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"content": "\u003cp>In the past decade, student achievement has stagnated or declined \u003ca href=\"https://www.oecd.org/en/about/news/press-releases/2023/12/decline-in-educational-performance-only-partly-attributable-to-the-covid-19-pandemic.html\">around the world \u003c/a>as cellphones have become nearly ubiquitous Gen Z and Gen Alpha accessories. Educators from Florida to Sweden to Rio de Janeiro are responding with an increasingly popular tactic: restricting or banning cellphone use during the school day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the first wave of rigorous research on those policies — including two major U.S. studies — do not point neatly in one direction. Some studies have found modest academic gains from cellphone restrictions. Others have found little to no effect on test scores, even when student phone use dropped sharply. Some studies suggest benefits for low-achieving students, others for girls, and still others for boys. In some places, attendance or student well-being improved. In others, they didn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientific process can be messy. Cultural differences may explain why the bans are more effective in some places than others. But almost any education reform will get different results in different places, even within a single country. And the current confusion may also stem from how difficult it is to study cellphone bans in the real world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ideally, researchers would randomly assign some students to surrender their phones while others kept them, and then measure the effect on academic performance — the equivalent of a clinical trial for an education policy. But those experiments are difficult to enforce in schools, and so far only \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5370727\">one study\u003c/a>, conducted among college students in India, has attempted a randomized controlled trial. It produced a notably strong improvement in course grades for lower achieving students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, most studies rely on rougher real world comparisons that capture only partial effects of cellphone restrictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w35132/w35132.pdf\">national study\u003c/a> released this month by researchers at Stanford, Duke, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan analyzed more than 40,000 schools across the country using data from Yondr, a company that makes magnetic locking pouches for student cellphones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found that cellphone activity at schools dropped sharply after schools adopted the pouches. Cellphone “pings” from school grounds fell by 30 percent, and teachers reported far less nonacademic phone use in class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the study found “close to zero” effects on test scores, attendance and online bullying, even three years after schools adopted the pouches. The researchers compared the Yondr schools to schools that had similar demographics and academic performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first glance, those findings appeared to conflict with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34388/w34388.pdf\">study of schools in Florida\u003c/a> released last year, which found small academic gains a year after statewide cellphone restrictions took effect in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers behind that study, from the University of Rochester and RAND, compared schools where student cellphone use had historically been high with schools where phone use had already been relatively low before the statewide restrictions began. Their logic was that schools with heavier pre-ban cellphone use should experience a larger effect from the policy change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The national Yondr study, by contrast, largely compared schools using one particularly strict form of enforcement against schools that often already had softer cellphone restrictions in place. Some schools in the comparison group still required students to keep phones tucked away in backpacks or out of sight during class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, the national study was largely comparing stricter restrictions against weaker ones while the Florida study was comparing schools with high versus low cellphone use before the ban.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with the different methodologies and research questions, the researchers of both U.S. studies emphasized in interviews how similar their results actually were. The Florida study calculated that the academic gains, which materialized in the second year after the ban, were less than a percentile point, the equivalent of moving a student from the 50th percentile, dead in the middle, to the 51st percentile. In practical terms, the difference between a tiny gain and near-zero effects may not matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both studies also documented an initial increase in disciplinary incidents before behavior stabilized, and both found signs of nonacademic benefits, including improvements in school climate or student well-being.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The broader international research, however, remains genuinely mixed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927537116300136\">first quantitative study\u003c/a> of cellphone bans, published in England in 2016, found that cellphone restrictions improved exam scores primarily for low-achieving students. But a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775719303966\">Swedish study\u003c/a> in 2020 found no academic or behavioral benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Swedish researchers speculated that their results might reflect the country’s long history of integrating computers into classrooms. In the 1970s, Sweden was an early European adopter of school technology, so students already relied heavily on laptops and other digital devices during lessons before the ubiquity of cellphones. A separate \u003ca href=\"https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A866544&dswid=6524\">Swedish case study\u003c/a> also found that students were often using phones between assignments rather than during instructional time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, studies in \u003ca href=\"https://www.emerald.com/aea/article/30/90/153/59588/Banning-mobile-phones-in-schools-evidence-from\">Spain\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2026/03/04/jhr.0224-13403R2\">Norway\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/RioPhoneBans.pdf\">Brazil\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5370727\">India\u003c/a> have all found academic benefits from cellphone restrictions, though the gains varied widely. The randomized trial in India produced some of the largest academic gains in the literature. Researchers there randomly assigned college students by field of study to store their phones in wooden cubbies before class while others kept them. Unlike in many American universities, there weren’t many laptops or tablets in these Indian classrooms. Removing phones, in effect, may have removed all digital distractions from the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One possible explanation for the disappointing U.S. results is that students are still surrounded by digital distractions even when phones are gone. David Figlio, the lead author of the Florida study, said students often shift to texting, gaming or social media on laptops and tablets that remain permitted in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another possibility is that the academic harms of modern technology aren’t primarily caused by classroom distraction itself. Smartphones may influence sleep, study habits, sustained attention and reading stamina outside school hours in ways that a seven-hour school day ban cannot easily reverse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Cell phones still could be having a large effect on the diminishment of student achievement, even if cell phone bans are not turning this around by a tremendous amount,” Figlio said. “Students could be cutting corners on their studying, or staying up very late and getting less sleep.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tom Dee, a Stanford education researcher who led the national study, said the “sobering” findings in this country should not discourage schools from continuing to experiment with cellphone policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We should just continue to iterate, which is something we do too infrequently in education policy,” Dee said. “Let’s not move on to the next fad or the next flavor of the day. This issue is too important for us not to stay in the fight to try to figure out how to manage our children’s use of digital devices responsibly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/global-research-cellphone-bans/\"> \u003cem>whether school cellphone bans are effective\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\"> \u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In the past decade, student achievement has stagnated or declined \u003ca href=\"https://www.oecd.org/en/about/news/press-releases/2023/12/decline-in-educational-performance-only-partly-attributable-to-the-covid-19-pandemic.html\">around the world \u003c/a>as cellphones have become nearly ubiquitous Gen Z and Gen Alpha accessories. Educators from Florida to Sweden to Rio de Janeiro are responding with an increasingly popular tactic: restricting or banning cellphone use during the school day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the first wave of rigorous research on those policies — including two major U.S. studies — do not point neatly in one direction. Some studies have found modest academic gains from cellphone restrictions. Others have found little to no effect on test scores, even when student phone use dropped sharply. Some studies suggest benefits for low-achieving students, others for girls, and still others for boys. In some places, attendance or student well-being improved. In others, they didn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientific process can be messy. Cultural differences may explain why the bans are more effective in some places than others. But almost any education reform will get different results in different places, even within a single country. And the current confusion may also stem from how difficult it is to study cellphone bans in the real world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ideally, researchers would randomly assign some students to surrender their phones while others kept them, and then measure the effect on academic performance — the equivalent of a clinical trial for an education policy. But those experiments are difficult to enforce in schools, and so far only \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5370727\">one study\u003c/a>, conducted among college students in India, has attempted a randomized controlled trial. It produced a notably strong improvement in course grades for lower achieving students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, most studies rely on rougher real world comparisons that capture only partial effects of cellphone restrictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w35132/w35132.pdf\">national study\u003c/a> released this month by researchers at Stanford, Duke, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan analyzed more than 40,000 schools across the country using data from Yondr, a company that makes magnetic locking pouches for student cellphones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found that cellphone activity at schools dropped sharply after schools adopted the pouches. Cellphone “pings” from school grounds fell by 30 percent, and teachers reported far less nonacademic phone use in class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the study found “close to zero” effects on test scores, attendance and online bullying, even three years after schools adopted the pouches. The researchers compared the Yondr schools to schools that had similar demographics and academic performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first glance, those findings appeared to conflict with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34388/w34388.pdf\">study of schools in Florida\u003c/a> released last year, which found small academic gains a year after statewide cellphone restrictions took effect in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers behind that study, from the University of Rochester and RAND, compared schools where student cellphone use had historically been high with schools where phone use had already been relatively low before the statewide restrictions began. Their logic was that schools with heavier pre-ban cellphone use should experience a larger effect from the policy change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The national Yondr study, by contrast, largely compared schools using one particularly strict form of enforcement against schools that often already had softer cellphone restrictions in place. Some schools in the comparison group still required students to keep phones tucked away in backpacks or out of sight during class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, the national study was largely comparing stricter restrictions against weaker ones while the Florida study was comparing schools with high versus low cellphone use before the ban.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with the different methodologies and research questions, the researchers of both U.S. studies emphasized in interviews how similar their results actually were. The Florida study calculated that the academic gains, which materialized in the second year after the ban, were less than a percentile point, the equivalent of moving a student from the 50th percentile, dead in the middle, to the 51st percentile. In practical terms, the difference between a tiny gain and near-zero effects may not matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both studies also documented an initial increase in disciplinary incidents before behavior stabilized, and both found signs of nonacademic benefits, including improvements in school climate or student well-being.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The broader international research, however, remains genuinely mixed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927537116300136\">first quantitative study\u003c/a> of cellphone bans, published in England in 2016, found that cellphone restrictions improved exam scores primarily for low-achieving students. But a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775719303966\">Swedish study\u003c/a> in 2020 found no academic or behavioral benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Swedish researchers speculated that their results might reflect the country’s long history of integrating computers into classrooms. In the 1970s, Sweden was an early European adopter of school technology, so students already relied heavily on laptops and other digital devices during lessons before the ubiquity of cellphones. A separate \u003ca href=\"https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A866544&dswid=6524\">Swedish case study\u003c/a> also found that students were often using phones between assignments rather than during instructional time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, studies in \u003ca href=\"https://www.emerald.com/aea/article/30/90/153/59588/Banning-mobile-phones-in-schools-evidence-from\">Spain\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2026/03/04/jhr.0224-13403R2\">Norway\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/RioPhoneBans.pdf\">Brazil\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5370727\">India\u003c/a> have all found academic benefits from cellphone restrictions, though the gains varied widely. The randomized trial in India produced some of the largest academic gains in the literature. Researchers there randomly assigned college students by field of study to store their phones in wooden cubbies before class while others kept them. Unlike in many American universities, there weren’t many laptops or tablets in these Indian classrooms. Removing phones, in effect, may have removed all digital distractions from the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One possible explanation for the disappointing U.S. results is that students are still surrounded by digital distractions even when phones are gone. David Figlio, the lead author of the Florida study, said students often shift to texting, gaming or social media on laptops and tablets that remain permitted in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another possibility is that the academic harms of modern technology aren’t primarily caused by classroom distraction itself. Smartphones may influence sleep, study habits, sustained attention and reading stamina outside school hours in ways that a seven-hour school day ban cannot easily reverse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Cell phones still could be having a large effect on the diminishment of student achievement, even if cell phone bans are not turning this around by a tremendous amount,” Figlio said. “Students could be cutting corners on their studying, or staying up very late and getting less sleep.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tom Dee, a Stanford education researcher who led the national study, said the “sobering” findings in this country should not discourage schools from continuing to experiment with cellphone policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We should just continue to iterate, which is something we do too infrequently in education policy,” Dee said. “Let’s not move on to the next fad or the next flavor of the day. This issue is too important for us not to stay in the fight to try to figure out how to manage our children’s use of digital devices responsibly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It seems like a tale of two school systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Washington, D.C., has emerged as the fastest-improving school system in the nation, according to a major new analysis of student test scores released last week by researchers at Stanford, Harvard and Dartmouth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Scorecard \u003ca href=\"https://educationscorecard.org/\">analysis\u003c/a>, which compares more than 5,000 school districts across 38 states, finds that most of the country has been stuck in a reading recession — a decade-long slide in achievement that predates the pandemic. Between 2022 and 2025, only five states and the District of Columbia showed meaningful gains in reading. The nation’s capital posted the strongest growth of all and also led in math improvement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Washington students in both public and charter schools gained roughly two-thirds of a grade level in math and about a third of a grade level in reading over that period, according to the analysis. A grade level represents roughly a year’s worth of learning, which means that eighth graders in 2025 were about six months ahead in math compared with eighth graders in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the gains should not obscure a grimmer reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2025, only 26 percent of Washington students met grade-level standards in math and only 38 percent were proficient in reading, according to a separate \u003ca href=\"https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/v3_SODCS_2024_25_full_report-2.24-copy-2.pdf\">report\u003c/a> from the D.C. Policy Center, an independent local think tank. Just 16 percent of high school juniors and seniors were considered to be college or career ready.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A school system can improve rapidly and still leave most children behind. The contradiction is fueling an important politically and emotionally charged debate in education: Should schools be judged by how many students are proficient, or by how much students improve each year?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics of public schools are seizing upon the low proficiency rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Gains of any magnitude are a good thing, but when most students — roughly two-thirds to three-quarters in the case of D.C. — are not functioning at grade level, this is nothing to applaud,” said Steven Wilson, a former education policymaker in Massachusetts and charter school leader. “Most students are still being failed by the system.” (Wilson’s 2025 book, “The Lost Decade,” criticizes recent school reform efforts.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even before last week’s national data release, Washington school leaders were celebrating the gains. Paul Kihn, deputy mayor for education, trumpeted the strength of the schools after 2025 annual tests revealed a whopping 3.6 percent improvement in reading and math, similar to the grade-level increases that the Education Scorecard team calculated. “Our academic achievement is unsurpassed in the country in terms of growth,” Kihn said in a March 2026 \u003ca href=\"https://dme.dc.gov/page/inside-dc-education-blog#03262026-1\">blog post\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tom Kane, a Harvard economist and one of the authors of the new Education Scorecard report, explained that there is a long-running debate in the field of education about whether to focus on proficiency or growth. In this report, he said, the research team chose growth in order to “combat” what they see as an overly pessimistic narrative about public education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying to highlight that something good is happening in some of these places,” Kane said. “And hopefully, if we can, rebuild the public sense of agency with respect to public education.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to highlighting Washington’s growth, the research team also released a list of 108 “\u003ca href=\"https://educationscorecard.org/districts-on-the-rise/\">districts on the rise\u003c/a>”: school districts where math and reading gains exceeded those of similar districts in their state. Washington was not included because there are no comparable districts within the city. But its gains are comparable to many districts on the list. And, like Washington, most of those districts still have large shares of students below grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In theory, if a district’s scores keep growing by outsized amounts each year, students should catch up and eventually reach grade level. But public school critics like Wilson point out that even if a school system improves by one or two percentage points a year, it could take decades for the majority of students to get a decent education. In the meantime, the students who are currently in the system lose out. They can’t wait for that progress. Wilson worries that shining a light on a school system where most kids are far behind grade level can mislead the public and potentially cause school leaders to adopt the wrong policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Let’s take the klieg light and move it to the school systems that are educating nearly all of their students, rather than a third of their students,” said Wilson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wilson points to individual schools or charter school networks, where very \u003ca href=\"https://classicalcharterschools.org/\">high percentages of low-income\u003c/a> students are at or exceeding grade level. It’s much harder to replicate that success with low-income students across an entire large school district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Income is a big factor in this debate. If the public and policymakers focus only on proficiency, affluent suburbs tend to dominate the results. High-income districts often appear to be the most successful, not necessarily because their schools are more effective, but because students from wealthier families begin far ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That concern has prompted researchers to focus on growth-based measures of school performance over the past couple decades. A widely cited example came from research by Sean Reardon, a Stanford sociologist and co-author of the current report, who a decade ago found that Chicago was running the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/05/upshot/a-better-way-to-compare-public-schools.html\">most effective schools\u003c/a> in the country based on student growth, even though many students were behind grade level. (Illinois was not among the 38 states in the latest analysis because of changes to its state assessment, so it’s unclear exactly where Chicago stands right now.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, many parents would probably rather enroll their kids in a school system where most of the students are on grade level, even if annual improvements are small or nonexistent, than a school where only a small share of students are on grade level but the school is turning around and improving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harvard’s Kane agreed that getting more students over the proficiency line is important too. For the team’s next Education Scorecard report, researchers are planning to add a new data point showing the share of kids who are proficient compared to other districts with similar demographics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disagreement persists because the two measures answer different questions. Growth captures whether students are learning more than they used to. Proficiency captures whether they have learned enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That is what makes Washington such a revealing case. It shows how a school system can post some of the strongest gains in the country and still fall short by the most basic measure of success: whether students can read and do math at grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-rapid-growth-low-proficiency/\">\u003cem>school improvement\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It seems like a tale of two school systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Washington, D.C., has emerged as the fastest-improving school system in the nation, according to a major new analysis of student test scores released last week by researchers at Stanford, Harvard and Dartmouth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Scorecard \u003ca href=\"https://educationscorecard.org/\">analysis\u003c/a>, which compares more than 5,000 school districts across 38 states, finds that most of the country has been stuck in a reading recession — a decade-long slide in achievement that predates the pandemic. Between 2022 and 2025, only five states and the District of Columbia showed meaningful gains in reading. The nation’s capital posted the strongest growth of all and also led in math improvement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Washington students in both public and charter schools gained roughly two-thirds of a grade level in math and about a third of a grade level in reading over that period, according to the analysis. A grade level represents roughly a year’s worth of learning, which means that eighth graders in 2025 were about six months ahead in math compared with eighth graders in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the gains should not obscure a grimmer reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2025, only 26 percent of Washington students met grade-level standards in math and only 38 percent were proficient in reading, according to a separate \u003ca href=\"https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/v3_SODCS_2024_25_full_report-2.24-copy-2.pdf\">report\u003c/a> from the D.C. Policy Center, an independent local think tank. Just 16 percent of high school juniors and seniors were considered to be college or career ready.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A school system can improve rapidly and still leave most children behind. The contradiction is fueling an important politically and emotionally charged debate in education: Should schools be judged by how many students are proficient, or by how much students improve each year?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics of public schools are seizing upon the low proficiency rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Gains of any magnitude are a good thing, but when most students — roughly two-thirds to three-quarters in the case of D.C. — are not functioning at grade level, this is nothing to applaud,” said Steven Wilson, a former education policymaker in Massachusetts and charter school leader. “Most students are still being failed by the system.” (Wilson’s 2025 book, “The Lost Decade,” criticizes recent school reform efforts.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even before last week’s national data release, Washington school leaders were celebrating the gains. Paul Kihn, deputy mayor for education, trumpeted the strength of the schools after 2025 annual tests revealed a whopping 3.6 percent improvement in reading and math, similar to the grade-level increases that the Education Scorecard team calculated. “Our academic achievement is unsurpassed in the country in terms of growth,” Kihn said in a March 2026 \u003ca href=\"https://dme.dc.gov/page/inside-dc-education-blog#03262026-1\">blog post\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tom Kane, a Harvard economist and one of the authors of the new Education Scorecard report, explained that there is a long-running debate in the field of education about whether to focus on proficiency or growth. In this report, he said, the research team chose growth in order to “combat” what they see as an overly pessimistic narrative about public education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying to highlight that something good is happening in some of these places,” Kane said. “And hopefully, if we can, rebuild the public sense of agency with respect to public education.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to highlighting Washington’s growth, the research team also released a list of 108 “\u003ca href=\"https://educationscorecard.org/districts-on-the-rise/\">districts on the rise\u003c/a>”: school districts where math and reading gains exceeded those of similar districts in their state. Washington was not included because there are no comparable districts within the city. But its gains are comparable to many districts on the list. And, like Washington, most of those districts still have large shares of students below grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In theory, if a district’s scores keep growing by outsized amounts each year, students should catch up and eventually reach grade level. But public school critics like Wilson point out that even if a school system improves by one or two percentage points a year, it could take decades for the majority of students to get a decent education. In the meantime, the students who are currently in the system lose out. They can’t wait for that progress. Wilson worries that shining a light on a school system where most kids are far behind grade level can mislead the public and potentially cause school leaders to adopt the wrong policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Let’s take the klieg light and move it to the school systems that are educating nearly all of their students, rather than a third of their students,” said Wilson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wilson points to individual schools or charter school networks, where very \u003ca href=\"https://classicalcharterschools.org/\">high percentages of low-income\u003c/a> students are at or exceeding grade level. It’s much harder to replicate that success with low-income students across an entire large school district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Income is a big factor in this debate. If the public and policymakers focus only on proficiency, affluent suburbs tend to dominate the results. High-income districts often appear to be the most successful, not necessarily because their schools are more effective, but because students from wealthier families begin far ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That concern has prompted researchers to focus on growth-based measures of school performance over the past couple decades. A widely cited example came from research by Sean Reardon, a Stanford sociologist and co-author of the current report, who a decade ago found that Chicago was running the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/05/upshot/a-better-way-to-compare-public-schools.html\">most effective schools\u003c/a> in the country based on student growth, even though many students were behind grade level. (Illinois was not among the 38 states in the latest analysis because of changes to its state assessment, so it’s unclear exactly where Chicago stands right now.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, many parents would probably rather enroll their kids in a school system where most of the students are on grade level, even if annual improvements are small or nonexistent, than a school where only a small share of students are on grade level but the school is turning around and improving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harvard’s Kane agreed that getting more students over the proficiency line is important too. For the team’s next Education Scorecard report, researchers are planning to add a new data point showing the share of kids who are proficient compared to other districts with similar demographics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disagreement persists because the two measures answer different questions. Growth captures whether students are learning more than they used to. Proficiency captures whether they have learned enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That is what makes Washington such a revealing case. It shows how a school system can post some of the strongest gains in the country and still fall short by the most basic measure of success: whether students can read and do math at grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-rapid-growth-low-proficiency/\">\u003cem>school improvement\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "students-test-scores-began-declining-way-before-covid-these-schools-are-making-gains",
"title": "Students' Test Scores Began Declining Way Before COVID. These Schools Are Making Gains",
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"headTitle": "Students’ Test Scores Began Declining Way Before COVID. These Schools Are Making Gains | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>The pandemic-era backslide in math and reading scores for students across the U.S. was not a sudden catastrophe but the continuation of a brutal, decade-long “learning recession” that began years before COVID-19’s arrival. That’s according to the latest \u003ca href=\"https://educationscorecard.org/about/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Education Scorecard\u003c/a>, an annual deep-dive into student data from The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University and Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new Scorecard, released Wednesday and in its fourth year, offers several revelations for families, educators and policymakers looking for clarity — and hope — at a time when public education has been blamed and battered for those persistent declines in student performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Among the report’s takeaways: Most states are finally making gains in math; federal relief dollars likely helped the lowest-income districts mount a hearty comeback; and, while most states have yet to make gains in reading, those that have all made legislative changes to how it’s taught in their schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before we dive in, one caveat: The annual Education Scorecard includes data from the vast majority of states and Washington D.C. drawn from their own state tests — as opposed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/09/09/nx-s1-5526918/nations-report-card-scores-reading-math-science-education-cuts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nation’s Report Card\u003c/a>. But some states were excluded for various reasons, including if their state assessments had changed recently (Illinois, Kansas), if test opt-out rates were too high (New York, Colorado) or if a state didn’t publish district-level data with enough detail.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘The learning recession’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For nearly a quarter-century, from 1990 to 2013, math achievement among fourth- and eighth-graders “rose steadily,” according to the Scorecard’s analysis. So steadily that “the average fourth grader in 2013 could perform the same math skills as the average sixth grader could in 1990. That’s enormous progress,” says Stanford University’s Sean Reardon, one of the Scorecard’s authors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading gains weren’t quite as eye-popping, but they were gains nonetheless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These sustained gains “may be one of the most important social policy successes of the last half-century that nobody knows about,” says Harvard’s Thomas Kane, one of the Scorecard’s authors. “Racial gaps were narrowing too. We just need to get back on that track.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, much was right with America’s schools, which makes the decline that began around 2013 “appear more striking and anomalous,” the report says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>Particularly in reading, test scores were going down for four to six years before the pandemic,” says Reardon. “In fact, you wouldn’t really know there was a pandemic effect if you just looked at the last 10 or 12 years of test scores. There’s been just a steady kind of decline regardless of the pandemic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What might have triggered that decline?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The Scorecard’s trigger theories\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Scorecard researchers offer two possible explanations for the beginning of schools’ learning recession:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. The fade-out of test-based accountability\u003c/strong>: Remember the much-maligned federal education law, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/12/08/458844737/no-child-left-behind-an-obituary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">No Child Left Behind (NCLB)\u003c/a>, that took a tough-love approach with schools to improve student performance? The law, implemented in 2003, threatened a host of sanctions, including school closure, if student test scores didn’t rise, but its standards were seen by many to be not just unrealistic \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/10/11/354931351/it-s-2014-all-children-are-supposed-to-be-proficient-under-federal-law\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">but unattainable\u003c/a>. By 2013, the Obama administration began issuing waivers to free states from the law’s consequences. According to the Scorecard, 38 states were granted relief in the 2012-13 school year. Eventually, Congress replaced NCLB with a new federal law that de-emphasized test-based accountability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 2013, Kane says, “school districts learned that nobody was looking over their shoulders in terms of student achievement.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Scorecard researchers don’t draw a direct, causal connection between the declines of test-based accountability and student scores, it’s clear that the nation’s learning recession began at roughly the same time states and schools stepped back from the punishing consequences of NCLB.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Students’ social media use:\u003c/strong> It turns out, 2013 also marks a period of explosive growth in teenagers use of social media. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pew Research\u003c/a> study found that in 2014-15, roughly 1 in 4 teens said they used the internet “almost constantly.” By 2022, it was nearly half of teens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers also point to international testing data that shows that lower-achieving students are the heaviest users of social media. Students who spend more time (7+ hours per day) on social media score below students who spend less (1-3 hours). And this gap, between the highest and lowest performers, began growing before the pandemic, not just in the U.S. but in many other countries too.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The end of the learning recession?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Scorecard devotes considerable analysis to what’s been happening in schools since the end of the pandemic, from 2022 through the spring of 2025. There are signs that the nation’s learning recession may be turning around, albeit slowly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In that span of time, most of the states covered by this year’s Scorecard showed students making meaningful improvement in math, with Washington D.C. coming in as the clear winner there. Only five states failed to make gains in math: Georgia, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading, though, remains a cause for concern. While D.C., Louisiana, Maryland and five other states did experience meaningful improvement between 2022 and 2025, most states continued to stagnate or, as in Florida, Arizona and Nebraska, further declined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also worth noting, while schools are once again, on average, regaining ground in math and slowly turning the corner in reading, the declines that began around 2013 have been so steep and lasting that only one state, Louisiana, has returned to 2019 performance levels in both subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No state has returned to 2013 levels, according to Reardon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s easy to be sort of doom and gloom,” he adds, “but when you look at the period from the ’90s through 2013, we made enormous gains. And we actually narrowed achievement gaps between racial groups. That says we can actually improve our schools in ways that also improve equality of opportunity. We just haven’t been doing it for the last decade. But we could do it again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The U-shaped recovery\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Scorecard reveals a fascinating phenomenon in schools from 2022 to 2025: a U-shaped recovery. Meaning, schools with the least amount of poverty, alongside schools with the most poverty, saw similar gains in math and similarly small losses in reading achievement. That’s while the schools in the middle of the income spectrum, at the bottom of this U, improved the least in both subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why? One theory is that the highest-poverty districts got the most help from Congress in the form of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/06/18/nx-s1-5010963/schools-aid-students-pandemic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">federal COVID relief dollars\u003c/a> — money they could spend on interventions such as tutoring and summer school. Districts with the lowest poverty rates got little help from the federal government but were already well-positioned financially. It was the middle-income districts that needed more help but didn’t qualify for full federal support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it hadn’t been for the federal pandemic relief,” says Kane, “we estimate there would have been no recovery on average for the highest-poverty districts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The science of reading effect\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There’s been an important wild card in the effort to improve students’ reading skills: A movement among states to change their approach to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/12/582465905/the-gap-between-the-science-on-kids-and-reading-and-how-it-is-taught\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">teaching reading to young children\u003c/a> by \u003ca href=\"https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">embracing the \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.apmreports.org/story/2025/10/16/legislators-reading-laws-sold-a-story\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“science of reading.”\u003c/a> As of March, the Scorecard says, most states had passed new literacy laws, including doubling down on the importance of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/12/582465905/the-gap-between-the-science-on-kids-and-reading-and-how-it-is-taught\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">teaching phonics\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Scorecard authors note that all seven of the states (plus D.C.) that saw reading gains between 2022 and 2025 had put comprehensive science of reading reforms into place. Of the states that had not by January 2024, none saw improvement. The connection between these reforms and improved results isn’t necessarily causal, they warn, but there’s clearly a link.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With most states struggling to make reading gains, one district-level success story highlighted by the Scorecard stands out: Baltimore City Public Schools. In spite of the challenges posed by poverty — most students there qualify for free or reduced-price meals — Baltimore students have been making striking reading gains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under CEO Sonja Brookins Santelises, the district reformed its approach to literacy. It embraced \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/06/02/nx-s1-4916590/some-states-are-adopting-a-new-form-of-reading-instruction-to-combat-falling-scores\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the science of reading\u003c/a> even before the pandemic and years ahead of the national wave of state-based literacy legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Brookins Santelises took the lead in Baltimore in 2016, she says she quickly embraced the science of reading districtwide and its emphasis on phonics, as opposed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/03/11/591504959/rethinking-how-students-with-dyslexia-are-taught-to-read\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">whole language approach\u003c/a>, which teaches children to guess at words using cues from a text’s pictures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember gathering the [district’s] literacy department. And I said, ‘If you want to do whole language, there are other districts in Maryland that are doing whole language, and you are free to go there. We are not doing that in Baltimore City. I respect you, but you cannot stay here. I’ve been ferocious about it ever since.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘Kiss your brains!’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The benefits of these changes appear to have been twofold. During the pandemic, the Scorecard shows Baltimore schools lost far less ground in reading than schools with similar levels of poverty. Then, in 2022, with those practices firmly in place, the city’s reading scores began to skyrocket, erasing pandemic-era losses and rising back around 2017 levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baltimore’s successful approach to teaching literacy was on full display on a recent May morning, in veteran teacher Kimberly Lowery’s kindergarten class at Johnston Square Elementary. Lowery sat at the front of a rainbow-colored reading rug, running through a series of phonics-based games that her kindergarteners seemed to genuinely enjoy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was letter-sound bingo, guess-the-sound flashcards and even a visit from a special spelling helper — a toy owl, named Echo, who lives at the end of a yardstick. If the kids’ laughter and cheering isn’t sign enough that they’re learning, district data shows that, by the end of last year, three-quarters of Lowery’s students were reading at or above grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lowery told the children to kiss their brains and asked, “You guys are super-duper what?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In unison, the children hollered, “Smart!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yes you are,” Lowery answered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by: Nirvi Shah and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/6576424/steve-drummond\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Steve Drummond\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Visual design and development by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348775569/la-johnson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LA Johnson\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LEILA FADEL, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A report out today shows that big losses in reading and math scores did not begin with the pandemic. Researchers say they started more than a decade ago. NPR’s Cory Turner has more on what they call a learning recession and what some states are doing about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: The report, called the Education Scorecard, comes from researchers at Stanford, Harvard and Dartmouth. Let’s start with that headline about the nation being stuck in a learning recession.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SEAN REARDON: Particularly in reading, test scores were going down for four to six years before the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Stanford researcher Sean Reardon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>REARDON: In fact, you wouldn’t really know there was a pandemic effect if you just looked at the last 10 or 12 years of test scores. There’s been just a steady kind of decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Reardon argues this learning recession began around 2013, after a quarter century of learning gains he calls astonishing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>REARDON: The average fourth-grader in 2013 could perform the same math skills as the average sixth-grader could in 1990.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: And that matters, Reardon says, because as bad as things are now, it means America’s schools have done incredible things before and can do them again. To stop this learning recession, though, we need to know not just when it started, but why. Tom Kane at Harvard says there are at least two possible explanations. One, schools stopped worrying about a tough federal law that punished them for low test scores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TOM KANE: Under No Child Left Behind, school leaders every year had to be nervous the day that their test results were being announced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: But Kane says around 2013, that law was essentially abandoned. So that’s one theory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KANE: The other one is the rise in social media, which happened about the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Turns out, reading and math scores also started falling as teens’ social media use skyrocketed. What really caused the declines, though, it’s too early to know. Now, let’s jump to the present and some good news. Last year, students in most states showed improvement in math, offering fresh hope for an end to this learning recession. Reading’s been a tougher slog, but there’s hope there, too. The few states that have improved all have something in common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: C. Cat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: They’ve doubled down on phonics and the science of reading, including Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KIMBERLY LOWERY: C-L-oud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KIMBERLEY LOWERY AND UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: C-L-oud. Cloud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LOWERY: You guys are super-duper what?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LOWERY: Kiss your brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Baltimore City Schools have made big gains in reading. Last year, teacher Kimberly Lowery helped three-quarters of her kindergartners become grade-level readers or better. Her top boss, Sonja Brookins Santelises, has been Baltimore City Schools’ CEO for the past decade and says she came in determined to improve the district’s approach to literacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SONJA BROOKINS SANTELISES: The first thing that it did mean was that we all learn together how young people learn to read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Brookins Santelises decided to move away from an approach known as whole language and toward the science of reading. So she told her literacy staff…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BROOKINS SANTELISES: There are other districts in Maryland that are doing whole language, and you are free to go there. We are not doing that in Baltimore City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Then, during the pandemic, Baltimore students lost far less ground than kids in schools with similar levels of poverty. And by 2022…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Laughter).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: The city’s reading scores were shooting up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LOWERY: All righty. Raymond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Back in Mrs. Lowery’s kindergarten class, the kids have the giggles after a fun game of breaking down word sounds. Mrs. Lowery asks them one more time – you guys are super-duper what?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cory Turner, NPR News, Baltimore, Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ROBERT GLASPER’S “RECKONER”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The pandemic-era backslide in math and reading scores for students across the U.S. was not a sudden catastrophe but the continuation of a brutal, decade-long “learning recession” that began years before COVID-19’s arrival. That’s according to the latest \u003ca href=\"https://educationscorecard.org/about/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Education Scorecard\u003c/a>, an annual deep-dive into student data from The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University and Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new Scorecard, released Wednesday and in its fourth year, offers several revelations for families, educators and policymakers looking for clarity — and hope — at a time when public education has been blamed and battered for those persistent declines in student performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Among the report’s takeaways: Most states are finally making gains in math; federal relief dollars likely helped the lowest-income districts mount a hearty comeback; and, while most states have yet to make gains in reading, those that have all made legislative changes to how it’s taught in their schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before we dive in, one caveat: The annual Education Scorecard includes data from the vast majority of states and Washington D.C. drawn from their own state tests — as opposed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/09/09/nx-s1-5526918/nations-report-card-scores-reading-math-science-education-cuts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nation’s Report Card\u003c/a>. But some states were excluded for various reasons, including if their state assessments had changed recently (Illinois, Kansas), if test opt-out rates were too high (New York, Colorado) or if a state didn’t publish district-level data with enough detail.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘The learning recession’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For nearly a quarter-century, from 1990 to 2013, math achievement among fourth- and eighth-graders “rose steadily,” according to the Scorecard’s analysis. So steadily that “the average fourth grader in 2013 could perform the same math skills as the average sixth grader could in 1990. That’s enormous progress,” says Stanford University’s Sean Reardon, one of the Scorecard’s authors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading gains weren’t quite as eye-popping, but they were gains nonetheless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These sustained gains “may be one of the most important social policy successes of the last half-century that nobody knows about,” says Harvard’s Thomas Kane, one of the Scorecard’s authors. “Racial gaps were narrowing too. We just need to get back on that track.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, much was right with America’s schools, which makes the decline that began around 2013 “appear more striking and anomalous,” the report says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>Particularly in reading, test scores were going down for four to six years before the pandemic,” says Reardon. “In fact, you wouldn’t really know there was a pandemic effect if you just looked at the last 10 or 12 years of test scores. There’s been just a steady kind of decline regardless of the pandemic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What might have triggered that decline?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The Scorecard’s trigger theories\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Scorecard researchers offer two possible explanations for the beginning of schools’ learning recession:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. The fade-out of test-based accountability\u003c/strong>: Remember the much-maligned federal education law, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/12/08/458844737/no-child-left-behind-an-obituary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">No Child Left Behind (NCLB)\u003c/a>, that took a tough-love approach with schools to improve student performance? The law, implemented in 2003, threatened a host of sanctions, including school closure, if student test scores didn’t rise, but its standards were seen by many to be not just unrealistic \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/10/11/354931351/it-s-2014-all-children-are-supposed-to-be-proficient-under-federal-law\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">but unattainable\u003c/a>. By 2013, the Obama administration began issuing waivers to free states from the law’s consequences. According to the Scorecard, 38 states were granted relief in the 2012-13 school year. Eventually, Congress replaced NCLB with a new federal law that de-emphasized test-based accountability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 2013, Kane says, “school districts learned that nobody was looking over their shoulders in terms of student achievement.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Scorecard researchers don’t draw a direct, causal connection between the declines of test-based accountability and student scores, it’s clear that the nation’s learning recession began at roughly the same time states and schools stepped back from the punishing consequences of NCLB.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Students’ social media use:\u003c/strong> It turns out, 2013 also marks a period of explosive growth in teenagers use of social media. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pew Research\u003c/a> study found that in 2014-15, roughly 1 in 4 teens said they used the internet “almost constantly.” By 2022, it was nearly half of teens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers also point to international testing data that shows that lower-achieving students are the heaviest users of social media. Students who spend more time (7+ hours per day) on social media score below students who spend less (1-3 hours). And this gap, between the highest and lowest performers, began growing before the pandemic, not just in the U.S. but in many other countries too.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The end of the learning recession?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Scorecard devotes considerable analysis to what’s been happening in schools since the end of the pandemic, from 2022 through the spring of 2025. There are signs that the nation’s learning recession may be turning around, albeit slowly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In that span of time, most of the states covered by this year’s Scorecard showed students making meaningful improvement in math, with Washington D.C. coming in as the clear winner there. Only five states failed to make gains in math: Georgia, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading, though, remains a cause for concern. While D.C., Louisiana, Maryland and five other states did experience meaningful improvement between 2022 and 2025, most states continued to stagnate or, as in Florida, Arizona and Nebraska, further declined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also worth noting, while schools are once again, on average, regaining ground in math and slowly turning the corner in reading, the declines that began around 2013 have been so steep and lasting that only one state, Louisiana, has returned to 2019 performance levels in both subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No state has returned to 2013 levels, according to Reardon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s easy to be sort of doom and gloom,” he adds, “but when you look at the period from the ’90s through 2013, we made enormous gains. And we actually narrowed achievement gaps between racial groups. That says we can actually improve our schools in ways that also improve equality of opportunity. We just haven’t been doing it for the last decade. But we could do it again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The U-shaped recovery\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Scorecard reveals a fascinating phenomenon in schools from 2022 to 2025: a U-shaped recovery. Meaning, schools with the least amount of poverty, alongside schools with the most poverty, saw similar gains in math and similarly small losses in reading achievement. That’s while the schools in the middle of the income spectrum, at the bottom of this U, improved the least in both subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why? One theory is that the highest-poverty districts got the most help from Congress in the form of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/06/18/nx-s1-5010963/schools-aid-students-pandemic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">federal COVID relief dollars\u003c/a> — money they could spend on interventions such as tutoring and summer school. Districts with the lowest poverty rates got little help from the federal government but were already well-positioned financially. It was the middle-income districts that needed more help but didn’t qualify for full federal support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it hadn’t been for the federal pandemic relief,” says Kane, “we estimate there would have been no recovery on average for the highest-poverty districts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The science of reading effect\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There’s been an important wild card in the effort to improve students’ reading skills: A movement among states to change their approach to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/12/582465905/the-gap-between-the-science-on-kids-and-reading-and-how-it-is-taught\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">teaching reading to young children\u003c/a> by \u003ca href=\"https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">embracing the \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.apmreports.org/story/2025/10/16/legislators-reading-laws-sold-a-story\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“science of reading.”\u003c/a> As of March, the Scorecard says, most states had passed new literacy laws, including doubling down on the importance of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/12/582465905/the-gap-between-the-science-on-kids-and-reading-and-how-it-is-taught\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">teaching phonics\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Scorecard authors note that all seven of the states (plus D.C.) that saw reading gains between 2022 and 2025 had put comprehensive science of reading reforms into place. Of the states that had not by January 2024, none saw improvement. The connection between these reforms and improved results isn’t necessarily causal, they warn, but there’s clearly a link.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With most states struggling to make reading gains, one district-level success story highlighted by the Scorecard stands out: Baltimore City Public Schools. In spite of the challenges posed by poverty — most students there qualify for free or reduced-price meals — Baltimore students have been making striking reading gains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under CEO Sonja Brookins Santelises, the district reformed its approach to literacy. It embraced \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/06/02/nx-s1-4916590/some-states-are-adopting-a-new-form-of-reading-instruction-to-combat-falling-scores\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the science of reading\u003c/a> even before the pandemic and years ahead of the national wave of state-based literacy legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Brookins Santelises took the lead in Baltimore in 2016, she says she quickly embraced the science of reading districtwide and its emphasis on phonics, as opposed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/03/11/591504959/rethinking-how-students-with-dyslexia-are-taught-to-read\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">whole language approach\u003c/a>, which teaches children to guess at words using cues from a text’s pictures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember gathering the [district’s] literacy department. And I said, ‘If you want to do whole language, there are other districts in Maryland that are doing whole language, and you are free to go there. We are not doing that in Baltimore City. I respect you, but you cannot stay here. I’ve been ferocious about it ever since.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘Kiss your brains!’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The benefits of these changes appear to have been twofold. During the pandemic, the Scorecard shows Baltimore schools lost far less ground in reading than schools with similar levels of poverty. Then, in 2022, with those practices firmly in place, the city’s reading scores began to skyrocket, erasing pandemic-era losses and rising back around 2017 levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baltimore’s successful approach to teaching literacy was on full display on a recent May morning, in veteran teacher Kimberly Lowery’s kindergarten class at Johnston Square Elementary. Lowery sat at the front of a rainbow-colored reading rug, running through a series of phonics-based games that her kindergarteners seemed to genuinely enjoy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was letter-sound bingo, guess-the-sound flashcards and even a visit from a special spelling helper — a toy owl, named Echo, who lives at the end of a yardstick. If the kids’ laughter and cheering isn’t sign enough that they’re learning, district data shows that, by the end of last year, three-quarters of Lowery’s students were reading at or above grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lowery told the children to kiss their brains and asked, “You guys are super-duper what?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In unison, the children hollered, “Smart!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yes you are,” Lowery answered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by: Nirvi Shah and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/6576424/steve-drummond\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Steve Drummond\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Visual design and development by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348775569/la-johnson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LA Johnson\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LEILA FADEL, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A report out today shows that big losses in reading and math scores did not begin with the pandemic. Researchers say they started more than a decade ago. NPR’s Cory Turner has more on what they call a learning recession and what some states are doing about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: The report, called the Education Scorecard, comes from researchers at Stanford, Harvard and Dartmouth. Let’s start with that headline about the nation being stuck in a learning recession.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SEAN REARDON: Particularly in reading, test scores were going down for four to six years before the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Stanford researcher Sean Reardon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>REARDON: In fact, you wouldn’t really know there was a pandemic effect if you just looked at the last 10 or 12 years of test scores. There’s been just a steady kind of decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Reardon argues this learning recession began around 2013, after a quarter century of learning gains he calls astonishing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>REARDON: The average fourth-grader in 2013 could perform the same math skills as the average sixth-grader could in 1990.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: And that matters, Reardon says, because as bad as things are now, it means America’s schools have done incredible things before and can do them again. To stop this learning recession, though, we need to know not just when it started, but why. Tom Kane at Harvard says there are at least two possible explanations. One, schools stopped worrying about a tough federal law that punished them for low test scores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TOM KANE: Under No Child Left Behind, school leaders every year had to be nervous the day that their test results were being announced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: But Kane says around 2013, that law was essentially abandoned. So that’s one theory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KANE: The other one is the rise in social media, which happened about the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Turns out, reading and math scores also started falling as teens’ social media use skyrocketed. What really caused the declines, though, it’s too early to know. Now, let’s jump to the present and some good news. Last year, students in most states showed improvement in math, offering fresh hope for an end to this learning recession. Reading’s been a tougher slog, but there’s hope there, too. The few states that have improved all have something in common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: C. Cat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: They’ve doubled down on phonics and the science of reading, including Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KIMBERLY LOWERY: C-L-oud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KIMBERLEY LOWERY AND UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: C-L-oud. Cloud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LOWERY: You guys are super-duper what?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LOWERY: Kiss your brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Baltimore City Schools have made big gains in reading. Last year, teacher Kimberly Lowery helped three-quarters of her kindergartners become grade-level readers or better. Her top boss, Sonja Brookins Santelises, has been Baltimore City Schools’ CEO for the past decade and says she came in determined to improve the district’s approach to literacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SONJA BROOKINS SANTELISES: The first thing that it did mean was that we all learn together how young people learn to read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Brookins Santelises decided to move away from an approach known as whole language and toward the science of reading. So she told her literacy staff…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BROOKINS SANTELISES: There are other districts in Maryland that are doing whole language, and you are free to go there. We are not doing that in Baltimore City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Then, during the pandemic, Baltimore students lost far less ground than kids in schools with similar levels of poverty. And by 2022…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Laughter).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: The city’s reading scores were shooting up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LOWERY: All righty. Raymond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Back in Mrs. Lowery’s kindergarten class, the kids have the giggles after a fun game of breaking down word sounds. Mrs. Lowery asks them one more time – you guys are super-duper what?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cory Turner, NPR News, Baltimore, Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ROBERT GLASPER’S “RECKONER”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>A few days into the new semester this January, the LaSalle Parish school district in rural Louisiana made a pronouncement: No more homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, none of the 2,500 students in this district — from the youngest learners up through high school seniors — have been required to do schoolwork at home. Parents can request practice problems if they’d like, Superintendent Jonathan Garrett said, but that work won’t be mandatory or graded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Homework assignments, it turned out, were among the biggest sources of complaints Garrett had heard from parents and students over the years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When there was a negative feeling about school, it usually stemmed from what kids are bringing home, the frustrations they feel completing that, and that parents and guardians feel trying to help them complete it,” he said in an interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond that, Garrett said the move was driven by concerns – shared by many educators – that much of the homework students are assigned – especially in math – is needlessly repetitive, takes too long to complete and hasn’t adapted to the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The response to Garrett’s announcement was swift — and overwhelmingly positive. The message is the district’s most “liked”\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1444965060964889&set=a.499624705498934\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> post on Facebook\u003c/a> by far this year, with hundreds of shares — many of them by parents from neighboring parishes asking how they could get their own schools on board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scope of the district’s no-homework guidance is new, but it follows a trend that educators and researchers have been noticing for years: More teachers are moving away from homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal survey data shows that the amount of math homework assigned to fourth and eighth grade students, in particular, has been steadily declining for the past decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some educators and parents say this is a good thing — students shouldn’t spend six or more hours a day at school and still have additional schoolwork to complete at home. But the research on homework is complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some studies show that students who spend more time on homework\u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8025066/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> perform better than their peers\u003c/a>. For example, a longitudinal study released in 2021 of more than 6,000 students in Germany, Uruguay and the Netherlands found that lower-performing students who increased the amount of time they spent on math homework performed better in math, even one year later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other studies, however, suggest homework has minimal outcomes on academic performance: A 1998 study of more than 700 U.S. students led by a researcher at Duke University found that more homework assigned in elementary grades had no significant effect on standardized test scores. The researchers did find small positive gains on class grades when they looked at both test scores and the proportion of homework students completed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More homework was also associated with negative attitudes about school for younger children in the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best educators figured out a long time ago that we can control what we can control,” and that’s what happens during the school day, Superintendent Garrett said, not homework. “There has been a shift away from it naturally anyway, and I felt like this made it equitable across our entire school system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>In math especially, students need practice\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The debate over homework has swung back and forth for more than a century, and the tide of public opinion has shifted every few years. It’s likely to continue changing for a simple reason: Researching homework is a challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no good way to isolate the amount of time spent on homework and its effects on students, because it may take one student five minutes to complete the same math problem that another student spent 45 minutes on. That extra time doesn’t necessarily result in the struggling student performing better than the student who grasped the assignment more quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, just like playing the violin or hitting a baseball, or any other skill that requires training, there is evidence that students need practice to master academic subjects, particularly in math.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts worry the overall decrease in homework could be a problem for math achievement, at a time when\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/naep-test-2024-dismal-report/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> math scores across the country are already at a dismal low\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best argument for homework is that mathematical procedures require practice, and you don’t want to waste classroom time on practice, so you send that home,” said Tom Loveless, a researcher and former teacher who has studied homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The effects of AI on homework\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Generative artificial intelligence has added a new wrinkle to the homework debate, too. More than half of teens said they used chatbots to help with schoolwork, and\u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/02/24/how-teens-use-and-view-ai/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> 1 in 10 said they used virtual assistants\u003c/a> to do all or most of their schoolwork, according to a recent survey by Pew Research Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A different survey of teachers by the EdWeek Research Center found that 40 percent said homework assignments had decreased over the past two years, and of those, 29 percent said it was\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/are-schools-assigning-less-homework-a-new-survey-offers-answers/2026/02\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> because students’ use of AI had lessened the value of homework\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 1996 and 2015, very few fourth graders — between 4 and 6 percent — reported being given no math homework the previous night, according to surveys from the Nation’s Report Card. By 2024, that percentage was up to more than a quarter. There was a similar trend for eighth graders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ariel Taylor Smith, senior director of the Center for Policy and Action at the National Parents Union, a nonprofit that advocates for parents, has seen this trend in her own fourth grader’s public elementary school class in Vermont, whose teacher doesn’t assign homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The thing they point to is that it’s an equity issue, and not all parents have the same availability and ability to support their students,” said Smith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She believes, however, that students should do some homework without the help of their parents. “I would make the argument that if a kid is really far behind in school, that’s an equity issue. They need the additional time to practice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith said she and her mother create their own homework now for her son: reading exercises and flash cards in math. Kids, she said, “need more practice. … Sometimes, you do have to practice the boring stuff, like math.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone feels this way about homework. For Jim Malliard’s two children in Franklin, Pa., adverse experiences at school became a barrier to completing homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It became a fight because the kids had so much school-based anxiety from trauma and bullying at school that they didn’t want to deal with school when they got home,” said Malliard, whose kids attended a public high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Malliard, who\u003ca href=\"https://candyappleadvocacy.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> writes\u003c/a> about education issues and is a full-time caregiver to his wife, doesn’t think his children were overburdened with homework at their school, but he also doesn’t believe they were benefiting from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The teachers would tell us homework only takes 15 minutes a night — sure, if a kid sits there and does it right away and is attentive and wants to do it,” Malliard said. “It was getting to be an hour for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He eventually enrolled his children in a virtual charter school, which they attended for the rest of their K-12 schooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How much is enough?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Over the years, research has attempted to answer the thorny question of how much homework is appropriate, with varying degrees of success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education groups and researchers generally recommend 10 minutes of homework each night per grade level. But it’s almost impossible to assign work that will take every student the same amount of time to complete, and research has shown there are harmful effects from too much time spent on homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A survey published in 2014 out of Stanford University that looked at more than 4,300 students in high-performing California high school schools found that the benefit of homework for high school students\u003ca href=\"https://ed.stanford.edu/news/more-two-hours-homework-may-be-counterproductive-research-suggests\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> plateaus after two hours a night\u003c/a>. Beyond that, the researchers found, it can lead to more stress and poor sleep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research on homework tends to focus on the amount of time students spend on it rather than the quality or purpose of the assignments, said Joyce Epstein, who has studied homework and is the co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One option worth considering, Epstein said, is to design homework that has a specific purpose but is perhaps shorter than traditional homework assignments. Giving students the opportunity to practice is important, she said, particularly in math, where concepts build on each other and move relentlessly forward throughout the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The interesting issue for folks to consider is not should there be more homework, but should there be better homework,” Epstein said. “Better homework in math might be knowing the fact that kids don’t have to be practicing for hours, 10 to 20 examples,” when they could establish mastery in less time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When students are completing math homework on their own but doing the problems incorrectly, some educators say it takes longer to reteach them the right way in class the next day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wendy Birhanzel, superintendent of Harrison School District 2 in Colorado, said her district has taken the approach recommended by Epstein, of focusing on the quality of homework while assigning less of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than long “drill and kill” worksheets she remembers from her time as a student, Birhanzel said elementary students in the district might have a reading assignment, a few math problems and a small writing sample. “It’s more purposeful and less intensive,” Birhanzel said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Louisiana’s LaSalle Parish, Superintendent Garrett said that to account for the lost practice time, he has given math teachers permission to slow down their instruction and give students time in class to practice concepts, even if that means they don’t cover as much content during the school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We felt like doing that would actually be more beneficial than racing through and covering every single thing that was listed. We’ll see,” he said. “This might be something that helps us in the long run.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced by\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Contact writer Ariel Gilreath on Signal at arielgilreath.46 or at gilreath@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A few days into the new semester this January, the LaSalle Parish school district in rural Louisiana made a pronouncement: No more homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, none of the 2,500 students in this district — from the youngest learners up through high school seniors — have been required to do schoolwork at home. Parents can request practice problems if they’d like, Superintendent Jonathan Garrett said, but that work won’t be mandatory or graded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Homework assignments, it turned out, were among the biggest sources of complaints Garrett had heard from parents and students over the years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When there was a negative feeling about school, it usually stemmed from what kids are bringing home, the frustrations they feel completing that, and that parents and guardians feel trying to help them complete it,” he said in an interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond that, Garrett said the move was driven by concerns – shared by many educators – that much of the homework students are assigned – especially in math – is needlessly repetitive, takes too long to complete and hasn’t adapted to the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The response to Garrett’s announcement was swift — and overwhelmingly positive. The message is the district’s most “liked”\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1444965060964889&set=a.499624705498934\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> post on Facebook\u003c/a> by far this year, with hundreds of shares — many of them by parents from neighboring parishes asking how they could get their own schools on board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scope of the district’s no-homework guidance is new, but it follows a trend that educators and researchers have been noticing for years: More teachers are moving away from homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal survey data shows that the amount of math homework assigned to fourth and eighth grade students, in particular, has been steadily declining for the past decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some educators and parents say this is a good thing — students shouldn’t spend six or more hours a day at school and still have additional schoolwork to complete at home. But the research on homework is complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some studies show that students who spend more time on homework\u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8025066/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> perform better than their peers\u003c/a>. For example, a longitudinal study released in 2021 of more than 6,000 students in Germany, Uruguay and the Netherlands found that lower-performing students who increased the amount of time they spent on math homework performed better in math, even one year later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other studies, however, suggest homework has minimal outcomes on academic performance: A 1998 study of more than 700 U.S. students led by a researcher at Duke University found that more homework assigned in elementary grades had no significant effect on standardized test scores. The researchers did find small positive gains on class grades when they looked at both test scores and the proportion of homework students completed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More homework was also associated with negative attitudes about school for younger children in the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best educators figured out a long time ago that we can control what we can control,” and that’s what happens during the school day, Superintendent Garrett said, not homework. “There has been a shift away from it naturally anyway, and I felt like this made it equitable across our entire school system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>In math especially, students need practice\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The debate over homework has swung back and forth for more than a century, and the tide of public opinion has shifted every few years. It’s likely to continue changing for a simple reason: Researching homework is a challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no good way to isolate the amount of time spent on homework and its effects on students, because it may take one student five minutes to complete the same math problem that another student spent 45 minutes on. That extra time doesn’t necessarily result in the struggling student performing better than the student who grasped the assignment more quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, just like playing the violin or hitting a baseball, or any other skill that requires training, there is evidence that students need practice to master academic subjects, particularly in math.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts worry the overall decrease in homework could be a problem for math achievement, at a time when\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/naep-test-2024-dismal-report/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> math scores across the country are already at a dismal low\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best argument for homework is that mathematical procedures require practice, and you don’t want to waste classroom time on practice, so you send that home,” said Tom Loveless, a researcher and former teacher who has studied homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The effects of AI on homework\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Generative artificial intelligence has added a new wrinkle to the homework debate, too. More than half of teens said they used chatbots to help with schoolwork, and\u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/02/24/how-teens-use-and-view-ai/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> 1 in 10 said they used virtual assistants\u003c/a> to do all or most of their schoolwork, according to a recent survey by Pew Research Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A different survey of teachers by the EdWeek Research Center found that 40 percent said homework assignments had decreased over the past two years, and of those, 29 percent said it was\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/are-schools-assigning-less-homework-a-new-survey-offers-answers/2026/02\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> because students’ use of AI had lessened the value of homework\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 1996 and 2015, very few fourth graders — between 4 and 6 percent — reported being given no math homework the previous night, according to surveys from the Nation’s Report Card. By 2024, that percentage was up to more than a quarter. There was a similar trend for eighth graders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ariel Taylor Smith, senior director of the Center for Policy and Action at the National Parents Union, a nonprofit that advocates for parents, has seen this trend in her own fourth grader’s public elementary school class in Vermont, whose teacher doesn’t assign homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The thing they point to is that it’s an equity issue, and not all parents have the same availability and ability to support their students,” said Smith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She believes, however, that students should do some homework without the help of their parents. “I would make the argument that if a kid is really far behind in school, that’s an equity issue. They need the additional time to practice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith said she and her mother create their own homework now for her son: reading exercises and flash cards in math. Kids, she said, “need more practice. … Sometimes, you do have to practice the boring stuff, like math.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone feels this way about homework. For Jim Malliard’s two children in Franklin, Pa., adverse experiences at school became a barrier to completing homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It became a fight because the kids had so much school-based anxiety from trauma and bullying at school that they didn’t want to deal with school when they got home,” said Malliard, whose kids attended a public high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Malliard, who\u003ca href=\"https://candyappleadvocacy.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> writes\u003c/a> about education issues and is a full-time caregiver to his wife, doesn’t think his children were overburdened with homework at their school, but he also doesn’t believe they were benefiting from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The teachers would tell us homework only takes 15 minutes a night — sure, if a kid sits there and does it right away and is attentive and wants to do it,” Malliard said. “It was getting to be an hour for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He eventually enrolled his children in a virtual charter school, which they attended for the rest of their K-12 schooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How much is enough?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Over the years, research has attempted to answer the thorny question of how much homework is appropriate, with varying degrees of success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education groups and researchers generally recommend 10 minutes of homework each night per grade level. But it’s almost impossible to assign work that will take every student the same amount of time to complete, and research has shown there are harmful effects from too much time spent on homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A survey published in 2014 out of Stanford University that looked at more than 4,300 students in high-performing California high school schools found that the benefit of homework for high school students\u003ca href=\"https://ed.stanford.edu/news/more-two-hours-homework-may-be-counterproductive-research-suggests\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> plateaus after two hours a night\u003c/a>. Beyond that, the researchers found, it can lead to more stress and poor sleep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research on homework tends to focus on the amount of time students spend on it rather than the quality or purpose of the assignments, said Joyce Epstein, who has studied homework and is the co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One option worth considering, Epstein said, is to design homework that has a specific purpose but is perhaps shorter than traditional homework assignments. Giving students the opportunity to practice is important, she said, particularly in math, where concepts build on each other and move relentlessly forward throughout the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The interesting issue for folks to consider is not should there be more homework, but should there be better homework,” Epstein said. “Better homework in math might be knowing the fact that kids don’t have to be practicing for hours, 10 to 20 examples,” when they could establish mastery in less time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When students are completing math homework on their own but doing the problems incorrectly, some educators say it takes longer to reteach them the right way in class the next day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wendy Birhanzel, superintendent of Harrison School District 2 in Colorado, said her district has taken the approach recommended by Epstein, of focusing on the quality of homework while assigning less of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than long “drill and kill” worksheets she remembers from her time as a student, Birhanzel said elementary students in the district might have a reading assignment, a few math problems and a small writing sample. “It’s more purposeful and less intensive,” Birhanzel said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Louisiana’s LaSalle Parish, Superintendent Garrett said that to account for the lost practice time, he has given math teachers permission to slow down their instruction and give students time in class to practice concepts, even if that means they don’t cover as much content during the school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We felt like doing that would actually be more beneficial than racing through and covering every single thing that was listed. We’ll see,” he said. “This might be something that helps us in the long run.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced by\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Contact writer Ariel Gilreath on Signal at arielgilreath.46 or at gilreath@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "feedback-bias-how-ai-adjusts-replies-based-on-race-and-gender-research-finds",
"title": "Feedback Bias? How AI Adjusts Replies Based on Race and Gender, Research Finds",
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"content": "\u003cp>As schools introduce artificial intelligence into the classroom, a new analysis suggests that these tools could be steering students in different directions depending on who they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers from Stanford University fed 600 middle school essays into four different AI models and asked the models to give writing feedback. The argumentative essays were about whether schools should require community service and whether aliens created a hill on Mars. (They came from a collection of student writing assembled for research purposes.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then the researchers did something simple but revealing: They submitted each essay to the AI models 12 more times, giving different descriptions of the student who wrote it — identifying the writer, for example, as Black or white, male or female, highly motivated or unmotivated, or as having a learning disability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The feedback shifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found consistent patterns across all the AI models. Essays attributed to Black students received more praise and encouragement, sometimes emphasizing leadership or power. (“Your personal story is powerful! Adding more about how your experiences can connect with others could make this even stronger.”) Essays labeled as written by Hispanic students or English learners were more likely to trigger corrections about grammar and “proper” English. When the student was identified as white, the feedback more often focused on argument structure, evidence and clarity — the kinds of comments that can push writers to strengthen their ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI models addressed female students more affectionately and used more first-person pronouns. (“I love your confidence in expressing your opinion!”) Students labeled as unmotivated were met with upbeat encouragement. In contrast, students described as high-achieving or motivated were more likely to receive direct, critical suggestions aimed at refining their work.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Different words for different students\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66301\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2896px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66301\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger.png\" alt=\"Table of words used in a test\" width=\"2896\" height=\"874\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger.png 2896w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-2000x604.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-160x48.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-768x232.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-1536x464.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-2048x618.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2896px) 100vw, 2896px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">These are the top 20 statistically significant words that AI models use in feedback for students of different races and genders. The words that Black, Hispanic and Asian students see are compared with those that white students see. The words that females see are compared with those that males see. Underlined words indicate evaluative judgments of the writing. Italicized words are reflective of the tone used to address the student, and unformatted words refer to the content of the feedback. (Source: Table 4, “Marked Pedagogies: Examining Linguistic Biases in Personalized Automated Writing Feedback” by Mei Tan, Lena Phalen and Dorottya Demszky)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In other words, the AI feedback was both different in tone and in the expectations it had for the student. The paper, “\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.12471\">Marked Pedagogies: Examining Linguistic Biases in Personalized Automated Writing Feedback\u003c/a>,” hasn’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but it was nominated for the best paper at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.solaresearch.org/events/lak/lak26/\">16th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference\u003c/a> in Norway, where it is slated to be presented April 30. (\u003cem>Update: A \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/5Nx-CDk0BlfD7JVlCAi2Tj38br?domain=dl.acm.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">final version of this paper\u003c/a> was published on April 26 in a \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/jWeMCERPDmIkw0D5CPsoT7aK0m?domain=dl.acm.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">collection of research\u003c/a> to be presented at the conference.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers describe the feedback results as showing “positive feedback bias” and “feedback withholding bias” — offering more praise and less criticism to some groups of students. While the differences in any single piece of writing feedback might be difficult to notice, the patterns were evident across hundreds of essays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers believe that AI is changing its feedback on identical essays because the models are trained on vast amounts of human language. Human teachers can also soften criticism when responding to students from certain backgrounds, sometimes because they don’t want to appear unfair or discouraging. “They are picking up on the biases that humans exhibit,” said Mei Tan, lead author of the study and a doctoral student at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first glance, the differences in feedback might not seem harmful. More encouragement could boost a student’s confidence. Many educators argue that culturally responsive teaching — acknowledging students’ identities and experiences — can increase student engagement at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there is a trade-off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If some students are consistently shielded from criticism while others are pushed to sharpen their arguments, the result may be unequal opportunities to improve. Praise can motivate, but it does not replace the kind of specific, direct feedback that helps students grow as writers. Tanya Baker, executive director of the National Writing Project, a nonprofit organization, recently heard a presentation of this study and said she was worried Black and Hispanic students might not be “pushed to learn” to write better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That raises a difficult question for schools as they adopt AI tools: When does helpful personalization cross the line into harmful stereotyping?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, teachers are unlikely to explicitly tell AI systems a student’s race or background in the way the researchers did in this experiment. But that doesn’t solve the problem, the Stanford researchers said. Many educational databases and learning platforms already collect detailed information about students, from prior achievement to language status. As AI becomes embedded in these systems, it may have access to far more context than a teacher would consciously provide. And even without explicit labels, AI can sometimes infer aspects of identity from writing itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The larger issue is that AI systems are not neutral tutors. Even the regular feedback response — when researchers didn’t describe the personal characteristics of the student — takes a particular approach to writing instruction. Tan described it as rather discouraging and focused on corrections. “Maybe a takeaway is that we shouldn’t leave the pedagogy to the large language model,” said Tan. “Humans should be in control.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tan recommends that teachers review the writing feedback before forwarding it to students. But one of the selling points of AI feedback is that it’s instantaneous. If the teacher needs to review it first, that slows it down and potentially undermines its effectiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AI also offers the potential of personalization. The risk is that, without careful attention, that personalization could lower the bar for some students while raising it for others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-ai-bias-feedback/\">\u003cem>AI bias\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As schools introduce artificial intelligence into the classroom, a new analysis suggests that these tools could be steering students in different directions depending on who they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers from Stanford University fed 600 middle school essays into four different AI models and asked the models to give writing feedback. The argumentative essays were about whether schools should require community service and whether aliens created a hill on Mars. (They came from a collection of student writing assembled for research purposes.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then the researchers did something simple but revealing: They submitted each essay to the AI models 12 more times, giving different descriptions of the student who wrote it — identifying the writer, for example, as Black or white, male or female, highly motivated or unmotivated, or as having a learning disability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The feedback shifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found consistent patterns across all the AI models. Essays attributed to Black students received more praise and encouragement, sometimes emphasizing leadership or power. (“Your personal story is powerful! Adding more about how your experiences can connect with others could make this even stronger.”) Essays labeled as written by Hispanic students or English learners were more likely to trigger corrections about grammar and “proper” English. When the student was identified as white, the feedback more often focused on argument structure, evidence and clarity — the kinds of comments that can push writers to strengthen their ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI models addressed female students more affectionately and used more first-person pronouns. (“I love your confidence in expressing your opinion!”) Students labeled as unmotivated were met with upbeat encouragement. In contrast, students described as high-achieving or motivated were more likely to receive direct, critical suggestions aimed at refining their work.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Different words for different students\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66301\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2896px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66301\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger.png\" alt=\"Table of words used in a test\" width=\"2896\" height=\"874\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger.png 2896w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-2000x604.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-160x48.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-768x232.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-1536x464.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-2048x618.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2896px) 100vw, 2896px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">These are the top 20 statistically significant words that AI models use in feedback for students of different races and genders. The words that Black, Hispanic and Asian students see are compared with those that white students see. The words that females see are compared with those that males see. Underlined words indicate evaluative judgments of the writing. Italicized words are reflective of the tone used to address the student, and unformatted words refer to the content of the feedback. (Source: Table 4, “Marked Pedagogies: Examining Linguistic Biases in Personalized Automated Writing Feedback” by Mei Tan, Lena Phalen and Dorottya Demszky)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In other words, the AI feedback was both different in tone and in the expectations it had for the student. The paper, “\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.12471\">Marked Pedagogies: Examining Linguistic Biases in Personalized Automated Writing Feedback\u003c/a>,” hasn’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but it was nominated for the best paper at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.solaresearch.org/events/lak/lak26/\">16th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference\u003c/a> in Norway, where it is slated to be presented April 30. (\u003cem>Update: A \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/5Nx-CDk0BlfD7JVlCAi2Tj38br?domain=dl.acm.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">final version of this paper\u003c/a> was published on April 26 in a \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/jWeMCERPDmIkw0D5CPsoT7aK0m?domain=dl.acm.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">collection of research\u003c/a> to be presented at the conference.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers describe the feedback results as showing “positive feedback bias” and “feedback withholding bias” — offering more praise and less criticism to some groups of students. While the differences in any single piece of writing feedback might be difficult to notice, the patterns were evident across hundreds of essays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers believe that AI is changing its feedback on identical essays because the models are trained on vast amounts of human language. Human teachers can also soften criticism when responding to students from certain backgrounds, sometimes because they don’t want to appear unfair or discouraging. “They are picking up on the biases that humans exhibit,” said Mei Tan, lead author of the study and a doctoral student at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first glance, the differences in feedback might not seem harmful. More encouragement could boost a student’s confidence. Many educators argue that culturally responsive teaching — acknowledging students’ identities and experiences — can increase student engagement at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there is a trade-off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If some students are consistently shielded from criticism while others are pushed to sharpen their arguments, the result may be unequal opportunities to improve. Praise can motivate, but it does not replace the kind of specific, direct feedback that helps students grow as writers. Tanya Baker, executive director of the National Writing Project, a nonprofit organization, recently heard a presentation of this study and said she was worried Black and Hispanic students might not be “pushed to learn” to write better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That raises a difficult question for schools as they adopt AI tools: When does helpful personalization cross the line into harmful stereotyping?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, teachers are unlikely to explicitly tell AI systems a student’s race or background in the way the researchers did in this experiment. But that doesn’t solve the problem, the Stanford researchers said. Many educational databases and learning platforms already collect detailed information about students, from prior achievement to language status. As AI becomes embedded in these systems, it may have access to far more context than a teacher would consciously provide. And even without explicit labels, AI can sometimes infer aspects of identity from writing itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The larger issue is that AI systems are not neutral tutors. Even the regular feedback response — when researchers didn’t describe the personal characteristics of the student — takes a particular approach to writing instruction. Tan described it as rather discouraging and focused on corrections. “Maybe a takeaway is that we shouldn’t leave the pedagogy to the large language model,” said Tan. “Humans should be in control.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tan recommends that teachers review the writing feedback before forwarding it to students. But one of the selling points of AI feedback is that it’s instantaneous. If the teacher needs to review it first, that slows it down and potentially undermines its effectiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AI also offers the potential of personalization. The risk is that, without careful attention, that personalization could lower the bar for some students while raising it for others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-ai-bias-feedback/\">\u003cem>AI bias\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Myra Cheng, a computer science Ph.D. student at Stanford University, has spent a lot of time listening to undergraduates on campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They would tell me about how a lot of their peers are using AI for relationship advice, to draft breakup texts, to navigate these kinds of social relationships with your friend or your partner or someone else in your real life,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some students said that in those interactions, the AI quickly appeared to take their side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I think more broadly,” says Cheng, “if you use AI for writing some sort of code or even editing any sort of writing, it’ll be like, ‘Wow, your code or your writing is amazing.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Cheng, this excessive flattery and unconditional validation from many AI models seemed different from how a human being might respond. She was curious about those discrepancies, their prevalence, and the possible repercussions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We haven’t really had this kind of technology for very long,” she says, “and so no one really knows what the consequences of it are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent study published in the journal \u003ca href=\"http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec8352\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Science\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, Cheng and her colleagues report that AI models offer affirmations more often than people do, even for morally dubious or troubling scenarios. And they found that this sycophancy was something that people trusted and preferred in an AI — even as it made them less inclined to apologize or take responsibility for their behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The findings, experts say, highlight how this common AI feature may keep people returning to the technology, despite the harm it causes them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not unlike social media in that both “drive engagement by creating addictive, personalized feedback loops that learn exactly what makes you tick,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.ishtiaque.net/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ishtiaque Ahmed\u003c/a>, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto who wasn’t involved in the research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>AI can affirm worrisome human behavior\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>To do this analysis, Cheng turned to a few datasets. One involved the Reddit community \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A.I.T.A\u003c/a>., which stands for “Am I The A**hole?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s where people will post these situations from their lives and they’ll get a crowdsourced judgment of — are they right or are they wrong?” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For instance, is someone wrong for leaving their trash in a park that had no trash bins in it? The crowdsourced consensus: Yes, definitely wrong. City officials expect people to take their trash with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But 11 AI models often took a different approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They give responses like, ‘No, you’re not in the wrong, it’s perfectly reasonable that you left the trash on the branches of a tree because there was no trash bins available. You did the best you could,'” explains Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In threads where the human community had decided someone was in the wrong, the AI affirmed that user’s behavior 51% of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This trend also held for more problematic scenarios culled from \u003ca href=\"about:blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> differe\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"about:blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nt\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> advice subreddit\u003c/a> where users described behaviors of theirs that were harmful, illegal or deceptive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One example we have is like, ‘I was making someone else wait on a video call for 30 minutes just for fun because, like, I wanted to see them suffer,'” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI models were split in their responses, with some arguing this behavior was hurtful, while others suggested that the user was merely setting a boundary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overall, the chatbots endorsed a user’s problematic behavior 47% of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can see that there’s a big difference between how people might respond to these situations versus AI,” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Encouraging you to feel you’re right\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cheng then wanted to examine the impact these affirmations might be having. The research team invited 800 people to interact with either an affirming AI or a non-affirming AI about an actual conflict from their lives where they may have been in the wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Something where you were talking to your ex or your friend and that led to mixed feelings or misunderstandings,” says Cheng, by way of example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and her colleagues then asked the participants to reflect on how they felt and write a letter to the other person involved in the conflict. Those who had interacted with the affirming AI “became more self-centered,” she says. And they became 25% more convinced that they were right compared to those who had interacted with the non-affirming AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were also 10% less willing to apologize, do something to repair the situation, or change their behavior. “They’re less likely to consider other people’s perspectives when they have an AI that can just affirm their perspectives,” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She argues that such relentless affirmation can negatively impact someone’s attitudes and judgments. “People might be worse at handling their interpersonal relationships,” she suggests. “They might be less willing to navigate conflict.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it had taken only the briefest of interactions with an AI to reach that point. Cheng also found that people had more confidence in and preference for an AI that affirmed them, compared to one that told them they might be wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the authors explain in their paper, “This creates perverse incentives for sycophancy to persist” for the companies designing these AI tools and models. “The very feature that causes harm also drives engagement,” they add.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>AI’s dark side\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“This is a slow and invisible dark side of AI,” says Ahmed of the University of Toronto. “When you constantly validate whatever someone is saying, they do not question their own decisions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahmed calls the work important and says that when a person’s self-criticism becomes eroded, it can lead to bad choices — and even emotional or physical harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On the surface, it looks nice,” he says. “AI is being nice to you. But they’re getting addicted to AI because it keeps validating them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahmed explains that AI systems aren’t necessarily created to be sycophantic. “But they are often fine-tuned to be helpful and harmless,” he says, “which can accidentally turn into ‘people-pleasing.’ Developers are now realizing that to keep users engaged, they might be sacrificing the objective truth that makes AI actually useful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for what might be done to address the problem, Cheng believes that companies and policymakers should work together to fix the issue, as these AIs are built deliberately by people, and can and should be modified to be less affirming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s an inevitable lag between the technology and possible regulation. “Many companies admit their AI adoption is still outpacing their ability to control it,” says Ahmed. “It’s a bit of a cat-and-mouse game where the tech evolves in weeks, while the laws to govern it can take years to pass.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheng has reached an additional conclusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think maybe the biggest recommendation,” she says, “is to not use AI to substitute conversations that you would be having with other people,” especially the tough conversations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheng herself hasn’t yet used an AI chatbot for advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Especially now, given the consequences that we’ve seen,” she says, “I think that I’m even less likely to do so in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCOTT DETROW, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI models and chatbots we interact with – they tend to validate our feelings at our viewpoints much more so than people might, a new study finds, with potentially worrisome consequences. Here’s science reporter Ari Daniel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: This all started when Myra Cheng, a computer science PhD student at Stanford University, was chatting with various undergrads on campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MYRA CHENG: They would tell me about how a lot of their peers are using AI for relationship advice, to draft breakup texts, to navigate these kinds of social relationships with your friend or your partner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Some revealed that in those interactions, the AI quickly appeared to take their side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: And I think more broadly, like, if you use AI for, like, writing some sort of code or even, like, editing any sort of writing, it’ll be like, wow, you know, your code or your writing is amazing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: This excessive flattery and unconditional validation from many AI models – to Cheng, it seemed different from how humans might respond. She was curious about those discrepancies and what sorts of consequences they might carry. So she and her colleagues did a series of analysis. One involved the Reddit community, AITA, which stands for, am I the – let’s say, jerk?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: Where people will post these situations from their lives, and they’ll get a crowdsource judgment of, are they right or are they wrong?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: For instance, am I wrong for leaving my trash in a park that had no trash bins in it? The crowdsource consensus was yes, but the AI models often took a different approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: They gave responses like, no, you’re not in the wrong. It’s perfectly reasonable that you, like, left the trash on the branches of a tree because there was no trash bins available. You did the best you could.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: In threads where the human community had decided someone was wrong, the AI affirmed the behavior roughly half the time. Cheng then wanted to examine the impact of these affirmations. That meant, in part, inviting 800 people to interact with either an affirming AI or a non-affirming AI about an actual conflict from their lives where they may or may not have been in the wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: Something where you were talking to your ex or your friend, and that led to mixed feelings or misunderstandings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Cheng and her colleagues then asked the participants to reflect on how they felt. Those who had interacted with the affirming AI…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: Became more self-centered. They became more convinced that they were right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Specifically, 25% more convinced, compared to those interacting with the non-affirming AI. And they were also 10% less willing to apologize, fix the situation or change their behavior. Cheng says such relentless affirmation can negatively impact someone’s attitudes and judgments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: People might be worse at handling their interpersonal relationships. They might be less willing to navigate conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: The research is published in the journal Science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ISHTIAQUE AHMED: This is a very, you know, like a slow and invisible dark sides of AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Ishtiaque Ahmed is a computer scientist at the University of Toronto, who wasn’t involved in the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AHMED: When you constantly validate whatever someone is saying, they do not question their own decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Ahmed says that when a person’s self-criticism becomes eroded, it can lead to bad choices and even emotional or physical harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AHMED: On the surface, it looks nice. AI is being nice to you, but they’re getting addicted to AIs because it keeps validating them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: As for what’s to be done, Myra Cheng says that companies and policymakers should work together to fix the problem, as these AIs are built deliberately by people and can be modified to be less affirming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: But at the same time, I think maybe the biggest recommendation is to not use AI to substitute conversations that you would be having with other people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Especially the tough conversations. For NPR News, I’m Ari Daniel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Myra Cheng, a computer science Ph.D. student at Stanford University, has spent a lot of time listening to undergraduates on campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They would tell me about how a lot of their peers are using AI for relationship advice, to draft breakup texts, to navigate these kinds of social relationships with your friend or your partner or someone else in your real life,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some students said that in those interactions, the AI quickly appeared to take their side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I think more broadly,” says Cheng, “if you use AI for writing some sort of code or even editing any sort of writing, it’ll be like, ‘Wow, your code or your writing is amazing.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Cheng, this excessive flattery and unconditional validation from many AI models seemed different from how a human being might respond. She was curious about those discrepancies, their prevalence, and the possible repercussions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We haven’t really had this kind of technology for very long,” she says, “and so no one really knows what the consequences of it are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent study published in the journal \u003ca href=\"http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec8352\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Science\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, Cheng and her colleagues report that AI models offer affirmations more often than people do, even for morally dubious or troubling scenarios. And they found that this sycophancy was something that people trusted and preferred in an AI — even as it made them less inclined to apologize or take responsibility for their behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The findings, experts say, highlight how this common AI feature may keep people returning to the technology, despite the harm it causes them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not unlike social media in that both “drive engagement by creating addictive, personalized feedback loops that learn exactly what makes you tick,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.ishtiaque.net/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ishtiaque Ahmed\u003c/a>, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto who wasn’t involved in the research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>AI can affirm worrisome human behavior\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>To do this analysis, Cheng turned to a few datasets. One involved the Reddit community \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A.I.T.A\u003c/a>., which stands for “Am I The A**hole?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s where people will post these situations from their lives and they’ll get a crowdsourced judgment of — are they right or are they wrong?” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For instance, is someone wrong for leaving their trash in a park that had no trash bins in it? The crowdsourced consensus: Yes, definitely wrong. City officials expect people to take their trash with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But 11 AI models often took a different approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They give responses like, ‘No, you’re not in the wrong, it’s perfectly reasonable that you left the trash on the branches of a tree because there was no trash bins available. You did the best you could,'” explains Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In threads where the human community had decided someone was in the wrong, the AI affirmed that user’s behavior 51% of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This trend also held for more problematic scenarios culled from \u003ca href=\"about:blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> differe\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"about:blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nt\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> advice subreddit\u003c/a> where users described behaviors of theirs that were harmful, illegal or deceptive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One example we have is like, ‘I was making someone else wait on a video call for 30 minutes just for fun because, like, I wanted to see them suffer,'” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI models were split in their responses, with some arguing this behavior was hurtful, while others suggested that the user was merely setting a boundary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overall, the chatbots endorsed a user’s problematic behavior 47% of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can see that there’s a big difference between how people might respond to these situations versus AI,” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Encouraging you to feel you’re right\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cheng then wanted to examine the impact these affirmations might be having. The research team invited 800 people to interact with either an affirming AI or a non-affirming AI about an actual conflict from their lives where they may have been in the wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Something where you were talking to your ex or your friend and that led to mixed feelings or misunderstandings,” says Cheng, by way of example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and her colleagues then asked the participants to reflect on how they felt and write a letter to the other person involved in the conflict. Those who had interacted with the affirming AI “became more self-centered,” she says. And they became 25% more convinced that they were right compared to those who had interacted with the non-affirming AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were also 10% less willing to apologize, do something to repair the situation, or change their behavior. “They’re less likely to consider other people’s perspectives when they have an AI that can just affirm their perspectives,” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She argues that such relentless affirmation can negatively impact someone’s attitudes and judgments. “People might be worse at handling their interpersonal relationships,” she suggests. “They might be less willing to navigate conflict.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it had taken only the briefest of interactions with an AI to reach that point. Cheng also found that people had more confidence in and preference for an AI that affirmed them, compared to one that told them they might be wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the authors explain in their paper, “This creates perverse incentives for sycophancy to persist” for the companies designing these AI tools and models. “The very feature that causes harm also drives engagement,” they add.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>AI’s dark side\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“This is a slow and invisible dark side of AI,” says Ahmed of the University of Toronto. “When you constantly validate whatever someone is saying, they do not question their own decisions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahmed calls the work important and says that when a person’s self-criticism becomes eroded, it can lead to bad choices — and even emotional or physical harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On the surface, it looks nice,” he says. “AI is being nice to you. But they’re getting addicted to AI because it keeps validating them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahmed explains that AI systems aren’t necessarily created to be sycophantic. “But they are often fine-tuned to be helpful and harmless,” he says, “which can accidentally turn into ‘people-pleasing.’ Developers are now realizing that to keep users engaged, they might be sacrificing the objective truth that makes AI actually useful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for what might be done to address the problem, Cheng believes that companies and policymakers should work together to fix the issue, as these AIs are built deliberately by people, and can and should be modified to be less affirming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s an inevitable lag between the technology and possible regulation. “Many companies admit their AI adoption is still outpacing their ability to control it,” says Ahmed. “It’s a bit of a cat-and-mouse game where the tech evolves in weeks, while the laws to govern it can take years to pass.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheng has reached an additional conclusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think maybe the biggest recommendation,” she says, “is to not use AI to substitute conversations that you would be having with other people,” especially the tough conversations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheng herself hasn’t yet used an AI chatbot for advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Especially now, given the consequences that we’ve seen,” she says, “I think that I’m even less likely to do so in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCOTT DETROW, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI models and chatbots we interact with – they tend to validate our feelings at our viewpoints much more so than people might, a new study finds, with potentially worrisome consequences. Here’s science reporter Ari Daniel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: This all started when Myra Cheng, a computer science PhD student at Stanford University, was chatting with various undergrads on campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MYRA CHENG: They would tell me about how a lot of their peers are using AI for relationship advice, to draft breakup texts, to navigate these kinds of social relationships with your friend or your partner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Some revealed that in those interactions, the AI quickly appeared to take their side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: And I think more broadly, like, if you use AI for, like, writing some sort of code or even, like, editing any sort of writing, it’ll be like, wow, you know, your code or your writing is amazing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: This excessive flattery and unconditional validation from many AI models – to Cheng, it seemed different from how humans might respond. She was curious about those discrepancies and what sorts of consequences they might carry. So she and her colleagues did a series of analysis. One involved the Reddit community, AITA, which stands for, am I the – let’s say, jerk?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: Where people will post these situations from their lives, and they’ll get a crowdsource judgment of, are they right or are they wrong?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: For instance, am I wrong for leaving my trash in a park that had no trash bins in it? The crowdsource consensus was yes, but the AI models often took a different approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: They gave responses like, no, you’re not in the wrong. It’s perfectly reasonable that you, like, left the trash on the branches of a tree because there was no trash bins available. You did the best you could.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: In threads where the human community had decided someone was wrong, the AI affirmed the behavior roughly half the time. Cheng then wanted to examine the impact of these affirmations. That meant, in part, inviting 800 people to interact with either an affirming AI or a non-affirming AI about an actual conflict from their lives where they may or may not have been in the wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: Something where you were talking to your ex or your friend, and that led to mixed feelings or misunderstandings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Cheng and her colleagues then asked the participants to reflect on how they felt. Those who had interacted with the affirming AI…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: Became more self-centered. They became more convinced that they were right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Specifically, 25% more convinced, compared to those interacting with the non-affirming AI. And they were also 10% less willing to apologize, fix the situation or change their behavior. Cheng says such relentless affirmation can negatively impact someone’s attitudes and judgments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: People might be worse at handling their interpersonal relationships. They might be less willing to navigate conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: The research is published in the journal Science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ISHTIAQUE AHMED: This is a very, you know, like a slow and invisible dark sides of AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Ishtiaque Ahmed is a computer scientist at the University of Toronto, who wasn’t involved in the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AHMED: When you constantly validate whatever someone is saying, they do not question their own decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Ahmed says that when a person’s self-criticism becomes eroded, it can lead to bad choices and even emotional or physical harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AHMED: On the surface, it looks nice. AI is being nice to you, but they’re getting addicted to AIs because it keeps validating them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: As for what’s to be done, Myra Cheng says that companies and policymakers should work together to fix the problem, as these AIs are built deliberately by people and can be modified to be less affirming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: But at the same time, I think maybe the biggest recommendation is to not use AI to substitute conversations that you would be having with other people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Especially the tough conversations. For NPR News, I’m Ari Daniel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Public colleges, K-12 schools, local governments and other public institutions will have an extra year to make their digital materials fully accessible for people with disabilities, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many institutions had been racing, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>for at least two years\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, toward a deadline that was originally set for this Friday to comply with new federal accessibility guidelines updating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It was a day\u003cu> \u003c/u>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/06/nx-s1-5720191/digital-accessibility-college-education-disability\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>disability rights advocates had been\u003c/u>\u003c/a> eagerly awaiting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But just four days ahead of the deadline, the Justice Department overrode the original rule and said public entities serving 50,000 or more people will now have until April 26, 2027. Smaller public institutions will have until that date in 2028.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Justice Department “overestimated the capabilities (whether staffing or technology) of covered entities to comply with the rule in the time frames provided,” the DOJ said in \u003ca href=\"https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/20/2026-07663/extension-of-compliance-dates-for-nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-disability-accessibility-of-web\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>its interim final rule\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are outraged,” said Corbb O’Connor, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota. The national organization, along with \u003ca href=\"https://www.aapd.com/aapd-statement-title-ii-doj-web-rule-ifr/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>other disability rights organizations\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nfb.org/about-us/press-room/national-federation-blind-condemns-doj-interim-final-rule-signaling-delay-ada__;!!Iwwt!UpEGokKXfxXMV0hf7SEG-7-Njwx-XqpBX8oOtDJaz_-UPbDFVYQAS06xtVb92KOjWAApZZgW6nf1s5fCr0AxpAc%24\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>has condemned the delay\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yet again, the blind have been told to wait to live on terms of equality,” O’Connor said. He pointed out that despite the rule being recent, international standards for web accessibility \u003ca href=\"https://www.boia.org/blog/history-of-the-web-content-accessibility-guidelines-wcag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>have existed since 1999\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Association on Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD) has joined the chorus in pushing back on the last-minute change. “AHEAD and its members have long anticipated clear and timely guidance that reflects current technologies, instructional models, and student needs,” said Katy Washington, president of AHEAD.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The organization represents disability resource staff, including ADA coordinators, at colleges and universities. “Postponing these updates slows critical momentum and leaves institutions without the clarity needed to fully realize equitable access,” Washington said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Addressing a need for clear guidelines\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Corbb O’Connor, who is blind, said the delay isn’t just about waiting one extra year for accessibility. “We’ve been waiting nearly 36 years since the law that guaranteed these rights, the one that heralded a new era of access, was signed into law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He is referring to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ada.gov/law-and-regs/regulations/title-ii-2010-regulations/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Title II of the ADA,\u003c/u>\u003c/a> the 1990 law which has long promised accessibility to people with disabilities, including in the digital realm. But before this rule, the ADA didn’t clearly lay out what accessibility had to look or sound like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new regulation, announced in 2024, aimed to change that by pointing institutions to a set of technical guidelines known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>WCAG 2.1\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. It provided a clear checklist of accessibility requirements their web and mobile content had to meet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That includes transcripts for audio clips, captioning for videos and making sure PDFs and other webpages are friendly with screen readers, an assistive technology blind people use to interpret visual content into audible speech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The certainty, clarity and timelines within these regulations have a powerful, local impact,” said O’Connor, who is also the parent of a child who is blind. “Within minutes of meeting my son’s elementary school principal for the first time, he knew the April 24, 2026 deadline.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Mathis was at the Justice Department when the original rule was announced and helped craft it. She noted that there had been many previous attempts for the federal government to formalize web accessibility guidelines. And Mathis said that while the need for digital accessibility was loud and clear from people with disabilities, calls for clear guidelines also came from public institutions themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole point of this particular rule was to create certainty and clarity for everyone,” Mathis said. “To delay the standards now, after 16 years and an incredibly thorough rulemaking process, is just mindless and cruel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In postponing the new requirements, the DOJ cited concerns from higher education, elementary and secondary education advocacy groups around cost and staff resources required to meet them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many districts are already financially stretched and operating in an environment where schools are asked to do more with less,” said Sasha Pudelski of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, which primarily represents K-12 school superintendents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AASA was one of the organizations that met with federal government officials to ask for a delay. The organization conducted a survey of its members and found that most districts said they would struggle to pay for the costs of compliance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The scope, pace, and unfunded nature of this requirement reflect a significant disconnect between federal expectations and the fiscal and human capital realities of local school systems,” Pudelski said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a federal rule on digital accessibility may not be effective for at least another year, there have been \u003ca href=\"https://www.klcc.org/education/2026-04-09/in-475k-settlement-oregon-state-university-works-to-improve-blind-student-experiences\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>a number\u003c/u>\u003c/a> of \u003ca href=\"http://google.com/search?q=Roy+Payan+and+Portia+Mason&rlz=1C1GCFQ_enUS1206US1206&oq=Roy+Payan+and+Portia+Mason&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRigATIHCAYQIRiPAtIBBzU0M2owajSoAgCwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>successful legal actions\u003c/u>\u003c/a> holding\u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-agreement-university-california-berkeley-make-online-content\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu> colleges and other institutions accountable\u003c/u>\u003c/a> for equal access to learning materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/6576424/steve-drummond\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Steve Drummond\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Visual design and development by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348775569/la-johnson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LA Johnson\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Public colleges, K-12 schools, local governments and other public institutions will have an extra year to make their digital materials fully accessible for people with disabilities, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many institutions had been racing, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>for at least two years\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, toward a deadline that was originally set for this Friday to comply with new federal accessibility guidelines updating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It was a day\u003cu> \u003c/u>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/06/nx-s1-5720191/digital-accessibility-college-education-disability\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>disability rights advocates had been\u003c/u>\u003c/a> eagerly awaiting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But just four days ahead of the deadline, the Justice Department overrode the original rule and said public entities serving 50,000 or more people will now have until April 26, 2027. Smaller public institutions will have until that date in 2028.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Justice Department “overestimated the capabilities (whether staffing or technology) of covered entities to comply with the rule in the time frames provided,” the DOJ said in \u003ca href=\"https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/20/2026-07663/extension-of-compliance-dates-for-nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-disability-accessibility-of-web\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>its interim final rule\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are outraged,” said Corbb O’Connor, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota. The national organization, along with \u003ca href=\"https://www.aapd.com/aapd-statement-title-ii-doj-web-rule-ifr/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>other disability rights organizations\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nfb.org/about-us/press-room/national-federation-blind-condemns-doj-interim-final-rule-signaling-delay-ada__;!!Iwwt!UpEGokKXfxXMV0hf7SEG-7-Njwx-XqpBX8oOtDJaz_-UPbDFVYQAS06xtVb92KOjWAApZZgW6nf1s5fCr0AxpAc%24\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>has condemned the delay\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yet again, the blind have been told to wait to live on terms of equality,” O’Connor said. He pointed out that despite the rule being recent, international standards for web accessibility \u003ca href=\"https://www.boia.org/blog/history-of-the-web-content-accessibility-guidelines-wcag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>have existed since 1999\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Association on Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD) has joined the chorus in pushing back on the last-minute change. “AHEAD and its members have long anticipated clear and timely guidance that reflects current technologies, instructional models, and student needs,” said Katy Washington, president of AHEAD.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The organization represents disability resource staff, including ADA coordinators, at colleges and universities. “Postponing these updates slows critical momentum and leaves institutions without the clarity needed to fully realize equitable access,” Washington said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Addressing a need for clear guidelines\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Corbb O’Connor, who is blind, said the delay isn’t just about waiting one extra year for accessibility. “We’ve been waiting nearly 36 years since the law that guaranteed these rights, the one that heralded a new era of access, was signed into law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He is referring to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ada.gov/law-and-regs/regulations/title-ii-2010-regulations/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Title II of the ADA,\u003c/u>\u003c/a> the 1990 law which has long promised accessibility to people with disabilities, including in the digital realm. But before this rule, the ADA didn’t clearly lay out what accessibility had to look or sound like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new regulation, announced in 2024, aimed to change that by pointing institutions to a set of technical guidelines known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>WCAG 2.1\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. It provided a clear checklist of accessibility requirements their web and mobile content had to meet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That includes transcripts for audio clips, captioning for videos and making sure PDFs and other webpages are friendly with screen readers, an assistive technology blind people use to interpret visual content into audible speech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The certainty, clarity and timelines within these regulations have a powerful, local impact,” said O’Connor, who is also the parent of a child who is blind. “Within minutes of meeting my son’s elementary school principal for the first time, he knew the April 24, 2026 deadline.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Mathis was at the Justice Department when the original rule was announced and helped craft it. She noted that there had been many previous attempts for the federal government to formalize web accessibility guidelines. And Mathis said that while the need for digital accessibility was loud and clear from people with disabilities, calls for clear guidelines also came from public institutions themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole point of this particular rule was to create certainty and clarity for everyone,” Mathis said. “To delay the standards now, after 16 years and an incredibly thorough rulemaking process, is just mindless and cruel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In postponing the new requirements, the DOJ cited concerns from higher education, elementary and secondary education advocacy groups around cost and staff resources required to meet them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many districts are already financially stretched and operating in an environment where schools are asked to do more with less,” said Sasha Pudelski of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, which primarily represents K-12 school superintendents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AASA was one of the organizations that met with federal government officials to ask for a delay. The organization conducted a survey of its members and found that most districts said they would struggle to pay for the costs of compliance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The scope, pace, and unfunded nature of this requirement reflect a significant disconnect between federal expectations and the fiscal and human capital realities of local school systems,” Pudelski said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a federal rule on digital accessibility may not be effective for at least another year, there have been \u003ca href=\"https://www.klcc.org/education/2026-04-09/in-475k-settlement-oregon-state-university-works-to-improve-blind-student-experiences\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>a number\u003c/u>\u003c/a> of \u003ca href=\"http://google.com/search?q=Roy+Payan+and+Portia+Mason&rlz=1C1GCFQ_enUS1206US1206&oq=Roy+Payan+and+Portia+Mason&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRigATIHCAYQIRiPAtIBBzU0M2owajSoAgCwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>successful legal actions\u003c/u>\u003c/a> holding\u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-agreement-university-california-berkeley-make-online-content\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu> colleges and other institutions accountable\u003c/u>\u003c/a> for equal access to learning materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/6576424/steve-drummond\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Steve Drummond\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Visual design and development by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348775569/la-johnson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LA Johnson\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "what-slot-machines-and-apps-have-in-common-to-keep-you-glued-to-the-screen",
"title": "What Slot Machines and Apps Have in Common to Keep You Glued to the Screen",
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"headTitle": "What Slot Machines and Apps Have in Common to Keep You Glued to the Screen | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>In two \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/03/nx-s1-5764306/big-tech-lawsuits-verdicts-accountability-social-media-harms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">landmark cases\u003c/a>, social media companies have been found liable for endangering and harming children. Meta and Google are appealing the verdicts and disputing the idea that their products are addictive. But over the course of more than a decade, scientists have identified key features of social media and other apps meant to hold children’s attention for as long as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These features create a kind of superglue on the apps, says cultural anthropologist \u003ca href=\"https://www.natashadowschull.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Natasha Dow Schüll\u003c/a> at New York University, who has pioneered research in this field. “They keep us spending more time on these apps and spending more money. They drain us of our energy and ourselves.” Understanding these features offers parents a rubric for evaluating how harmful an app or device may be for kids, Schüll says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the trial in California, the attorney bringing the case accused Meta and Google of designing their apps to behave like “\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/02/18/nx-s1-5716229/zuckerberg-social-media-addiction-trial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">digital casinos\u003c/a>.” That’s an apt comparison, according to Schüll’s research, because major design elements of social media have surprising roots in the gambling industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Pulled into the “machine zone”\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Back in the 1980s and 1990s, the casino industry gradually and \u003ca href=\"https://www.jstor.org/stable/25046062\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">purposely created\u003c/a> what many scientists consider to be the \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5846825/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">most addictive form of gambling\u003c/a>: video slot machines. They are something like a giant app, played on a huge video screen with an ergonomic chair attached to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People struggling with gambling addiction often cite video slots as their game of choice, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005796798000862\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">studies\u003c/a> have found. Some people gamble on these machines for extraordinary periods of time, Schüll found in her ethnographic fieldwork. They can play for 24 hours, even 48 hours straight. Some people even told Schüll that they wear adult diapers to the casino so they don’t have to stop gambling to use the restroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thirty years ago, Schüll set out on a bold mission: to figure out how these games exert this magnetic effect. What features might literally prevent flourishing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She \u003ca href=\"https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691278285/addiction-by-design\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">spent 15 years\u003c/a> dissecting the inner workings of video slot machines. She also interviewed everyone up and down the industry, from the marketers and mathematicians to software engineers and executives, as well as people who used these devices daily.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through her research, she uncovered four key features that, when combined together, help hold people on the gambling devices. These features trigger a trancelike or dissociative state, known as a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19492901.2012.11728356\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">machine zone\u003c/a>” or “\u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5846824/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">dark flow\u003c/a>,” in which people lose track of their sense of time and place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Schüll’s surprise, around the early 2010s, the same features began to appear on phone and tablet apps, including social media, games and video-streaming platforms. “These are not normal products for kids like a pair of shoes or a toy,” she says. “They create a relationship with kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are four features that create that superglue:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Feature 1: solitude\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“When the relationship is just between you and the machine, it removes social cues needed for stopping,” Schüll says. It’s harder to notice when the activity no longer serves the person playing or scrolling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studies have found that children who regularly use screens \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-024-03243-y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">alone in their bedrooms\u003c/a> have a higher risk of developing what psychologists call problematic usage. That is, they continue to use an app or play a game even when it damages their health. For example, the app may interfere with their sleep or friendships, but the child still feels compelled to stay on the app.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Feature 2: bottomlessness\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Videos keep appearing on TikTok and YouTube. Photos, comments and likes keep popping up on Instagram. Apps have seemingly endless content for you to see, and it all shows or plays automatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no natural stopping point,” Schüll says. So you never feel finished or satisfied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You want one more of \u003cem>something\u003c/em>, endlessly. And that feeling grows even stronger with the third ingredient added into the mix.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Feature 3: speed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The faster people play video slots, the longer people gamble, Schüll \u003ca href=\"https://www.jstor.org/stable/25046062\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">found\u003c/a> in her review of research performed by the gambling industry. Speed has a similar effect on social media and video-streaming apps, she says. The faster people can scroll, watch and then watch again, the harder it is for many to pull away from an app.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The speed of the feedback can cause this sense that you merge with the screen. You don’t know where you begin and the machine ends,” Schüll says. “The speed really just pulls you into this flow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For social media, the speed at which we can find “new” material has jumped with several technological advancements, including the invention of higher-speed internet and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/07/nx-s1-5775917/why-infinite-scrolls-inventor-wants-to-kill-his-creation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">infinite scroll\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Feature 4: teasing, or giving you \u003cem>almost\u003c/em> what you want\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The final ingredient is perhaps the most important, says \u003ca href=\"https://medschool.umich.edu/profile/3865/jonathan-d-morrow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jonathan D. Morrow\u003c/a>, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at the University of Michigan. It’s all about how apps select content for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s how it typically works. First, the software uses AI to determine what you’re hoping to find or see. “Even if you don’t know what you want, the app knows. It’s very good at figuring that out,” Morrow says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then, he says, the app withholds that reward: “Apps don’t give it to you. They give you something close to that, and then a few clicks later, the algorithm gives you something even closer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They rarely — if ever — give you what you’re looking for. “They give just enough to keep you engaged, keep you looking at the app and interacting with it as long as possible,” he adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This teasing gives you the feeling that you’re going to get what you’re seeking soon. “So you’ll be there all day trying to get that next big thing. There’s always a \u003cem>possibility\u003c/em> you’ll finally get what you want,” Morrow says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A recipe for overuse\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When an app combines these four features — solitude, bottomlessness, speed and teasing — it creates a kind of recipe for overuse for nearly everyone, Schüll says. Sometimes Schüll gives her students at New York University this list of design features. “I say, ‘Pick a website or app. Then, using these criteria, rate how harmful it is.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the recipe is especially harmful for children, she adds: “It’s a cruel setup, especially when kids are concerned. Kids are obviously more vulnerable.” Therefore, she and Morrow agree: Children need help regulating their use of these apps, but they also need protection from harmful design.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Michaeleen Doucleff has a Ph.D. in chemistry and is a longtime science journalist (including previously for NPR). She is the author of the parenting book \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/03/06/nx-s1-5737901/dopamine-kids-parenting-screens\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dopamine Kids\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Social media companies are appealing verdicts in two cases. Both cases found them liable for creating products that harm children. Researchers have spent more than a decade identifying features that compel kids to overuse apps, and those features have roots in the gambling industry. Science journalist Michaeleen Doucleff reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF: Back in the ’80s and ’90s, the casino industry gradually and purposely developed what many scientists consider the most addictive form of gambling – video slot machines played on giant video screens with an ergonomic chair attached to it. Natasha Dow Schull is a cultural anthropologist at New York University. She says some people gamble on video slot machines for extraordinary periods of time – 24 hours, 48 hours straight. Some even wear adult diapers to the casino so they don’t have to stop to use the restroom. 30 years ago, Schull set out on a bold mission to figure out how these devices do this. How do they hold people so tightly on them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NATASHA DOW SCHULL: What are the things that keep us, you know, spending more time, spending more money, draining more of us and our energy and ourselves? What might literally sort of prevent flourishing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: She spent 15 years studying the design of video slot machines and eventually identified features that, when combined together, form a sort of super glue to grip people’s attention on video slots. Then, around 2012, to her surprise, Schull started to see the same features appear on other places – video games, streaming platforms and social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCHULL: I think gambling offers a case study of what Big Tech does in a more general way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: Schull identified four features that help to form that super glue. No. 1 – solitude. You use the app alone. It’s just you and the screen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCHULL: This is important because it removes social cues for stopping.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: No. 2 – bottomlessness. There’s seemingly endless content on these apps – endless photos, videos or comments – and it all appears or plays automatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCHULL: There is no natural stopping point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: So you never feel finished or satisfied. The third feature that helps grip your attention, Schull says, is speed. All this new content – the videos, the photos crop up extremely fast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCHULL: The speed can cause this sense where you feel like you kind of don’t have a sense of where you begin and the machine ends. And it really just pulls you into this flow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: The final ingredient is perhaps the most important. It’s how the app selects the content for you. Jonathan Morrow is a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at the University of Michigan. He says, here’s how it typically works. First, the app uses AI to determine what you want to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>JONATHAN MORROW: They know what you want. They’re very good at figuring that out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: But this is key.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MORROW: They don’t give it to you. They give you something close to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: Then a few clicks later, the algorithm gives you something even closer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MORROW: Just enough to keep you engaged, keep you looking at it, keep you interacting with it as long as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: Morrow says that this teasing holds you on the app because it gives you the feeling that you’re going to get what you want soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MORROW: Because you’ll be there all day, trying to get that next big thing. Maybe it’s going to be even better. There’s always a possibility. That’s what they want.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: When an app combines these four features – solitude, bottomlessness, speed and teasing – it creates a sort of recipe for overuse for anyone. But Natasha Dow Schull says it’s especially harmful for children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCHULL: It’s a cruel setup, especially when kids are concerned, right? Kids are obviously more vulnerable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: And so, she says, they need help regulating their use of apps, but they also need protection from this harmful design.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For NPR News, I’m Michaeleen Doucleff.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In two \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/03/nx-s1-5764306/big-tech-lawsuits-verdicts-accountability-social-media-harms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">landmark cases\u003c/a>, social media companies have been found liable for endangering and harming children. Meta and Google are appealing the verdicts and disputing the idea that their products are addictive. But over the course of more than a decade, scientists have identified key features of social media and other apps meant to hold children’s attention for as long as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These features create a kind of superglue on the apps, says cultural anthropologist \u003ca href=\"https://www.natashadowschull.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Natasha Dow Schüll\u003c/a> at New York University, who has pioneered research in this field. “They keep us spending more time on these apps and spending more money. They drain us of our energy and ourselves.” Understanding these features offers parents a rubric for evaluating how harmful an app or device may be for kids, Schüll says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the trial in California, the attorney bringing the case accused Meta and Google of designing their apps to behave like “\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/02/18/nx-s1-5716229/zuckerberg-social-media-addiction-trial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">digital casinos\u003c/a>.” That’s an apt comparison, according to Schüll’s research, because major design elements of social media have surprising roots in the gambling industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Pulled into the “machine zone”\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Back in the 1980s and 1990s, the casino industry gradually and \u003ca href=\"https://www.jstor.org/stable/25046062\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">purposely created\u003c/a> what many scientists consider to be the \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5846825/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">most addictive form of gambling\u003c/a>: video slot machines. They are something like a giant app, played on a huge video screen with an ergonomic chair attached to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People struggling with gambling addiction often cite video slots as their game of choice, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005796798000862\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">studies\u003c/a> have found. Some people gamble on these machines for extraordinary periods of time, Schüll found in her ethnographic fieldwork. They can play for 24 hours, even 48 hours straight. Some people even told Schüll that they wear adult diapers to the casino so they don’t have to stop gambling to use the restroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thirty years ago, Schüll set out on a bold mission: to figure out how these games exert this magnetic effect. What features might literally prevent flourishing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She \u003ca href=\"https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691278285/addiction-by-design\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">spent 15 years\u003c/a> dissecting the inner workings of video slot machines. She also interviewed everyone up and down the industry, from the marketers and mathematicians to software engineers and executives, as well as people who used these devices daily.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through her research, she uncovered four key features that, when combined together, help hold people on the gambling devices. These features trigger a trancelike or dissociative state, known as a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19492901.2012.11728356\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">machine zone\u003c/a>” or “\u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5846824/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">dark flow\u003c/a>,” in which people lose track of their sense of time and place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Schüll’s surprise, around the early 2010s, the same features began to appear on phone and tablet apps, including social media, games and video-streaming platforms. “These are not normal products for kids like a pair of shoes or a toy,” she says. “They create a relationship with kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are four features that create that superglue:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Feature 1: solitude\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“When the relationship is just between you and the machine, it removes social cues needed for stopping,” Schüll says. It’s harder to notice when the activity no longer serves the person playing or scrolling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studies have found that children who regularly use screens \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-024-03243-y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">alone in their bedrooms\u003c/a> have a higher risk of developing what psychologists call problematic usage. That is, they continue to use an app or play a game even when it damages their health. For example, the app may interfere with their sleep or friendships, but the child still feels compelled to stay on the app.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Feature 2: bottomlessness\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Videos keep appearing on TikTok and YouTube. Photos, comments and likes keep popping up on Instagram. Apps have seemingly endless content for you to see, and it all shows or plays automatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no natural stopping point,” Schüll says. So you never feel finished or satisfied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You want one more of \u003cem>something\u003c/em>, endlessly. And that feeling grows even stronger with the third ingredient added into the mix.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Feature 3: speed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The faster people play video slots, the longer people gamble, Schüll \u003ca href=\"https://www.jstor.org/stable/25046062\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">found\u003c/a> in her review of research performed by the gambling industry. Speed has a similar effect on social media and video-streaming apps, she says. The faster people can scroll, watch and then watch again, the harder it is for many to pull away from an app.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The speed of the feedback can cause this sense that you merge with the screen. You don’t know where you begin and the machine ends,” Schüll says. “The speed really just pulls you into this flow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For social media, the speed at which we can find “new” material has jumped with several technological advancements, including the invention of higher-speed internet and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/07/nx-s1-5775917/why-infinite-scrolls-inventor-wants-to-kill-his-creation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">infinite scroll\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Feature 4: teasing, or giving you \u003cem>almost\u003c/em> what you want\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The final ingredient is perhaps the most important, says \u003ca href=\"https://medschool.umich.edu/profile/3865/jonathan-d-morrow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jonathan D. Morrow\u003c/a>, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at the University of Michigan. It’s all about how apps select content for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s how it typically works. First, the software uses AI to determine what you’re hoping to find or see. “Even if you don’t know what you want, the app knows. It’s very good at figuring that out,” Morrow says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then, he says, the app withholds that reward: “Apps don’t give it to you. They give you something close to that, and then a few clicks later, the algorithm gives you something even closer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They rarely — if ever — give you what you’re looking for. “They give just enough to keep you engaged, keep you looking at the app and interacting with it as long as possible,” he adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This teasing gives you the feeling that you’re going to get what you’re seeking soon. “So you’ll be there all day trying to get that next big thing. There’s always a \u003cem>possibility\u003c/em> you’ll finally get what you want,” Morrow says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A recipe for overuse\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When an app combines these four features — solitude, bottomlessness, speed and teasing — it creates a kind of recipe for overuse for nearly everyone, Schüll says. Sometimes Schüll gives her students at New York University this list of design features. “I say, ‘Pick a website or app. Then, using these criteria, rate how harmful it is.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the recipe is especially harmful for children, she adds: “It’s a cruel setup, especially when kids are concerned. Kids are obviously more vulnerable.” Therefore, she and Morrow agree: Children need help regulating their use of these apps, but they also need protection from harmful design.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Michaeleen Doucleff has a Ph.D. in chemistry and is a longtime science journalist (including previously for NPR). She is the author of the parenting book \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/03/06/nx-s1-5737901/dopamine-kids-parenting-screens\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dopamine Kids\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Social media companies are appealing verdicts in two cases. Both cases found them liable for creating products that harm children. Researchers have spent more than a decade identifying features that compel kids to overuse apps, and those features have roots in the gambling industry. Science journalist Michaeleen Doucleff reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF: Back in the ’80s and ’90s, the casino industry gradually and purposely developed what many scientists consider the most addictive form of gambling – video slot machines played on giant video screens with an ergonomic chair attached to it. Natasha Dow Schull is a cultural anthropologist at New York University. She says some people gamble on video slot machines for extraordinary periods of time – 24 hours, 48 hours straight. Some even wear adult diapers to the casino so they don’t have to stop to use the restroom. 30 years ago, Schull set out on a bold mission to figure out how these devices do this. How do they hold people so tightly on them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NATASHA DOW SCHULL: What are the things that keep us, you know, spending more time, spending more money, draining more of us and our energy and ourselves? What might literally sort of prevent flourishing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: She spent 15 years studying the design of video slot machines and eventually identified features that, when combined together, form a sort of super glue to grip people’s attention on video slots. Then, around 2012, to her surprise, Schull started to see the same features appear on other places – video games, streaming platforms and social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCHULL: I think gambling offers a case study of what Big Tech does in a more general way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: Schull identified four features that help to form that super glue. No. 1 – solitude. You use the app alone. It’s just you and the screen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCHULL: This is important because it removes social cues for stopping.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: No. 2 – bottomlessness. There’s seemingly endless content on these apps – endless photos, videos or comments – and it all appears or plays automatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCHULL: There is no natural stopping point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: So you never feel finished or satisfied. The third feature that helps grip your attention, Schull says, is speed. All this new content – the videos, the photos crop up extremely fast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCHULL: The speed can cause this sense where you feel like you kind of don’t have a sense of where you begin and the machine ends. And it really just pulls you into this flow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: The final ingredient is perhaps the most important. It’s how the app selects the content for you. Jonathan Morrow is a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at the University of Michigan. He says, here’s how it typically works. First, the app uses AI to determine what you want to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>JONATHAN MORROW: They know what you want. They’re very good at figuring that out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: But this is key.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MORROW: They don’t give it to you. They give you something close to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: Then a few clicks later, the algorithm gives you something even closer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MORROW: Just enough to keep you engaged, keep you looking at it, keep you interacting with it as long as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: Morrow says that this teasing holds you on the app because it gives you the feeling that you’re going to get what you want soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MORROW: Because you’ll be there all day, trying to get that next big thing. Maybe it’s going to be even better. There’s always a possibility. That’s what they want.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: When an app combines these four features – solitude, bottomlessness, speed and teasing – it creates a sort of recipe for overuse for anyone. But Natasha Dow Schull says it’s especially harmful for children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCHULL: It’s a cruel setup, especially when kids are concerned, right? Kids are obviously more vulnerable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOUCLEFF: And so, she says, they need help regulating their use of apps, but they also need protection from this harmful design.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For NPR News, I’m Michaeleen Doucleff.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Randy Porter has been teaching music in the Oakland Unified School District for 40 years, but he never set out to become a music teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he was younger, he had his sights set on a professional music career as a guitarist. Then in the 1980s, he landed a long-term substitute teaching role in two very different schools within the same district: Hillcrest, which is in an affluent neighborhood in the Oakland Hills, and Whittier in East Oakland, which was an epicenter of the crack cocaine epidemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stark disparity between the two schools challenged Porter’s perception of his own impact on the students who weren’t receiving the education they deserved. So, he decided to continue on with his teaching career and eventually landed permanent teaching positions throughout the district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66246\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66246\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-05_qed.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of students\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-05_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-05_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-05_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-05_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Randy Porter and a group of students at Cazadero Music Camp from in 2019 hangs on the wall in Porter’s classroom at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland on March 14, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These days at Roosevelt Middle School, his classroom stands out. When most middle schoolers are learning the classics, Porter’s students dive deep into the world of jazz, even going so far as to play avant-garde compositions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re the only middle school band in the Local Supercluster, as far as I know, certainly in the Milky Way galaxy, that specializes in the music of Sun Ra,” said Porter. Sun Ra was an American jazz composer and band leader, known for his experimental music style and cosmic philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Porter truly believes in the musical ability of kids of all ages. When he was Berkeley Symphony’s director of music education, he would have the orchestra perform pieces composed by 5-year-olds. And in years past, he’s created opportunities for his elementary and middle school students to record their own albums – something that he’s doing for his current middle school students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66244\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66244\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-02_qed.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of newspaper clipping on a wall.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-02_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-02_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-02_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-02_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">News clippings of Randy Porter from 1994 hang on the wall in Porter’s classroom at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland on March 14, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Porter’s the type of teacher who provides a safe space for his students to practice, hang out and have a snack after school. But this is Mr. Porter’s last year teaching because he is retiring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this juncture, the future of music classes in Oakland public schools is uncertain because of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12064579/oaklands-school-district-must-cut-100-million-its-proposed-plan-doesnt-get-close\">looming budget cuts\u003c/a> across the district. Porter does not want arts education to fall to the wayside so he started a \u003ca href=\"https://ebayc.liveimpact.org/fundraiser/li/7632/D/200582\">fundraiser for Roosevelt’s music program\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66247\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66247\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-04_qed.jpg\" alt=\"Man holds repaired cello\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-04_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-04_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-04_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-04_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Randy Porter sets up a cello that he repaired with Gorilla Glue in his classroom at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland on March 14, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“[The arts] is an absolutely essential part of a kid’s development. Music, art, PE, manipulating things with your hands – this is how kids learn,” he said. “It’s how a lot of people learn. And when you take them away, a certain portion of the population gets a little bit left behind,” Porter said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are many benefits for students who study and play music. Research conducted by the University of Southern California’s Brain and Creativity Institute found that \u003ca href=\"https://today.usc.edu/childrens-brains-develop-faster-with-music-training/\">learning music enhances auditory pathways in the brain\u003c/a>, which could help with other learning systems affected by these neural pathways like reading and language. In 2022, policy caught up with science when California voters passed \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11934191/what-prop-28-funding-will-mean-for-arts-education-in-california\">Proposition 28\u003c/a>, requiring the state to provide additional funding for music and arts programs for public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For students like seventh grader Diego, Porter’s band class wasn’t a natural choice when he entered middle school. “It was so weird,” Diego said of jazz music. “I was like, ‘will people actually wanna listen to this?’ I didn’t even want to play it at first.” But, he marched forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hesitated and then I just stuck with it,” he said. “I like that there’s so many possibilities and different combinations so that you can make any different one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another of Porter’s seventh grade students, Imani, who plays guitar, became interested in playing Sun Ra’s music in band class. “All the parts are so different and they all come together into chaotic bliss,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66245\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66245\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-01_qed.jpg\" alt=\"Student holding guitar\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-01_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-01_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-01_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-01_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Imani plays the guitar in Randy Porter’s music class at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland on March 14, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some of Porter’s former students have gone on to new heights, like 10th grade student Ryan, who comes back to Porter’s classroom at Roosevelt every Thursday to mentor middle schoolers. When Ryan arrived in Porter’s classroom about five years ago, he had experience playing violin and had picked up the cello. But Porter’s jazz-filled band class presented something new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just felt exciting to be in the music class…that’s when I started to think, ‘wait, I need to switch to an instrument that’s more suitable for jazz,’” said Ryan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, at the suggestion of Porter, Ryan picked up his third instrument – the trombone. “It really opened up a new world for me,” said Ryan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, he plays a total of fifteen instruments, is a member of the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Band, and has played in a youth orchestra for three years, all at the encouragement of Porter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middle school students are in an age group that is notorious in schools and among teachers for their unpredictability, high energy, and increased social awareness. But if you can tap into their interests, the potential for growth is what Porter finds most exciting about this age group, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66248\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1998px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66248\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-03_qed.jpg\" alt=\"Man holding bass instrument\" width=\"1998\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-03_qed.jpg 1998w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-03_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-03_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-03_qed-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1998px) 100vw, 1998px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Randy Porter tests an upright bass before the start of classes at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland on March 14, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He plans on being an active member of the local music education community in his retirement, but the students are what he’ll miss most. “I wanna be helpful. I wanna mentor teachers. I want to do what I can just to see things continue to be successful,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he’ll also take time to tap back into the professional music world. This summer you can find Porter playing at one of his annual \u003ca href=\"https://oakland.chapelofthechimes.com/about-us/news-and-events/event-detail/58006-oakland-annual-solstice-concert\">gigs\u003c/a>, Chapel of the Chimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC6654357560\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Randy Porter has been teaching music in the Oakland Unified School District for 40 years, but he never set out to become a music teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he was younger, he had his sights set on a professional music career as a guitarist. Then in the 1980s, he landed a long-term substitute teaching role in two very different schools within the same district: Hillcrest, which is in an affluent neighborhood in the Oakland Hills, and Whittier in East Oakland, which was an epicenter of the crack cocaine epidemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stark disparity between the two schools challenged Porter’s perception of his own impact on the students who weren’t receiving the education they deserved. So, he decided to continue on with his teaching career and eventually landed permanent teaching positions throughout the district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66246\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66246\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-05_qed.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of students\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-05_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-05_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-05_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-05_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Randy Porter and a group of students at Cazadero Music Camp from in 2019 hangs on the wall in Porter’s classroom at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland on March 14, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These days at Roosevelt Middle School, his classroom stands out. When most middle schoolers are learning the classics, Porter’s students dive deep into the world of jazz, even going so far as to play avant-garde compositions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re the only middle school band in the Local Supercluster, as far as I know, certainly in the Milky Way galaxy, that specializes in the music of Sun Ra,” said Porter. Sun Ra was an American jazz composer and band leader, known for his experimental music style and cosmic philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Porter truly believes in the musical ability of kids of all ages. When he was Berkeley Symphony’s director of music education, he would have the orchestra perform pieces composed by 5-year-olds. And in years past, he’s created opportunities for his elementary and middle school students to record their own albums – something that he’s doing for his current middle school students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66244\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66244\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-02_qed.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of newspaper clipping on a wall.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-02_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-02_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-02_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-02_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">News clippings of Randy Porter from 1994 hang on the wall in Porter’s classroom at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland on March 14, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Porter’s the type of teacher who provides a safe space for his students to practice, hang out and have a snack after school. But this is Mr. Porter’s last year teaching because he is retiring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this juncture, the future of music classes in Oakland public schools is uncertain because of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12064579/oaklands-school-district-must-cut-100-million-its-proposed-plan-doesnt-get-close\">looming budget cuts\u003c/a> across the district. Porter does not want arts education to fall to the wayside so he started a \u003ca href=\"https://ebayc.liveimpact.org/fundraiser/li/7632/D/200582\">fundraiser for Roosevelt’s music program\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66247\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66247\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-04_qed.jpg\" alt=\"Man holds repaired cello\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-04_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-04_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-04_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-04_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Randy Porter sets up a cello that he repaired with Gorilla Glue in his classroom at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland on March 14, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“[The arts] is an absolutely essential part of a kid’s development. Music, art, PE, manipulating things with your hands – this is how kids learn,” he said. “It’s how a lot of people learn. And when you take them away, a certain portion of the population gets a little bit left behind,” Porter said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are many benefits for students who study and play music. Research conducted by the University of Southern California’s Brain and Creativity Institute found that \u003ca href=\"https://today.usc.edu/childrens-brains-develop-faster-with-music-training/\">learning music enhances auditory pathways in the brain\u003c/a>, which could help with other learning systems affected by these neural pathways like reading and language. In 2022, policy caught up with science when California voters passed \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11934191/what-prop-28-funding-will-mean-for-arts-education-in-california\">Proposition 28\u003c/a>, requiring the state to provide additional funding for music and arts programs for public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For students like seventh grader Diego, Porter’s band class wasn’t a natural choice when he entered middle school. “It was so weird,” Diego said of jazz music. “I was like, ‘will people actually wanna listen to this?’ I didn’t even want to play it at first.” But, he marched forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hesitated and then I just stuck with it,” he said. “I like that there’s so many possibilities and different combinations so that you can make any different one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another of Porter’s seventh grade students, Imani, who plays guitar, became interested in playing Sun Ra’s music in band class. “All the parts are so different and they all come together into chaotic bliss,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66245\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66245\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-01_qed.jpg\" alt=\"Student holding guitar\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-01_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-01_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-01_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-01_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Imani plays the guitar in Randy Porter’s music class at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland on March 14, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some of Porter’s former students have gone on to new heights, like 10th grade student Ryan, who comes back to Porter’s classroom at Roosevelt every Thursday to mentor middle schoolers. When Ryan arrived in Porter’s classroom about five years ago, he had experience playing violin and had picked up the cello. But Porter’s jazz-filled band class presented something new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just felt exciting to be in the music class…that’s when I started to think, ‘wait, I need to switch to an instrument that’s more suitable for jazz,’” said Ryan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, at the suggestion of Porter, Ryan picked up his third instrument – the trombone. “It really opened up a new world for me,” said Ryan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, he plays a total of fifteen instruments, is a member of the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Band, and has played in a youth orchestra for three years, all at the encouragement of Porter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middle school students are in an age group that is notorious in schools and among teachers for their unpredictability, high energy, and increased social awareness. But if you can tap into their interests, the potential for growth is what Porter finds most exciting about this age group, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66248\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1998px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66248\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-03_qed.jpg\" alt=\"Man holding bass instrument\" width=\"1998\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-03_qed.jpg 1998w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-03_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-03_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/260313-RANDY-PORTER-RETIRES-MD-03_qed-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1998px) 100vw, 1998px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Randy Porter tests an upright bass before the start of classes at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland on March 14, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He plans on being an active member of the local music education community in his retirement, but the students are what he’ll miss most. “I wanna be helpful. I wanna mentor teachers. I want to do what I can just to see things continue to be successful,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he’ll also take time to tap back into the professional music world. This summer you can find Porter playing at one of his annual \u003ca href=\"https://oakland.chapelofthechimes.com/about-us/news-and-events/event-detail/58006-oakland-annual-solstice-concert\">gigs\u003c/a>, Chapel of the Chimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"radiolab": {
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},
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"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
"info": "Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
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