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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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"excerpt": "Randy Porter knows the benefit of music education in developing minds. His day job as a teacher is coming to an end, but he's doing all he can to ensure music continues despite looming budget cuts. ",
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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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"content": "\u003cp>It’s easy to get swept up in the hype about artificial intelligence tutors. But the evidence so far suggests caution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some studies have found that chatbot tutors can \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2422633122\">backfire\u003c/a> because students \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5604932\">lean on them\u003c/a> too heavily, get spoonfed solutions and fail to absorb the material. Even when AI tutors are designed not to give away answers, they haven’t consistently produced better results than learning the old-fashioned way without AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, researchers who have produced these skeptical studies haven’t given up hope. Some are still experimenting, trying to build better AI tutors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One promising idea has less to do with how an AI tutor explains concepts and more with what it asks students to practice next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A team at the University of Pennsylvania, which included some AI skeptics, recently tested this approach in a \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6423358\">study\u003c/a> of close to 800 Taiwanese high school students learning Python programming. All the students used the same AI tutor, which was designed not to give away answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was one key difference. Half the students were randomly assigned to a fixed sequence of practice problems, progressing from easy to hard. The other half received a personalized sequence with the AI tutor continuously adjusting the difficulty of each problem based on how the student was performing and interacting with the chatbot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea is based on what educators call the “zone of proximal development.” When problems are too easy, students get bored. When they’re too hard, students get frustrated. The goal is to keep students in a sweet spot: challenged, but not overwhelmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found that students in the personalized group did better on a final exam than students in the fixed problem group. The difference was characterized as the equivalent of 6 to 9 months of additional schooling, an eye-catching claim for an after-school online course that lasted only five months. The AI tutor’s inventor, Angel Chung, a doctoral student at the Wharton School, acknowledged that her conversion of statistical units was “not a perfect estimate.” (A \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6423358\">draft paper\u003c/a> about the experiment was posted online in March 2026, but has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, this is early evidence that small tweaks — in this case, calibrating the difficulty of the practice problems to the student — can make a difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chung said that ChatGPT’s responses may already feel very personal because they are directly responding to a student’s unique questions. But that level of personalization isn’t enough. “Students usually don’t know what they don’t know,” said Chung. “The student doesn’t have the ability to ask the right questions to get the best tutoring.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To address this, Chung’s team combined a large language model with a separate machine-learning algorithm that analyzes how students interact with the online course platform — how they answer the practice questions, how many times they revise or edit their coding, and the quality of their conversations with the chatbot — and uses that information to decide which problem to serve up next.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How different students interact with the chatbot tutor\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66238\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 780px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66238\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-1.png\" alt=\"List of chatbot prompts\" width=\"780\" height=\"418\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-1.png 780w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-1-160x86.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-1-768x412.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Chung et al, Effective Personalized AI Tutors via LLM-Guided Reinforcement Learning, March 2026\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In other words, personalization isn’t just about tailoring explanations. It’s about tailoring the learning path itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That idea isn’t new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Long before generative AI tools like ChatGPT were invented, education researchers developed “intelligent tutoring systems” that tried to do something similar: estimate what a student knew and deliver the right next problem. These earlier systems couldn’t produce natural conversations, but they could provide hints and instant feedback. Rigorous studies found that well-designed versions helped students learn significantly more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their Achilles’ heel was engagement. Many students simply didn’t want to use them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today’s AI tools could help address that problem. Students might feel more interested in a chatbot that converses with them in an almost human way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the University of Pennsylvania study, students in the personalized group spent more time practicing, about three additional minutes per problem, adding up to about an hour per module in the Python course, compared with half as much time (a half hour or less) for the comparison students. The researchers think these students did better because they were more engaged in their practice work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students’ previous knowledge of a subject affected how well the personalized sequencing worked. Students who were new to Python gained more than those who already had Python experience, who did just as well with the fixed sequence of practice problems. Students from less elite high schools also appeared to benefit more.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How students’ background affected results\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66239\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 780px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66239\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-2.png\" alt=\"Chart showing skill vs. prior experience\" width=\"780\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-2.png 780w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-2-160x103.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-2-768x492.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">All students had access to the same AI tutor. The treatment difference compares a personalized sequence of problems difficulty rather versus a fixed sequence, from easy to hard. Source: Chung et al, Effective Personalized AI Tutors via LLM-Guided Reinforcement Learning, March 2026\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>All the Taiwanese students in this study volunteered for an optional computer programming course that could strengthen their college applications. Many were highly motivated, with highly educated parents, and many already had prior coding experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not clear whether the chatbot would work as well with less motivated students who are behind at school and most in need of extra help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One possible solution: fusing new and old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ken Koedinger, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a pioneer of intelligent tutoring systems, is experimenting with using \u003ca href=\"https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3698205.3733948\">new AI models to alert remote human tutors\u003c/a> who can motivate struggling students who are drifting off. “We are having more success,” said Koedinger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humans aren’t obsolete — yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-ai-tutor-python/\">\u003cem>AI tutors\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’s easy to get swept up in the hype about artificial intelligence tutors. But the evidence so far suggests caution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some studies have found that chatbot tutors can \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2422633122\">backfire\u003c/a> because students \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5604932\">lean on them\u003c/a> too heavily, get spoonfed solutions and fail to absorb the material. Even when AI tutors are designed not to give away answers, they haven’t consistently produced better results than learning the old-fashioned way without AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, researchers who have produced these skeptical studies haven’t given up hope. Some are still experimenting, trying to build better AI tutors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One promising idea has less to do with how an AI tutor explains concepts and more with what it asks students to practice next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A team at the University of Pennsylvania, which included some AI skeptics, recently tested this approach in a \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6423358\">study\u003c/a> of close to 800 Taiwanese high school students learning Python programming. All the students used the same AI tutor, which was designed not to give away answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was one key difference. Half the students were randomly assigned to a fixed sequence of practice problems, progressing from easy to hard. The other half received a personalized sequence with the AI tutor continuously adjusting the difficulty of each problem based on how the student was performing and interacting with the chatbot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea is based on what educators call the “zone of proximal development.” When problems are too easy, students get bored. When they’re too hard, students get frustrated. The goal is to keep students in a sweet spot: challenged, but not overwhelmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found that students in the personalized group did better on a final exam than students in the fixed problem group. The difference was characterized as the equivalent of 6 to 9 months of additional schooling, an eye-catching claim for an after-school online course that lasted only five months. The AI tutor’s inventor, Angel Chung, a doctoral student at the Wharton School, acknowledged that her conversion of statistical units was “not a perfect estimate.” (A \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6423358\">draft paper\u003c/a> about the experiment was posted online in March 2026, but has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, this is early evidence that small tweaks — in this case, calibrating the difficulty of the practice problems to the student — can make a difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chung said that ChatGPT’s responses may already feel very personal because they are directly responding to a student’s unique questions. But that level of personalization isn’t enough. “Students usually don’t know what they don’t know,” said Chung. “The student doesn’t have the ability to ask the right questions to get the best tutoring.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To address this, Chung’s team combined a large language model with a separate machine-learning algorithm that analyzes how students interact with the online course platform — how they answer the practice questions, how many times they revise or edit their coding, and the quality of their conversations with the chatbot — and uses that information to decide which problem to serve up next.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How different students interact with the chatbot tutor\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66238\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 780px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66238\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-1.png\" alt=\"List of chatbot prompts\" width=\"780\" height=\"418\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-1.png 780w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-1-160x86.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-1-768x412.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Chung et al, Effective Personalized AI Tutors via LLM-Guided Reinforcement Learning, March 2026\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In other words, personalization isn’t just about tailoring explanations. It’s about tailoring the learning path itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That idea isn’t new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Long before generative AI tools like ChatGPT were invented, education researchers developed “intelligent tutoring systems” that tried to do something similar: estimate what a student knew and deliver the right next problem. These earlier systems couldn’t produce natural conversations, but they could provide hints and instant feedback. Rigorous studies found that well-designed versions helped students learn significantly more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their Achilles’ heel was engagement. Many students simply didn’t want to use them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today’s AI tools could help address that problem. Students might feel more interested in a chatbot that converses with them in an almost human way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the University of Pennsylvania study, students in the personalized group spent more time practicing, about three additional minutes per problem, adding up to about an hour per module in the Python course, compared with half as much time (a half hour or less) for the comparison students. The researchers think these students did better because they were more engaged in their practice work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students’ previous knowledge of a subject affected how well the personalized sequencing worked. Students who were new to Python gained more than those who already had Python experience, who did just as well with the fixed sequence of practice problems. Students from less elite high schools also appeared to benefit more.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How students’ background affected results\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66239\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 780px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66239\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-2.png\" alt=\"Chart showing skill vs. prior experience\" width=\"780\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-2.png 780w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-2-160x103.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/Barshay-AI-Tutor-2-768x492.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">All students had access to the same AI tutor. The treatment difference compares a personalized sequence of problems difficulty rather versus a fixed sequence, from easy to hard. Source: Chung et al, Effective Personalized AI Tutors via LLM-Guided Reinforcement Learning, March 2026\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>All the Taiwanese students in this study volunteered for an optional computer programming course that could strengthen their college applications. Many were highly motivated, with highly educated parents, and many already had prior coding experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not clear whether the chatbot would work as well with less motivated students who are behind at school and most in need of extra help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One possible solution: fusing new and old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ken Koedinger, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a pioneer of intelligent tutoring systems, is experimenting with using \u003ca href=\"https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3698205.3733948\">new AI models to alert remote human tutors\u003c/a> who can motivate struggling students who are drifting off. “We are having more success,” said Koedinger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humans aren’t obsolete — yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-ai-tutor-python/\">\u003cem>AI tutors\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>It’s a bit like asking patients in intensive care to make the case for their own treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal education research — the system that tracks student learning and evaluates what works — has been battered by mass firings, contract cuts and cancellations, and stalled grant funding. Many researchers at private research organizations have lost their jobs and those with a more protected perch at universities face deep uncertainty. Now they are being told they need to turn up the volume if they want to continue their life’s work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their predicament was the focus of the Association for Education Finance and Policy’s annual conference earlier this month in Chicago. The conference theme, “Sustaining Education Research and Evidence in a Turbulent Era,” acknowledged the devastating aftershocks of last year’s onslaught. But the cure remains uncertain. At a March 20 session on rebuilding the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), an emissary from the Trump administration, Amber Northern, urged the audience to become stronger champions for their cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year ago at this same conference, Northern was just a typical researcher, as horrified as everyone else over the DOGE cuts to federal education research. She was and is the director of research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education policy think tank. During last year’s gathering, a sympathetic official from the Trump administration approached her and asked if she could come up with some ideas for rebuilding IES, which has generally had bipartisan support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, Northern was at the conference in her new role as the author of a report on IES’s future, released in late February, and was making the rounds to sell its \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-ies-northern-report/\">recommendations\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her main message to her fellow researchers: You’re not doing enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rebuilding IES won’t happen, she warned, without broad public pressure. The administration, she said, responds to parents, but parents aren’t protesting the loss of education data and research. She added she was “dismayed” that more people in the field haven’t written op-eds explaining the stakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The room pushed back. Many researchers were still smarting from the loss of federal research funding and the inability to seek new grants. (The grant process has ground to a virtual standstill and the Education Department is sitting on millions of dollars of unspent Congressionally appropriated funds.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jason Grissom, an education professor at Vanderbilt University, said he had just received an email that federal funding for his graduate students was ending. He said he hadn’t realized the field hadn’t been making “a strong enough case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Vivian Wong, a research methodologist at the University of Virginia, challenged the idea that it would be realistic to build a broad coalition. “You can’t put the onus on parents to save the education system,” she said, noting that families are more focused on immediate concerns like services for their children with disabilities. Producing evidence for effective instruction, she argued, is the job of good government and shouldn’t hinge upon parent advocacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others raised a more personal risk: speaking out could backfire. One researcher worried that public criticism could jeopardize current grants, future funding decisions, or even invite retaliation against her university at a time when the administration has shown a willingness to lash out. She asked Northern directly whether she could guarantee that advocacy for education research wouldn’t come with consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can’t say for sure,” Northern replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s the bind. Researchers are being told to speak up to save their field but doing so could put their work, and their institutions, at risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another possible lever is Congress. Some researchers have begun lobbying their representatives, but even there, the path is unclear. One Congressional office advised contacting the Office of Management and Budget — not the Education Department — to release already appropriated funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, schools are struggling with \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-7-insights-chronic-absenteeism/\">absenteeism\u003c/a> and falling \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/naep-test-2024-dismal-report/\">reading and math scores\u003c/a>. And the nation’s main source of evidence and guidance on what works to right these problems is in limbo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers did receive one reprieve. Despite inflation, the Association for Education Finance and Policy said it did not raise this year’s conference registration fee “in response to the challenges our community is facing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-education-research-risks/\">\u003cem>federal education research\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’s a bit like asking patients in intensive care to make the case for their own treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal education research — the system that tracks student learning and evaluates what works — has been battered by mass firings, contract cuts and cancellations, and stalled grant funding. Many researchers at private research organizations have lost their jobs and those with a more protected perch at universities face deep uncertainty. Now they are being told they need to turn up the volume if they want to continue their life’s work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their predicament was the focus of the Association for Education Finance and Policy’s annual conference earlier this month in Chicago. The conference theme, “Sustaining Education Research and Evidence in a Turbulent Era,” acknowledged the devastating aftershocks of last year’s onslaught. But the cure remains uncertain. At a March 20 session on rebuilding the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), an emissary from the Trump administration, Amber Northern, urged the audience to become stronger champions for their cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year ago at this same conference, Northern was just a typical researcher, as horrified as everyone else over the DOGE cuts to federal education research. She was and is the director of research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education policy think tank. During last year’s gathering, a sympathetic official from the Trump administration approached her and asked if she could come up with some ideas for rebuilding IES, which has generally had bipartisan support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, Northern was at the conference in her new role as the author of a report on IES’s future, released in late February, and was making the rounds to sell its \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-ies-northern-report/\">recommendations\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her main message to her fellow researchers: You’re not doing enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rebuilding IES won’t happen, she warned, without broad public pressure. The administration, she said, responds to parents, but parents aren’t protesting the loss of education data and research. She added she was “dismayed” that more people in the field haven’t written op-eds explaining the stakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The room pushed back. Many researchers were still smarting from the loss of federal research funding and the inability to seek new grants. (The grant process has ground to a virtual standstill and the Education Department is sitting on millions of dollars of unspent Congressionally appropriated funds.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jason Grissom, an education professor at Vanderbilt University, said he had just received an email that federal funding for his graduate students was ending. He said he hadn’t realized the field hadn’t been making “a strong enough case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Vivian Wong, a research methodologist at the University of Virginia, challenged the idea that it would be realistic to build a broad coalition. “You can’t put the onus on parents to save the education system,” she said, noting that families are more focused on immediate concerns like services for their children with disabilities. Producing evidence for effective instruction, she argued, is the job of good government and shouldn’t hinge upon parent advocacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others raised a more personal risk: speaking out could backfire. One researcher worried that public criticism could jeopardize current grants, future funding decisions, or even invite retaliation against her university at a time when the administration has shown a willingness to lash out. She asked Northern directly whether she could guarantee that advocacy for education research wouldn’t come with consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can’t say for sure,” Northern replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s the bind. Researchers are being told to speak up to save their field but doing so could put their work, and their institutions, at risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another possible lever is Congress. Some researchers have begun lobbying their representatives, but even there, the path is unclear. One Congressional office advised contacting the Office of Management and Budget — not the Education Department — to release already appropriated funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, schools are struggling with \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-7-insights-chronic-absenteeism/\">absenteeism\u003c/a> and falling \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/naep-test-2024-dismal-report/\">reading and math scores\u003c/a>. And the nation’s main source of evidence and guidance on what works to right these problems is in limbo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers did receive one reprieve. Despite inflation, the Association for Education Finance and Policy said it did not raise this year’s conference registration fee “in response to the challenges our community is facing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-education-research-risks/\">\u003cem>federal education research\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>Bruce Maxwell, professor of computer science at Northeastern University, was grading exams for his online master’s course in computer vision, a subfield in artificial intelligence that deals with images, when he first noticed that something felt … off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d see the same phrases, the same commas, even the same word choices. I would say, ‘Man, I’ve read that before.’ And I’d go look for it,” said Maxwell. “The paragraphs weren’t identical, but they were so similar.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the course was in 2024, Maxwell, who teaches at Northeastern’s Seattle campus, recalls that his students’ essays sounded “like textbooks written in the 1980s and ’90s,” perhaps reflecting the sources used to train AI. The students were scattered around the country and Maxwell was pretty sure they hadn’t collaborated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maxwell shared his observation with a former student, Liwei Jiang, who is now a Ph.D. student in computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. Jiang decided to test her former professor’s hunch about AI scientifically and collaborated with other researchers at UW, the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Stanford and Carnegie Mellon universities to analyze the output from more than 70 different large language models around the globe, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen and Llama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team asked each the same open-ended questions, which were intended to spark creativity or brainstorm new ideas: “Compose a short poem about the feeling of watching a sunset;” “I am a graduate student in Marxist theory, and I want to write a thesis on Gorz. Can you help me think of some new ideas?” and “Write a 30-word essay on global warming.” (The researchers pulled the questions from a corpus of real ChatGPT questions that users had consented to make public in exchange for free access to a more advanced model.) The researchers posed 100 of these questions to all 70 models and had each model answer them 50 times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answers were often indistinguishable across different models by different companies that have different architectures and use different training data. The metaphors, imagery, word choices, sentence structures — even punctuation — often converged. Jiang’s team called this phenomenon “inter-model homogeneity” and quantified the overlaps and similarities. To drive the point home, Jiang titled her paper, the “\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.22954\">Artificial Hivemind.\u003c/a>” The study won the best paper award at the annual conference on Neural Information Processing Systems in December 2025, one of the premier gatherings for AI research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To increase AI creativity, Jiang jacked up a parameter, called “temperature,” to maximize the randomness of each large language model. That didn’t help. For example, when she asked an AI model called Claude 3.5 Sonnet to “write a short story about a colorful toad who goes on an adventure in 50 words,” it kept naming the toad Ziggy or Pip, and oddly, a hungry hawk and mushrooms kept appearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66219\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2734px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66219\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2734\" height=\"1498\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad.png 2734w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad-2000x1096.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad-160x88.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad-768x421.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad-1536x842.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad-2048x1122.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2734px) 100vw, 2734px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Presentation slide courtesy of Liwei Jiang, the AI study’s lead author.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Different models also churn out comically similar responses. When asked to come up with a metaphor for time, the overwhelming answer from all the models was the same: a river. A few said a weaver. One outlier suggested a sculptor. Several of the models were developed in China, and yet, they were producing similar answers to those made in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Example of similar output from ChatGPT and DeepSeek\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66218\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2692px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66218\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2692\" height=\"1566\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2.png 2692w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2-2000x1163.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2-160x93.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2-768x447.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2-1536x894.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2-2048x1191.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2692px) 100vw, 2692px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Presentation slide courtesy of Liwei Jiang, the AI study’s lead author.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The explanation lies in chatbot design. AI chatbots are trained to review possible answers to make sure the output is reasonable, appropriate and helpful. This refinement step, sometimes called “alignment,” is intended to ensure that the answers align to or match what a human would prefer. And it’s this alignment step, according to Jiang, that is creating the homogeneity. The process favors safe, consensus-based responses and penalizes risky, unconventional ones. Originality gets stripped away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jiang’s advice for students is to push themselves to go beyond what the AI model spits out. “The model is actually generating some good ideas, but you need to go the extra mile to be more creative than that,” said Jiang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Jiang’s former professor Maxwell, the study confirmed what he had suspected. And even before Jiang’s paper came out, he changed how he teaches. He no longer relies on online exams. Instead, he now asks students to learn a concept and present it to other students or create a video tutorial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outwitting the AI hive mind requires some post-modern creativity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-ai-similarity/\">\u003cem>similar AI answers\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>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answers were often indistinguishable across different models by different companies that have different architectures and use different training data. The metaphors, imagery, word choices, sentence structures — even punctuation — often converged. Jiang’s team called this phenomenon “inter-model homogeneity” and quantified the overlaps and similarities. To drive the point home, Jiang titled her paper, the “\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.22954\">Artificial Hivemind.\u003c/a>” The study won the best paper award at the annual conference on Neural Information Processing Systems in December 2025, one of the premier gatherings for AI research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To increase AI creativity, Jiang jacked up a parameter, called “temperature,” to maximize the randomness of each large language model. That didn’t help. For example, when she asked an AI model called Claude 3.5 Sonnet to “write a short story about a colorful toad who goes on an adventure in 50 words,” it kept naming the toad Ziggy or Pip, and oddly, a hungry hawk and mushrooms kept appearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66219\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2734px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66219\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2734\" height=\"1498\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad.png 2734w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad-2000x1096.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad-160x88.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad-768x421.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad-1536x842.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Colorful-Toad-2048x1122.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2734px) 100vw, 2734px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Presentation slide courtesy of Liwei Jiang, the AI study’s lead author.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Different models also churn out comically similar responses. When asked to come up with a metaphor for time, the overwhelming answer from all the models was the same: a river. A few said a weaver. One outlier suggested a sculptor. Several of the models were developed in China, and yet, they were producing similar answers to those made in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Example of similar output from ChatGPT and DeepSeek\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66218\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2692px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66218\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2692\" height=\"1566\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2.png 2692w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2-2000x1163.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2-160x93.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2-768x447.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2-1536x894.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/Intermodel-homogeneity-v2-2048x1191.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2692px) 100vw, 2692px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Presentation slide courtesy of Liwei Jiang, the AI study’s lead author.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The explanation lies in chatbot design. AI chatbots are trained to review possible answers to make sure the output is reasonable, appropriate and helpful. This refinement step, sometimes called “alignment,” is intended to ensure that the answers align to or match what a human would prefer. And it’s this alignment step, according to Jiang, that is creating the homogeneity. The process favors safe, consensus-based responses and penalizes risky, unconventional ones. Originality gets stripped away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jiang’s advice for students is to push themselves to go beyond what the AI model spits out. “The model is actually generating some good ideas, but you need to go the extra mile to be more creative than that,” said Jiang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Jiang’s former professor Maxwell, the study confirmed what he had suspected. And even before Jiang’s paper came out, he changed how he teaches. He no longer relies on online exams. 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"content": "\u003cp>When Mississippi reformed its reading curriculum in 2013, scores for the state’s elementary school students soared. Inspired by the “Mississippi miracle,” other Southern states followed suit. But the miracle has hit a wall: middle school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama have seen notable improvements in fourth grade reading over the past decade, but far smaller gains in eighth grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mississippi led the way by retraining teachers in the science of reading — which emphasizes phonics and other basic literacy skills — and sending coaches into schools. The state’s fourth graders went from near the bottom nationally to surpassing the national average in 2024. Many called it the “Mississippi miracle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mississippi moved a mountain in fourth grade,” said Dan McGrath, a retired federal education official who oversaw the NAEP assessments. High- and low-achieving students both made gains. But when these fourth graders reached eighth grade, their progress stalled. By 2019, \u003ca href=\"https://danmcgrath2.substack.com/p/did-mississippis-success-in-reading?r=4apj92\">more eighth graders\u003c/a> were scoring at the bottom than in 2013. Scores dipped further during the pandemic, and by 2024, only higher achieving eighth graders recovered a bit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When should we see the Mississippi miracle reach eighth grade? Why haven’t we seen it yet?” McGrath asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee started reforms later and may need more time. But McGrath’s question remains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers and literacy advocates point to a common answer: early reading reforms focused on phonics, which helped students decode words, but decoding alone is not enough for proficient middle school reading, where the words are longer and the sentences are more complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Timothy Shanahan, a veteran reading researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said reading instruction must continue after students learn to read. “It’s not phonics exactly,” he said. Teachers need to break down multisyllabic words, teach word roots and odd spellings, and find time to read extensively to build fluency with complex texts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shanahan thinks schools should teach students how to read grade-level texts, even if they are challenging, and provide guidance on vocabulary, syntax and sentence structure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research evidence is sometimes murky on exactly how to help older students with reading comprehension. There’s widespread agreement that background knowledge, vocabulary and comprehension strategies are all important. But experts and advocates disagree about their relative importance and how much time to spend on them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many literacy advocates argue for more emphasis on background knowledge because it’s hard to grasp an unfamiliar topic. For example, even if I had a glossary of words, a technical medical article involving genetic analysis would be lost on me. Researchers also say that many low-income children aren’t exposed to as much art, travel and political news at home as wealthier kids, which means that many topics that come up in books are less familiar and harder to absorb.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some research has shown promising literacy improvements from building children’ s knowledge. Harvard researchers found \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-learning-science-might-help-kids-read-better/\">some success\u003c/a> with specially designed social studies and science lessons (not reading lessons). But a \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385720711_Reading_Comprehension_A_Meta-Analysis_Comparing_Standardized_and_Non-Standardized_Assessment_Results\">2024 meta-analysis\u003c/a> didn’t find short-term reading benefits from knowledge-building units in classrooms. It may be that it takes years for these lessons to improve reading comprehension. And that long arc of progress is difficult for researchers to track.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no question that knowledge plays a role in comprehension,” said Shanahan. “But it has been difficult to find how such knowledge could generalize. In other words, if you teach kids about goldfish, that may improve their comprehension of other goldfish texts, but will it have any other impact?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is also a debate about the value of drilling students in reading comprehension questions, the kinds that are likely to come up on standardized tests, such as figuring out an author’s main point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carl Hendrick, a prominent proponent of explicitly teaching children background knowledge and vocabulary, and a professor at \u003ca href=\"https://www.academica-group.com/en/how-teaching-and-learning-happens-e-learning-course\">Academica University of Applied Sciences\u003c/a> in Amsterdam, agrees that a small amount of strategy instruction can be helpful, such as having students practice writing a summary after reading something. But Hendrick concludes from the research literature that there are diminishing returns to strategy instruction after \u003ca href=\"https://carlhendrick.substack.com/p/reading-comprehension-is-not-a-skill\">10 hours\u003c/a> of it. “When a student cannot grasp the main idea of a passage, the problem is almost never that they lack a ‘strategy,’” Hendrick wrote in a \u003ca href=\"https://carlhendrick.substack.com/p/reading-comprehension-is-not-a-skill\">March 2026 newsletter\u003c/a>. “The problem is that they do not understand enough of the words.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Too much screen time may also be a factor. “Kids aren’t reading as much anymore,” said Sarah Webb, a senior director at Great Minds, a curriculum maker. Cellphones and video games have replaced books. And the less time that kids practice reading, the less opportunity they have to get better at it. A March 2026 Scholastic white paper, “\u003ca href=\"https://education.scholastic.com/content/dam/education/resources/why-sustained-reading-matters_march-2026.pdf\">Students Are Reading Less and Losing Stamina: Why Sustained Reading Matters More Than Ever\u003c/a>,” highlights the growing decline in reading among preteens and teenagers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the growing gap between fourth and eighth grade reading scores in the South is prompting teachers to question the assumption that middle schoolers already know how to read, Webb said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They used to say the progression in school was you learn to read and then you read to learn,” Webb said. “Now people realize it needs to be both for much longer. ‘Reading to learn’ should start earlier, and ‘learning to read’ must continue well past third grade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-8th-grade-reading/\">\u003cem>eighth-grade reading\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 focused on inequality and innovation in 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>When Mississippi reformed its reading curriculum in 2013, scores for the state’s elementary school students soared. Inspired by the “Mississippi miracle,” other Southern states followed suit. But the miracle has hit a wall: middle school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama have seen notable improvements in fourth grade reading over the past decade, but far smaller gains in eighth grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mississippi led the way by retraining teachers in the science of reading — which emphasizes phonics and other basic literacy skills — and sending coaches into schools. The state’s fourth graders went from near the bottom nationally to surpassing the national average in 2024. Many called it the “Mississippi miracle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mississippi moved a mountain in fourth grade,” said Dan McGrath, a retired federal education official who oversaw the NAEP assessments. High- and low-achieving students both made gains. But when these fourth graders reached eighth grade, their progress stalled. By 2019, \u003ca href=\"https://danmcgrath2.substack.com/p/did-mississippis-success-in-reading?r=4apj92\">more eighth graders\u003c/a> were scoring at the bottom than in 2013. Scores dipped further during the pandemic, and by 2024, only higher achieving eighth graders recovered a bit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When should we see the Mississippi miracle reach eighth grade? Why haven’t we seen it yet?” McGrath asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee started reforms later and may need more time. But McGrath’s question remains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers and literacy advocates point to a common answer: early reading reforms focused on phonics, which helped students decode words, but decoding alone is not enough for proficient middle school reading, where the words are longer and the sentences are more complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Timothy Shanahan, a veteran reading researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said reading instruction must continue after students learn to read. “It’s not phonics exactly,” he said. Teachers need to break down multisyllabic words, teach word roots and odd spellings, and find time to read extensively to build fluency with complex texts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shanahan thinks schools should teach students how to read grade-level texts, even if they are challenging, and provide guidance on vocabulary, syntax and sentence structure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research evidence is sometimes murky on exactly how to help older students with reading comprehension. There’s widespread agreement that background knowledge, vocabulary and comprehension strategies are all important. But experts and advocates disagree about their relative importance and how much time to spend on them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many literacy advocates argue for more emphasis on background knowledge because it’s hard to grasp an unfamiliar topic. For example, even if I had a glossary of words, a technical medical article involving genetic analysis would be lost on me. Researchers also say that many low-income children aren’t exposed to as much art, travel and political news at home as wealthier kids, which means that many topics that come up in books are less familiar and harder to absorb.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some research has shown promising literacy improvements from building children’ s knowledge. Harvard researchers found \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-learning-science-might-help-kids-read-better/\">some success\u003c/a> with specially designed social studies and science lessons (not reading lessons). But a \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385720711_Reading_Comprehension_A_Meta-Analysis_Comparing_Standardized_and_Non-Standardized_Assessment_Results\">2024 meta-analysis\u003c/a> didn’t find short-term reading benefits from knowledge-building units in classrooms. It may be that it takes years for these lessons to improve reading comprehension. And that long arc of progress is difficult for researchers to track.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no question that knowledge plays a role in comprehension,” said Shanahan. “But it has been difficult to find how such knowledge could generalize. In other words, if you teach kids about goldfish, that may improve their comprehension of other goldfish texts, but will it have any other impact?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is also a debate about the value of drilling students in reading comprehension questions, the kinds that are likely to come up on standardized tests, such as figuring out an author’s main point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carl Hendrick, a prominent proponent of explicitly teaching children background knowledge and vocabulary, and a professor at \u003ca href=\"https://www.academica-group.com/en/how-teaching-and-learning-happens-e-learning-course\">Academica University of Applied Sciences\u003c/a> in Amsterdam, agrees that a small amount of strategy instruction can be helpful, such as having students practice writing a summary after reading something. But Hendrick concludes from the research literature that there are diminishing returns to strategy instruction after \u003ca href=\"https://carlhendrick.substack.com/p/reading-comprehension-is-not-a-skill\">10 hours\u003c/a> of it. “When a student cannot grasp the main idea of a passage, the problem is almost never that they lack a ‘strategy,’” Hendrick wrote in a \u003ca href=\"https://carlhendrick.substack.com/p/reading-comprehension-is-not-a-skill\">March 2026 newsletter\u003c/a>. “The problem is that they do not understand enough of the words.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Too much screen time may also be a factor. “Kids aren’t reading as much anymore,” said Sarah Webb, a senior director at Great Minds, a curriculum maker. Cellphones and video games have replaced books. And the less time that kids practice reading, the less opportunity they have to get better at it. A March 2026 Scholastic white paper, “\u003ca href=\"https://education.scholastic.com/content/dam/education/resources/why-sustained-reading-matters_march-2026.pdf\">Students Are Reading Less and Losing Stamina: Why Sustained Reading Matters More Than Ever\u003c/a>,” highlights the growing decline in reading among preteens and teenagers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the growing gap between fourth and eighth grade reading scores in the South is prompting teachers to question the assumption that middle schoolers already know how to read, Webb said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They used to say the progression in school was you learn to read and then you read to learn,” Webb said. “Now people realize it needs to be both for much longer. ‘Reading to learn’ should start earlier, and ‘learning to read’ must continue well past third grade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-8th-grade-reading/\">\u003cem>eighth-grade reading\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 focused on inequality and innovation in 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": "key-oversight-helping-keep-student-loan-records-accurate-has-stopped-watchdog-says",
"title": "Key Oversight Helping Keep Student Loan Records Accurate Has stopped, Watchdog Says",
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"content": "\u003cp>Just over a year ago, the U.S. Department of Education abandoned key oversight of the companies that run the federal student loan program, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108534\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new report\u003c/a> from the nonpartisan U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GAO investigators found that, in February 2025, the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) stopped reviewing the accuracy of loan servicers’ records. FSA also stopped reviewing recordings of calls with borrowers to make sure they’re being given accurate information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without this oversight, the report warns, borrowers could feel the consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If servicers’ records are inaccurate, borrowers could, for instance, be placed in the wrong loan repayment status, billed for incorrect amounts, or not have a refund processed in time,” the report says. “Similarly, FSA has not monitored calls since February 2025, so there is a risk that borrowers have received or will receive incorrect information and poor customer service.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The investigation was requested by the ranking members of the House and Senate education committees, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Instead of providing relief to 43 million Americans who are drowning in student debt,” Sanders said in a statement to NPR, “the Trump administration has made it harder for them to understand how much they owe and how long it will take to pay back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What the administration has to say about GAO’s findings\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Office of Federal Student Aid is supposed to conduct quarterly reviews, according to its contracts with loan servicers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These reviews include comparing loan servicers’ borrower records with FSA’s own records, to screen for gaps or discrepancies, as well as “targeted reviews” of borrowers in specific situations, including those who request temporary relief from their payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The assessments that were stopped are more labor-intensive than other types of oversight that have been automated, GAO says. According to the report, agency officials told the government watchdog they stopped these reviews in early 2025 “due to lack of FSA staff capacity.” That’s around the same time the Trump administration began dramatically reducing staffing levels at the Education Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the report, FSA began 2025 with 1,433 staffers; by December, it had 777 — a 46% reduction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a written response accompanying the report, Richard Lucas, FSA’s acting chief operating officer, disagreed with GAO’s recommendation that FSA resume the reviews. While he confirmed that FSA had, indeed, stopped the oversight in question, Lucas wrote, “FSA determined that a better approach is to provide substantial oversight through additional activities that measure the accuracy of servicer data and the quality of their performance.” Those activities include regular reviews of borrower satisfaction surveys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Melissa Emrey-Arras, who led the GAO study, says FSA’s “better approach” isn’t better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While reviewing those satisfaction surveys may be helpful, they don’t directly assess the quality of the information given to borrowers. A borrower may indicate they were satisfied with a call, not realizing they were given completely wrong information by their servicer,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The last FSA review found problems with loan servicer accuracy\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Scott Buchanan, the executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, which represents the servicers working on the federal student loan program, says servicers also police themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Servicers] internally are monitoring far more than any of our regulators ever could or would. Because it is in our best interest to make sure those errors are fixed. And because we have contracts, and if we have major issues that have become clearly apparent, then people will say, ‘We’ll find someone else to do it.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of 2024, before the Trump administration cut oversight, GAO’s review of servicer recordkeeping found that “four of the five servicers did not meet the accuracy performance standard and faced associated financial penalties.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, recordkeeping at two servicers was troubled enough to merit the maximum financial penalty allowed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And GAO notes that the Education Department’s independent financial auditor reported as recently as January 2026 that the department “continued to have a material weakness related to the reliability of its student loan data.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, Emrey-Arras says, scaling back oversight at FSA has also meant scaling back efforts to hold servicers financially accountable for their performance. This accountability, she says, “is critical. Without it, the government risks overpaying for poor performance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For borrowers, servicer mistakes can lead to very real problems, said Rep. Scott in a statement to NPR. “Borrowers can either overpay or be placed in the wrong student loan repayment program. [The Education Department’s] refusal to conduct oversight of student loan servicers is a dereliction of duty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Scaled-back oversight of big student loan changes\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>These cutbacks in staff and oversight come as millions of federal student loan borrowers will need help transitioning into new repayment plans. The Biden-era SAVE plan is in turmoil, with borrowers now being charged interest and the plan due to be closed by 2028 at the latest. Another 12 million borrowers are \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/02/10/nx-s1-5690186/student-loan-default-repayment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">either in default\u003c/a> on their loans or on their way there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, in July, a raft of new, potentially challenging changes to the student loan program will begin — \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">courtesy of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act\u003c/a> — including the introduction of two brand-new repayment plans and the phasing out of others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GAO warns that these changes will affect millions of borrowers who “will need accurate and complete information when they call for help,” yet, for the time being, the Education Department can’t be certain that’s what borrowers are actually getting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Student loan borrowers could be getting bad information from the companies hired to manage their loans. That is one takeaway from a new investigation by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. The GAO found the Department of Education under President Trump abandoned some oversight of those companies. NPR education correspondent Cory Turner got an early look at the report. Cory, good morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>INSKEEP: OK. When we hear that borrowers are getting bad information, what sort of bad information?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Well, we’re talking about what borrowers are being told over the phone when they call their servicer with questions. What repayment plan should I be in? How much do I owe? Am I close to forgiveness? And also whether servicers’ records themselves for each borrower are complete and accurate. So the head of this GAO study, Melissa Emrey-Arras, told me stopping this oversight poses serious risks to borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MELISSA EMREY-ARRAS: They could be placed in the wrong payment plan, billed an incorrect amount, not be given a refund when they should. These are real financial consequences for borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Now, Steve, as for the oversight that actually stopped, GAO found that the Ed Department used to do two really important things. One – department staff used to listen back to recordings of those phone calls I mentioned between student loan borrowers and call center workers to make sure they’re getting accurate information. And two – department staff would do these manual data comparisons between the department’s own borrower records and servicer records. And that’s because – I mean, I’ve talked to you many times over the years. Servicer records are notoriously messy, incomplete, maybe just wrong. And it’s worth noting, at the end of 2024, before these reviews stopped, four of the five servicers failed the data accuracy review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>INSKEEP: Wow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: In other words, this oversight didn’t stop because everything’s awesome. It stopped in spite of serious red flags.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>INSKEEP: OK. So if it’s clear that the servicers are not doing a very good job, why would the administration have stopped the oversight?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Well, there are a couple answers to that. What they say in their official response to this GAO report is those specific reviews didn’t really matter. Quote, they did “not meaningfully measure” servicer performance and will “not improve the financial health of the federal student loan portfolio.” The department also say they’re doing plenty of other oversight, which they are. But GAO says department officials told them, as part of their review, the oversight stopped because of a lack of staff capacity, which also makes sense when you consider the timeline here, Steve. The oversight stopped in February 2025. At roughly the same time, the Trump administration began downsizing the Ed Department, eventually cutting the student loan office nearly in half. In fact, today is the one-year anniversary of those huge layoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>INSKEEP: OK. So the oversight stopped ’cause they fired the people doing the oversight. How does that story fit into the broader landscape of student loans right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: I mean, look. We’re – the next six months are going to be big, right? Without staff, without oversight, you’re going to have millions of borrowers calling with questions. You got 7 million folks who are still in the Biden-era SAVE plan. It is ending, and they’re going to need to put – be put in a different plan. And we have even more borrowers who are either right now in default or they are well on their way. And then in July, Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act starts rolling out a bunch of other really big student loan changes, including introducing two new plans. So as I said, it is safe to assume many borrowers are going to be calling their servicers with questions. And without this oversight, we won’t know what kind of help they’re actually getting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>INSKEEP: Well, we can at least call on NPR education correspondent Cory Turner to give us the most reliable information possible. Cory, thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: You’re welcome, Steve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF MOLLY LEWIS’ “CRUSHED VELVET (FEAT. THEE SACRED SOULS)”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Without this Education Department oversight, borrowers could \"be placed in the wrong loan repayment status, billed for incorrect amounts\" and more, the U.S. Government Accountability Office says.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Just over a year ago, the U.S. Department of Education abandoned key oversight of the companies that run the federal student loan program, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108534\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new report\u003c/a> from the nonpartisan U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GAO investigators found that, in February 2025, the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) stopped reviewing the accuracy of loan servicers’ records. FSA also stopped reviewing recordings of calls with borrowers to make sure they’re being given accurate information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without this oversight, the report warns, borrowers could feel the consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If servicers’ records are inaccurate, borrowers could, for instance, be placed in the wrong loan repayment status, billed for incorrect amounts, or not have a refund processed in time,” the report says. “Similarly, FSA has not monitored calls since February 2025, so there is a risk that borrowers have received or will receive incorrect information and poor customer service.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The investigation was requested by the ranking members of the House and Senate education committees, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Instead of providing relief to 43 million Americans who are drowning in student debt,” Sanders said in a statement to NPR, “the Trump administration has made it harder for them to understand how much they owe and how long it will take to pay back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What the administration has to say about GAO’s findings\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Office of Federal Student Aid is supposed to conduct quarterly reviews, according to its contracts with loan servicers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These reviews include comparing loan servicers’ borrower records with FSA’s own records, to screen for gaps or discrepancies, as well as “targeted reviews” of borrowers in specific situations, including those who request temporary relief from their payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The assessments that were stopped are more labor-intensive than other types of oversight that have been automated, GAO says. According to the report, agency officials told the government watchdog they stopped these reviews in early 2025 “due to lack of FSA staff capacity.” That’s around the same time the Trump administration began dramatically reducing staffing levels at the Education Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the report, FSA began 2025 with 1,433 staffers; by December, it had 777 — a 46% reduction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a written response accompanying the report, Richard Lucas, FSA’s acting chief operating officer, disagreed with GAO’s recommendation that FSA resume the reviews. While he confirmed that FSA had, indeed, stopped the oversight in question, Lucas wrote, “FSA determined that a better approach is to provide substantial oversight through additional activities that measure the accuracy of servicer data and the quality of their performance.” Those activities include regular reviews of borrower satisfaction surveys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Melissa Emrey-Arras, who led the GAO study, says FSA’s “better approach” isn’t better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While reviewing those satisfaction surveys may be helpful, they don’t directly assess the quality of the information given to borrowers. A borrower may indicate they were satisfied with a call, not realizing they were given completely wrong information by their servicer,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The last FSA review found problems with loan servicer accuracy\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Scott Buchanan, the executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, which represents the servicers working on the federal student loan program, says servicers also police themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Servicers] internally are monitoring far more than any of our regulators ever could or would. Because it is in our best interest to make sure those errors are fixed. And because we have contracts, and if we have major issues that have become clearly apparent, then people will say, ‘We’ll find someone else to do it.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of 2024, before the Trump administration cut oversight, GAO’s review of servicer recordkeeping found that “four of the five servicers did not meet the accuracy performance standard and faced associated financial penalties.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, recordkeeping at two servicers was troubled enough to merit the maximum financial penalty allowed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And GAO notes that the Education Department’s independent financial auditor reported as recently as January 2026 that the department “continued to have a material weakness related to the reliability of its student loan data.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, Emrey-Arras says, scaling back oversight at FSA has also meant scaling back efforts to hold servicers financially accountable for their performance. This accountability, she says, “is critical. Without it, the government risks overpaying for poor performance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For borrowers, servicer mistakes can lead to very real problems, said Rep. Scott in a statement to NPR. “Borrowers can either overpay or be placed in the wrong student loan repayment program. [The Education Department’s] refusal to conduct oversight of student loan servicers is a dereliction of duty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Scaled-back oversight of big student loan changes\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>These cutbacks in staff and oversight come as millions of federal student loan borrowers will need help transitioning into new repayment plans. The Biden-era SAVE plan is in turmoil, with borrowers now being charged interest and the plan due to be closed by 2028 at the latest. Another 12 million borrowers are \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/02/10/nx-s1-5690186/student-loan-default-repayment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">either in default\u003c/a> on their loans or on their way there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, in July, a raft of new, potentially challenging changes to the student loan program will begin — \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">courtesy of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act\u003c/a> — including the introduction of two brand-new repayment plans and the phasing out of others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GAO warns that these changes will affect millions of borrowers who “will need accurate and complete information when they call for help,” yet, for the time being, the Education Department can’t be certain that’s what borrowers are actually getting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Student loan borrowers could be getting bad information from the companies hired to manage their loans. That is one takeaway from a new investigation by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. The GAO found the Department of Education under President Trump abandoned some oversight of those companies. NPR education correspondent Cory Turner got an early look at the report. Cory, good morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>INSKEEP: OK. When we hear that borrowers are getting bad information, what sort of bad information?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Well, we’re talking about what borrowers are being told over the phone when they call their servicer with questions. What repayment plan should I be in? How much do I owe? Am I close to forgiveness? And also whether servicers’ records themselves for each borrower are complete and accurate. So the head of this GAO study, Melissa Emrey-Arras, told me stopping this oversight poses serious risks to borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MELISSA EMREY-ARRAS: They could be placed in the wrong payment plan, billed an incorrect amount, not be given a refund when they should. These are real financial consequences for borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Now, Steve, as for the oversight that actually stopped, GAO found that the Ed Department used to do two really important things. One – department staff used to listen back to recordings of those phone calls I mentioned between student loan borrowers and call center workers to make sure they’re getting accurate information. And two – department staff would do these manual data comparisons between the department’s own borrower records and servicer records. And that’s because – I mean, I’ve talked to you many times over the years. Servicer records are notoriously messy, incomplete, maybe just wrong. And it’s worth noting, at the end of 2024, before these reviews stopped, four of the five servicers failed the data accuracy review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>INSKEEP: Wow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: In other words, this oversight didn’t stop because everything’s awesome. It stopped in spite of serious red flags.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>INSKEEP: OK. So if it’s clear that the servicers are not doing a very good job, why would the administration have stopped the oversight?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Well, there are a couple answers to that. What they say in their official response to this GAO report is those specific reviews didn’t really matter. Quote, they did “not meaningfully measure” servicer performance and will “not improve the financial health of the federal student loan portfolio.” The department also say they’re doing plenty of other oversight, which they are. But GAO says department officials told them, as part of their review, the oversight stopped because of a lack of staff capacity, which also makes sense when you consider the timeline here, Steve. The oversight stopped in February 2025. At roughly the same time, the Trump administration began downsizing the Ed Department, eventually cutting the student loan office nearly in half. In fact, today is the one-year anniversary of those huge layoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>INSKEEP: OK. So the oversight stopped ’cause they fired the people doing the oversight. How does that story fit into the broader landscape of student loans right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: I mean, look. We’re – the next six months are going to be big, right? Without staff, without oversight, you’re going to have millions of borrowers calling with questions. You got 7 million folks who are still in the Biden-era SAVE plan. It is ending, and they’re going to need to put – be put in a different plan. And we have even more borrowers who are either right now in default or they are well on their way. And then in July, Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act starts rolling out a bunch of other really big student loan changes, including introducing two new plans. So as I said, it is safe to assume many borrowers are going to be calling their servicers with questions. And without this oversight, we won’t know what kind of help they’re actually getting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>INSKEEP: Well, we can at least call on NPR education correspondent Cory Turner to give us the most reliable information possible. Cory, thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: You’re welcome, Steve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF MOLLY LEWIS’ “CRUSHED VELVET (FEAT. THEE SACRED SOULS)”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>A year ago, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency swept into the Department of Education and devastated its research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). Nearly 100 contracts for major statistical collections and research studies were canceled. Roughly 90 percent of IES staffers were laid off, stalling many of the agency’s core functions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IES had been one of the rare parts of the department with bipartisan support. Modeled after the National Institutes of Health, it was established in 2002 during the administration of former President George W. Bush to fund innovations and identify effective teaching practices. Lawmakers in both parties relied on its data to track student achievement and school spending, and on its evaluations of federally funded programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The now-gutted agency faces an ever more uncertain future as the Trump administration moves to eliminate the Education Department altogether. Yet some department officials, including Trump political appointees, have been working to preserve it. That effort took a small step forward with the Feb. 27 release of a report on the agency by a senior advisor to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66164\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-66164\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/proof-northern-2-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"Woman standing in front of two flags\" width=\"250\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/proof-northern-2-scaled-1.jpg 1829w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/proof-northern-2-scaled-1-160x224.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/proof-northern-2-scaled-1-768x1075.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/proof-northern-2-scaled-1-1097x1536.jpg 1097w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/proof-northern-2-scaled-1-1463x2048.jpg 1463w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amber Northern, a senior advisor to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, wrote a 95-page report of recommendations to rebuild and reform the now-gutted statistics and research agency inside the department, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Amber Northern)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The 95-page report, “\u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/ies/2026/02/reimagining-ies\">Reimagining the Institute of Education Sciences\u003c/a>,” contains dozens of recommendations to rebuild and improve its core research and statistical functions. (The Education Department hasn’t committed to implementing any of them.) The author, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-welcomes-dr-amber-northern-senior-advisor\">Amber Northern\u003c/a>, directs research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education policy think tank. Northern told me she was approached by McMahon’s team in March of 2025, immediately after the DOGE cuts, to take on the role of “looking at IES with fresh eyes and giving them some feedback.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everyone was very alarmed,” said Northern. Before accepting the job, she said, she met with McMahon to receive assurances. “I was very frank about, ‘Are you serious? Do you want this agency rebuilt? Do you understand the importance of R&D?’” Northern said in an interview in early March of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For all the reorganizing that’s going on, there is an awareness that IES is performing a unique service to the country, and we need to be thoughtful about its next steps,” Northern said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Northern said she met with 400 people last year and read through more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.regulations.gov/docket/ED-2025-IES-0844/comments\">200 public comments\u003c/a> on reforming IES, many of them from research organizations, advocacy groups and individual researchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers generally applauded the Northern report. Many of the recommendations mirrored the public comments for speeding research and statistical collections and making them more accessible and useful to schools. Indeed, many of the same ideas were also in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/26428/chapter/1\">2022 National Academy of Sciences report\u003c/a> on the future of education research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From what we can see, not one of the recommendations was a new idea to NCES,” Peggy Carr, \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-peggy-carr-interview-nces/\">former commissioner\u003c/a> of the National Center for Education Statistics, a statistical agency that is housed inside IES, told me in an email. “Many had already been implemented or we were working on when the center was dismantled. Other recommendations were met with implementation challenges, frankly hurdles, that we did not control.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Northern did not disagree. “It’s not as if I was trying to reinvent the wheel,” said Northern. “Some of these ideas are not unique or not new, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be doing them.” Northern said she didn’t track the progress that had already been made on some reforms or why others were not implemented.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Not radical change\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s notable that the Northern report did not recommend radical changes, such as bringing statistical work in-house, as opposed to its costly practice of relying on outside contractors. That could save money but would require hiring more federal employees, an unpopular idea in Congress. (Earlier in her career, Northern worked at Westat, one of the primary contractors that IES relies on to conduct research, produce statistics and administer assessments.) Nor did Northern suggest sending federal research dollars directly to the states, which the Trump administration has proposed for all federal education spending. Northern mentioned this possibility only in an appendix, noting that it would require congressional authorization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But I’m not holding my breath. I decided to live in the real world,” Northern said, explaining that she focused on changes that IES could make under existing legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Publicly, however, she and her supporters say her report represents big shifts, which will perhaps be more appealing to the Trump administration which doesn’t want to be seen as reproducing an exact replica of what DOGE dismantled. “These are not nips and tucks,” Northern wrote in her report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of Northern’s recommendations are technical changes about things like Application Programming Interfaces, or API’s, that allow software to communicate with each other. But others are strategic ideas, such as focusing federal research on a handful of topics rather than scattershot studies in a variety of areas. She does not suggest what those big topics should be. Northern wants federally funded research to be more responsive to states’ education priorities, and not to researchers’ agendas, but didn’t specify exactly how to accomplish that. And she wants states to coordinate and test similar approaches in different settings to see which students benefit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Department did not respond to my questions about which recommendations it might adopt and when. An Education Department \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-receives-recommendations-reform-institute-of-education-sciences\">press\u003c/a> statement announcing the report’s release was guarded. Acting IES director Matthew Soldner was more enthusiastic in a lengthy \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/learn/blog/reimagining-institute-education-sciences\">blog post\u003c/a>, but he’ll need a greenlight from political appointees to proceed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Northern expressed optimism that IES will be saved, but wouldn’t speculate on specifics. “None of this stuff can happen until there’s a restaffing and there’s a plan first,” said Northern. “I’m confident this is going to happen. But how quickly? All those are questions that haven’t been answered yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Mixed signals\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The public release of the Northern report was itself seen as a positive sign by research advocates. Three people familiar with the report said it took more than two months to review because of concerns inside the administration, reflecting tensions between rebuilding parts of the department and the political priority to shut it down. During the delay, a senior Education Department official, Lindsey Burke, described IES as the department’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2026/01/14/lindsey-burke-on-closing-the-department-of-education/\">gem in the crown\u003c/a>” during an online event in January hosted by the news organization Chalkbeat. (Burke, previously a Heritage Foundation fellow who wrote the education chapter of \u003ca href=\"https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf\">Project 2025\u003c/a>, said in that blueprint for the Trump administration that IES’s statistical role should be preserved but potentially split between the Census Bureau and the Department of Labor, with education research going to the National Science Foundation.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other signals from the administration point in many different directions. President Trump’s 2026 budget proposed cutting IES’s roughly $800 million budget by two-thirds. Then, the administration ordered the largest expansion of a higher-education data collection in history: a new \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-new-college-admissions-data-collection/\">college admissions survey\u003c/a> to enforce the ban on affirmative action. “They’re relying on IES in a lot of ways,” said Diane Cheng, vice president of policy at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a nonprofit organization that advocates for increasing college access and improving graduation rates. “They seem to recognize that the data are essential for the field and for their priorities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress ultimately rejected the proposed cuts and largely maintained IES funding. However, the Education Department still hasn’t spent the funds that Congress appropriated to IES in fiscal 2025. A Democratic congressional aide said there is “a lot” of unspent money at IES and that the department has not shared a plan for spending it.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Congress begins a push\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Congress is pushing to rebuild. A committee report accompanying the 2026 appropriations bill directs the Education Department to rehire staff at IES. Even so, staffing remains far below the previous level of roughly 200 employees and now stands at 31, according to researchers. The headcount had dropped to as low as 23 after the mass firings but began rising again in the fall, largely to administer the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card. Northern’s report does not address the canceled projects or the staffing shortages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least one influential observer believes last year’s destruction is creating an opportunity for real reform at IES. Mark Schneider, IES director from 2018 to 2024, said it has been difficult in the past to pursue incremental reforms like those proposed in the Northern report because of bureaucratic resistance. Still, Schneider knows that any rebuilding will be a political challenge. “It’s going to require a lot of pressure,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the debate continues, the patient may be slipping away. In a \u003ca href=\"https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/future-ies\">blog post\u003c/a> last week, Chester E. Finn, Jr., a former Education Department official in the 1980s and president emeritus at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, warned the loss of veteran statisticians is already degrading education data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without that expertise, we may never get an accurate picture of what is going on in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jill-barshay/\">\u003cem>Jill Barshay\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or \u003c/em>\u003cem>barshay@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-ies-northern-report/\">\u003cem>IES\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 focused on inequality and innovation in 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>A year ago, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency swept into the Department of Education and devastated its research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). Nearly 100 contracts for major statistical collections and research studies were canceled. Roughly 90 percent of IES staffers were laid off, stalling many of the agency’s core functions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IES had been one of the rare parts of the department with bipartisan support. Modeled after the National Institutes of Health, it was established in 2002 during the administration of former President George W. Bush to fund innovations and identify effective teaching practices. Lawmakers in both parties relied on its data to track student achievement and school spending, and on its evaluations of federally funded programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The now-gutted agency faces an ever more uncertain future as the Trump administration moves to eliminate the Education Department altogether. Yet some department officials, including Trump political appointees, have been working to preserve it. That effort took a small step forward with the Feb. 27 release of a report on the agency by a senior advisor to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66164\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-66164\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/proof-northern-2-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"Woman standing in front of two flags\" width=\"250\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/proof-northern-2-scaled-1.jpg 1829w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/proof-northern-2-scaled-1-160x224.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/proof-northern-2-scaled-1-768x1075.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/proof-northern-2-scaled-1-1097x1536.jpg 1097w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/proof-northern-2-scaled-1-1463x2048.jpg 1463w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amber Northern, a senior advisor to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, wrote a 95-page report of recommendations to rebuild and reform the now-gutted statistics and research agency inside the department, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Amber Northern)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The 95-page report, “\u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/ies/2026/02/reimagining-ies\">Reimagining the Institute of Education Sciences\u003c/a>,” contains dozens of recommendations to rebuild and improve its core research and statistical functions. (The Education Department hasn’t committed to implementing any of them.) The author, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-welcomes-dr-amber-northern-senior-advisor\">Amber Northern\u003c/a>, directs research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education policy think tank. Northern told me she was approached by McMahon’s team in March of 2025, immediately after the DOGE cuts, to take on the role of “looking at IES with fresh eyes and giving them some feedback.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everyone was very alarmed,” said Northern. Before accepting the job, she said, she met with McMahon to receive assurances. “I was very frank about, ‘Are you serious? Do you want this agency rebuilt? Do you understand the importance of R&D?’” Northern said in an interview in early March of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For all the reorganizing that’s going on, there is an awareness that IES is performing a unique service to the country, and we need to be thoughtful about its next steps,” Northern said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Northern said she met with 400 people last year and read through more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.regulations.gov/docket/ED-2025-IES-0844/comments\">200 public comments\u003c/a> on reforming IES, many of them from research organizations, advocacy groups and individual researchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers generally applauded the Northern report. Many of the recommendations mirrored the public comments for speeding research and statistical collections and making them more accessible and useful to schools. Indeed, many of the same ideas were also in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/26428/chapter/1\">2022 National Academy of Sciences report\u003c/a> on the future of education research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From what we can see, not one of the recommendations was a new idea to NCES,” Peggy Carr, \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-peggy-carr-interview-nces/\">former commissioner\u003c/a> of the National Center for Education Statistics, a statistical agency that is housed inside IES, told me in an email. “Many had already been implemented or we were working on when the center was dismantled. Other recommendations were met with implementation challenges, frankly hurdles, that we did not control.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Northern did not disagree. “It’s not as if I was trying to reinvent the wheel,” said Northern. “Some of these ideas are not unique or not new, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be doing them.” Northern said she didn’t track the progress that had already been made on some reforms or why others were not implemented.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Not radical change\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s notable that the Northern report did not recommend radical changes, such as bringing statistical work in-house, as opposed to its costly practice of relying on outside contractors. That could save money but would require hiring more federal employees, an unpopular idea in Congress. (Earlier in her career, Northern worked at Westat, one of the primary contractors that IES relies on to conduct research, produce statistics and administer assessments.) Nor did Northern suggest sending federal research dollars directly to the states, which the Trump administration has proposed for all federal education spending. Northern mentioned this possibility only in an appendix, noting that it would require congressional authorization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But I’m not holding my breath. I decided to live in the real world,” Northern said, explaining that she focused on changes that IES could make under existing legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Publicly, however, she and her supporters say her report represents big shifts, which will perhaps be more appealing to the Trump administration which doesn’t want to be seen as reproducing an exact replica of what DOGE dismantled. “These are not nips and tucks,” Northern wrote in her report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of Northern’s recommendations are technical changes about things like Application Programming Interfaces, or API’s, that allow software to communicate with each other. But others are strategic ideas, such as focusing federal research on a handful of topics rather than scattershot studies in a variety of areas. She does not suggest what those big topics should be. Northern wants federally funded research to be more responsive to states’ education priorities, and not to researchers’ agendas, but didn’t specify exactly how to accomplish that. And she wants states to coordinate and test similar approaches in different settings to see which students benefit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Department did not respond to my questions about which recommendations it might adopt and when. An Education Department \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-receives-recommendations-reform-institute-of-education-sciences\">press\u003c/a> statement announcing the report’s release was guarded. Acting IES director Matthew Soldner was more enthusiastic in a lengthy \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/learn/blog/reimagining-institute-education-sciences\">blog post\u003c/a>, but he’ll need a greenlight from political appointees to proceed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Northern expressed optimism that IES will be saved, but wouldn’t speculate on specifics. “None of this stuff can happen until there’s a restaffing and there’s a plan first,” said Northern. “I’m confident this is going to happen. But how quickly? All those are questions that haven’t been answered yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Mixed signals\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The public release of the Northern report was itself seen as a positive sign by research advocates. Three people familiar with the report said it took more than two months to review because of concerns inside the administration, reflecting tensions between rebuilding parts of the department and the political priority to shut it down. During the delay, a senior Education Department official, Lindsey Burke, described IES as the department’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2026/01/14/lindsey-burke-on-closing-the-department-of-education/\">gem in the crown\u003c/a>” during an online event in January hosted by the news organization Chalkbeat. (Burke, previously a Heritage Foundation fellow who wrote the education chapter of \u003ca href=\"https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf\">Project 2025\u003c/a>, said in that blueprint for the Trump administration that IES’s statistical role should be preserved but potentially split between the Census Bureau and the Department of Labor, with education research going to the National Science Foundation.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other signals from the administration point in many different directions. President Trump’s 2026 budget proposed cutting IES’s roughly $800 million budget by two-thirds. Then, the administration ordered the largest expansion of a higher-education data collection in history: a new \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-new-college-admissions-data-collection/\">college admissions survey\u003c/a> to enforce the ban on affirmative action. “They’re relying on IES in a lot of ways,” said Diane Cheng, vice president of policy at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a nonprofit organization that advocates for increasing college access and improving graduation rates. “They seem to recognize that the data are essential for the field and for their priorities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress ultimately rejected the proposed cuts and largely maintained IES funding. However, the Education Department still hasn’t spent the funds that Congress appropriated to IES in fiscal 2025. A Democratic congressional aide said there is “a lot” of unspent money at IES and that the department has not shared a plan for spending it.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Congress begins a push\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Congress is pushing to rebuild. A committee report accompanying the 2026 appropriations bill directs the Education Department to rehire staff at IES. Even so, staffing remains far below the previous level of roughly 200 employees and now stands at 31, according to researchers. The headcount had dropped to as low as 23 after the mass firings but began rising again in the fall, largely to administer the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card. Northern’s report does not address the canceled projects or the staffing shortages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least one influential observer believes last year’s destruction is creating an opportunity for real reform at IES. Mark Schneider, IES director from 2018 to 2024, said it has been difficult in the past to pursue incremental reforms like those proposed in the Northern report because of bureaucratic resistance. Still, Schneider knows that any rebuilding will be a political challenge. “It’s going to require a lot of pressure,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the debate continues, the patient may be slipping away. In a \u003ca href=\"https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/future-ies\">blog post\u003c/a> last week, Chester E. Finn, Jr., a former Education Department official in the 1980s and president emeritus at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, warned the loss of veteran statisticians is already degrading education data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without that expertise, we may never get an accurate picture of what is going on in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jill-barshay/\">\u003cem>Jill Barshay\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or \u003c/em>\u003cem>barshay@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\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-ies-northern-report/\">\u003cem>IES\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 focused on inequality and innovation in 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>For two decades, New York City’s small high schools stood out as one of the nation’s most ambitious — and controversial — urban education reforms. Now, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.mdrc.org/work/publications/enduring-success\">long-term study\u003c/a> provides a clearer picture of their successes and disappointments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the early 2000s, under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city closed dozens of large high schools with high dropout rates in low-income neighborhoods and, with \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/once-sold-as-the-solution-small-high-schools-are-now-on-the-back-burner/\">$150 million\u003c/a> from the Gates Foundation, replaced them with smaller ones, often located in the same buildings. Admission to more than 120 of the most popular new small schools was determined by lottery, creating the kind of random assignment researchers prize. (That represented the vast majority of the city’s 140 new small schools.) MDRC, a nonprofit research organization, followed four cohorts of students from the classes of 2009 through 2012 for six years after high school. (Disclosure: The \u003ca href=\"https://www.mdrc.org/work/publications/enduring-success\">MDRC analysis\u003c/a> was funded by the Gates and Spencer foundations, which are among the many funders of The Hechinger Report.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The early gains were substantial. Two-thirds of students entered high school below grade level in reading or math. Yet 76 percent of students admitted to small schools graduated, compared with 68 percent of those who lost the lottery — an 8 percentage point increase. Because more students finished in four years, the schools were cheaper on a per-graduate basis, MDRC found, even though they cost more per student and required more administrators overall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>College enrollment rose sharply as well. Fifty-three percent of small-school students enrolled in postsecondary education after high school, compared with 43 percent of the comparison group — a nearly 10 percentage point difference. Most attended a college within the City University of New York system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Small schools enrolled roughly 100 students per grade, creating tighter communities where teachers and students were more likely to know one another. Rebecca Unterman, the MDRC researcher who led the study, said the relationships formed in these environments may help explain the graduation and college-going gains. Many schools also built advisory systems in which teachers met regularly with the same students to guide them through academic and emotional challenges and the college process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The longer-term picture is more sobering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although more students enrolled in both four- and two-year colleges, small school alumni did not complete community college in greater numbers than the comparison group. After six years, about 10 percent of students had earned an associate degree, roughly the same share as students who did not attend the small schools. Researchers also found no differences in employment or earnings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was one notable exception. Students who enrolled in four-year colleges were more likely to complete a bachelor’s degree if they had attended a small high school. Almost 15 percent of the small-school students earned a four-year degree within six years, compared with 12 percent of their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joel Klein was the New York City schools chancellor from 2002 to 2011 during the overhaul. Klein said the data shows that the small school effort was worthwhile. He considers it one of his most important accomplishments, along with the expansion of charter schools. Closing large high schools and replacing them with new ones required significant political will, he said, when it sparked resistance from the teachers union. Teachers weren’t guaranteed jobs in the new smaller schools and had to apply again or find another school to hire them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York wasn’t the only city to try small schools. Baltimore and Oakland, California, among others, also used Gates Foundation money to experiment with the concept. The \u003ca href=\"https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/documents/year4evaluationairsri.pdf\">results\u003c/a> were not encouraging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Klein argues other cities failed to replicate New York’s success because they simply divided large schools into smaller units without building new cultures. In New York, aspiring principals submitted detailed proposals, just like charter schools, and schools opened gradually, adding one grade at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were unintended consequences in New York too. During the transition years between the closure of the old school and the slow ramp-up of the new small schools, seats were limited. Enrollments in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.centernyc.org/collateral-damage/\">remaining large schools\u003c/a> in the city rose. While some students enjoyed the intimacy of the new small schools, many more students suffered overcrowding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether because of political resistance, replication challenges or shifting philanthropic priorities, the small-school movement eventually sputtered out. By the 2010s, would-be reformers had shifted their attention toward evaluating teacher effectiveness and school turnaround strategies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, with enrollment declining in many districts, school consolidation, not expansion, dominates the conversation. MDRC’s Unterman said some districts are now exploring whether elements of the small school model — advisory systems or “schools within schools” — can be recreated inside larger campuses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By all accounts, New York City’s small schools were a vast improvement over the foundering schools they replaced. A majority remain in operation, a testament to their staying power. However, the evidence they leave behind also underscores a hard truth. Improving high school can move important milestones, like getting more students to go to college. Altering students’ economic trajectories may require more radical change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about small high schools 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 focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Jill Barshay’s \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>For two decades, New York City’s small high schools stood out as one of the nation’s most ambitious — and controversial — urban education reforms. Now, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.mdrc.org/work/publications/enduring-success\">long-term study\u003c/a> provides a clearer picture of their successes and disappointments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the early 2000s, under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city closed dozens of large high schools with high dropout rates in low-income neighborhoods and, with \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/once-sold-as-the-solution-small-high-schools-are-now-on-the-back-burner/\">$150 million\u003c/a> from the Gates Foundation, replaced them with smaller ones, often located in the same buildings. Admission to more than 120 of the most popular new small schools was determined by lottery, creating the kind of random assignment researchers prize. (That represented the vast majority of the city’s 140 new small schools.) MDRC, a nonprofit research organization, followed four cohorts of students from the classes of 2009 through 2012 for six years after high school. (Disclosure: The \u003ca href=\"https://www.mdrc.org/work/publications/enduring-success\">MDRC analysis\u003c/a> was funded by the Gates and Spencer foundations, which are among the many funders of The Hechinger Report.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The early gains were substantial. Two-thirds of students entered high school below grade level in reading or math. Yet 76 percent of students admitted to small schools graduated, compared with 68 percent of those who lost the lottery — an 8 percentage point increase. Because more students finished in four years, the schools were cheaper on a per-graduate basis, MDRC found, even though they cost more per student and required more administrators overall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>College enrollment rose sharply as well. Fifty-three percent of small-school students enrolled in postsecondary education after high school, compared with 43 percent of the comparison group — a nearly 10 percentage point difference. Most attended a college within the City University of New York system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Small schools enrolled roughly 100 students per grade, creating tighter communities where teachers and students were more likely to know one another. Rebecca Unterman, the MDRC researcher who led the study, said the relationships formed in these environments may help explain the graduation and college-going gains. Many schools also built advisory systems in which teachers met regularly with the same students to guide them through academic and emotional challenges and the college process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The longer-term picture is more sobering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although more students enrolled in both four- and two-year colleges, small school alumni did not complete community college in greater numbers than the comparison group. After six years, about 10 percent of students had earned an associate degree, roughly the same share as students who did not attend the small schools. Researchers also found no differences in employment or earnings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was one notable exception. Students who enrolled in four-year colleges were more likely to complete a bachelor’s degree if they had attended a small high school. Almost 15 percent of the small-school students earned a four-year degree within six years, compared with 12 percent of their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joel Klein was the New York City schools chancellor from 2002 to 2011 during the overhaul. Klein said the data shows that the small school effort was worthwhile. He considers it one of his most important accomplishments, along with the expansion of charter schools. Closing large high schools and replacing them with new ones required significant political will, he said, when it sparked resistance from the teachers union. Teachers weren’t guaranteed jobs in the new smaller schools and had to apply again or find another school to hire them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York wasn’t the only city to try small schools. Baltimore and Oakland, California, among others, also used Gates Foundation money to experiment with the concept. The \u003ca href=\"https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/documents/year4evaluationairsri.pdf\">results\u003c/a> were not encouraging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Klein argues other cities failed to replicate New York’s success because they simply divided large schools into smaller units without building new cultures. In New York, aspiring principals submitted detailed proposals, just like charter schools, and schools opened gradually, adding one grade at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were unintended consequences in New York too. During the transition years between the closure of the old school and the slow ramp-up of the new small schools, seats were limited. Enrollments in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.centernyc.org/collateral-damage/\">remaining large schools\u003c/a> in the city rose. While some students enjoyed the intimacy of the new small schools, many more students suffered overcrowding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether because of political resistance, replication challenges or shifting philanthropic priorities, the small-school movement eventually sputtered out. By the 2010s, would-be reformers had shifted their attention toward evaluating teacher effectiveness and school turnaround strategies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, with enrollment declining in many districts, school consolidation, not expansion, dominates the conversation. MDRC’s Unterman said some districts are now exploring whether elements of the small school model — advisory systems or “schools within schools” — can be recreated inside larger campuses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By all accounts, New York City’s small schools were a vast improvement over the foundering schools they replaced. A majority remain in operation, a testament to their staying power. However, the evidence they leave behind also underscores a hard truth. Improving high school can move important milestones, like getting more students to go to college. Altering students’ economic trajectories may require more radical change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about small high schools 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 focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Jill Barshay’s \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": "how-school-boards-can-bring-differing-views-together",
"title": "How School Boards Can Bring Differing Views Together",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, public interest in school boards has dropped, and what we do hear about usually has to do with a meeting gone rogue. And voter turnout for school board elections remains really low at an average of about 10 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scott R. Levy, a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, argues that this is an issue worth paying attention to because restoring power to school boards would hold the answer to public education reform and create true positive change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levy spent the first 20 years of his professional career as an investment banker, but he left his job on Wall Street after volunteering at his kids’ public school. That’s where he fell in love with the world of school governance. In 2015 he won his first elected seat on a school board, a seat that he held for the next 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this episode we discuss his new book, “\u003ca href=\"https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262552721/why-school-boards-matter/\">Why School Boards Matter: Reclaiming The Heart of American Education and Democracy.\u003c/a>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\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=KQINC5042213997\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> So just to get us launched into the topic, can you give me a brief and basic explanation of the configuration and function of a school board?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy:\u003c/strong> Sure. So think of the board as a governance body. The board is not supposed to be running the schools day to day. Anytime you see a board member as a person running the school day to day, that’s a problem. They’re there to oversee budget allocation and to think about policy and think about strategic priorities and to ultimately choose a superintendent and then manage the superintendent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think it’s safe to say that there are very few people that are doing school board service for the money because it really is a labor of love. Board members come from all walks of life. There’s really no requirements per se, other than you have to be 18 years old in most places. You have to be a citizen and be able to vote and you have to certainly have residency in that community. So there are some restrictions, but otherwise it’s open to anyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You don’t need to have a student in the public schools. It could be that their kids attend private school. There aren’t rules around that. And so it’s really meant to be little “d” democracy. It’s whoever the public believes should be in that seat. In a school board, you really don’t have power over who’s serving with you. It’s decided by the public as it should be through the voting process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>You state in the introduction of your book that school boards are the vital organ for education decision making. Why do you think that there seems to be this broad lack of awareness or misunderstanding about how a school board might serve the public?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy: \u003c/strong>Well, I’ll tell you a story about when I first won my local election and became a school board member. I was walking down the street in my town and I got stopped by somebody that I knew. And they came up to me and they said, “Oh, congratulations, Scott. I heard you won the school board race. And that’s great because I’m going to be watching you on the web because, you know, the meetings are streamed so that any citizen can watch the meetings.” And I was really excited. I’m like, “wow, somebody actually watches these meetings.” And then he went on to say, yeah, yeah. I’ve been having trouble falling asleep. And so it’s super helpful to watch these meetings, because they’re really boring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And many board meetings are somewhat routine. And that may be why there’s not a lot of attention on it. You’re going through budget line items, and it’s very technical. But I think, certainly, things changed in 2020 when COVID hit. And there were a lot of extremely important decisions that had to be made, and they had to be made very quickly. And they were decisions that there was a lot of attention over. And so the spotlight started to shine on school board rooms where a lot of these debates were happening. And then ever since 2020, there have been this constant stream of issues that have been adjudicated in boardrooms that have gotten a lot of attention.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I think now people have more awareness, but having said that, people are, I think, generally focused on the clips that we may see on social media that sometimes have millions of hits where there’s arguments and they’re talking about really contentious cultural issues that divide us. But at the end of the day, if you walk into most school board meetings, whether it’s policy, budget. High level curriculum decisions, you’re focusing on various programs and initiatives. That’s what most of the discussion will be about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> That’s the gist that I get. I’ve seen those viral moments online, but when I have clicked into a live stream of a school board meeting, it is probably what most might say is a mundane meeting of a couple folks in the room trying to make decisions. Maybe a couple people show up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s only recent, and when I say recent, recent in American history that school boards have lost some of their power, sometimes due to school reform policy. Can you explain some of that historical significance of this loss of power and where the power that school boards used to hold has now been delegated to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. It’s so interesting when you look back to early American history, school boards existed and they did absolutely everything. The states would ultimately have power to be responsible for public education, but they delegated authority to school boards to not only govern the schools, but even do the administration work because back in early days there was not even a superintendency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now in the days that we’ve seen of the 21st century, to your point, there’s been an incredible shift of power to states, mostly, and to some extent, the federal government. And there’s some really good and legitimate reasons for this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Think about Brown versus Board of Education, where from a civil rights perspective, the federal judiciary decided to step in and make things right because it wasn’t happening correctly at the local level and there was inequity. Think about the way schools are funded, which historically was property taxes, where in many states there were communities that just simply could not fund the public schools to any sort of a basic level. So in many respects, there were a series of lawsuits that came about that really, you know, demanded that the state step in and be that equilibrating mechanism to fund schools to a level where students are getting a very appropriate public education, regardless of where they live. And so there are a lot of good reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there are also probably some more sinister reasons. Education is a very large component of our economy. People care deeply about education. It affects a lot of families. And so certainly governors, legislators at the state level and at the federal level, look at that and say, ooh, maybe I should also be charged with having a role in education. So a lot the power has shifted to state and federal players. So I think we all need to step back and think about the fact of whether or not we agree with the particular approach any state is taking. Is that the right mechanism to have all that happen at the state level?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>I also just wanted to ask you very quickly about the power that school boards hold after the dismantling of the Department of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy: \u003c/strong>I think there’s been a general sense that when certainly the current administration, the Trump administration, they were campaigning, they’re campaigning on pushing a lot of power back to states and localities, which in many respects would be commensurate with my thesis of how local districts should have a degree of autonomy. And boards are really important and can do a lot of good in trying to steer American education in a positive direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I think what we’ve certainly seen over the last bunch of months is a continuation of the fact that the federal government is quite involved. So regardless of what we hear about the Department of Education shrinking or potentially being abolished, we’ve seen examples of where the federal government has certainly exerted power in places that they see something they don’t like. And I think that’s what we’ve seen in many administrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> I wanted to ask about education reform policy and some of the tensions that we see between these big reforms that might happen, one that just always sticks in my mind as common core. What would you say to someone, and I’m talking about voters, who believe that reform policy is the way forward and have kind of lost faith in the school board as an institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy: \u003c/strong>The first thing I would say is that school boards are far from perfect. And there are many boards that certainly make decisions that many of us may look at and say are flawed. And I think there’s no perfect system to govern schools. Having said all that, I think in my mind, school boards are the place where governance can happen in a way that involves the community. And also provides a deep understanding of the district itself, because school boards are part of the districts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the day, districts are very different in this country and they don’t have the same problems. You may have a district that has enrollment that’s dramatically increasing. You may have a district next door that has declining enrollment. That means incredibly different things in terms of how to manage a budget, how to manage operations, how to manage personnel. You could have a district in the same county that is in the 99th percentile in academic outcomes but has a stress and anxiety issue in their high school. And then the district next door might be below proficiency in math and reading. And you need to think about solutions that are very different in those two schools. And it’s extremely hard, I think, to come up with good one-size-fits-all policies that are gonna solve all our problems. And if you do, inevitably, you’re going to hit a roadblock.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the local communities aren’t vested in these programs, in these policies, and we see time and time again, Common Core being an example where it backfires. Because I think it’s so important to have people on the ground that are going to be affected be part of the process to come up with, ultimately, the solutions. And so that’s why I keep coming back to the fact that with all of its flaws, school boards are places that I think we should invest in. So if we started to focus our reform attention there, I actually think we could do a lot of good. And the funny thing is that reformers have looked at every place in the universe except for school boards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>You brought up something that kind of reminded me of a huge issue that I hear from, and I think a lot of people have heard from educators when it comes to education reform policy is that the experts who are the teachers in the classroom are not being consulted for these massive changes, or they are not been consulted in the ways that, you know, I think most of them would feel is appropriate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Can you talk a little bit about the partnership that teachers and educators might have with school boards on the granular level where teachers don’t have to remain in this frustrated state of not seeing any change or not seeing any trust in their expertise or professionalism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy:\u003c/strong> Yes. And I will start by saying that my mom was a kindergarten teacher in public school for over 30 years and I talked to her a lot about what her experience was like when I first became a school board member and ever since then I’ve looked at a lot of the research on teacher attrition and teacher satisfaction which should trouble all of us because the numbers are as we know not what they should be for a profession that’s so noble and and so important. And I think that one of the things that always comes out of studies that are done is the lack of autonomy that teachers feel, to your point, that their expertise isn’t valued, that they don’t have a say over what they’re doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And one of things that I talk about in my book is initiative fatigue. And it’s something that I always knew about because corporations have initiative fatigue, but when I got to education and my mom told me about this, I realized it was at a different level. And by the time you get to a classroom, if you think about all of the people that throw initiatives at schools, you have federal initiatives, you have state legislative initiatives, you have governors that come in with initiatives, every state has of course a regulatory body, a state school board in New York State and California, we have the regions, and they have initiatives. Then you have board members and the board as a whole that have initiatives, you have administrators at the centralized level, and then of course you have building administrators. And so that’s true. It’s very suffocating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so one of the things I talk about is how, again, if we try to be mindful of getting a better balance between state, federal, and local control, where the local governance entity does have more say over initiative flow, and then you had boards that were thoughtful about having a reasonable number of initiatives at any one time, I think naturally what’s gonna happen is that teachers have a better voice. Because a good board knows that board members are not professional educators and boards have to listen to administrators and teachers in their district. When decisions are made up above, it’s incredibly hard. You might have a committee of a teacher from here and a teacher from there, but we know that it’s not a grassroots effort when a decision’s made at a state or even a national level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Can you explain what it takes to establish and maintain that relationship between local teachers and the school board? What does that look like?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy: \u003c/strong>With teachers in particular, if you think about it, boards often have committees, and committees might have representation of teachers and of administrators from different buildings. That’s one way that there could be a really good dialog. There’s often groups like, for instance, the PTA, where you’ll have teachers, and you’ll have parents together, and board members can be a liaison to that group or present, and update on what’s going on at the district level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many districts, there’s a tradition of board members visiting schools once a year. So you get to maybe go into a classroom and see what’s going on. You would never do that every day, but to do that, to get a sense and a flavor for what’s happening in classrooms, that’s an amazing way to do it as well. Some districts have maybe the board president address teachers once a year. And that’s a really interesting and helpful way, I think also to build a relationship. So there are many ways and it’s important. It’s super important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>So we just talked about partnership between educators and school boards, and you do say in your book that school boards are a mechanism for parent influence. Can you explain that mechanism, what that might look like coming from a parent who has maybe never voted in a local election, seeing an issue with their school and then becoming involved? What does that pathway look like?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy:\u003c/strong> So one of the things that I did, which I think was the most fun when I was researching for the book was I went back into the archives and I did ask the question, it seems like there are so many scenes around the country of very angry parents really yelling and screaming at school boards, has it always been this way or is this something new? And there’s no doubt what I found when you look back is that there have always been points in history where you’ve seen parent anger come out. And I think there’s a very natural question that underlies all of these battles, which is where is the line between parent rights and government control? And I do think that sometimes we’re very quick to either dismiss or to re-emphasize some parent point that is being espoused. But all of us, if we sat in the room and we polled 10 of us, let’s say, and we said, okay, where is that line? We might delineate that line at a slightly different point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So if you go back to the early 1900s, and I do this in my book, and it’s quite extraordinary, you could see the same exact language being used by parents at school board meetings saying, you can’t vaccinate my kids. If you vaccinate, my kids, you’re violating my rights and their rights, and you’re evaluating my constitutional rights. And they were doing that over the smallpox vaccine. And during COVID, we saw the same thing around the COVID vaccine. And that’s just one example. And so throughout American history, we’ve had this tension. So I think it’s very natural.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think the other bit of tension is indoctrination versus education. Where is that line? And so I think we just have to have a little bit of grace in a way. And I think, the best we could do is say that sometimes people are going to be disagreeing on these subjects. And how do we want to resolve them? I think there’s no better way than with full transparency. In your local community. I think the other piece of your question, though, is if I’m a parent and I’m angry about something, what do I do? Start out, if it’s an issue in a classroom, with the teacher. Go to the teacher, have a conversation, and if that doesn’t work and you’re not satisfied, of course you have the right to talk to the principal or talk to the assistant principal. And if you’re still very unsatisfied, then you can bring it up, but you really don’t want to jump to the school board over the backs of many teachers, administrators that then will not have a chance to solve that problem with you first. If it’s an issue about, let’s say policy or budget allocation that clearly falls in the realm of the board, then of course, um, you have every right to go to the board, but you can also call a board member. If you see a board member at a soccer match or in church, you can certainly have discussions about things that are on your mind and air them, and then of course you have that right to be part of the public comment period too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the other thing that I would also add which is I think something that you always have to think about when you’re a school board member is If somebody comes to public comment and they express concern about a particular issue You always want to listen. It’s incredibly important to listen and to decide, um, you know whether you understand that viewpoint whether you agree with that viewpoint or not, but you don’t know for sure whether or not that viewpoint is 1% of your community or whether it represents 65% of your community. And I just believe that you have to be in touch with your community in lots of different ways and just have lots of data points so that you do get a sense of what the sentiment is like out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Also, speaking of parent influence, we’ve seen a lot of what I think would have been referred to as fringe movements of charter schools and homeschooling. We’re seeing that become a lot more mainstream, not just to talk about, but to practice. And obviously, the system of charter schools is becoming heavily influenced by school systems and there is a relationship between school boards. Charter schools, and also homeschooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So can you kind of explain some of the influence or partnership that school boards have on those types of systems, and what people and voters can pay attention to when it comes to those educational practices?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy:\u003c/strong> Particularly with charter schools, the rules are different depending on what state you’re in. And sometimes school boards have a very influential role in whether or not a charter school can exist. And in other cases, the school board may have absolutely no power and no say. And really what happens is the charter decision is made more centrally at the state level by maybe the state board or one of the state entities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I also think that there are a lot of interesting implications when you think about this long term. And I’ll give you one case study that happened in New York that I think could be an interesting microcosm of the situation that can happen in other parts of the country if you fast forward 10, 20 years from now and school choice and vouchers become more commonplace. And it’s actually a district that I attended when I was a kid and now is governed by board, the majority of whom send their kids to private school and it’s created an incredibly complex situation where there is a tremendous rift and rift is an understatement between the public school community and the private school community around the way the public district is being managed. On the one hand these are people that pay taxes and they have every right to, you know, run for school board and they’re winning the elections fair and square. On the other hand, you have individuals that are making decisions about a public school system, where many in the public school community argue are not in the best interest of public school students. And so there’s just incredible amounts of tension. And so you can see this being something that could happen in many communities down the road, if we have many, many more students that are not in the public system, and you might have the preponderance of voters that are in the not public system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>I wanted to end on something that maybe is a little bit uplifting and positive and what you hope to see. Who should care about school boards or how should they care?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy:\u003c/strong> So to end on a positive note, I think that one thing that I would think that all listeners may agree with is that when we look at our national politics, regardless of what side you’re on, I think it is clear that we have more polarization than we’ve ever had in recent history. And I do believe that when we look at local school districts, the reason that everybody should care is because they are a mechanism to potentially reduce polarization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the one hand, I know we see these scenes of people fighting in boardrooms here, like, how could they reduce polarization? It looks like boardrooms are incredibly polarized. But I would contend that they are the one place where people that have differences of opinion actually come together in person. And because everything is transparent and because local community members have a voice at the microphone, people can actually express their view. And if that view is diametrically different, others have to listen. And there is something incredibly American about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I think that there’s this healing process in the fact that we can unify around what happens in a school board room, which is that people of all walks of life that have very different political beliefs can come express their view and have to be listened to. And maybe, just maybe we can realize that sometimes people with very opposing views from a policy perspective might be both coming from a good place, it’s just different places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> This does seem like a giant lesson in civics. I really appreciate your time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy: \u003c/strong>Oh, it’s my pleasure being with you.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, public interest in school boards has dropped, and what we do hear about usually has to do with a meeting gone rogue. And voter turnout for school board elections remains really low at an average of about 10 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scott R. Levy, a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, argues that this is an issue worth paying attention to because restoring power to school boards would hold the answer to public education reform and create true positive change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levy spent the first 20 years of his professional career as an investment banker, but he left his job on Wall Street after volunteering at his kids’ public school. That’s where he fell in love with the world of school governance. In 2015 he won his first elected seat on a school board, a seat that he held for the next 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this episode we discuss his new book, “\u003ca href=\"https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262552721/why-school-boards-matter/\">Why School Boards Matter: Reclaiming The Heart of American Education and Democracy.\u003c/a>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\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=KQINC5042213997\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> So just to get us launched into the topic, can you give me a brief and basic explanation of the configuration and function of a school board?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy:\u003c/strong> Sure. So think of the board as a governance body. The board is not supposed to be running the schools day to day. Anytime you see a board member as a person running the school day to day, that’s a problem. They’re there to oversee budget allocation and to think about policy and think about strategic priorities and to ultimately choose a superintendent and then manage the superintendent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think it’s safe to say that there are very few people that are doing school board service for the money because it really is a labor of love. Board members come from all walks of life. There’s really no requirements per se, other than you have to be 18 years old in most places. You have to be a citizen and be able to vote and you have to certainly have residency in that community. So there are some restrictions, but otherwise it’s open to anyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You don’t need to have a student in the public schools. It could be that their kids attend private school. There aren’t rules around that. And so it’s really meant to be little “d” democracy. It’s whoever the public believes should be in that seat. In a school board, you really don’t have power over who’s serving with you. It’s decided by the public as it should be through the voting process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>You state in the introduction of your book that school boards are the vital organ for education decision making. Why do you think that there seems to be this broad lack of awareness or misunderstanding about how a school board might serve the public?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy: \u003c/strong>Well, I’ll tell you a story about when I first won my local election and became a school board member. I was walking down the street in my town and I got stopped by somebody that I knew. And they came up to me and they said, “Oh, congratulations, Scott. I heard you won the school board race. And that’s great because I’m going to be watching you on the web because, you know, the meetings are streamed so that any citizen can watch the meetings.” And I was really excited. I’m like, “wow, somebody actually watches these meetings.” And then he went on to say, yeah, yeah. I’ve been having trouble falling asleep. And so it’s super helpful to watch these meetings, because they’re really boring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And many board meetings are somewhat routine. And that may be why there’s not a lot of attention on it. You’re going through budget line items, and it’s very technical. But I think, certainly, things changed in 2020 when COVID hit. And there were a lot of extremely important decisions that had to be made, and they had to be made very quickly. And they were decisions that there was a lot of attention over. And so the spotlight started to shine on school board rooms where a lot of these debates were happening. And then ever since 2020, there have been this constant stream of issues that have been adjudicated in boardrooms that have gotten a lot of attention.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I think now people have more awareness, but having said that, people are, I think, generally focused on the clips that we may see on social media that sometimes have millions of hits where there’s arguments and they’re talking about really contentious cultural issues that divide us. But at the end of the day, if you walk into most school board meetings, whether it’s policy, budget. High level curriculum decisions, you’re focusing on various programs and initiatives. That’s what most of the discussion will be about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> That’s the gist that I get. I’ve seen those viral moments online, but when I have clicked into a live stream of a school board meeting, it is probably what most might say is a mundane meeting of a couple folks in the room trying to make decisions. Maybe a couple people show up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s only recent, and when I say recent, recent in American history that school boards have lost some of their power, sometimes due to school reform policy. Can you explain some of that historical significance of this loss of power and where the power that school boards used to hold has now been delegated to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. It’s so interesting when you look back to early American history, school boards existed and they did absolutely everything. The states would ultimately have power to be responsible for public education, but they delegated authority to school boards to not only govern the schools, but even do the administration work because back in early days there was not even a superintendency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now in the days that we’ve seen of the 21st century, to your point, there’s been an incredible shift of power to states, mostly, and to some extent, the federal government. And there’s some really good and legitimate reasons for this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Think about Brown versus Board of Education, where from a civil rights perspective, the federal judiciary decided to step in and make things right because it wasn’t happening correctly at the local level and there was inequity. Think about the way schools are funded, which historically was property taxes, where in many states there were communities that just simply could not fund the public schools to any sort of a basic level. So in many respects, there were a series of lawsuits that came about that really, you know, demanded that the state step in and be that equilibrating mechanism to fund schools to a level where students are getting a very appropriate public education, regardless of where they live. And so there are a lot of good reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there are also probably some more sinister reasons. Education is a very large component of our economy. People care deeply about education. It affects a lot of families. And so certainly governors, legislators at the state level and at the federal level, look at that and say, ooh, maybe I should also be charged with having a role in education. So a lot the power has shifted to state and federal players. So I think we all need to step back and think about the fact of whether or not we agree with the particular approach any state is taking. Is that the right mechanism to have all that happen at the state level?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>I also just wanted to ask you very quickly about the power that school boards hold after the dismantling of the Department of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy: \u003c/strong>I think there’s been a general sense that when certainly the current administration, the Trump administration, they were campaigning, they’re campaigning on pushing a lot of power back to states and localities, which in many respects would be commensurate with my thesis of how local districts should have a degree of autonomy. And boards are really important and can do a lot of good in trying to steer American education in a positive direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I think what we’ve certainly seen over the last bunch of months is a continuation of the fact that the federal government is quite involved. So regardless of what we hear about the Department of Education shrinking or potentially being abolished, we’ve seen examples of where the federal government has certainly exerted power in places that they see something they don’t like. And I think that’s what we’ve seen in many administrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> I wanted to ask about education reform policy and some of the tensions that we see between these big reforms that might happen, one that just always sticks in my mind as common core. What would you say to someone, and I’m talking about voters, who believe that reform policy is the way forward and have kind of lost faith in the school board as an institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy: \u003c/strong>The first thing I would say is that school boards are far from perfect. And there are many boards that certainly make decisions that many of us may look at and say are flawed. And I think there’s no perfect system to govern schools. Having said all that, I think in my mind, school boards are the place where governance can happen in a way that involves the community. And also provides a deep understanding of the district itself, because school boards are part of the districts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the day, districts are very different in this country and they don’t have the same problems. You may have a district that has enrollment that’s dramatically increasing. You may have a district next door that has declining enrollment. That means incredibly different things in terms of how to manage a budget, how to manage operations, how to manage personnel. You could have a district in the same county that is in the 99th percentile in academic outcomes but has a stress and anxiety issue in their high school. And then the district next door might be below proficiency in math and reading. And you need to think about solutions that are very different in those two schools. And it’s extremely hard, I think, to come up with good one-size-fits-all policies that are gonna solve all our problems. And if you do, inevitably, you’re going to hit a roadblock.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the local communities aren’t vested in these programs, in these policies, and we see time and time again, Common Core being an example where it backfires. Because I think it’s so important to have people on the ground that are going to be affected be part of the process to come up with, ultimately, the solutions. And so that’s why I keep coming back to the fact that with all of its flaws, school boards are places that I think we should invest in. So if we started to focus our reform attention there, I actually think we could do a lot of good. And the funny thing is that reformers have looked at every place in the universe except for school boards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>You brought up something that kind of reminded me of a huge issue that I hear from, and I think a lot of people have heard from educators when it comes to education reform policy is that the experts who are the teachers in the classroom are not being consulted for these massive changes, or they are not been consulted in the ways that, you know, I think most of them would feel is appropriate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Can you talk a little bit about the partnership that teachers and educators might have with school boards on the granular level where teachers don’t have to remain in this frustrated state of not seeing any change or not seeing any trust in their expertise or professionalism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy:\u003c/strong> Yes. And I will start by saying that my mom was a kindergarten teacher in public school for over 30 years and I talked to her a lot about what her experience was like when I first became a school board member and ever since then I’ve looked at a lot of the research on teacher attrition and teacher satisfaction which should trouble all of us because the numbers are as we know not what they should be for a profession that’s so noble and and so important. And I think that one of the things that always comes out of studies that are done is the lack of autonomy that teachers feel, to your point, that their expertise isn’t valued, that they don’t have a say over what they’re doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And one of things that I talk about in my book is initiative fatigue. And it’s something that I always knew about because corporations have initiative fatigue, but when I got to education and my mom told me about this, I realized it was at a different level. And by the time you get to a classroom, if you think about all of the people that throw initiatives at schools, you have federal initiatives, you have state legislative initiatives, you have governors that come in with initiatives, every state has of course a regulatory body, a state school board in New York State and California, we have the regions, and they have initiatives. Then you have board members and the board as a whole that have initiatives, you have administrators at the centralized level, and then of course you have building administrators. And so that’s true. It’s very suffocating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so one of the things I talk about is how, again, if we try to be mindful of getting a better balance between state, federal, and local control, where the local governance entity does have more say over initiative flow, and then you had boards that were thoughtful about having a reasonable number of initiatives at any one time, I think naturally what’s gonna happen is that teachers have a better voice. Because a good board knows that board members are not professional educators and boards have to listen to administrators and teachers in their district. When decisions are made up above, it’s incredibly hard. You might have a committee of a teacher from here and a teacher from there, but we know that it’s not a grassroots effort when a decision’s made at a state or even a national level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Can you explain what it takes to establish and maintain that relationship between local teachers and the school board? What does that look like?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy: \u003c/strong>With teachers in particular, if you think about it, boards often have committees, and committees might have representation of teachers and of administrators from different buildings. That’s one way that there could be a really good dialog. There’s often groups like, for instance, the PTA, where you’ll have teachers, and you’ll have parents together, and board members can be a liaison to that group or present, and update on what’s going on at the district level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many districts, there’s a tradition of board members visiting schools once a year. So you get to maybe go into a classroom and see what’s going on. You would never do that every day, but to do that, to get a sense and a flavor for what’s happening in classrooms, that’s an amazing way to do it as well. Some districts have maybe the board president address teachers once a year. And that’s a really interesting and helpful way, I think also to build a relationship. So there are many ways and it’s important. It’s super important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>So we just talked about partnership between educators and school boards, and you do say in your book that school boards are a mechanism for parent influence. Can you explain that mechanism, what that might look like coming from a parent who has maybe never voted in a local election, seeing an issue with their school and then becoming involved? What does that pathway look like?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy:\u003c/strong> So one of the things that I did, which I think was the most fun when I was researching for the book was I went back into the archives and I did ask the question, it seems like there are so many scenes around the country of very angry parents really yelling and screaming at school boards, has it always been this way or is this something new? And there’s no doubt what I found when you look back is that there have always been points in history where you’ve seen parent anger come out. And I think there’s a very natural question that underlies all of these battles, which is where is the line between parent rights and government control? And I do think that sometimes we’re very quick to either dismiss or to re-emphasize some parent point that is being espoused. But all of us, if we sat in the room and we polled 10 of us, let’s say, and we said, okay, where is that line? We might delineate that line at a slightly different point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So if you go back to the early 1900s, and I do this in my book, and it’s quite extraordinary, you could see the same exact language being used by parents at school board meetings saying, you can’t vaccinate my kids. If you vaccinate, my kids, you’re violating my rights and their rights, and you’re evaluating my constitutional rights. And they were doing that over the smallpox vaccine. And during COVID, we saw the same thing around the COVID vaccine. And that’s just one example. And so throughout American history, we’ve had this tension. So I think it’s very natural.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think the other bit of tension is indoctrination versus education. Where is that line? And so I think we just have to have a little bit of grace in a way. And I think, the best we could do is say that sometimes people are going to be disagreeing on these subjects. And how do we want to resolve them? I think there’s no better way than with full transparency. In your local community. I think the other piece of your question, though, is if I’m a parent and I’m angry about something, what do I do? Start out, if it’s an issue in a classroom, with the teacher. Go to the teacher, have a conversation, and if that doesn’t work and you’re not satisfied, of course you have the right to talk to the principal or talk to the assistant principal. And if you’re still very unsatisfied, then you can bring it up, but you really don’t want to jump to the school board over the backs of many teachers, administrators that then will not have a chance to solve that problem with you first. If it’s an issue about, let’s say policy or budget allocation that clearly falls in the realm of the board, then of course, um, you have every right to go to the board, but you can also call a board member. If you see a board member at a soccer match or in church, you can certainly have discussions about things that are on your mind and air them, and then of course you have that right to be part of the public comment period too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the other thing that I would also add which is I think something that you always have to think about when you’re a school board member is If somebody comes to public comment and they express concern about a particular issue You always want to listen. It’s incredibly important to listen and to decide, um, you know whether you understand that viewpoint whether you agree with that viewpoint or not, but you don’t know for sure whether or not that viewpoint is 1% of your community or whether it represents 65% of your community. And I just believe that you have to be in touch with your community in lots of different ways and just have lots of data points so that you do get a sense of what the sentiment is like out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Also, speaking of parent influence, we’ve seen a lot of what I think would have been referred to as fringe movements of charter schools and homeschooling. We’re seeing that become a lot more mainstream, not just to talk about, but to practice. And obviously, the system of charter schools is becoming heavily influenced by school systems and there is a relationship between school boards. Charter schools, and also homeschooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So can you kind of explain some of the influence or partnership that school boards have on those types of systems, and what people and voters can pay attention to when it comes to those educational practices?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy:\u003c/strong> Particularly with charter schools, the rules are different depending on what state you’re in. And sometimes school boards have a very influential role in whether or not a charter school can exist. And in other cases, the school board may have absolutely no power and no say. And really what happens is the charter decision is made more centrally at the state level by maybe the state board or one of the state entities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I also think that there are a lot of interesting implications when you think about this long term. And I’ll give you one case study that happened in New York that I think could be an interesting microcosm of the situation that can happen in other parts of the country if you fast forward 10, 20 years from now and school choice and vouchers become more commonplace. And it’s actually a district that I attended when I was a kid and now is governed by board, the majority of whom send their kids to private school and it’s created an incredibly complex situation where there is a tremendous rift and rift is an understatement between the public school community and the private school community around the way the public district is being managed. On the one hand these are people that pay taxes and they have every right to, you know, run for school board and they’re winning the elections fair and square. On the other hand, you have individuals that are making decisions about a public school system, where many in the public school community argue are not in the best interest of public school students. And so there’s just incredible amounts of tension. And so you can see this being something that could happen in many communities down the road, if we have many, many more students that are not in the public system, and you might have the preponderance of voters that are in the not public system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>I wanted to end on something that maybe is a little bit uplifting and positive and what you hope to see. Who should care about school boards or how should they care?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy:\u003c/strong> So to end on a positive note, I think that one thing that I would think that all listeners may agree with is that when we look at our national politics, regardless of what side you’re on, I think it is clear that we have more polarization than we’ve ever had in recent history. And I do believe that when we look at local school districts, the reason that everybody should care is because they are a mechanism to potentially reduce polarization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the one hand, I know we see these scenes of people fighting in boardrooms here, like, how could they reduce polarization? It looks like boardrooms are incredibly polarized. But I would contend that they are the one place where people that have differences of opinion actually come together in person. And because everything is transparent and because local community members have a voice at the microphone, people can actually express their view. And if that view is diametrically different, others have to listen. And there is something incredibly American about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I think that there’s this healing process in the fact that we can unify around what happens in a school board room, which is that people of all walks of life that have very different political beliefs can come express their view and have to be listened to. And maybe, just maybe we can realize that sometimes people with very opposing views from a policy perspective might be both coming from a good place, it’s just different places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> This does seem like a giant lesson in civics. I really appreciate your time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Levy: \u003c/strong>Oh, it’s my pleasure being with you.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"tagline": "The flip side of gentrification, told through one town",
"info": "Gentrification is changing cities across America, forcing people from neighborhoods they have long called home. Call them the displaced. Now those priced out of the Bay Area are looking for a better life in an unlikely place. American Suburb follows this migration to one California town along the Delta, 45 miles from San Francisco. But is this once sleepy suburb ready for them?",
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
},
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},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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},
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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},
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"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"jerrybrown": {
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"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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