, a K-12 consulting firm. The myriad options provide flexibility, but “also contribute to the lack of clarity about what it means to earn a diploma,” the report found.

When the nation’s main K-12 education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, passed 10 years ago, it tasked schools with getting students ready for college and career. But many states and schools are still trying to figure out how to do the career part well.

“Part of the challenge, frankly, is that schools are going through a bit of a post-high-stakes-test-based accountability identity crisis,” said Shaun Dougherty, a professor of education and policy at Boston College.

Michael Petrilli, the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, says that’s partly because for all the talk about changing high schools, graduation policies are still fairly restrictive. One reason Washington is revisiting its policies now is because some educators worry fills up students’ schedules, leaving little time for apprenticeships and other hands-on learning.

Many kids are still “sleepwalking through six or seven class periods a day, mostly through college-prep courses,” Petrilli said, with “maybe a few career-tech electives on the side.”

“We haven’t really unleashed high schools to do things very differently,” Petrilli said. “If we actually think that career tech is valuable, if we think that college-for-all was a mistake, then we need to be willing to act on it.”

Diploma pathways can bolster teens’ interest in school

What’s happening in the Toppenish School District illustrates the potential of the pathways model.

The district, which serves around 3,700 students in south-central Washington, , including in growing industries, like health care and agriculture. The career-oriented pathway has helped increase some students’ interest in school.

“It is very hands-on, and so it’s definitely more engaging,” said Monica Saldivar, Toppenish’s director of career and technical education. The old one-size-fits-all approach had “a negative impact for our students with diverse learning needs, academic challenges, and also language barriers.”

Just before the state overhauled its graduation requirements, over 81% of Toppenish students graduated within four years. Now over 89% do.

The improvements have been especially pronounced for English learners and Native students, many of whom live on the Yakama Nation. Since the state introduced pathways, Native student graduation rates have risen from 67% to 88%.

Since pathways launched, the district has added several career-technical education courses, including advanced welding and classes that prepare students to work as medical transcriptionists or home health care aides. That can require some careful career counseling with students, as those jobs are in high demand but don’t pay well unless students get additional training or schooling and move up the career ladder.

Still, the expanded offerings have helped some students tailor their post-high school plans.

Frances Tilley, a Toppenish senior who’s headed to Gonzaga University in the fall, will graduate in June after completing both college-prep and career-oriented pathways.

The 18-year-old took two of the new sports medicine classes and liked learning about what to do if you have a concussion. (Don’t try to stay awake. “We learned that’s not true,” Tilley said.)

She followed that up with another health care class that touched on different disciplines. She gravitated toward psychology and now plans to get a master’s in counseling and become a mental health worker.

Pathways can also help schools expose students to career options earlier.

Three years ago, Toppenish started offering middle schoolers two-week labs to test drive careers such as marketing, nursing, or culinary arts. By the end of eighth grade, they’ve learned about 10 different careers. Now school counselors use students’ interests to help plot their high school schedules.

Kaylee Celestino, 16, had long considered becoming a teacher. The Toppenish sophomore often gets “education” as an answer when she takes career quizzes. But the career-exploration labs also piqued her interest in science, and now she could also envision becoming a pediatric nurse. So her course schedule reflects that with advanced biology and college-level chemistry.

“I just want to help people out,” she said, “like my teachers have helped out me.”

Staffing, standards, data gaps make pathways challenging

Staffing career and technical classes is one of the biggest hurdles to doing pathways well.

Washington makes it easier than other states for . But many schools still struggle to attract and retain teachers for attractive fields like health services and welding when the private sector beckons.

“These are lucrative fields,” said Dougherty, who has researched career education programs in several states, including Washington. “It’s hard to convince people to give up that salary to become full-time educators.”

That creates extra work for schools. Saldivar, for example, meets regularly with regional employers to learn about their workforce needs. That helps inform whether Toppenish should drop or add certain classes, and which teachers to recruit. Saldivar is constantly networking and following up on “so and so may know someone” tips.

Figuring out how to hold all students to a high standard when they are meeting different criteria to graduate is a challenge, too. Some worry Washington’s pathways are too flexible.

The state rolled out a new pathway this year that allows students to graduate by completing a project, work-related experience, or community service. . But students don’t have to work with a teacher at their school, and if they choose to work with an outside mentor, .

“Where are they finding these people?” said Jeffries of the Partnership for Learning. “Is their opinion an expert opinion that we could trust, or is this based on vibes?”

Experts say it’s also important for students to understand what their likely earnings and other outcomes will be depending on which career pathway they follow.

“We should not be talking about CTE in a very generic way,” said Dan Goldhaber, a professor at the University of Washington who has researched career and technical education teacher preparation in the state. “What the concentration is matters.”

But Washington state doesn’t yet know how students’ outcomes may vary depending on which career and technical education concentration they chose, Katie Hannig, a spokesperson for Washington’s state education agency, wrote in an email. .

The state also doesn’t yet know whether the pathway, or pathways, students completed were connected to their post-high school plan, which they must create to graduate. That hasn’t assuaged concerns that students are completing pathways disconnected from their college and career goals.

The state expects to get that data in the future, Hannig wrote. Analyzing how diploma pathways affect graduation trends and postsecondary outcomes could help schools target resources and support.

“Any new policy is a work in progress, but the fundamental core value of this policy is preparing students for their next step after high school graduation,” Hannig wrote. “Washington is proud to be one of those states that have established and continue to refine those pathways.”

For now, districts like Toppenish are scrambling to coordinate weekly college presentations, field trips to work sites, and military recruiter visits — “a little of everything,” Saldivar said — to hedge their bets.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

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

The federal departments of Education and Justice are investigating whether changes to the admissions policy at a prestigious Virginia high school violated the civil rights of Asian American students, even though the .

The investigation comes after the Virginia Attorney General’s Office said its own investigation found “reasonable cause” to believe bias against Asian American students motivated the changes at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, and referred the case to federal authorities.

Under President Donald Trump, the Education Department has warned school districts that even race-neutral policies that aim to diversify magnet schools and honors programs , despite court rulings that have repeatedly upheld such policies.

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Many school systems with selective high schools are in the midst of ongoing debate about how students should qualify for those schools.

This is the first civil rights investigation during the second Trump administration to look specifically at high school admissions. Other cases have targeted and as the Trump administration tries to root out common practices associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Fairfax County Public Schools changed the admissions criteria for the school, commonly known as TJ, in 2020 with the goal of creating a more diverse student body.

The 1,800-student school draws from five area school districts and often sends students on to elite colleges and successful careers. In the years before the change, the student body typically was more than two-thirds Asian American. Most students came from just a few middle schools. .

The district dropped the use of standardized test scores, incorporated “experience factors” into the admissions process, and reserved seats for students from each middle school in the area. Parents, many of whom were Asian American, organized as the Coalition for TJ and sued the district over the changes, but the Supreme Court declined to take the case in early 2024. That seemed to be the end of the matter.

But this week Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, said a two-year investigation had found evidence that . Miyares said school board members in private communications described the policies as having “an anti asian feel” and that the changes would “kick out Asians.”

After the policy change, Asian American students went from 73% of admitted students to 54%, the attorney general’s office said. The share of white, Black, and Latino students all increased. The study body is currently about 60% Asian American, 20% white, 7% Latino, and 5.5% Black.

The attorney general’s office did not release a full report that would provide more context for board member comments and told Chalkbeat to obtain it from the school district. The school district said it would consider the request but did not immediately share the report. Coalition for TJ also alleged in its lawsuit that the school district was biased against Asian American students, but the court did not find that the policy change violated equal protection requirements.

Miyares referred the case to the federal Justice and Education departments, which announced they would open Title VI investigations into the district. Title VI protects students from discrimination on the basis of race or shared ancestry.

“Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County has long had a reputation for producing some of our nation’s brightest minds, due in no small part to its rigorous admissions process,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement announcing the investigation. “The Fairfax County School Board’s alleged decision to weigh race in TJ’s admissions decisions appears to be both contrary to the law and to the fundamental principle that students should be evaluated on their merit, not the color of their skin.”

A spokesperson for Fairfax County Public Schools said the district was reviewing documents related to the investigation and would have a more detailed response in a few days.

“This matter has already been fully litigated,” the district said. “A federal appellate court determined there was no merit to arguments that the admissions policy for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology discriminates against any group of students.”

Admissions policy changes are contested ground

Yuyan Chou, a member of Coalition for TJ, that the federal investigation gives parents new hope.

“The Supreme Court decided basically not to hear our case and at that point, I thought the American dream died,” she said. “There’s no path forward, there’s nothing going to happen again until today. I believe there is a chance we can revive that dream.”

Chris Kieser, a senior attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented Coalition for TJ and regularly brings lawsuits opposing affirmative action, said he was pleased to see the federal government take another look at the case.

“We certainly think there are grounds to investigate,” he said. Just because the Supreme Court didn’t take up the case “doesn’t mean there were no issues.”

Kieser said the Pacific Legal Foundation continues to hope that the Supreme Court will take up a high school admissions case. Policies that aim to diversify selective high schools often end up discriminating against Asian American students, Kieser said, and the fact that those student continue to gain admittance at high rates under revised policies doesn’t mean they don’t discriminate against individual students.

Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, said civil rights investigations can apply a different standard in seeking to protect students than the Supreme Court did in declining to hear the case. But the Education Department’s interpretation of the law appears to be in direct violation of court rulings.

“They have no legal authority to enforce Title VI in a way that is inconsistent with the law,” he said. “If TJ is willing to stand up for itself, it will have to challenge the administration in court. And this is what has been going on all over the country.”

Civil rights investigations often result in negotiated settlements in which school districts agree to make certain changes. The federal government also has the power to withhold federal funds to penalize school districts. Historically that hasn’t happened. But under Trump, the in an effort to get states and school districts to comply with its interpretations of the law.

Black said the department appears to be applying disparate impact theory — a type of legal analysis that looks at whether certain policies affect certain groups in disproportionate ways — to a high school admissions policy just weeks after Trump .

The administration would need a “smoking gun” that showed bias against Asian American students to conclude that the district violated those students’ civil rights, Black said.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

On a recent Thursday morning, Michael Taubman asked his class of seniors at North Star Academy’s Washington Park High School: “What do you think AI’s role should be in your future career?”

“In school, like how we use AI as a tool and we don’t use it to cheat on our work … that’s how it should be, like an assistant,” said Amirah Falana, a 17-year-old interested in a career in real estate law.

Fernando Infante, an aspiring software developer, agreed that AI should be a tool to “provide suggestions” and inform the work.

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“It’s like having AI as a partner rather than it doing the work,” said Infante during class.

Falana and Infante are students in Taubman’s class called The Summit, a yearlong program offered to 93 seniors this year and expanding to juniors next year that also includes a 10-week AI course developed by Taubman and Stanford University.

As part of the course, students use artificial intelligence tools – often viewed in a negative light due to privacy and other technical concerns – to explore their career interests and better understand how technology could shape the workforce. The class is also timely, as 92% of companies plan to invest in more AI over the next three years, according to a report by global consulting firm

The lessons provide students with hands-on exercises to better understand how AI works and how they can use it in their daily lives. They are also designed so teachers across subject areas can include them as part of their courses and help high school students earn a Google Career Certificate for AI Essentials, which introduces AI and teaches the basics of using AI tools.

Students like Infante have used the AI and coding skills they learned in class to create their own apps while others have used them to create school surveys and spark new thoughts about their future careers. Taubman says the goal is to also give students agency over AI so they can embrace technological changes and remain competitive in the workfield.

“One of the key things for young people right now is to make sure they understand that this technology is not inevitable,” Taubman told Chalkbeat last month. “People made this, people are making decisions about it, and there are pros and cons like with everything people make and we should be talking about this.”

Students need to know the basics of AI, experts say

As Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, graduate high school and enter a workforce where AI is new, many are wondering how the technology will be used and to what extent.

Nearly half of Gen Z students polled by The Walton Family Foundation and Gallup said they , according to the newly released survey exploring how youth view AI. (The Walton Family Foundation is a supporter of Chalkbeat. See our funders list .) The same poll found that over 4 in 10 Gen Z students believe they will need to know AI in their future careers, and over half believe schools should be required to teach them how to use it.

This school year, Newark Public Schools students began using , which the district launched as a pilot program last year. Some Newark teachers reported that the tutoring tool was helpful in the classroom, but the district has not released data on whether it helped raise student performance and test scores. The district in 2024 also launched its multimillion across school buildings in an attempt to keep students safe.

But more than just using AI in school, students want to feel prepared to use it after graduating high school. Nearly 3 in 4 college students said their colleges or universities should be preparing them for AI in the workplace, from Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse’s Student Voice series.

Many of the challenges of using AI in education center on the type of learning approach used, accuracy, and building trust with the technology, said Nhon Ma, CEO of – an online learning assistant that uses AI and educators to help students learn STEM concepts. But that’s why it’s important to immerse students in AI to help them understand the ways it could be used and when to spot issues, Ma added.

“We want to prepare our youth for this competitive world stage, especially on the technological front so they can build their own competence and confidence in their future paths. That could potentially lead towards higher earnings for them too,” Ma said.

For Infante, the senior in Taubman’s class, AI has helped spark a love for computer science and deepened his understanding of coding. He used it to create an app that tracks personal milestones and goals and awards users with badges once they reach them. As an aspiring software developer, he feels he has an advantage over other students because he’s learning about AI in high school.

Taubman also says it’s especially important for students to understand how quickly the technology is advancing, especially for students like Infante looking towards a career in technology.

“I think it’s really important to help young people grapple with how this is new, but unlike other big new things, the pace is very fast, and the implications for career are almost immediate in a lot of cases,” Taubman added.

Students learn that human emotions are important as AI grows

It’s also important to remember the limitations of AI, Taubman said, noting that students need the basic understanding of how AI works in order to question it, identify any mistakes, and use it accordingly in their careers.

“I don’t want students to lose out on an internship or job because someone else knows how to use AI better than they do, but what I really want is for students to get the internship or the job because they’re skillful with AI,” Taubman said.

Through Taubman’s class, students are also identifying how AI increases the demand for skills that require human emotion, such as empathy and ethics.

Daniel Akinyele, a 17-year-old senior, said he was interested in a career in industrial and organizational psychology, which focuses on human behavior in the workplace.

During Taubman’s class, he used a custom AI tool on his laptop to explore different scenarios where he could use AI in his career. Many involved talking to someone about their feelings or listening to vocal cues that might indicate a person is sad or angry. Ultimately, psychology is a career about human connection and “that’s where I come into play,” Akinyele said.

“I’m human, so I would understand how people are feeling, like the emotion that AI doesn’t see in people’s faces, I would see it and understand it,” Akinyele added.

Falana, the aspiring real estate attorney, also used the custom AI tool to consider how much she should rely on AI when writing legal documents. Similar to writing essays in schools, Falana said professionals should use their original writing in their work but AI could serve as a launching pad.

“I feel like the legal field should definitely put regulations on AI use, like we shouldn’t be able to, draw up our entire case using AI,” Falana said.

During Taubman’s class, students also discussed fake images and videos created by AI. Infante, who wants to be a software developer, added that he plans to use AI regularly on the job but believes it should also be regulated to limit disinformation online.

Taubman says it’s important for students to have a healthy level of skepticism when it comes to new technologies. He encourages students to think about how AI generates images, the larger questions around copyright infringement, and their training processes.

“We really want them to feel like they have agency in this world, both their capacity to use these systems,” Taubman said, “but also to ask these broader questions about how they were designed.”

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

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Want to know how students at your child’s school district are performing five or even 10 years down the line?

Today, California released a new tool that aims to make that question — and many others — much easier to answer. Known as the Cradle to Career Data System, consolidate data from roughly 3.5 million high school graduates in California, showing where they enrolled in college, what kinds of degrees they earned, and the wages they made four years after receiving a college diploma or certificate.

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For years, parents and researchers alike have complained that — with information spread out across various websites, drop-down menus and graphics. A new data system was a key priority for the Newsom administration, though it faced, in part because of data privacy concerns.

“We have people who’ve been calling for this (data system) for 10 years, for 20 years,” said Mary Ann Bates, executive director of the Cradle to Career Data System. “The effort the state is making now to bring this together is so that students, families, educators and policymakers can have this information at their fingertips.”

Some other states, such as , have already pioneered better approaches, creating a single, understandable website that houses data from the state’s K-12, college and workforce providers. In 2019, California allocated more than $24 million so it could catch up.

But today’s data tool represents just a fraction of the state’s education and workforce data. It only looks at students who attend one of California’s public colleges and universities and it only looks at students who graduate from a public high school. One tool by the California Department of Education shows that among 2015 California public high school graduates who headed to college, or university within 16 months.

Bates said her team will eventually update these public dashboards to include information about students who attend private or out-of-state colleges and who don’t graduate high school.

As part of this data system, the state has also promised to including information about early childhood education and teachers’ training and retention. Bates’ team initially said the teacher training information would be available by June 2024, but it remains in limbo. She said that tool would be released “soon,” though she did not specify a date.

How useful is it?

Although the Cradle to Career Data System is presenting information in new ways, the information itself isn’t new. California has already developed similar tools, but none so widely accessible to the public or incorporating data from so many different schools and state agencies.

The state Education Department already allowed users to download data and sort college-going rates by school or district, although it’s unlikely most parents would spend the time to download the spreadsheet and try to understand all the column names. One strength of the system is its ease of use — the tool displays key data visually and intuitively.

But each data system may use slightly different numbers. For example, the department uses , which has a of what it means to “graduate” high school. The Cradle to Career Data System looks only at traditional graduates and not people who receive a GED, said Ryan Estrellado, the Cradle to Career system’s director of data programs.

The nonprofit Educational Results Partnership operated one of the many predecessors to the Cradle to Career Data System, and president Alex Barrios said he’s skeptical that the state’s new tool is a real improvement.

“If the dashboard doesn’t start the cohort at 9th grade, then the dashboard is useless,” wrote Barrios in a text to CalMatters. Just over 88% of students who started as ninth graders finished high school five years later, according to , but for certain groups, such as African American or Native American students, the graduation rates were lower.

Without information about high school dropouts, the new tool makes it look like students attend college at higher rates than they actually do, he said. It’s called the Cradle to Career Data System, he added, not the “the High School Graduation to College Data System.” In the previous tool that Barrios helped operate, known as Cal-PASS Plus, researchers could look not just at high school graduates but also at all students who enrolled in 9th grade.

Bates said the Cradle to Career Data System is only as powerful as the data that schools and agencies share. This current data uses information from the past 10 years, which is only enough time to measure the long-term college and career outcomes of high school graduates, she said, adding that other data, such as information about the long-term fates of younger students, will be added as it’s available.

Although the data lacks certain features, it may still lead to powerful findings: One of the new data dashboards shows that community college students who receive a certificate earn more than those who receive an associate degree— even though certificate programs typically take much less time to complete.

The Cradle to Career Data System is “a neutral source of information,” said Bates. “Our office is not going to weigh in on specific policies or interpret the why.”

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