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"content": "\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1020\" height=\"534\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mindshift2021-tunein-1200x628-1-1020x534.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23752\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mindshift2021-tunein-1200x628-1-1020x534.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mindshift2021-tunein-1200x628-1-800x419.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mindshift2021-tunein-1200x628-1-160x84.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mindshift2021-tunein-1200x628-1-768x402.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mindshift2021-tunein-1200x628-1.png 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>MindShift explores the future of learning and how we raise our kids. We report on how teaching is evolving to better meet the needs of students and how caregivers can better guide their children. This means examining the role of technology, discoveries about the brain, racial and gender bias in education, social and emotional learning, inequities, mental health and many other issues that affect students. We report on shifts in how educators teach as they apply innovative ideas to help students learn.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>MindShift has a unique audience of educators, parents, policy makers and life-long learners who engage in meaningful dialogue with one another on our social media platforms and email newsletter. Stay informed by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/mindshift\">signing up for our email newsletter\u003c/a>, subscribing to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/mindshift\">MindShift Podcast\u003c/a>, or following us on \u003ca href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/mindshift-kqed.bsky.social\">Bluesky\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/mindshiftkqed/\">Instagram\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/KQED\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Facebook\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/KQED\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">X\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>MindShift is a service of KQED News and was launched in 2010 by KQED and NPR. If you have questions, story pitches or just want to say hi, \u003ca href=\"https://kqed-helpcenter.kqed.org/s/contactsupport\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">contact us by email\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1020\" height=\"534\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mindshift2021-tunein-1200x628-1-1020x534.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23752\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mindshift2021-tunein-1200x628-1-1020x534.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mindshift2021-tunein-1200x628-1-800x419.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mindshift2021-tunein-1200x628-1-160x84.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mindshift2021-tunein-1200x628-1-768x402.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mindshift2021-tunein-1200x628-1.png 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>MindShift explores the future of learning and how we raise our kids. We report on how teaching is evolving to better meet the needs of students and how caregivers can better guide their children. This means examining the role of technology, discoveries about the brain, racial and gender bias in education, social and emotional learning, inequities, mental health and many other issues that affect students. We report on shifts in how educators teach as they apply innovative ideas to help students learn.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>MindShift has a unique audience of educators, parents, policy makers and life-long learners who engage in meaningful dialogue with one another on our social media platforms and email newsletter. Stay informed by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/mindshift\">signing up for our email newsletter\u003c/a>, subscribing to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/mindshift\">MindShift Podcast\u003c/a>, or following us on \u003ca href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/mindshift-kqed.bsky.social\">Bluesky\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/mindshiftkqed/\">Instagram\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/KQED\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Facebook\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/KQED\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">X\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>MindShift is a service of KQED News and was launched in 2010 by KQED and NPR. If you have questions, story pitches or just want to say hi, \u003ca href=\"https://kqed-helpcenter.kqed.org/s/contactsupport\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">contact us by email\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Students' Test Scores Began Declining Way Before COVID. These Schools Are Making Gains",
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"content": "\u003cp>The pandemic-era backslide in math and reading scores for students across the U.S. was not a sudden catastrophe but the continuation of a brutal, decade-long “learning recession” that began years before COVID-19’s arrival. That’s according to the latest \u003ca href=\"https://educationscorecard.org/about/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Education Scorecard\u003c/a>, an annual deep-dive into student data from The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University and Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new Scorecard, released Wednesday and in its fourth year, offers several revelations for families, educators and policymakers looking for clarity — and hope — at a time when public education has been blamed and battered for those persistent declines in student performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Among the report’s takeaways: Most states are finally making gains in math; federal relief dollars likely helped the lowest-income districts mount a hearty comeback; and, while most states have yet to make gains in reading, those that have all made legislative changes to how it’s taught in their schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before we dive in, one caveat: The annual Education Scorecard includes data from the vast majority of states and Washington D.C. drawn from their own state tests — as opposed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/09/09/nx-s1-5526918/nations-report-card-scores-reading-math-science-education-cuts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nation’s Report Card\u003c/a>. But some states were excluded for various reasons, including if their state assessments had changed recently (Illinois, Kansas), if test opt-out rates were too high (New York, Colorado) or if a state didn’t publish district-level data with enough detail.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘The learning recession’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For nearly a quarter-century, from 1990 to 2013, math achievement among fourth- and eighth-graders “rose steadily,” according to the Scorecard’s analysis. So steadily that “the average fourth grader in 2013 could perform the same math skills as the average sixth grader could in 1990. That’s enormous progress,” says Stanford University’s Sean Reardon, one of the Scorecard’s authors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading gains weren’t quite as eye-popping, but they were gains nonetheless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These sustained gains “may be one of the most important social policy successes of the last half-century that nobody knows about,” says Harvard’s Thomas Kane, one of the Scorecard’s authors. “Racial gaps were narrowing too. We just need to get back on that track.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, much was right with America’s schools, which makes the decline that began around 2013 “appear more striking and anomalous,” the report says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>Particularly in reading, test scores were going down for four to six years before the pandemic,” says Reardon. “In fact, you wouldn’t really know there was a pandemic effect if you just looked at the last 10 or 12 years of test scores. There’s been just a steady kind of decline regardless of the pandemic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What might have triggered that decline?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The Scorecard’s trigger theories\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Scorecard researchers offer two possible explanations for the beginning of schools’ learning recession:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. The fade-out of test-based accountability\u003c/strong>: Remember the much-maligned federal education law, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/12/08/458844737/no-child-left-behind-an-obituary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">No Child Left Behind (NCLB)\u003c/a>, that took a tough-love approach with schools to improve student performance? The law, implemented in 2003, threatened a host of sanctions, including school closure, if student test scores didn’t rise, but its standards were seen by many to be not just unrealistic \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/10/11/354931351/it-s-2014-all-children-are-supposed-to-be-proficient-under-federal-law\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">but unattainable\u003c/a>. By 2013, the Obama administration began issuing waivers to free states from the law’s consequences. According to the Scorecard, 38 states were granted relief in the 2012-13 school year. Eventually, Congress replaced NCLB with a new federal law that de-emphasized test-based accountability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 2013, Kane says, “school districts learned that nobody was looking over their shoulders in terms of student achievement.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Scorecard researchers don’t draw a direct, causal connection between the declines of test-based accountability and student scores, it’s clear that the nation’s learning recession began at roughly the same time states and schools stepped back from the punishing consequences of NCLB.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Students’ social media use:\u003c/strong> It turns out, 2013 also marks a period of explosive growth in teenagers use of social media. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pew Research\u003c/a> study found that in 2014-15, roughly 1 in 4 teens said they used the internet “almost constantly.” By 2022, it was nearly half of teens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers also point to international testing data that shows that lower-achieving students are the heaviest users of social media. Students who spend more time (7+ hours per day) on social media score below students who spend less (1-3 hours). And this gap, between the highest and lowest performers, began growing before the pandemic, not just in the U.S. but in many other countries too.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The end of the learning recession?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Scorecard devotes considerable analysis to what’s been happening in schools since the end of the pandemic, from 2022 through the spring of 2025. There are signs that the nation’s learning recession may be turning around, albeit slowly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In that span of time, most of the states covered by this year’s Scorecard showed students making meaningful improvement in math, with Washington D.C. coming in as the clear winner there. Only five states failed to make gains in math: Georgia, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading, though, remains a cause for concern. While D.C., Louisiana, Maryland and five other states did experience meaningful improvement between 2022 and 2025, most states continued to stagnate or, as in Florida, Arizona and Nebraska, further declined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also worth noting, while schools are once again, on average, regaining ground in math and slowly turning the corner in reading, the declines that began around 2013 have been so steep and lasting that only one state, Louisiana, has returned to 2019 performance levels in both subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No state has returned to 2013 levels, according to Reardon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s easy to be sort of doom and gloom,” he adds, “but when you look at the period from the ’90s through 2013, we made enormous gains. And we actually narrowed achievement gaps between racial groups. That says we can actually improve our schools in ways that also improve equality of opportunity. We just haven’t been doing it for the last decade. But we could do it again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The U-shaped recovery\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Scorecard reveals a fascinating phenomenon in schools from 2022 to 2025: a U-shaped recovery. Meaning, schools with the least amount of poverty, alongside schools with the most poverty, saw similar gains in math and similarly small losses in reading achievement. That’s while the schools in the middle of the income spectrum, at the bottom of this U, improved the least in both subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why? One theory is that the highest-poverty districts got the most help from Congress in the form of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/06/18/nx-s1-5010963/schools-aid-students-pandemic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">federal COVID relief dollars\u003c/a> — money they could spend on interventions such as tutoring and summer school. Districts with the lowest poverty rates got little help from the federal government but were already well-positioned financially. It was the middle-income districts that needed more help but didn’t qualify for full federal support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it hadn’t been for the federal pandemic relief,” says Kane, “we estimate there would have been no recovery on average for the highest-poverty districts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The science of reading effect\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There’s been an important wild card in the effort to improve students’ reading skills: A movement among states to change their approach to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/12/582465905/the-gap-between-the-science-on-kids-and-reading-and-how-it-is-taught\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">teaching reading to young children\u003c/a> by \u003ca href=\"https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">embracing the \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.apmreports.org/story/2025/10/16/legislators-reading-laws-sold-a-story\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“science of reading.”\u003c/a> As of March, the Scorecard says, most states had passed new literacy laws, including doubling down on the importance of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/12/582465905/the-gap-between-the-science-on-kids-and-reading-and-how-it-is-taught\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">teaching phonics\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Scorecard authors note that all seven of the states (plus D.C.) that saw reading gains between 2022 and 2025 had put comprehensive science of reading reforms into place. Of the states that had not by January 2024, none saw improvement. The connection between these reforms and improved results isn’t necessarily causal, they warn, but there’s clearly a link.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With most states struggling to make reading gains, one district-level success story highlighted by the Scorecard stands out: Baltimore City Public Schools. In spite of the challenges posed by poverty — most students there qualify for free or reduced-price meals — Baltimore students have been making striking reading gains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under CEO Sonja Brookins Santelises, the district reformed its approach to literacy. It embraced \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/06/02/nx-s1-4916590/some-states-are-adopting-a-new-form-of-reading-instruction-to-combat-falling-scores\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the science of reading\u003c/a> even before the pandemic and years ahead of the national wave of state-based literacy legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Brookins Santelises took the lead in Baltimore in 2016, she says she quickly embraced the science of reading districtwide and its emphasis on phonics, as opposed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/03/11/591504959/rethinking-how-students-with-dyslexia-are-taught-to-read\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">whole language approach\u003c/a>, which teaches children to guess at words using cues from a text’s pictures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember gathering the [district’s] literacy department. And I said, ‘If you want to do whole language, there are other districts in Maryland that are doing whole language, and you are free to go there. We are not doing that in Baltimore City. I respect you, but you cannot stay here. I’ve been ferocious about it ever since.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘Kiss your brains!’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The benefits of these changes appear to have been twofold. During the pandemic, the Scorecard shows Baltimore schools lost far less ground in reading than schools with similar levels of poverty. Then, in 2022, with those practices firmly in place, the city’s reading scores began to skyrocket, erasing pandemic-era losses and rising back around 2017 levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baltimore’s successful approach to teaching literacy was on full display on a recent May morning, in veteran teacher Kimberly Lowery’s kindergarten class at Johnston Square Elementary. Lowery sat at the front of a rainbow-colored reading rug, running through a series of phonics-based games that her kindergarteners seemed to genuinely enjoy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was letter-sound bingo, guess-the-sound flashcards and even a visit from a special spelling helper — a toy owl, named Echo, who lives at the end of a yardstick. If the kids’ laughter and cheering isn’t sign enough that they’re learning, district data shows that, by the end of last year, three-quarters of Lowery’s students were reading at or above grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lowery told the children to kiss their brains and asked, “You guys are super-duper what?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In unison, the children hollered, “Smart!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yes you are,” Lowery answered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by: Nirvi Shah and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/6576424/steve-drummond\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Steve Drummond\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Visual design and development by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348775569/la-johnson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LA Johnson\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LEILA FADEL, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A report out today shows that big losses in reading and math scores did not begin with the pandemic. Researchers say they started more than a decade ago. NPR’s Cory Turner has more on what they call a learning recession and what some states are doing about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: The report, called the Education Scorecard, comes from researchers at Stanford, Harvard and Dartmouth. Let’s start with that headline about the nation being stuck in a learning recession.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SEAN REARDON: Particularly in reading, test scores were going down for four to six years before the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Stanford researcher Sean Reardon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>REARDON: In fact, you wouldn’t really know there was a pandemic effect if you just looked at the last 10 or 12 years of test scores. There’s been just a steady kind of decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Reardon argues this learning recession began around 2013, after a quarter century of learning gains he calls astonishing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>REARDON: The average fourth-grader in 2013 could perform the same math skills as the average sixth-grader could in 1990.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: And that matters, Reardon says, because as bad as things are now, it means America’s schools have done incredible things before and can do them again. To stop this learning recession, though, we need to know not just when it started, but why. Tom Kane at Harvard says there are at least two possible explanations. One, schools stopped worrying about a tough federal law that punished them for low test scores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TOM KANE: Under No Child Left Behind, school leaders every year had to be nervous the day that their test results were being announced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: But Kane says around 2013, that law was essentially abandoned. So that’s one theory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KANE: The other one is the rise in social media, which happened about the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Turns out, reading and math scores also started falling as teens’ social media use skyrocketed. What really caused the declines, though, it’s too early to know. Now, let’s jump to the present and some good news. Last year, students in most states showed improvement in math, offering fresh hope for an end to this learning recession. Reading’s been a tougher slog, but there’s hope there, too. The few states that have improved all have something in common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: C. Cat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: They’ve doubled down on phonics and the science of reading, including Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KIMBERLY LOWERY: C-L-oud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KIMBERLEY LOWERY AND UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: C-L-oud. Cloud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LOWERY: You guys are super-duper what?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LOWERY: Kiss your brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Baltimore City Schools have made big gains in reading. Last year, teacher Kimberly Lowery helped three-quarters of her kindergartners become grade-level readers or better. Her top boss, Sonja Brookins Santelises, has been Baltimore City Schools’ CEO for the past decade and says she came in determined to improve the district’s approach to literacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SONJA BROOKINS SANTELISES: The first thing that it did mean was that we all learn together how young people learn to read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Brookins Santelises decided to move away from an approach known as whole language and toward the science of reading. So she told her literacy staff…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BROOKINS SANTELISES: There are other districts in Maryland that are doing whole language, and you are free to go there. We are not doing that in Baltimore City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Then, during the pandemic, Baltimore students lost far less ground than kids in schools with similar levels of poverty. And by 2022…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Laughter).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: The city’s reading scores were shooting up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LOWERY: All righty. Raymond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Back in Mrs. Lowery’s kindergarten class, the kids have the giggles after a fun game of breaking down word sounds. Mrs. Lowery asks them one more time – you guys are super-duper what?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cory Turner, NPR News, Baltimore, Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ROBERT GLASPER’S “RECKONER”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The pandemic-era backslide in math and reading scores for students across the U.S. was not a sudden catastrophe but the continuation of a brutal, decade-long “learning recession” that began years before COVID-19’s arrival. That’s according to the latest \u003ca href=\"https://educationscorecard.org/about/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Education Scorecard\u003c/a>, an annual deep-dive into student data from The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University and Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new Scorecard, released Wednesday and in its fourth year, offers several revelations for families, educators and policymakers looking for clarity — and hope — at a time when public education has been blamed and battered for those persistent declines in student performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Among the report’s takeaways: Most states are finally making gains in math; federal relief dollars likely helped the lowest-income districts mount a hearty comeback; and, while most states have yet to make gains in reading, those that have all made legislative changes to how it’s taught in their schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before we dive in, one caveat: The annual Education Scorecard includes data from the vast majority of states and Washington D.C. drawn from their own state tests — as opposed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/09/09/nx-s1-5526918/nations-report-card-scores-reading-math-science-education-cuts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nation’s Report Card\u003c/a>. But some states were excluded for various reasons, including if their state assessments had changed recently (Illinois, Kansas), if test opt-out rates were too high (New York, Colorado) or if a state didn’t publish district-level data with enough detail.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘The learning recession’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For nearly a quarter-century, from 1990 to 2013, math achievement among fourth- and eighth-graders “rose steadily,” according to the Scorecard’s analysis. So steadily that “the average fourth grader in 2013 could perform the same math skills as the average sixth grader could in 1990. That’s enormous progress,” says Stanford University’s Sean Reardon, one of the Scorecard’s authors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading gains weren’t quite as eye-popping, but they were gains nonetheless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These sustained gains “may be one of the most important social policy successes of the last half-century that nobody knows about,” says Harvard’s Thomas Kane, one of the Scorecard’s authors. “Racial gaps were narrowing too. We just need to get back on that track.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, much was right with America’s schools, which makes the decline that began around 2013 “appear more striking and anomalous,” the report says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>Particularly in reading, test scores were going down for four to six years before the pandemic,” says Reardon. “In fact, you wouldn’t really know there was a pandemic effect if you just looked at the last 10 or 12 years of test scores. There’s been just a steady kind of decline regardless of the pandemic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What might have triggered that decline?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The Scorecard’s trigger theories\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Scorecard researchers offer two possible explanations for the beginning of schools’ learning recession:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. The fade-out of test-based accountability\u003c/strong>: Remember the much-maligned federal education law, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/12/08/458844737/no-child-left-behind-an-obituary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">No Child Left Behind (NCLB)\u003c/a>, that took a tough-love approach with schools to improve student performance? The law, implemented in 2003, threatened a host of sanctions, including school closure, if student test scores didn’t rise, but its standards were seen by many to be not just unrealistic \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/10/11/354931351/it-s-2014-all-children-are-supposed-to-be-proficient-under-federal-law\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">but unattainable\u003c/a>. By 2013, the Obama administration began issuing waivers to free states from the law’s consequences. According to the Scorecard, 38 states were granted relief in the 2012-13 school year. Eventually, Congress replaced NCLB with a new federal law that de-emphasized test-based accountability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 2013, Kane says, “school districts learned that nobody was looking over their shoulders in terms of student achievement.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Scorecard researchers don’t draw a direct, causal connection between the declines of test-based accountability and student scores, it’s clear that the nation’s learning recession began at roughly the same time states and schools stepped back from the punishing consequences of NCLB.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Students’ social media use:\u003c/strong> It turns out, 2013 also marks a period of explosive growth in teenagers use of social media. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pew Research\u003c/a> study found that in 2014-15, roughly 1 in 4 teens said they used the internet “almost constantly.” By 2022, it was nearly half of teens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers also point to international testing data that shows that lower-achieving students are the heaviest users of social media. Students who spend more time (7+ hours per day) on social media score below students who spend less (1-3 hours). And this gap, between the highest and lowest performers, began growing before the pandemic, not just in the U.S. but in many other countries too.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The end of the learning recession?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Scorecard devotes considerable analysis to what’s been happening in schools since the end of the pandemic, from 2022 through the spring of 2025. There are signs that the nation’s learning recession may be turning around, albeit slowly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In that span of time, most of the states covered by this year’s Scorecard showed students making meaningful improvement in math, with Washington D.C. coming in as the clear winner there. Only five states failed to make gains in math: Georgia, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading, though, remains a cause for concern. While D.C., Louisiana, Maryland and five other states did experience meaningful improvement between 2022 and 2025, most states continued to stagnate or, as in Florida, Arizona and Nebraska, further declined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also worth noting, while schools are once again, on average, regaining ground in math and slowly turning the corner in reading, the declines that began around 2013 have been so steep and lasting that only one state, Louisiana, has returned to 2019 performance levels in both subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No state has returned to 2013 levels, according to Reardon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s easy to be sort of doom and gloom,” he adds, “but when you look at the period from the ’90s through 2013, we made enormous gains. And we actually narrowed achievement gaps between racial groups. That says we can actually improve our schools in ways that also improve equality of opportunity. We just haven’t been doing it for the last decade. But we could do it again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The U-shaped recovery\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Scorecard reveals a fascinating phenomenon in schools from 2022 to 2025: a U-shaped recovery. Meaning, schools with the least amount of poverty, alongside schools with the most poverty, saw similar gains in math and similarly small losses in reading achievement. That’s while the schools in the middle of the income spectrum, at the bottom of this U, improved the least in both subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why? One theory is that the highest-poverty districts got the most help from Congress in the form of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/06/18/nx-s1-5010963/schools-aid-students-pandemic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">federal COVID relief dollars\u003c/a> — money they could spend on interventions such as tutoring and summer school. Districts with the lowest poverty rates got little help from the federal government but were already well-positioned financially. It was the middle-income districts that needed more help but didn’t qualify for full federal support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it hadn’t been for the federal pandemic relief,” says Kane, “we estimate there would have been no recovery on average for the highest-poverty districts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The science of reading effect\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There’s been an important wild card in the effort to improve students’ reading skills: A movement among states to change their approach to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/12/582465905/the-gap-between-the-science-on-kids-and-reading-and-how-it-is-taught\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">teaching reading to young children\u003c/a> by \u003ca href=\"https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">embracing the \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.apmreports.org/story/2025/10/16/legislators-reading-laws-sold-a-story\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“science of reading.”\u003c/a> As of March, the Scorecard says, most states had passed new literacy laws, including doubling down on the importance of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/12/582465905/the-gap-between-the-science-on-kids-and-reading-and-how-it-is-taught\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">teaching phonics\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Scorecard authors note that all seven of the states (plus D.C.) that saw reading gains between 2022 and 2025 had put comprehensive science of reading reforms into place. Of the states that had not by January 2024, none saw improvement. The connection between these reforms and improved results isn’t necessarily causal, they warn, but there’s clearly a link.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With most states struggling to make reading gains, one district-level success story highlighted by the Scorecard stands out: Baltimore City Public Schools. In spite of the challenges posed by poverty — most students there qualify for free or reduced-price meals — Baltimore students have been making striking reading gains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under CEO Sonja Brookins Santelises, the district reformed its approach to literacy. It embraced \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/06/02/nx-s1-4916590/some-states-are-adopting-a-new-form-of-reading-instruction-to-combat-falling-scores\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the science of reading\u003c/a> even before the pandemic and years ahead of the national wave of state-based literacy legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Brookins Santelises took the lead in Baltimore in 2016, she says she quickly embraced the science of reading districtwide and its emphasis on phonics, as opposed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/03/11/591504959/rethinking-how-students-with-dyslexia-are-taught-to-read\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">whole language approach\u003c/a>, which teaches children to guess at words using cues from a text’s pictures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember gathering the [district’s] literacy department. And I said, ‘If you want to do whole language, there are other districts in Maryland that are doing whole language, and you are free to go there. We are not doing that in Baltimore City. I respect you, but you cannot stay here. I’ve been ferocious about it ever since.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘Kiss your brains!’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The benefits of these changes appear to have been twofold. During the pandemic, the Scorecard shows Baltimore schools lost far less ground in reading than schools with similar levels of poverty. Then, in 2022, with those practices firmly in place, the city’s reading scores began to skyrocket, erasing pandemic-era losses and rising back around 2017 levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baltimore’s successful approach to teaching literacy was on full display on a recent May morning, in veteran teacher Kimberly Lowery’s kindergarten class at Johnston Square Elementary. Lowery sat at the front of a rainbow-colored reading rug, running through a series of phonics-based games that her kindergarteners seemed to genuinely enjoy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was letter-sound bingo, guess-the-sound flashcards and even a visit from a special spelling helper — a toy owl, named Echo, who lives at the end of a yardstick. If the kids’ laughter and cheering isn’t sign enough that they’re learning, district data shows that, by the end of last year, three-quarters of Lowery’s students were reading at or above grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lowery told the children to kiss their brains and asked, “You guys are super-duper what?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In unison, the children hollered, “Smart!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yes you are,” Lowery answered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by: Nirvi Shah and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/6576424/steve-drummond\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Steve Drummond\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Visual design and development by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348775569/la-johnson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LA Johnson\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LEILA FADEL, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A report out today shows that big losses in reading and math scores did not begin with the pandemic. Researchers say they started more than a decade ago. NPR’s Cory Turner has more on what they call a learning recession and what some states are doing about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: The report, called the Education Scorecard, comes from researchers at Stanford, Harvard and Dartmouth. Let’s start with that headline about the nation being stuck in a learning recession.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SEAN REARDON: Particularly in reading, test scores were going down for four to six years before the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Stanford researcher Sean Reardon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>REARDON: In fact, you wouldn’t really know there was a pandemic effect if you just looked at the last 10 or 12 years of test scores. There’s been just a steady kind of decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Reardon argues this learning recession began around 2013, after a quarter century of learning gains he calls astonishing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>REARDON: The average fourth-grader in 2013 could perform the same math skills as the average sixth-grader could in 1990.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: And that matters, Reardon says, because as bad as things are now, it means America’s schools have done incredible things before and can do them again. To stop this learning recession, though, we need to know not just when it started, but why. Tom Kane at Harvard says there are at least two possible explanations. One, schools stopped worrying about a tough federal law that punished them for low test scores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TOM KANE: Under No Child Left Behind, school leaders every year had to be nervous the day that their test results were being announced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: But Kane says around 2013, that law was essentially abandoned. So that’s one theory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KANE: The other one is the rise in social media, which happened about the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Turns out, reading and math scores also started falling as teens’ social media use skyrocketed. What really caused the declines, though, it’s too early to know. Now, let’s jump to the present and some good news. Last year, students in most states showed improvement in math, offering fresh hope for an end to this learning recession. Reading’s been a tougher slog, but there’s hope there, too. The few states that have improved all have something in common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: C. Cat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: They’ve doubled down on phonics and the science of reading, including Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KIMBERLY LOWERY: C-L-oud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KIMBERLEY LOWERY AND UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: C-L-oud. Cloud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LOWERY: You guys are super-duper what?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LOWERY: Kiss your brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Baltimore City Schools have made big gains in reading. Last year, teacher Kimberly Lowery helped three-quarters of her kindergartners become grade-level readers or better. Her top boss, Sonja Brookins Santelises, has been Baltimore City Schools’ CEO for the past decade and says she came in determined to improve the district’s approach to literacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SONJA BROOKINS SANTELISES: The first thing that it did mean was that we all learn together how young people learn to read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Brookins Santelises decided to move away from an approach known as whole language and toward the science of reading. So she told her literacy staff…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BROOKINS SANTELISES: There are other districts in Maryland that are doing whole language, and you are free to go there. We are not doing that in Baltimore City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Then, during the pandemic, Baltimore students lost far less ground than kids in schools with similar levels of poverty. And by 2022…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Laughter).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: The city’s reading scores were shooting up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LOWERY: All righty. Raymond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Back in Mrs. Lowery’s kindergarten class, the kids have the giggles after a fun game of breaking down word sounds. Mrs. Lowery asks them one more time – you guys are super-duper what?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cory Turner, NPR News, Baltimore, Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ROBERT GLASPER’S “RECKONER”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Career “pathways” have become a big idea in high school reform. The goal is to give all students a structured sequence of courses in a career field, along with early exposure to the workplace and opportunities to build practical, job-related skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many aspects of these programs are similar to the curriculums at traditional vocational schools. But this newer incarnation simultaneously aims to make the vocational high school more college oriented and the comprehensive high school more career oriented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Are the millions of dollars invested in these programs actually helping students get a head start on college and careers?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That question can’t be fully answered yet. But a new \u003ca href=\"https://rodelde.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/DE_Pathways_Student_Outcomes_Study_Final_Report_revApr2026.pdf\">research report\u003c/a> from Delaware — a national leader in the pathways movement — offers some early clues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state launched career pathways in 2014. Today, about 70 percent of high school students, or 30,000 teenagers, are enrolled, according to the nonprofit Rodel, which works with Delaware policymakers to reform education and improve the state’s workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ideally, students take a sequence of three or more courses in fields like healthcare, construction or education. Many also earn early college credits or make significant progress toward industry certifications, and some participate in internships or apprenticeships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at RTI International, a nonprofit research organization, tracked more than 6,000 graduates who had completed at least two courses in a career field and surveyed them to see what they were doing in the years immediately after high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three-quarters of the students surveyed were enrolled in college or another postsecondary training program after graduation, which is higher than the national average of \u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/news.release/hsgec.htm\">63 percent\u003c/a>. But fewer than half were still studying or working in the field they had chosen in high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, among students who completed a pathway in architecture and construction, fewer than 20 percent pursued construction-related majors. Many shifted instead to fields like science and engineering (40 percent), business (8 percent) or healthcare (6 percent).\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Most popular high-school pathway fields in Delaware\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66323\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1650px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66323\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/Career-Pathways-Hechinger-Report.png\" alt=\"Bar graph listing popular career pathways.\" width=\"1650\" height=\"1542\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/Career-Pathways-Hechinger-Report.png 1650w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/Career-Pathways-Hechinger-Report-160x150.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/Career-Pathways-Hechinger-Report-768x718.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/Career-Pathways-Hechinger-Report-1536x1435.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1650px) 100vw, 1650px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">*Other pathways are an assortment of career fields, each totaling less than 5 percent of pathway graduates. Source: Delaware Pathways Outcomes Study — Final Report, April 2026, RTI International\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That mismatch isn’t necessarily a failure. For some students, the wrong path was clarifying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When the students talked to us about it, they really considered it valuable to learn something they didn’t like,” said Sandra Staklis, lead author of the RTI report. “One student told us, ‘Oh, my mom and my aunt are nurses. And so I tried it out. And it turned out it wasn’t for me, but it was good to know that.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students also talked about gaining a broader set of skills that are useful in any field. “Students said they were learning those workplace skills like time management and working with other people on a project,” said Staklis. “A lot of academic work traditionally has been more individual, like reading a book or taking a test.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the findings raise a fundamental question: Are pathways meant to steer students into specific career fields, or help them figure out what they don’t want to do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students also described how much they valued the mentoring they received from their instructors, many of whom didn’t spend their professional lives in schools but in industry. One student profiled in the report, Kwame, said his teachers in the healthcare field showed him how to break down dense medical material and so he could study to earn his paramedic certification. He’s now majoring in public health at a four-year college and hopes to become a surgeon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two lessons stood out from the Delaware study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Workplace experience\u003c/strong> matters most but is hardest for schools to deliver. Students who participated in internships or apprenticeships were more likely to continue in their field, the report found. Another student named James, also profiled in the report, pursued an education pathway in high school and, during his senior year, he shadowed a teacher, which taught him a lot about managing classroom behavior. He’s now pursuing an associate degree in elementary education.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>But these opportunities are difficult for schools to provide, requiring coordination with employers as well as solutions for scheduling and transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workplace learning was more common in vocational high schools, where students often complete core coursework earlier and can spend more time outside the building during their senior year. By contrast, one-time experiences — such as guest speakers or field trips — had less impact but were easier for schools to arrange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Students need\u003cstrong> better guidance \u003c/strong>especially when they want to change direction. Once students start a pathway, it can be difficult to switch. “If you’re a junior and you want to switch to a different pathway, you’d have to go back taking classes that are mostly freshmen and sophomores, and it just becomes logistically difficult to allow that,” said Staklis.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Luke Rhine, vice president for postsecondary success at Rodel, which commissioned the analysis, said the findings were encouraging but point to a need for stronger advising, which he calls “navigational support.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report also points to more questions for future research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear how much of the higher college-going rate can be attributed to pathways themselves. The study is not causal, Staklis said, and students who complete these sequences may already have been more likely to pursue further education. Other incentives to pursue higher education could also be playing a role, including Delaware’s generous scholarship programs, which cover tuition at Delaware Technical Community College and Delaware State University for many students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a majority of students were working, most were in part-time jobs in retail, delivery or fast-food that fit in with their studies. Longer-term outcomes — including careers and earnings — remain unknown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some researchers question the structure of the pathways model in a rapidly changing economy. Kerry McKittrick, co-director of the Project on Workforce at Harvard University, issued a report last week, “\u003ca href=\"https://pw.hks.harvard.edu/post/pivots-without-pathways-career-navigation-in-a-fragmented-labor-market\">Pivots Without Pathways: Career Navigation in a Fragmented Labor Market\u003c/a>,” based on an analysis of community college students and young adults. McKittrick argues that it might not make sense to require young students to go through a sequence of technical training classes for jobs that may not exist in five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Pathways are a powerful option, but this linear path to a career is really the exception,” said McKittrick.”In a world where jobs continue to change, we also need to equip students and workers with the skills they need. … I’m talking about adaptability and decision making and information literacy and networking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those skills, argues McKittrick, aren’t learned in a classroom, but through trial and error. What’s most important, according to McKittrick, is for young people to have the opportunity to explore professions beyond what adults in their family do and to develop networks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Notably, she agrees with one of the Delaware report’s central findings: Workplace experience may be the most valuable component of a pathways program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-pathways-delaware/\">\u003cem>high school pathways\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>Career “pathways” have become a big idea in high school reform. The goal is to give all students a structured sequence of courses in a career field, along with early exposure to the workplace and opportunities to build practical, job-related skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many aspects of these programs are similar to the curriculums at traditional vocational schools. But this newer incarnation simultaneously aims to make the vocational high school more college oriented and the comprehensive high school more career oriented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Are the millions of dollars invested in these programs actually helping students get a head start on college and careers?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That question can’t be fully answered yet. But a new \u003ca href=\"https://rodelde.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/DE_Pathways_Student_Outcomes_Study_Final_Report_revApr2026.pdf\">research report\u003c/a> from Delaware — a national leader in the pathways movement — offers some early clues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state launched career pathways in 2014. Today, about 70 percent of high school students, or 30,000 teenagers, are enrolled, according to the nonprofit Rodel, which works with Delaware policymakers to reform education and improve the state’s workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ideally, students take a sequence of three or more courses in fields like healthcare, construction or education. Many also earn early college credits or make significant progress toward industry certifications, and some participate in internships or apprenticeships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at RTI International, a nonprofit research organization, tracked more than 6,000 graduates who had completed at least two courses in a career field and surveyed them to see what they were doing in the years immediately after high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three-quarters of the students surveyed were enrolled in college or another postsecondary training program after graduation, which is higher than the national average of \u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/news.release/hsgec.htm\">63 percent\u003c/a>. But fewer than half were still studying or working in the field they had chosen in high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, among students who completed a pathway in architecture and construction, fewer than 20 percent pursued construction-related majors. Many shifted instead to fields like science and engineering (40 percent), business (8 percent) or healthcare (6 percent).\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Most popular high-school pathway fields in Delaware\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66323\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1650px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66323\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/Career-Pathways-Hechinger-Report.png\" alt=\"Bar graph listing popular career pathways.\" width=\"1650\" height=\"1542\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/Career-Pathways-Hechinger-Report.png 1650w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/Career-Pathways-Hechinger-Report-160x150.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/Career-Pathways-Hechinger-Report-768x718.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/Career-Pathways-Hechinger-Report-1536x1435.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1650px) 100vw, 1650px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">*Other pathways are an assortment of career fields, each totaling less than 5 percent of pathway graduates. Source: Delaware Pathways Outcomes Study — Final Report, April 2026, RTI International\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That mismatch isn’t necessarily a failure. For some students, the wrong path was clarifying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When the students talked to us about it, they really considered it valuable to learn something they didn’t like,” said Sandra Staklis, lead author of the RTI report. “One student told us, ‘Oh, my mom and my aunt are nurses. And so I tried it out. And it turned out it wasn’t for me, but it was good to know that.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students also talked about gaining a broader set of skills that are useful in any field. “Students said they were learning those workplace skills like time management and working with other people on a project,” said Staklis. “A lot of academic work traditionally has been more individual, like reading a book or taking a test.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the findings raise a fundamental question: Are pathways meant to steer students into specific career fields, or help them figure out what they don’t want to do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students also described how much they valued the mentoring they received from their instructors, many of whom didn’t spend their professional lives in schools but in industry. One student profiled in the report, Kwame, said his teachers in the healthcare field showed him how to break down dense medical material and so he could study to earn his paramedic certification. He’s now majoring in public health at a four-year college and hopes to become a surgeon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two lessons stood out from the Delaware study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Workplace experience\u003c/strong> matters most but is hardest for schools to deliver. Students who participated in internships or apprenticeships were more likely to continue in their field, the report found. Another student named James, also profiled in the report, pursued an education pathway in high school and, during his senior year, he shadowed a teacher, which taught him a lot about managing classroom behavior. He’s now pursuing an associate degree in elementary education.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>But these opportunities are difficult for schools to provide, requiring coordination with employers as well as solutions for scheduling and transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workplace learning was more common in vocational high schools, where students often complete core coursework earlier and can spend more time outside the building during their senior year. By contrast, one-time experiences — such as guest speakers or field trips — had less impact but were easier for schools to arrange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Students need\u003cstrong> better guidance \u003c/strong>especially when they want to change direction. Once students start a pathway, it can be difficult to switch. “If you’re a junior and you want to switch to a different pathway, you’d have to go back taking classes that are mostly freshmen and sophomores, and it just becomes logistically difficult to allow that,” said Staklis.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Luke Rhine, vice president for postsecondary success at Rodel, which commissioned the analysis, said the findings were encouraging but point to a need for stronger advising, which he calls “navigational support.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report also points to more questions for future research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear how much of the higher college-going rate can be attributed to pathways themselves. The study is not causal, Staklis said, and students who complete these sequences may already have been more likely to pursue further education. Other incentives to pursue higher education could also be playing a role, including Delaware’s generous scholarship programs, which cover tuition at Delaware Technical Community College and Delaware State University for many students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a majority of students were working, most were in part-time jobs in retail, delivery or fast-food that fit in with their studies. Longer-term outcomes — including careers and earnings — remain unknown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some researchers question the structure of the pathways model in a rapidly changing economy. Kerry McKittrick, co-director of the Project on Workforce at Harvard University, issued a report last week, “\u003ca href=\"https://pw.hks.harvard.edu/post/pivots-without-pathways-career-navigation-in-a-fragmented-labor-market\">Pivots Without Pathways: Career Navigation in a Fragmented Labor Market\u003c/a>,” based on an analysis of community college students and young adults. McKittrick argues that it might not make sense to require young students to go through a sequence of technical training classes for jobs that may not exist in five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Pathways are a powerful option, but this linear path to a career is really the exception,” said McKittrick.”In a world where jobs continue to change, we also need to equip students and workers with the skills they need. … I’m talking about adaptability and decision making and information literacy and networking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those skills, argues McKittrick, aren’t learned in a classroom, but through trial and error. What’s most important, according to McKittrick, is for young people to have the opportunity to explore professions beyond what adults in their family do and to develop networks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Notably, she agrees with one of the Delaware report’s central findings: Workplace experience may be the most valuable component of a pathways program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When Lila Byock’s oldest son was 11, she began to worry about how much time he spent on his school-issued iPad. It seemed as if he wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To the point that he was one day penalized for not having his iPad with him during PE class,” she recalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She asked his school in central Los Angeles to explain why there was so much digital learning, even years after the COVID-19 pandemic: “There was no justification for why it was better,” she said. “It was just sort of, ‘Well, we got these things during COVID and might as well keep using them.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Byock started talking to fellow parents and formed \u003ca href=\"https://www.schoolsbeyondscreens.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Schools Beyond Screens\u003c/a>, an advocacy group with thousands of parents, beginning in Los Angeles but eventually expanding around the United States. She says whenever she talks to parents, they all have the same question: “This is an emergency — what can we do about it?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, after months of petitions and demonstrations, the school board of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) voted unanimously to limit screen time for all grade levels, beginning in the fall, with a particular focus on eliminating it entirely for elementary-age students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The move is an about-face for a district that, since the pandemic, has \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2024/lausd-launches-ed-the-nations-first-ai-personal-assistant-for-students/708127\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">focused on bringing technology into the classroom\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>States sprint to limit screen time\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The shift in the nation’s second-largest school district aligns with a flurry of recent state movement. Since January, Alabama, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia have passed some form of legislation to reevaluate technology’s role in education instruction and assessment, and more than 10 other states are considering similar restrictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>T. Philip Nichols, an associate professor of English education at Baylor University, called the move by LAUSD “the pendulum swing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nichols, who has researched technology’s role in public education for years, says all the recent activity is a shocking but welcome surprise. The proliferation of laptops, tablets and interactive whiteboards, he said, “aren’t just neutral tools. They shape the ways that we think. They shape the way that we communicate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposed legislation in Vermont recently \u003ca href=\"https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2026/Docs/BILLS/H-0830/H-0830%20As%20Introduced.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cited Nichols’ work in a bill\u003c/a> that would allow parents to opt their kids out of screen time. His research argues that widespread computer use has not delivered on higher test scores or student achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Vermont bill also raises concerns about student data privacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These platforms are … also gathering data about how students are participating in them so that they can sell products back to schools,” Nichols said. “When you are reading a textbook, that textbook is not reading you back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How much tech is too much?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Still, some advocates \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-technology-good-or-bad-for-learning/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">note decades of research\u003c/a> on the potential for computers and technology to streamline learning and provide useful information for students and educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tracy Weeks, the senior director of education policy and strategy at the education technology company Instructure, says rushing to broadly ban screen time in schools is rash: “It’s sort of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instructure creates \u003ca href=\"https://www.instructure.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">digital classroom-management tools\u003c/a> like Canvas and Mastery, used by about 30% of K-12 students nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we talk about things like screen time,” she says, “[it] gets really hard because not all minutes are equal depending on what you’re actually doing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She argues that doomscrolling and passively watching videos are different from the interactive activities that many teachers use to keep kids engaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A bipartisan push\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>LAUSD’s vote to limit screen time gave district administrators a June deadline to craft an official policy. The directive also seeks to roll out the new rules this fall in classrooms. Parents and teachers will not know the scope of those rules until sometime this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The projected rollout in LA is fast but echoes other proposed legislation. In Utah, a \u003ca href=\"https://le.utah.gov/Session/2026/bills/static/HB0273.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">back-to-basics law to limit screen time\u003c/a> goes into effect on July 1 and gives the state board of education until the end of the calendar year to draft a new policy for schools, though when that will be enforced in classrooms is still unclear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying to help kids build healthier habits with technology,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vce-G0Gp4gs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">press conference\u003c/a>. “We’re not going to get this exactly right on the first try, but we’re certainly moving in the right direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Missouri, the state House passed a bill on limiting screen time this spring. The proposal, like others making their way through state legislatures, was introduced by a Republican lawmaker. The bill passed with strong bipartisan support in the House and is now on its way to the state Senate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kathy Steinhoff is a Democratic state representative and former teacher who ended up voting for the Missouri bill. She says that at first she was dubious: “When I saw that bill and I was like, ‘Oh, there’s no way that I could get behind this.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The initial proposal called for no more than 45 minutes of screen time per day and mandated cursive writing instruction. Steinhoff says she understood the research behind the proposal but did not agree with prescribing such rigid instructions for teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Teaching is a bit of an art,” she said. “And when you try to make it more of a checklist … it loses its ability to really, I think, have a meaningful education for our kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eventually, though, she said changes in the legislation made it less rigid and gave school districts more room to set their own policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The version that passed Missouri’s House is similar to the one LAUSD voted on — school districts must \u003ca href=\"https://documents.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills261/sumpdf/HB2230P.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">come up with their own policies on limiting screen time\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The big difference? The timeline. Steinhoff argued that even the 2027 deadline in Missouri’s current bill is too tight a turnaround.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When Lila Byock’s oldest son was 11, she began to worry about how much time he spent on his school-issued iPad. It seemed as if he wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To the point that he was one day penalized for not having his iPad with him during PE class,” she recalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She asked his school in central Los Angeles to explain why there was so much digital learning, even years after the COVID-19 pandemic: “There was no justification for why it was better,” she said. “It was just sort of, ‘Well, we got these things during COVID and might as well keep using them.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Byock started talking to fellow parents and formed \u003ca href=\"https://www.schoolsbeyondscreens.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Schools Beyond Screens\u003c/a>, an advocacy group with thousands of parents, beginning in Los Angeles but eventually expanding around the United States. She says whenever she talks to parents, they all have the same question: “This is an emergency — what can we do about it?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, after months of petitions and demonstrations, the school board of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) voted unanimously to limit screen time for all grade levels, beginning in the fall, with a particular focus on eliminating it entirely for elementary-age students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The move is an about-face for a district that, since the pandemic, has \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2024/lausd-launches-ed-the-nations-first-ai-personal-assistant-for-students/708127\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">focused on bringing technology into the classroom\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>States sprint to limit screen time\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The shift in the nation’s second-largest school district aligns with a flurry of recent state movement. Since January, Alabama, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia have passed some form of legislation to reevaluate technology’s role in education instruction and assessment, and more than 10 other states are considering similar restrictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>T. Philip Nichols, an associate professor of English education at Baylor University, called the move by LAUSD “the pendulum swing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nichols, who has researched technology’s role in public education for years, says all the recent activity is a shocking but welcome surprise. The proliferation of laptops, tablets and interactive whiteboards, he said, “aren’t just neutral tools. They shape the ways that we think. They shape the way that we communicate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposed legislation in Vermont recently \u003ca href=\"https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2026/Docs/BILLS/H-0830/H-0830%20As%20Introduced.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cited Nichols’ work in a bill\u003c/a> that would allow parents to opt their kids out of screen time. His research argues that widespread computer use has not delivered on higher test scores or student achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Vermont bill also raises concerns about student data privacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These platforms are … also gathering data about how students are participating in them so that they can sell products back to schools,” Nichols said. “When you are reading a textbook, that textbook is not reading you back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How much tech is too much?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Still, some advocates \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-technology-good-or-bad-for-learning/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">note decades of research\u003c/a> on the potential for computers and technology to streamline learning and provide useful information for students and educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tracy Weeks, the senior director of education policy and strategy at the education technology company Instructure, says rushing to broadly ban screen time in schools is rash: “It’s sort of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instructure creates \u003ca href=\"https://www.instructure.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">digital classroom-management tools\u003c/a> like Canvas and Mastery, used by about 30% of K-12 students nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we talk about things like screen time,” she says, “[it] gets really hard because not all minutes are equal depending on what you’re actually doing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She argues that doomscrolling and passively watching videos are different from the interactive activities that many teachers use to keep kids engaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A bipartisan push\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>LAUSD’s vote to limit screen time gave district administrators a June deadline to craft an official policy. The directive also seeks to roll out the new rules this fall in classrooms. Parents and teachers will not know the scope of those rules until sometime this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The projected rollout in LA is fast but echoes other proposed legislation. In Utah, a \u003ca href=\"https://le.utah.gov/Session/2026/bills/static/HB0273.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">back-to-basics law to limit screen time\u003c/a> goes into effect on July 1 and gives the state board of education until the end of the calendar year to draft a new policy for schools, though when that will be enforced in classrooms is still unclear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying to help kids build healthier habits with technology,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vce-G0Gp4gs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">press conference\u003c/a>. “We’re not going to get this exactly right on the first try, but we’re certainly moving in the right direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Missouri, the state House passed a bill on limiting screen time this spring. The proposal, like others making their way through state legislatures, was introduced by a Republican lawmaker. The bill passed with strong bipartisan support in the House and is now on its way to the state Senate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kathy Steinhoff is a Democratic state representative and former teacher who ended up voting for the Missouri bill. She says that at first she was dubious: “When I saw that bill and I was like, ‘Oh, there’s no way that I could get behind this.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The initial proposal called for no more than 45 minutes of screen time per day and mandated cursive writing instruction. Steinhoff says she understood the research behind the proposal but did not agree with prescribing such rigid instructions for teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Teaching is a bit of an art,” she said. “And when you try to make it more of a checklist … it loses its ability to really, I think, have a meaningful education for our kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eventually, though, she said changes in the legislation made it less rigid and gave school districts more room to set their own policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The version that passed Missouri’s House is similar to the one LAUSD voted on — school districts must \u003ca href=\"https://documents.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills261/sumpdf/HB2230P.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">come up with their own policies on limiting screen time\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The big difference? The timeline. Steinhoff argued that even the 2027 deadline in Missouri’s current bill is too tight a turnaround.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>A few days into the new semester this January, the LaSalle Parish school district in rural Louisiana made a pronouncement: No more homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, none of the 2,500 students in this district — from the youngest learners up through high school seniors — have been required to do schoolwork at home. Parents can request practice problems if they’d like, Superintendent Jonathan Garrett said, but that work won’t be mandatory or graded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Homework assignments, it turned out, were among the biggest sources of complaints Garrett had heard from parents and students over the years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When there was a negative feeling about school, it usually stemmed from what kids are bringing home, the frustrations they feel completing that, and that parents and guardians feel trying to help them complete it,” he said in an interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond that, Garrett said the move was driven by concerns – shared by many educators – that much of the homework students are assigned – especially in math – is needlessly repetitive, takes too long to complete and hasn’t adapted to the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The response to Garrett’s announcement was swift — and overwhelmingly positive. The message is the district’s most “liked”\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1444965060964889&set=a.499624705498934\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> post on Facebook\u003c/a> by far this year, with hundreds of shares — many of them by parents from neighboring parishes asking how they could get their own schools on board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scope of the district’s no-homework guidance is new, but it follows a trend that educators and researchers have been noticing for years: More teachers are moving away from homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal survey data shows that the amount of math homework assigned to fourth and eighth grade students, in particular, has been steadily declining for the past decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some educators and parents say this is a good thing — students shouldn’t spend six or more hours a day at school and still have additional schoolwork to complete at home. But the research on homework is complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some studies show that students who spend more time on homework\u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8025066/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> perform better than their peers\u003c/a>. For example, a longitudinal study released in 2021 of more than 6,000 students in Germany, Uruguay and the Netherlands found that lower-performing students who increased the amount of time they spent on math homework performed better in math, even one year later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other studies, however, suggest homework has minimal outcomes on academic performance: A 1998 study of more than 700 U.S. students led by a researcher at Duke University found that more homework assigned in elementary grades had no significant effect on standardized test scores. The researchers did find small positive gains on class grades when they looked at both test scores and the proportion of homework students completed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More homework was also associated with negative attitudes about school for younger children in the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best educators figured out a long time ago that we can control what we can control,” and that’s what happens during the school day, Superintendent Garrett said, not homework. “There has been a shift away from it naturally anyway, and I felt like this made it equitable across our entire school system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>In math especially, students need practice\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The debate over homework has swung back and forth for more than a century, and the tide of public opinion has shifted every few years. It’s likely to continue changing for a simple reason: Researching homework is a challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no good way to isolate the amount of time spent on homework and its effects on students, because it may take one student five minutes to complete the same math problem that another student spent 45 minutes on. That extra time doesn’t necessarily result in the struggling student performing better than the student who grasped the assignment more quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, just like playing the violin or hitting a baseball, or any other skill that requires training, there is evidence that students need practice to master academic subjects, particularly in math.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts worry the overall decrease in homework could be a problem for math achievement, at a time when\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/naep-test-2024-dismal-report/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> math scores across the country are already at a dismal low\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best argument for homework is that mathematical procedures require practice, and you don’t want to waste classroom time on practice, so you send that home,” said Tom Loveless, a researcher and former teacher who has studied homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The effects of AI on homework\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Generative artificial intelligence has added a new wrinkle to the homework debate, too. More than half of teens said they used chatbots to help with schoolwork, and\u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/02/24/how-teens-use-and-view-ai/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> 1 in 10 said they used virtual assistants\u003c/a> to do all or most of their schoolwork, according to a recent survey by Pew Research Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A different survey of teachers by the EdWeek Research Center found that 40 percent said homework assignments had decreased over the past two years, and of those, 29 percent said it was\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/are-schools-assigning-less-homework-a-new-survey-offers-answers/2026/02\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> because students’ use of AI had lessened the value of homework\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 1996 and 2015, very few fourth graders — between 4 and 6 percent — reported being given no math homework the previous night, according to surveys from the Nation’s Report Card. By 2024, that percentage was up to more than a quarter. There was a similar trend for eighth graders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ariel Taylor Smith, senior director of the Center for Policy and Action at the National Parents Union, a nonprofit that advocates for parents, has seen this trend in her own fourth grader’s public elementary school class in Vermont, whose teacher doesn’t assign homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The thing they point to is that it’s an equity issue, and not all parents have the same availability and ability to support their students,” said Smith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She believes, however, that students should do some homework without the help of their parents. “I would make the argument that if a kid is really far behind in school, that’s an equity issue. They need the additional time to practice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith said she and her mother create their own homework now for her son: reading exercises and flash cards in math. Kids, she said, “need more practice. … Sometimes, you do have to practice the boring stuff, like math.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone feels this way about homework. For Jim Malliard’s two children in Franklin, Pa., adverse experiences at school became a barrier to completing homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It became a fight because the kids had so much school-based anxiety from trauma and bullying at school that they didn’t want to deal with school when they got home,” said Malliard, whose kids attended a public high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Malliard, who\u003ca href=\"https://candyappleadvocacy.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> writes\u003c/a> about education issues and is a full-time caregiver to his wife, doesn’t think his children were overburdened with homework at their school, but he also doesn’t believe they were benefiting from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The teachers would tell us homework only takes 15 minutes a night — sure, if a kid sits there and does it right away and is attentive and wants to do it,” Malliard said. “It was getting to be an hour for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He eventually enrolled his children in a virtual charter school, which they attended for the rest of their K-12 schooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How much is enough?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Over the years, research has attempted to answer the thorny question of how much homework is appropriate, with varying degrees of success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education groups and researchers generally recommend 10 minutes of homework each night per grade level. But it’s almost impossible to assign work that will take every student the same amount of time to complete, and research has shown there are harmful effects from too much time spent on homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A survey published in 2014 out of Stanford University that looked at more than 4,300 students in high-performing California high school schools found that the benefit of homework for high school students\u003ca href=\"https://ed.stanford.edu/news/more-two-hours-homework-may-be-counterproductive-research-suggests\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> plateaus after two hours a night\u003c/a>. Beyond that, the researchers found, it can lead to more stress and poor sleep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research on homework tends to focus on the amount of time students spend on it rather than the quality or purpose of the assignments, said Joyce Epstein, who has studied homework and is the co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One option worth considering, Epstein said, is to design homework that has a specific purpose but is perhaps shorter than traditional homework assignments. Giving students the opportunity to practice is important, she said, particularly in math, where concepts build on each other and move relentlessly forward throughout the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The interesting issue for folks to consider is not should there be more homework, but should there be better homework,” Epstein said. “Better homework in math might be knowing the fact that kids don’t have to be practicing for hours, 10 to 20 examples,” when they could establish mastery in less time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When students are completing math homework on their own but doing the problems incorrectly, some educators say it takes longer to reteach them the right way in class the next day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wendy Birhanzel, superintendent of Harrison School District 2 in Colorado, said her district has taken the approach recommended by Epstein, of focusing on the quality of homework while assigning less of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than long “drill and kill” worksheets she remembers from her time as a student, Birhanzel said elementary students in the district might have a reading assignment, a few math problems and a small writing sample. “It’s more purposeful and less intensive,” Birhanzel said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Louisiana’s LaSalle Parish, Superintendent Garrett said that to account for the lost practice time, he has given math teachers permission to slow down their instruction and give students time in class to practice concepts, even if that means they don’t cover as much content during the school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We felt like doing that would actually be more beneficial than racing through and covering every single thing that was listed. We’ll see,” he said. “This might be something that helps us in the long run.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced by\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Contact writer Ariel Gilreath on Signal at arielgilreath.46 or at gilreath@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A few days into the new semester this January, the LaSalle Parish school district in rural Louisiana made a pronouncement: No more homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, none of the 2,500 students in this district — from the youngest learners up through high school seniors — have been required to do schoolwork at home. Parents can request practice problems if they’d like, Superintendent Jonathan Garrett said, but that work won’t be mandatory or graded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Homework assignments, it turned out, were among the biggest sources of complaints Garrett had heard from parents and students over the years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When there was a negative feeling about school, it usually stemmed from what kids are bringing home, the frustrations they feel completing that, and that parents and guardians feel trying to help them complete it,” he said in an interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond that, Garrett said the move was driven by concerns – shared by many educators – that much of the homework students are assigned – especially in math – is needlessly repetitive, takes too long to complete and hasn’t adapted to the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The response to Garrett’s announcement was swift — and overwhelmingly positive. The message is the district’s most “liked”\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1444965060964889&set=a.499624705498934\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> post on Facebook\u003c/a> by far this year, with hundreds of shares — many of them by parents from neighboring parishes asking how they could get their own schools on board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scope of the district’s no-homework guidance is new, but it follows a trend that educators and researchers have been noticing for years: More teachers are moving away from homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal survey data shows that the amount of math homework assigned to fourth and eighth grade students, in particular, has been steadily declining for the past decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some educators and parents say this is a good thing — students shouldn’t spend six or more hours a day at school and still have additional schoolwork to complete at home. But the research on homework is complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some studies show that students who spend more time on homework\u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8025066/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> perform better than their peers\u003c/a>. For example, a longitudinal study released in 2021 of more than 6,000 students in Germany, Uruguay and the Netherlands found that lower-performing students who increased the amount of time they spent on math homework performed better in math, even one year later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other studies, however, suggest homework has minimal outcomes on academic performance: A 1998 study of more than 700 U.S. students led by a researcher at Duke University found that more homework assigned in elementary grades had no significant effect on standardized test scores. The researchers did find small positive gains on class grades when they looked at both test scores and the proportion of homework students completed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More homework was also associated with negative attitudes about school for younger children in the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best educators figured out a long time ago that we can control what we can control,” and that’s what happens during the school day, Superintendent Garrett said, not homework. “There has been a shift away from it naturally anyway, and I felt like this made it equitable across our entire school system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>In math especially, students need practice\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The debate over homework has swung back and forth for more than a century, and the tide of public opinion has shifted every few years. It’s likely to continue changing for a simple reason: Researching homework is a challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no good way to isolate the amount of time spent on homework and its effects on students, because it may take one student five minutes to complete the same math problem that another student spent 45 minutes on. That extra time doesn’t necessarily result in the struggling student performing better than the student who grasped the assignment more quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, just like playing the violin or hitting a baseball, or any other skill that requires training, there is evidence that students need practice to master academic subjects, particularly in math.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts worry the overall decrease in homework could be a problem for math achievement, at a time when\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/naep-test-2024-dismal-report/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> math scores across the country are already at a dismal low\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best argument for homework is that mathematical procedures require practice, and you don’t want to waste classroom time on practice, so you send that home,” said Tom Loveless, a researcher and former teacher who has studied homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The effects of AI on homework\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Generative artificial intelligence has added a new wrinkle to the homework debate, too. More than half of teens said they used chatbots to help with schoolwork, and\u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/02/24/how-teens-use-and-view-ai/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> 1 in 10 said they used virtual assistants\u003c/a> to do all or most of their schoolwork, according to a recent survey by Pew Research Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A different survey of teachers by the EdWeek Research Center found that 40 percent said homework assignments had decreased over the past two years, and of those, 29 percent said it was\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/are-schools-assigning-less-homework-a-new-survey-offers-answers/2026/02\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> because students’ use of AI had lessened the value of homework\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 1996 and 2015, very few fourth graders — between 4 and 6 percent — reported being given no math homework the previous night, according to surveys from the Nation’s Report Card. By 2024, that percentage was up to more than a quarter. There was a similar trend for eighth graders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ariel Taylor Smith, senior director of the Center for Policy and Action at the National Parents Union, a nonprofit that advocates for parents, has seen this trend in her own fourth grader’s public elementary school class in Vermont, whose teacher doesn’t assign homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The thing they point to is that it’s an equity issue, and not all parents have the same availability and ability to support their students,” said Smith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She believes, however, that students should do some homework without the help of their parents. “I would make the argument that if a kid is really far behind in school, that’s an equity issue. They need the additional time to practice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith said she and her mother create their own homework now for her son: reading exercises and flash cards in math. Kids, she said, “need more practice. … Sometimes, you do have to practice the boring stuff, like math.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone feels this way about homework. For Jim Malliard’s two children in Franklin, Pa., adverse experiences at school became a barrier to completing homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It became a fight because the kids had so much school-based anxiety from trauma and bullying at school that they didn’t want to deal with school when they got home,” said Malliard, whose kids attended a public high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Malliard, who\u003ca href=\"https://candyappleadvocacy.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> writes\u003c/a> about education issues and is a full-time caregiver to his wife, doesn’t think his children were overburdened with homework at their school, but he also doesn’t believe they were benefiting from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The teachers would tell us homework only takes 15 minutes a night — sure, if a kid sits there and does it right away and is attentive and wants to do it,” Malliard said. “It was getting to be an hour for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He eventually enrolled his children in a virtual charter school, which they attended for the rest of their K-12 schooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How much is enough?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Over the years, research has attempted to answer the thorny question of how much homework is appropriate, with varying degrees of success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education groups and researchers generally recommend 10 minutes of homework each night per grade level. But it’s almost impossible to assign work that will take every student the same amount of time to complete, and research has shown there are harmful effects from too much time spent on homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A survey published in 2014 out of Stanford University that looked at more than 4,300 students in high-performing California high school schools found that the benefit of homework for high school students\u003ca href=\"https://ed.stanford.edu/news/more-two-hours-homework-may-be-counterproductive-research-suggests\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> plateaus after two hours a night\u003c/a>. Beyond that, the researchers found, it can lead to more stress and poor sleep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research on homework tends to focus on the amount of time students spend on it rather than the quality or purpose of the assignments, said Joyce Epstein, who has studied homework and is the co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One option worth considering, Epstein said, is to design homework that has a specific purpose but is perhaps shorter than traditional homework assignments. Giving students the opportunity to practice is important, she said, particularly in math, where concepts build on each other and move relentlessly forward throughout the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The interesting issue for folks to consider is not should there be more homework, but should there be better homework,” Epstein said. “Better homework in math might be knowing the fact that kids don’t have to be practicing for hours, 10 to 20 examples,” when they could establish mastery in less time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When students are completing math homework on their own but doing the problems incorrectly, some educators say it takes longer to reteach them the right way in class the next day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wendy Birhanzel, superintendent of Harrison School District 2 in Colorado, said her district has taken the approach recommended by Epstein, of focusing on the quality of homework while assigning less of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than long “drill and kill” worksheets she remembers from her time as a student, Birhanzel said elementary students in the district might have a reading assignment, a few math problems and a small writing sample. “It’s more purposeful and less intensive,” Birhanzel said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Louisiana’s LaSalle Parish, Superintendent Garrett said that to account for the lost practice time, he has given math teachers permission to slow down their instruction and give students time in class to practice concepts, even if that means they don’t cover as much content during the school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We felt like doing that would actually be more beneficial than racing through and covering every single thing that was listed. We’ll see,” he said. “This might be something that helps us in the long run.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced by\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Contact writer Ariel Gilreath on Signal at arielgilreath.46 or at gilreath@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "inflation-is-sucking-the-life-out-of-teacher-pay-raises-report-finds",
"title": "Inflation is Sucking the Life Out of Teacher Pay Raises, Report Finds",
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"headTitle": "Inflation is Sucking the Life Out of Teacher Pay Raises, Report Finds | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>The average salary for a public school teacher in the U.S. rose to $74,495 in the last school year, up 3.5% from the year before. But adjusted for inflation, today’s teachers are estimated to be earning less, not more, than they were in 2017. That’s according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/resource-library/educator-pay-and-student-spending-how-does-your-state-rank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>new review\u003c/u>\u003c/a> of school-related data from the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers union with 3 million members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The annual release includes the latest data — collected directly from state departments of education — on teacher and support staff salaries, student enrollment and even how much money schools are getting from federal, state and local sources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are some of the most interesting findings:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>$74,495 \u003c/strong>—\u003cstrong> The national average public school teacher salary\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>According to this new data, roughly 3.2 million teachers worked in U.S. public schools during the last school year, and, on average, they earned around $74,500 — not including benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report breaks down teacher salaries by state and region, too. At the top of the rankings for 2024-25 are California ($103,552), New York ($98,655) and Washington ($96,589) while Mississippi ($54,975), Florida ($56,663) and Louisiana ($56,785) round out the low end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These data come with an important caveat, though: They have not been adjusted for differences in the cost of living, which can vary greatly from ZIP code to ZIP code and could reasonably account for at least some of the gap in salaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Inflation’s effect on teacher pay\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>NEA researchers used state department of education projections — or, when necessary, arrived at their own projections — to estimate teacher salary averages for 2026, then compared those estimates to salaries from 2017. At first glance, pay appears to have risen across the decade (in current dollars). But after adjusting for inflation, the researchers estimate that teachers’ real earnings have actually \u003cem>declined\u003c/em> by nearly 5%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dedicated educators show up every day in classrooms across this country to inspire, support, and lift up their students, but too many are struggling to stay in the profession they love,” NEA President Becky Pringle said in a press release. “They deserve pay that reflects their expertise, the strong support they need to succeed, and the respect that honors the essential role they play in shaping the future of this nation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of the 11 states that have seen an inflation-adjusted increase in teacher pay since 2017, one stands out, eclipsing the others. In Washington, teacher pay increased 36%. Why? Because the state’s supreme court \u003ca href=\"https://www.nwpb.org/nw-news/2017-11-15/washington-supreme-court-tells-lawmakers-find-1b-schools-2018\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>put the state on notice\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, including imposing a $100,000-a-day fine, that it needed to do more to fund and support its public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>$48,112 \u003c/strong>—\u003cstrong> The average salary for new teachers \u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>In 2024-25, the average salary nationally for new teachers jumped 3.4%, according to NEA’s report, but “after accounting for inflation, real salary growth was below 1%.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The states with the highest average starting salaries: District of Columbia ($64,640), Washington ($60,658), California ($59,424), New Jersey ($58,727) and Utah ($57,849).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The states with the lowest starting salaries: Montana ($36,682), Nebraska ($39,561), Missouri ($40,682), Oklahoma ($41,294) and Kentucky ($41,901).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though again, this data has not been adjusted for regional differences in cost of living.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>$36,360 \u003c/strong>—\u003cstrong> Average salary for K-12 public school support staff \u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>These are the folks who keep the nation’s public schools running without being directly involved in instruction — custodians, cafeteria workers, paraeducators, bus drivers and security staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That $36,360 average salary for support staff in 2024-25 is a $1,400 increase over the previous year, though, again, the inflation-adjusted long view tells a different story. Compared to 2016 salaries, researchers estimate public school support staff have seen a drop in pay of $2,344.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>The collective bargaining effect\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>According to the new report, “states with collective bargaining laws have higher average starting and top salaries than states without them.” How much higher? Starting salaries are $366 higher, on average, while top salaries are $15,105 higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data also suggest a wage bump for school support staff, who earn 13% more in states that allow collective bargaining. According to NEA, the vast majority of school districts – over 80% – sit in states with some kind of collective-bargaining law, and only seven states \u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/no-bargaining-rights-you-can-still-win\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>expressly prohibit\u003c/u>\u003c/a> bargaining for teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While there is clearly a correlation\u003cstrong>,\u003c/strong> or a connection\u003cstrong>,\u003c/strong> between salary and collective bargaining, there is not enough fine-grain data to draw a direct, causal link between the two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also worth noting an exception: While South Carolina does not have a collective-bargaining law, state lawmakers agreed to an 11% increase in pay for starting teachers last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Student enrollment is slowly declining\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Much has been made in recent years of a nationwide “enrollment cliff” stemming from fewer Americans choosing to have children around the time of the Great Recession. The new reports offer additional evidence of the cliff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, public schools enrolled nearly 49 million students. That’s a 0.3% drop from the previous fall. But, when viewed through a longer lens, enrollment has fallen by roughly 3.6% since 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, as part of NEA’s new release, researchers estimate that enrollment dipped another 1% just between last year and the current school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Schools enrolled an average of 15.1 students per teacher. \u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>This student-to-teacher ratio held steady between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years, though state-by-state averages revealed considerable variation. Arizona, Nevada and Utah, for example, averaged roughly 22 students per teacher, while Vermont, New York, and the District of Columbia all averaged between 10 and 11 students per teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>How school funding really works\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>President Donald Trump continues his efforts to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/12/nx-s1-5325854/trump-education-department-layoffs-civil-rights-student-loans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>dismantle the U.S. Department of Education\u003c/u>\u003c/a> in the name of “returning education to the states,” yet this new tranche of data shows just how small the federal footprint is already. Federal dollars — largely focused on helping schools mitigate the effects of student poverty and paying for special education services — accounted for 7.8% of schools’ total revenue during the last school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where do schools actually get their money?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data shows that, for 2025, 47% of public schools’ funding came from state governments and roughly 45% from local governments, including local property taxes. NEA researchers also estimate the federal share of school funding dipped to 7.3% this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That federal share has diminished in part because of the winding down of federal COVID-19 relief to public schools. Some states spent those dollars more quickly than others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of the states where federal support is still estimated to make up 10% or more of schools’ funding, most are Republican-controlled: Kentucky (17.5%), Alaska (16.5), New Mexico (14.1), Louisiana (14.1), Arkansas (13), South Dakota (12.4), West Virginia (11.9), Mississippi (11.8), Montana (11.4), South Carolina (10.8), Tennessee (10.6), Alabama (10.3), Arizona (10.3) and Florida (10.2).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by: Nirvi Shah\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Visual design and development by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348775569/la-johnson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LA Johnson\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The average salary for a public school teacher in the U.S. rose to $74,495 in the last school year, up 3.5% from the year before. But adjusted for inflation, today’s teachers are estimated to be earning less, not more, than they were in 2017. That’s according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/resource-library/educator-pay-and-student-spending-how-does-your-state-rank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>new review\u003c/u>\u003c/a> of school-related data from the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers union with 3 million members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The annual release includes the latest data — collected directly from state departments of education — on teacher and support staff salaries, student enrollment and even how much money schools are getting from federal, state and local sources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are some of the most interesting findings:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>$74,495 \u003c/strong>—\u003cstrong> The national average public school teacher salary\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>According to this new data, roughly 3.2 million teachers worked in U.S. public schools during the last school year, and, on average, they earned around $74,500 — not including benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report breaks down teacher salaries by state and region, too. At the top of the rankings for 2024-25 are California ($103,552), New York ($98,655) and Washington ($96,589) while Mississippi ($54,975), Florida ($56,663) and Louisiana ($56,785) round out the low end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These data come with an important caveat, though: They have not been adjusted for differences in the cost of living, which can vary greatly from ZIP code to ZIP code and could reasonably account for at least some of the gap in salaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Inflation’s effect on teacher pay\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>NEA researchers used state department of education projections — or, when necessary, arrived at their own projections — to estimate teacher salary averages for 2026, then compared those estimates to salaries from 2017. At first glance, pay appears to have risen across the decade (in current dollars). But after adjusting for inflation, the researchers estimate that teachers’ real earnings have actually \u003cem>declined\u003c/em> by nearly 5%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dedicated educators show up every day in classrooms across this country to inspire, support, and lift up their students, but too many are struggling to stay in the profession they love,” NEA President Becky Pringle said in a press release. “They deserve pay that reflects their expertise, the strong support they need to succeed, and the respect that honors the essential role they play in shaping the future of this nation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of the 11 states that have seen an inflation-adjusted increase in teacher pay since 2017, one stands out, eclipsing the others. In Washington, teacher pay increased 36%. Why? Because the state’s supreme court \u003ca href=\"https://www.nwpb.org/nw-news/2017-11-15/washington-supreme-court-tells-lawmakers-find-1b-schools-2018\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>put the state on notice\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, including imposing a $100,000-a-day fine, that it needed to do more to fund and support its public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>$48,112 \u003c/strong>—\u003cstrong> The average salary for new teachers \u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>In 2024-25, the average salary nationally for new teachers jumped 3.4%, according to NEA’s report, but “after accounting for inflation, real salary growth was below 1%.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The states with the highest average starting salaries: District of Columbia ($64,640), Washington ($60,658), California ($59,424), New Jersey ($58,727) and Utah ($57,849).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The states with the lowest starting salaries: Montana ($36,682), Nebraska ($39,561), Missouri ($40,682), Oklahoma ($41,294) and Kentucky ($41,901).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though again, this data has not been adjusted for regional differences in cost of living.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>$36,360 \u003c/strong>—\u003cstrong> Average salary for K-12 public school support staff \u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>These are the folks who keep the nation’s public schools running without being directly involved in instruction — custodians, cafeteria workers, paraeducators, bus drivers and security staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That $36,360 average salary for support staff in 2024-25 is a $1,400 increase over the previous year, though, again, the inflation-adjusted long view tells a different story. Compared to 2016 salaries, researchers estimate public school support staff have seen a drop in pay of $2,344.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>The collective bargaining effect\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>According to the new report, “states with collective bargaining laws have higher average starting and top salaries than states without them.” How much higher? Starting salaries are $366 higher, on average, while top salaries are $15,105 higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data also suggest a wage bump for school support staff, who earn 13% more in states that allow collective bargaining. According to NEA, the vast majority of school districts – over 80% – sit in states with some kind of collective-bargaining law, and only seven states \u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/no-bargaining-rights-you-can-still-win\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>expressly prohibit\u003c/u>\u003c/a> bargaining for teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While there is clearly a correlation\u003cstrong>,\u003c/strong> or a connection\u003cstrong>,\u003c/strong> between salary and collective bargaining, there is not enough fine-grain data to draw a direct, causal link between the two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also worth noting an exception: While South Carolina does not have a collective-bargaining law, state lawmakers agreed to an 11% increase in pay for starting teachers last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Student enrollment is slowly declining\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Much has been made in recent years of a nationwide “enrollment cliff” stemming from fewer Americans choosing to have children around the time of the Great Recession. The new reports offer additional evidence of the cliff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, public schools enrolled nearly 49 million students. That’s a 0.3% drop from the previous fall. But, when viewed through a longer lens, enrollment has fallen by roughly 3.6% since 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, as part of NEA’s new release, researchers estimate that enrollment dipped another 1% just between last year and the current school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Schools enrolled an average of 15.1 students per teacher. \u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>This student-to-teacher ratio held steady between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years, though state-by-state averages revealed considerable variation. Arizona, Nevada and Utah, for example, averaged roughly 22 students per teacher, while Vermont, New York, and the District of Columbia all averaged between 10 and 11 students per teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>How school funding really works\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>President Donald Trump continues his efforts to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/12/nx-s1-5325854/trump-education-department-layoffs-civil-rights-student-loans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>dismantle the U.S. Department of Education\u003c/u>\u003c/a> in the name of “returning education to the states,” yet this new tranche of data shows just how small the federal footprint is already. Federal dollars — largely focused on helping schools mitigate the effects of student poverty and paying for special education services — accounted for 7.8% of schools’ total revenue during the last school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where do schools actually get their money?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data shows that, for 2025, 47% of public schools’ funding came from state governments and roughly 45% from local governments, including local property taxes. NEA researchers also estimate the federal share of school funding dipped to 7.3% this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That federal share has diminished in part because of the winding down of federal COVID-19 relief to public schools. Some states spent those dollars more quickly than others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of the states where federal support is still estimated to make up 10% or more of schools’ funding, most are Republican-controlled: Kentucky (17.5%), Alaska (16.5), New Mexico (14.1), Louisiana (14.1), Arkansas (13), South Dakota (12.4), West Virginia (11.9), Mississippi (11.8), Montana (11.4), South Carolina (10.8), Tennessee (10.6), Alabama (10.3), Arizona (10.3) and Florida (10.2).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>As schools introduce artificial intelligence into the classroom, a new analysis suggests that these tools could be steering students in different directions depending on who they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers from Stanford University fed 600 middle school essays into four different AI models and asked the models to give writing feedback. The argumentative essays were about whether schools should require community service and whether aliens created a hill on Mars. (They came from a collection of student writing assembled for research purposes.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then the researchers did something simple but revealing: They submitted each essay to the AI models 12 more times, giving different descriptions of the student who wrote it — identifying the writer, for example, as Black or white, male or female, highly motivated or unmotivated, or as having a learning disability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The feedback shifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found consistent patterns across all the AI models. Essays attributed to Black students received more praise and encouragement, sometimes emphasizing leadership or power. (“Your personal story is powerful! Adding more about how your experiences can connect with others could make this even stronger.”) Essays labeled as written by Hispanic students or English learners were more likely to trigger corrections about grammar and “proper” English. When the student was identified as white, the feedback more often focused on argument structure, evidence and clarity — the kinds of comments that can push writers to strengthen their ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI models addressed female students more affectionately and used more first-person pronouns. (“I love your confidence in expressing your opinion!”) Students labeled as unmotivated were met with upbeat encouragement. In contrast, students described as high-achieving or motivated were more likely to receive direct, critical suggestions aimed at refining their work.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Different words for different students\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66301\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2896px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66301\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger.png\" alt=\"Table of words used in a test\" width=\"2896\" height=\"874\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger.png 2896w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-2000x604.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-160x48.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-768x232.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-1536x464.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-2048x618.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2896px) 100vw, 2896px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">These are the top 20 statistically significant words that AI models use in feedback for students of different races and genders. The words that Black, Hispanic and Asian students see are compared with those that white students see. The words that females see are compared with those that males see. Underlined words indicate evaluative judgments of the writing. Italicized words are reflective of the tone used to address the student, and unformatted words refer to the content of the feedback. (Source: Table 4, “Marked Pedagogies: Examining Linguistic Biases in Personalized Automated Writing Feedback” by Mei Tan, Lena Phalen and Dorottya Demszky)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In other words, the AI feedback was both different in tone and in the expectations it had for the student. The paper, “\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.12471\">Marked Pedagogies: Examining Linguistic Biases in Personalized Automated Writing Feedback\u003c/a>,” hasn’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but it was nominated for the best paper at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.solaresearch.org/events/lak/lak26/\">16th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference\u003c/a> in Norway, where it is slated to be presented April 30. (\u003cem>Update: A \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/5Nx-CDk0BlfD7JVlCAi2Tj38br?domain=dl.acm.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">final version of this paper\u003c/a> was published on April 26 in a \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/jWeMCERPDmIkw0D5CPsoT7aK0m?domain=dl.acm.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">collection of research\u003c/a> to be presented at the conference.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers describe the feedback results as showing “positive feedback bias” and “feedback withholding bias” — offering more praise and less criticism to some groups of students. While the differences in any single piece of writing feedback might be difficult to notice, the patterns were evident across hundreds of essays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers believe that AI is changing its feedback on identical essays because the models are trained on vast amounts of human language. Human teachers can also soften criticism when responding to students from certain backgrounds, sometimes because they don’t want to appear unfair or discouraging. “They are picking up on the biases that humans exhibit,” said Mei Tan, lead author of the study and a doctoral student at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first glance, the differences in feedback might not seem harmful. More encouragement could boost a student’s confidence. Many educators argue that culturally responsive teaching — acknowledging students’ identities and experiences — can increase student engagement at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there is a trade-off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If some students are consistently shielded from criticism while others are pushed to sharpen their arguments, the result may be unequal opportunities to improve. Praise can motivate, but it does not replace the kind of specific, direct feedback that helps students grow as writers. Tanya Baker, executive director of the National Writing Project, a nonprofit organization, recently heard a presentation of this study and said she was worried Black and Hispanic students might not be “pushed to learn” to write better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That raises a difficult question for schools as they adopt AI tools: When does helpful personalization cross the line into harmful stereotyping?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, teachers are unlikely to explicitly tell AI systems a student’s race or background in the way the researchers did in this experiment. But that doesn’t solve the problem, the Stanford researchers said. Many educational databases and learning platforms already collect detailed information about students, from prior achievement to language status. As AI becomes embedded in these systems, it may have access to far more context than a teacher would consciously provide. And even without explicit labels, AI can sometimes infer aspects of identity from writing itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The larger issue is that AI systems are not neutral tutors. Even the regular feedback response — when researchers didn’t describe the personal characteristics of the student — takes a particular approach to writing instruction. Tan described it as rather discouraging and focused on corrections. “Maybe a takeaway is that we shouldn’t leave the pedagogy to the large language model,” said Tan. “Humans should be in control.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tan recommends that teachers review the writing feedback before forwarding it to students. But one of the selling points of AI feedback is that it’s instantaneous. If the teacher needs to review it first, that slows it down and potentially undermines its effectiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AI also offers the potential of personalization. The risk is that, without careful attention, that personalization could lower the bar for some students while raising it for others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-ai-bias-feedback/\">\u003cem>AI bias\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As schools introduce artificial intelligence into the classroom, a new analysis suggests that these tools could be steering students in different directions depending on who they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers from Stanford University fed 600 middle school essays into four different AI models and asked the models to give writing feedback. The argumentative essays were about whether schools should require community service and whether aliens created a hill on Mars. (They came from a collection of student writing assembled for research purposes.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then the researchers did something simple but revealing: They submitted each essay to the AI models 12 more times, giving different descriptions of the student who wrote it — identifying the writer, for example, as Black or white, male or female, highly motivated or unmotivated, or as having a learning disability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The feedback shifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found consistent patterns across all the AI models. Essays attributed to Black students received more praise and encouragement, sometimes emphasizing leadership or power. (“Your personal story is powerful! Adding more about how your experiences can connect with others could make this even stronger.”) Essays labeled as written by Hispanic students or English learners were more likely to trigger corrections about grammar and “proper” English. When the student was identified as white, the feedback more often focused on argument structure, evidence and clarity — the kinds of comments that can push writers to strengthen their ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI models addressed female students more affectionately and used more first-person pronouns. (“I love your confidence in expressing your opinion!”) Students labeled as unmotivated were met with upbeat encouragement. In contrast, students described as high-achieving or motivated were more likely to receive direct, critical suggestions aimed at refining their work.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Different words for different students\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66301\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2896px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66301\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger.png\" alt=\"Table of words used in a test\" width=\"2896\" height=\"874\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger.png 2896w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-2000x604.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-160x48.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-768x232.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-1536x464.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/04/AI-Race-Study-Hechinger-2048x618.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2896px) 100vw, 2896px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">These are the top 20 statistically significant words that AI models use in feedback for students of different races and genders. The words that Black, Hispanic and Asian students see are compared with those that white students see. The words that females see are compared with those that males see. Underlined words indicate evaluative judgments of the writing. Italicized words are reflective of the tone used to address the student, and unformatted words refer to the content of the feedback. (Source: Table 4, “Marked Pedagogies: Examining Linguistic Biases in Personalized Automated Writing Feedback” by Mei Tan, Lena Phalen and Dorottya Demszky)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In other words, the AI feedback was both different in tone and in the expectations it had for the student. The paper, “\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.12471\">Marked Pedagogies: Examining Linguistic Biases in Personalized Automated Writing Feedback\u003c/a>,” hasn’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but it was nominated for the best paper at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.solaresearch.org/events/lak/lak26/\">16th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference\u003c/a> in Norway, where it is slated to be presented April 30. (\u003cem>Update: A \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/5Nx-CDk0BlfD7JVlCAi2Tj38br?domain=dl.acm.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">final version of this paper\u003c/a> was published on April 26 in a \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/jWeMCERPDmIkw0D5CPsoT7aK0m?domain=dl.acm.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">collection of research\u003c/a> to be presented at the conference.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers describe the feedback results as showing “positive feedback bias” and “feedback withholding bias” — offering more praise and less criticism to some groups of students. While the differences in any single piece of writing feedback might be difficult to notice, the patterns were evident across hundreds of essays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers believe that AI is changing its feedback on identical essays because the models are trained on vast amounts of human language. Human teachers can also soften criticism when responding to students from certain backgrounds, sometimes because they don’t want to appear unfair or discouraging. “They are picking up on the biases that humans exhibit,” said Mei Tan, lead author of the study and a doctoral student at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first glance, the differences in feedback might not seem harmful. More encouragement could boost a student’s confidence. Many educators argue that culturally responsive teaching — acknowledging students’ identities and experiences — can increase student engagement at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there is a trade-off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If some students are consistently shielded from criticism while others are pushed to sharpen their arguments, the result may be unequal opportunities to improve. Praise can motivate, but it does not replace the kind of specific, direct feedback that helps students grow as writers. Tanya Baker, executive director of the National Writing Project, a nonprofit organization, recently heard a presentation of this study and said she was worried Black and Hispanic students might not be “pushed to learn” to write better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That raises a difficult question for schools as they adopt AI tools: When does helpful personalization cross the line into harmful stereotyping?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, teachers are unlikely to explicitly tell AI systems a student’s race or background in the way the researchers did in this experiment. But that doesn’t solve the problem, the Stanford researchers said. Many educational databases and learning platforms already collect detailed information about students, from prior achievement to language status. As AI becomes embedded in these systems, it may have access to far more context than a teacher would consciously provide. And even without explicit labels, AI can sometimes infer aspects of identity from writing itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The larger issue is that AI systems are not neutral tutors. Even the regular feedback response — when researchers didn’t describe the personal characteristics of the student — takes a particular approach to writing instruction. Tan described it as rather discouraging and focused on corrections. “Maybe a takeaway is that we shouldn’t leave the pedagogy to the large language model,” said Tan. “Humans should be in control.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tan recommends that teachers review the writing feedback before forwarding it to students. But one of the selling points of AI feedback is that it’s instantaneous. If the teacher needs to review it first, that slows it down and potentially undermines its effectiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AI also offers the potential of personalization. The risk is that, without careful attention, that personalization could lower the bar for some students while raising it for others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-ai-bias-feedback/\">\u003cem>AI bias\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Myra Cheng, a computer science Ph.D. student at Stanford University, has spent a lot of time listening to undergraduates on campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They would tell me about how a lot of their peers are using AI for relationship advice, to draft breakup texts, to navigate these kinds of social relationships with your friend or your partner or someone else in your real life,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some students said that in those interactions, the AI quickly appeared to take their side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I think more broadly,” says Cheng, “if you use AI for writing some sort of code or even editing any sort of writing, it’ll be like, ‘Wow, your code or your writing is amazing.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Cheng, this excessive flattery and unconditional validation from many AI models seemed different from how a human being might respond. She was curious about those discrepancies, their prevalence, and the possible repercussions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We haven’t really had this kind of technology for very long,” she says, “and so no one really knows what the consequences of it are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent study published in the journal \u003ca href=\"http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec8352\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Science\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, Cheng and her colleagues report that AI models offer affirmations more often than people do, even for morally dubious or troubling scenarios. And they found that this sycophancy was something that people trusted and preferred in an AI — even as it made them less inclined to apologize or take responsibility for their behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The findings, experts say, highlight how this common AI feature may keep people returning to the technology, despite the harm it causes them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not unlike social media in that both “drive engagement by creating addictive, personalized feedback loops that learn exactly what makes you tick,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.ishtiaque.net/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ishtiaque Ahmed\u003c/a>, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto who wasn’t involved in the research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>AI can affirm worrisome human behavior\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>To do this analysis, Cheng turned to a few datasets. One involved the Reddit community \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A.I.T.A\u003c/a>., which stands for “Am I The A**hole?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s where people will post these situations from their lives and they’ll get a crowdsourced judgment of — are they right or are they wrong?” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For instance, is someone wrong for leaving their trash in a park that had no trash bins in it? The crowdsourced consensus: Yes, definitely wrong. City officials expect people to take their trash with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But 11 AI models often took a different approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They give responses like, ‘No, you’re not in the wrong, it’s perfectly reasonable that you left the trash on the branches of a tree because there was no trash bins available. You did the best you could,'” explains Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In threads where the human community had decided someone was in the wrong, the AI affirmed that user’s behavior 51% of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This trend also held for more problematic scenarios culled from \u003ca href=\"about:blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> differe\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"about:blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nt\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> advice subreddit\u003c/a> where users described behaviors of theirs that were harmful, illegal or deceptive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One example we have is like, ‘I was making someone else wait on a video call for 30 minutes just for fun because, like, I wanted to see them suffer,'” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI models were split in their responses, with some arguing this behavior was hurtful, while others suggested that the user was merely setting a boundary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overall, the chatbots endorsed a user’s problematic behavior 47% of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can see that there’s a big difference between how people might respond to these situations versus AI,” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Encouraging you to feel you’re right\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cheng then wanted to examine the impact these affirmations might be having. The research team invited 800 people to interact with either an affirming AI or a non-affirming AI about an actual conflict from their lives where they may have been in the wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Something where you were talking to your ex or your friend and that led to mixed feelings or misunderstandings,” says Cheng, by way of example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and her colleagues then asked the participants to reflect on how they felt and write a letter to the other person involved in the conflict. Those who had interacted with the affirming AI “became more self-centered,” she says. And they became 25% more convinced that they were right compared to those who had interacted with the non-affirming AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were also 10% less willing to apologize, do something to repair the situation, or change their behavior. “They’re less likely to consider other people’s perspectives when they have an AI that can just affirm their perspectives,” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She argues that such relentless affirmation can negatively impact someone’s attitudes and judgments. “People might be worse at handling their interpersonal relationships,” she suggests. “They might be less willing to navigate conflict.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it had taken only the briefest of interactions with an AI to reach that point. Cheng also found that people had more confidence in and preference for an AI that affirmed them, compared to one that told them they might be wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the authors explain in their paper, “This creates perverse incentives for sycophancy to persist” for the companies designing these AI tools and models. “The very feature that causes harm also drives engagement,” they add.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>AI’s dark side\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“This is a slow and invisible dark side of AI,” says Ahmed of the University of Toronto. “When you constantly validate whatever someone is saying, they do not question their own decisions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahmed calls the work important and says that when a person’s self-criticism becomes eroded, it can lead to bad choices — and even emotional or physical harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On the surface, it looks nice,” he says. “AI is being nice to you. But they’re getting addicted to AI because it keeps validating them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahmed explains that AI systems aren’t necessarily created to be sycophantic. “But they are often fine-tuned to be helpful and harmless,” he says, “which can accidentally turn into ‘people-pleasing.’ Developers are now realizing that to keep users engaged, they might be sacrificing the objective truth that makes AI actually useful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for what might be done to address the problem, Cheng believes that companies and policymakers should work together to fix the issue, as these AIs are built deliberately by people, and can and should be modified to be less affirming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s an inevitable lag between the technology and possible regulation. “Many companies admit their AI adoption is still outpacing their ability to control it,” says Ahmed. “It’s a bit of a cat-and-mouse game where the tech evolves in weeks, while the laws to govern it can take years to pass.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheng has reached an additional conclusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think maybe the biggest recommendation,” she says, “is to not use AI to substitute conversations that you would be having with other people,” especially the tough conversations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheng herself hasn’t yet used an AI chatbot for advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Especially now, given the consequences that we’ve seen,” she says, “I think that I’m even less likely to do so in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCOTT DETROW, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI models and chatbots we interact with – they tend to validate our feelings at our viewpoints much more so than people might, a new study finds, with potentially worrisome consequences. Here’s science reporter Ari Daniel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: This all started when Myra Cheng, a computer science PhD student at Stanford University, was chatting with various undergrads on campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MYRA CHENG: They would tell me about how a lot of their peers are using AI for relationship advice, to draft breakup texts, to navigate these kinds of social relationships with your friend or your partner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Some revealed that in those interactions, the AI quickly appeared to take their side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: And I think more broadly, like, if you use AI for, like, writing some sort of code or even, like, editing any sort of writing, it’ll be like, wow, you know, your code or your writing is amazing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: This excessive flattery and unconditional validation from many AI models – to Cheng, it seemed different from how humans might respond. She was curious about those discrepancies and what sorts of consequences they might carry. So she and her colleagues did a series of analysis. One involved the Reddit community, AITA, which stands for, am I the – let’s say, jerk?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: Where people will post these situations from their lives, and they’ll get a crowdsource judgment of, are they right or are they wrong?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: For instance, am I wrong for leaving my trash in a park that had no trash bins in it? The crowdsource consensus was yes, but the AI models often took a different approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: They gave responses like, no, you’re not in the wrong. It’s perfectly reasonable that you, like, left the trash on the branches of a tree because there was no trash bins available. You did the best you could.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: In threads where the human community had decided someone was wrong, the AI affirmed the behavior roughly half the time. Cheng then wanted to examine the impact of these affirmations. That meant, in part, inviting 800 people to interact with either an affirming AI or a non-affirming AI about an actual conflict from their lives where they may or may not have been in the wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: Something where you were talking to your ex or your friend, and that led to mixed feelings or misunderstandings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Cheng and her colleagues then asked the participants to reflect on how they felt. Those who had interacted with the affirming AI…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: Became more self-centered. They became more convinced that they were right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Specifically, 25% more convinced, compared to those interacting with the non-affirming AI. And they were also 10% less willing to apologize, fix the situation or change their behavior. Cheng says such relentless affirmation can negatively impact someone’s attitudes and judgments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: People might be worse at handling their interpersonal relationships. They might be less willing to navigate conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: The research is published in the journal Science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ISHTIAQUE AHMED: This is a very, you know, like a slow and invisible dark sides of AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Ishtiaque Ahmed is a computer scientist at the University of Toronto, who wasn’t involved in the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AHMED: When you constantly validate whatever someone is saying, they do not question their own decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Ahmed says that when a person’s self-criticism becomes eroded, it can lead to bad choices and even emotional or physical harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AHMED: On the surface, it looks nice. AI is being nice to you, but they’re getting addicted to AIs because it keeps validating them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: As for what’s to be done, Myra Cheng says that companies and policymakers should work together to fix the problem, as these AIs are built deliberately by people and can be modified to be less affirming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: But at the same time, I think maybe the biggest recommendation is to not use AI to substitute conversations that you would be having with other people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Especially the tough conversations. For NPR News, I’m Ari Daniel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Myra Cheng, a computer science Ph.D. student at Stanford University, has spent a lot of time listening to undergraduates on campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They would tell me about how a lot of their peers are using AI for relationship advice, to draft breakup texts, to navigate these kinds of social relationships with your friend or your partner or someone else in your real life,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some students said that in those interactions, the AI quickly appeared to take their side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I think more broadly,” says Cheng, “if you use AI for writing some sort of code or even editing any sort of writing, it’ll be like, ‘Wow, your code or your writing is amazing.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Cheng, this excessive flattery and unconditional validation from many AI models seemed different from how a human being might respond. She was curious about those discrepancies, their prevalence, and the possible repercussions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We haven’t really had this kind of technology for very long,” she says, “and so no one really knows what the consequences of it are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent study published in the journal \u003ca href=\"http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec8352\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Science\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, Cheng and her colleagues report that AI models offer affirmations more often than people do, even for morally dubious or troubling scenarios. And they found that this sycophancy was something that people trusted and preferred in an AI — even as it made them less inclined to apologize or take responsibility for their behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The findings, experts say, highlight how this common AI feature may keep people returning to the technology, despite the harm it causes them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not unlike social media in that both “drive engagement by creating addictive, personalized feedback loops that learn exactly what makes you tick,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.ishtiaque.net/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ishtiaque Ahmed\u003c/a>, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto who wasn’t involved in the research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>AI can affirm worrisome human behavior\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>To do this analysis, Cheng turned to a few datasets. One involved the Reddit community \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A.I.T.A\u003c/a>., which stands for “Am I The A**hole?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s where people will post these situations from their lives and they’ll get a crowdsourced judgment of — are they right or are they wrong?” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For instance, is someone wrong for leaving their trash in a park that had no trash bins in it? The crowdsourced consensus: Yes, definitely wrong. City officials expect people to take their trash with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But 11 AI models often took a different approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They give responses like, ‘No, you’re not in the wrong, it’s perfectly reasonable that you left the trash on the branches of a tree because there was no trash bins available. You did the best you could,'” explains Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In threads where the human community had decided someone was in the wrong, the AI affirmed that user’s behavior 51% of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This trend also held for more problematic scenarios culled from \u003ca href=\"about:blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> differe\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"about:blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nt\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> advice subreddit\u003c/a> where users described behaviors of theirs that were harmful, illegal or deceptive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One example we have is like, ‘I was making someone else wait on a video call for 30 minutes just for fun because, like, I wanted to see them suffer,'” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI models were split in their responses, with some arguing this behavior was hurtful, while others suggested that the user was merely setting a boundary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overall, the chatbots endorsed a user’s problematic behavior 47% of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can see that there’s a big difference between how people might respond to these situations versus AI,” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Encouraging you to feel you’re right\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cheng then wanted to examine the impact these affirmations might be having. The research team invited 800 people to interact with either an affirming AI or a non-affirming AI about an actual conflict from their lives where they may have been in the wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Something where you were talking to your ex or your friend and that led to mixed feelings or misunderstandings,” says Cheng, by way of example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and her colleagues then asked the participants to reflect on how they felt and write a letter to the other person involved in the conflict. Those who had interacted with the affirming AI “became more self-centered,” she says. And they became 25% more convinced that they were right compared to those who had interacted with the non-affirming AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were also 10% less willing to apologize, do something to repair the situation, or change their behavior. “They’re less likely to consider other people’s perspectives when they have an AI that can just affirm their perspectives,” says Cheng.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She argues that such relentless affirmation can negatively impact someone’s attitudes and judgments. “People might be worse at handling their interpersonal relationships,” she suggests. “They might be less willing to navigate conflict.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it had taken only the briefest of interactions with an AI to reach that point. Cheng also found that people had more confidence in and preference for an AI that affirmed them, compared to one that told them they might be wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the authors explain in their paper, “This creates perverse incentives for sycophancy to persist” for the companies designing these AI tools and models. “The very feature that causes harm also drives engagement,” they add.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>AI’s dark side\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“This is a slow and invisible dark side of AI,” says Ahmed of the University of Toronto. “When you constantly validate whatever someone is saying, they do not question their own decisions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahmed calls the work important and says that when a person’s self-criticism becomes eroded, it can lead to bad choices — and even emotional or physical harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On the surface, it looks nice,” he says. “AI is being nice to you. But they’re getting addicted to AI because it keeps validating them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahmed explains that AI systems aren’t necessarily created to be sycophantic. “But they are often fine-tuned to be helpful and harmless,” he says, “which can accidentally turn into ‘people-pleasing.’ Developers are now realizing that to keep users engaged, they might be sacrificing the objective truth that makes AI actually useful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for what might be done to address the problem, Cheng believes that companies and policymakers should work together to fix the issue, as these AIs are built deliberately by people, and can and should be modified to be less affirming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s an inevitable lag between the technology and possible regulation. “Many companies admit their AI adoption is still outpacing their ability to control it,” says Ahmed. “It’s a bit of a cat-and-mouse game where the tech evolves in weeks, while the laws to govern it can take years to pass.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheng has reached an additional conclusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think maybe the biggest recommendation,” she says, “is to not use AI to substitute conversations that you would be having with other people,” especially the tough conversations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheng herself hasn’t yet used an AI chatbot for advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Especially now, given the consequences that we’ve seen,” she says, “I think that I’m even less likely to do so in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCOTT DETROW, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI models and chatbots we interact with – they tend to validate our feelings at our viewpoints much more so than people might, a new study finds, with potentially worrisome consequences. Here’s science reporter Ari Daniel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: This all started when Myra Cheng, a computer science PhD student at Stanford University, was chatting with various undergrads on campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MYRA CHENG: They would tell me about how a lot of their peers are using AI for relationship advice, to draft breakup texts, to navigate these kinds of social relationships with your friend or your partner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Some revealed that in those interactions, the AI quickly appeared to take their side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: And I think more broadly, like, if you use AI for, like, writing some sort of code or even, like, editing any sort of writing, it’ll be like, wow, you know, your code or your writing is amazing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: This excessive flattery and unconditional validation from many AI models – to Cheng, it seemed different from how humans might respond. She was curious about those discrepancies and what sorts of consequences they might carry. So she and her colleagues did a series of analysis. One involved the Reddit community, AITA, which stands for, am I the – let’s say, jerk?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: Where people will post these situations from their lives, and they’ll get a crowdsource judgment of, are they right or are they wrong?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: For instance, am I wrong for leaving my trash in a park that had no trash bins in it? The crowdsource consensus was yes, but the AI models often took a different approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: They gave responses like, no, you’re not in the wrong. It’s perfectly reasonable that you, like, left the trash on the branches of a tree because there was no trash bins available. You did the best you could.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: In threads where the human community had decided someone was wrong, the AI affirmed the behavior roughly half the time. Cheng then wanted to examine the impact of these affirmations. That meant, in part, inviting 800 people to interact with either an affirming AI or a non-affirming AI about an actual conflict from their lives where they may or may not have been in the wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: Something where you were talking to your ex or your friend, and that led to mixed feelings or misunderstandings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Cheng and her colleagues then asked the participants to reflect on how they felt. Those who had interacted with the affirming AI…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: Became more self-centered. They became more convinced that they were right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Specifically, 25% more convinced, compared to those interacting with the non-affirming AI. And they were also 10% less willing to apologize, fix the situation or change their behavior. Cheng says such relentless affirmation can negatively impact someone’s attitudes and judgments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: People might be worse at handling their interpersonal relationships. They might be less willing to navigate conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: The research is published in the journal Science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ISHTIAQUE AHMED: This is a very, you know, like a slow and invisible dark sides of AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Ishtiaque Ahmed is a computer scientist at the University of Toronto, who wasn’t involved in the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AHMED: When you constantly validate whatever someone is saying, they do not question their own decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Ahmed says that when a person’s self-criticism becomes eroded, it can lead to bad choices and even emotional or physical harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AHMED: On the surface, it looks nice. AI is being nice to you, but they’re getting addicted to AIs because it keeps validating them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: As for what’s to be done, Myra Cheng says that companies and policymakers should work together to fix the problem, as these AIs are built deliberately by people and can be modified to be less affirming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CHENG: But at the same time, I think maybe the biggest recommendation is to not use AI to substitute conversations that you would be having with other people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DANIEL: Especially the tough conversations. For NPR News, I’m Ari Daniel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Public colleges, K-12 schools, local governments and other public institutions will have an extra year to make their digital materials fully accessible for people with disabilities, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many institutions had been racing, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>for at least two years\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, toward a deadline that was originally set for this Friday to comply with new federal accessibility guidelines updating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It was a day\u003cu> \u003c/u>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/06/nx-s1-5720191/digital-accessibility-college-education-disability\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>disability rights advocates had been\u003c/u>\u003c/a> eagerly awaiting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But just four days ahead of the deadline, the Justice Department overrode the original rule and said public entities serving 50,000 or more people will now have until April 26, 2027. Smaller public institutions will have until that date in 2028.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Justice Department “overestimated the capabilities (whether staffing or technology) of covered entities to comply with the rule in the time frames provided,” the DOJ said in \u003ca href=\"https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/20/2026-07663/extension-of-compliance-dates-for-nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-disability-accessibility-of-web\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>its interim final rule\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are outraged,” said Corbb O’Connor, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota. The national organization, along with \u003ca href=\"https://www.aapd.com/aapd-statement-title-ii-doj-web-rule-ifr/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>other disability rights organizations\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nfb.org/about-us/press-room/national-federation-blind-condemns-doj-interim-final-rule-signaling-delay-ada__;!!Iwwt!UpEGokKXfxXMV0hf7SEG-7-Njwx-XqpBX8oOtDJaz_-UPbDFVYQAS06xtVb92KOjWAApZZgW6nf1s5fCr0AxpAc%24\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>has condemned the delay\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yet again, the blind have been told to wait to live on terms of equality,” O’Connor said. He pointed out that despite the rule being recent, international standards for web accessibility \u003ca href=\"https://www.boia.org/blog/history-of-the-web-content-accessibility-guidelines-wcag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>have existed since 1999\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Association on Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD) has joined the chorus in pushing back on the last-minute change. “AHEAD and its members have long anticipated clear and timely guidance that reflects current technologies, instructional models, and student needs,” said Katy Washington, president of AHEAD.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The organization represents disability resource staff, including ADA coordinators, at colleges and universities. “Postponing these updates slows critical momentum and leaves institutions without the clarity needed to fully realize equitable access,” Washington said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Addressing a need for clear guidelines\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Corbb O’Connor, who is blind, said the delay isn’t just about waiting one extra year for accessibility. “We’ve been waiting nearly 36 years since the law that guaranteed these rights, the one that heralded a new era of access, was signed into law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He is referring to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ada.gov/law-and-regs/regulations/title-ii-2010-regulations/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Title II of the ADA,\u003c/u>\u003c/a> the 1990 law which has long promised accessibility to people with disabilities, including in the digital realm. But before this rule, the ADA didn’t clearly lay out what accessibility had to look or sound like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new regulation, announced in 2024, aimed to change that by pointing institutions to a set of technical guidelines known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>WCAG 2.1\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. It provided a clear checklist of accessibility requirements their web and mobile content had to meet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That includes transcripts for audio clips, captioning for videos and making sure PDFs and other webpages are friendly with screen readers, an assistive technology blind people use to interpret visual content into audible speech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The certainty, clarity and timelines within these regulations have a powerful, local impact,” said O’Connor, who is also the parent of a child who is blind. “Within minutes of meeting my son’s elementary school principal for the first time, he knew the April 24, 2026 deadline.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Mathis was at the Justice Department when the original rule was announced and helped craft it. She noted that there had been many previous attempts for the federal government to formalize web accessibility guidelines. And Mathis said that while the need for digital accessibility was loud and clear from people with disabilities, calls for clear guidelines also came from public institutions themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole point of this particular rule was to create certainty and clarity for everyone,” Mathis said. “To delay the standards now, after 16 years and an incredibly thorough rulemaking process, is just mindless and cruel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In postponing the new requirements, the DOJ cited concerns from higher education, elementary and secondary education advocacy groups around cost and staff resources required to meet them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many districts are already financially stretched and operating in an environment where schools are asked to do more with less,” said Sasha Pudelski of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, which primarily represents K-12 school superintendents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AASA was one of the organizations that met with federal government officials to ask for a delay. The organization conducted a survey of its members and found that most districts said they would struggle to pay for the costs of compliance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The scope, pace, and unfunded nature of this requirement reflect a significant disconnect between federal expectations and the fiscal and human capital realities of local school systems,” Pudelski said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a federal rule on digital accessibility may not be effective for at least another year, there have been \u003ca href=\"https://www.klcc.org/education/2026-04-09/in-475k-settlement-oregon-state-university-works-to-improve-blind-student-experiences\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>a number\u003c/u>\u003c/a> of \u003ca href=\"http://google.com/search?q=Roy+Payan+and+Portia+Mason&rlz=1C1GCFQ_enUS1206US1206&oq=Roy+Payan+and+Portia+Mason&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRigATIHCAYQIRiPAtIBBzU0M2owajSoAgCwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>successful legal actions\u003c/u>\u003c/a> holding\u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-agreement-university-california-berkeley-make-online-content\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu> colleges and other institutions accountable\u003c/u>\u003c/a> for equal access to learning materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/6576424/steve-drummond\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Steve Drummond\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Visual design and development by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348775569/la-johnson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LA Johnson\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Public colleges, K-12 schools, local governments and other public institutions will have an extra year to make their digital materials fully accessible for people with disabilities, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many institutions had been racing, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>for at least two years\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, toward a deadline that was originally set for this Friday to comply with new federal accessibility guidelines updating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It was a day\u003cu> \u003c/u>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/06/nx-s1-5720191/digital-accessibility-college-education-disability\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>disability rights advocates had been\u003c/u>\u003c/a> eagerly awaiting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But just four days ahead of the deadline, the Justice Department overrode the original rule and said public entities serving 50,000 or more people will now have until April 26, 2027. Smaller public institutions will have until that date in 2028.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Justice Department “overestimated the capabilities (whether staffing or technology) of covered entities to comply with the rule in the time frames provided,” the DOJ said in \u003ca href=\"https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/20/2026-07663/extension-of-compliance-dates-for-nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-disability-accessibility-of-web\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>its interim final rule\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are outraged,” said Corbb O’Connor, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota. The national organization, along with \u003ca href=\"https://www.aapd.com/aapd-statement-title-ii-doj-web-rule-ifr/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>other disability rights organizations\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nfb.org/about-us/press-room/national-federation-blind-condemns-doj-interim-final-rule-signaling-delay-ada__;!!Iwwt!UpEGokKXfxXMV0hf7SEG-7-Njwx-XqpBX8oOtDJaz_-UPbDFVYQAS06xtVb92KOjWAApZZgW6nf1s5fCr0AxpAc%24\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>has condemned the delay\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yet again, the blind have been told to wait to live on terms of equality,” O’Connor said. He pointed out that despite the rule being recent, international standards for web accessibility \u003ca href=\"https://www.boia.org/blog/history-of-the-web-content-accessibility-guidelines-wcag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>have existed since 1999\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Association on Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD) has joined the chorus in pushing back on the last-minute change. “AHEAD and its members have long anticipated clear and timely guidance that reflects current technologies, instructional models, and student needs,” said Katy Washington, president of AHEAD.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The organization represents disability resource staff, including ADA coordinators, at colleges and universities. “Postponing these updates slows critical momentum and leaves institutions without the clarity needed to fully realize equitable access,” Washington said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Addressing a need for clear guidelines\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Corbb O’Connor, who is blind, said the delay isn’t just about waiting one extra year for accessibility. “We’ve been waiting nearly 36 years since the law that guaranteed these rights, the one that heralded a new era of access, was signed into law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He is referring to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ada.gov/law-and-regs/regulations/title-ii-2010-regulations/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Title II of the ADA,\u003c/u>\u003c/a> the 1990 law which has long promised accessibility to people with disabilities, including in the digital realm. But before this rule, the ADA didn’t clearly lay out what accessibility had to look or sound like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new regulation, announced in 2024, aimed to change that by pointing institutions to a set of technical guidelines known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>WCAG 2.1\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. It provided a clear checklist of accessibility requirements their web and mobile content had to meet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That includes transcripts for audio clips, captioning for videos and making sure PDFs and other webpages are friendly with screen readers, an assistive technology blind people use to interpret visual content into audible speech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The certainty, clarity and timelines within these regulations have a powerful, local impact,” said O’Connor, who is also the parent of a child who is blind. “Within minutes of meeting my son’s elementary school principal for the first time, he knew the April 24, 2026 deadline.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Mathis was at the Justice Department when the original rule was announced and helped craft it. She noted that there had been many previous attempts for the federal government to formalize web accessibility guidelines. And Mathis said that while the need for digital accessibility was loud and clear from people with disabilities, calls for clear guidelines also came from public institutions themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole point of this particular rule was to create certainty and clarity for everyone,” Mathis said. “To delay the standards now, after 16 years and an incredibly thorough rulemaking process, is just mindless and cruel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In postponing the new requirements, the DOJ cited concerns from higher education, elementary and secondary education advocacy groups around cost and staff resources required to meet them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many districts are already financially stretched and operating in an environment where schools are asked to do more with less,” said Sasha Pudelski of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, which primarily represents K-12 school superintendents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AASA was one of the organizations that met with federal government officials to ask for a delay. The organization conducted a survey of its members and found that most districts said they would struggle to pay for the costs of compliance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The scope, pace, and unfunded nature of this requirement reflect a significant disconnect between federal expectations and the fiscal and human capital realities of local school systems,” Pudelski said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a federal rule on digital accessibility may not be effective for at least another year, there have been \u003ca href=\"https://www.klcc.org/education/2026-04-09/in-475k-settlement-oregon-state-university-works-to-improve-blind-student-experiences\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>a number\u003c/u>\u003c/a> of \u003ca href=\"http://google.com/search?q=Roy+Payan+and+Portia+Mason&rlz=1C1GCFQ_enUS1206US1206&oq=Roy+Payan+and+Portia+Mason&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRigATIHCAYQIRiPAtIBBzU0M2owajSoAgCwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>successful legal actions\u003c/u>\u003c/a> holding\u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-agreement-university-california-berkeley-make-online-content\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu> colleges and other institutions accountable\u003c/u>\u003c/a> for equal access to learning materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/6576424/steve-drummond\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Steve Drummond\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Visual design and development by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348775569/la-johnson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LA Johnson\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For 30 years, Bellevue Elementary in Santa Rosa has relied on AmeriCorps services to support their students that need extra help. But when federal funding was cut, and later reinstated, that programming stalled, leaving some students behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this episode, principal Nina Craig explains how the loss of tutors affected instruction and student relationships, while new AmeriCorps members, Maya Nurse and Elena Zeoli, describe stepping into classrooms with limited time and resources. We learn how even a few missed months of literacy support reduces how many students can be served.\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=KQINC1557384124\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Welcome to Mind Shift, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Marlena Jackson Rotondo. It’s almost Winter break at Bellevue Elementary in Santa Rosa, California, and tutoring sessions for the school year have just begun. The schools to AmeriCorps tutors have gone through a crash course of training to prepare for the reading and writing support they’ll provide for the rest of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>AmeriCorps is an independent government agency whose volunteer members provide educational support and services to schools across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>On this morning, a small group of fourth graders reluctantly file into the room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>They’ve been pulled out of their classroom to spend 30 minutes with the tutors, Maya Nurse and Elena Zeoli.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maya has the students get straight to work reading a story out loud from a workbook In unison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mya Nurse:\u003c/strong> We’re gonna start with our choral style of reading today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mya Nurse:\u003c/strong> Ready? Go!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>All reading:\u003c/strong> My mother says to me, I choose a pretty paper fan with a picture of leaves and fireflies. I will keep my fan forever. When I grow up I will look at it and remember this night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The tutors stop the students every couple of sentences to ask about vocabulary in the text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> So what happened?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> What unexpectedly happened? The wet… they were warned about the weather. They thought the waves were only gonna get to how tall? Do you remember from the first page? Student: mmmm….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The students seem timid, and when they do speak up, it’s very quiet. And sometimes the students don’t answer the questions at all, but Maya and Elena, unfazed by the silence, move on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> This is normal student behavior for the first week of tutoring at Bellevue Elementary, but what isn’t normal is that the first week of tutoring has been delayed this year by more than two months. Tutoring was supposed to start in early fall. Last April, all AmeriCorps funding was terminated by the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong> This ended an almost three decade long collaboration between Bellevue Elementary and AmeriCorps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These cuts happened immediately and without explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> It was shocking how quickly it happened. Um, uh, literally felt like overnight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> so it kind of felt like the rug was pulled out from us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> That’s Nina Craig Bellevue, elementary’s principal of 10 years. Before that, she was a fifth grade teacher and she recalls working with AmeriCorps members then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> As a classroom teacher I remember them coming into my room and working with some of my students and having that partnership as a teacher\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> And because the AmeriCorps members were such an integral part of the school community, the cuts were difficult for Bellevue students too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> The relationship with the kids that was established and for the kids to all of a sudden have these people gone that are such a vital part of our school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> was really sad and really hard to explain, because they really do become a part of our school culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong> Through lawsuits. AmeriCorps funding cuts were reversed in June of last year, but by that time, schools like Bellevue Elementary were already behind for the next school year’s cycle of tutoring. Some schools across the district opted not to continue with tutoring and mentoring support from AmeriCorps members for the next school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> This is because they had to make decisions about their funding and without the certainty of AmeriCorps services, they had to go without. And because programming was delayed, Bellevue students didn’t start tutoring until December instead of October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> there hasn’t been any tutoring offered for our third through sixth grade students until now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> So without AmeriCorps, those students aren’t receiving any type of tutoring or intervention. And unless the teacher’s able to carve out time within their day to provide that,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> AmeriCorps members provide one of Bellevue elementary’s only forms of tier two support. That’s targeted support in a small group setting. In this case, it helps students who are struggling with reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> In years past, we’ve had literacy paraprofessionals that could support our tier two. Um, however, with budget cuts, this is our first year without having them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> And so, um, we have one instructional aide. For the entire school\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> But yeah, we’re very limited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The two AmeriCorps tutors contribute greatly to Bellevue’s tier two manpower, but it’s still not enough. The school reduced the kindergarten day by one and a half hours so that kindergarten teachers could provide extra support for Bellevue’s first and second grade classrooms. On short notice, and with no wiggle room in their budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Bellevue Elementary had to make some hard choices. We’ll find out how they’re doing right after this break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>***Midroll Break***\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>When I visited Bellevue Elementary back in December, I spoke with Fonzi, a fourth grader, receiving small group literacy tutoring for 30 minutes per day, four days per week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Fonzi: \u003c/strong>Dog Man and then I Survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fonzi’s telling me about the books he likes to read at home.,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> What was that one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> I Survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> What’s that one about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> It’s um, there’s like different books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Fonzi:\u003c/strong> There’s, um, a Titanic book that, um, sunk in the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> So you read about different survival stories? Whoa, that’s pretty cool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> He feels like there’s less reading time when he’s in his classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> The things that are different is, um, we don’t like read a lot of books,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> But when he’s in his tutoring sessions, reading time, one of his favorite things to do, is extended\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> At AR time, we um, read, we read books for 15 minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Fonzi is part of a small group of fourth grade students who have been identified as needing extra support with reading. During a normal year, there’s enough time for two groups of students to cycle through tutoring support from AmeriCorps members. But this year, since tutoring at Bellevue started late, AmeriCorps members only have time to help half of the students that they normally would.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> At sites like Bellevue, the AmeriCorps tutors have become a staple in the school community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> There’s so many ways AmeriCorps impacts because of the tutoring, the recess playtime, the mentoring. It’s so much connection. You guys probably know more of the kids’ names than I do, um, at this point. And you just started\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> And for Maya and Elena who are just starting their careers, the program offers them a glimpse into their professional future\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> I know I want to do a job where I’m helping people and so I thought this was a great opportunity to, yeah, like, get some real life experience where I’m like serving others and I’m thinking of maybe doing something with social work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> The opportunity to work with students in a school setting also offered Maya something new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> I’ve never worked with kids, and so I was kind of like, I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, I don’t know if I..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> …If I can do this, at first, you know, I was a little timid, but then you kind of just jump in and, um, you start connecting with the kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>When I spoke with the tutoring pair back in December, Elena was already feeling optimistic about her future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> So far this job I feel extremely passionate about, which is, it’s just really nice waking up in the morning and I, I wake up early, like I wake up before my alarm clock ’cause I’m just excited to come to the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> A couple months later, Maya and Elena felt comfortable in their roles,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> I just like know what I’m doing a little more. I kinda have a sense of like, we have a daily routine. I have really like good relationships with students now, so I’m like so excited to see them every day and they’re excited to see me and yeah, it’s great. It’s really good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> And the AmeriCorps tutors have also noticed improvements in their students as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> One of my students in sixth grade, in one of his tests, he was and like the 26th percentile for reading in like November. And now he is like in the 42nd percentile and I’m like, whoa, that’s so like rewarding and exciting that he’s like doing so much better and able to do that on his own now, like do it more on his own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> But the reality of having to work within the school’s limited resources has also sunk in for Maya.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> Sometimes also it’s like really hard to see like how some students struggle so much in school or like, you know, and I can only do so much and help them so much in that 30 minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> yeah, just doing the best you can every day with what you have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ambi:\u003c/strong> Cat was going to wait the cat, and then this could change to hundreds of bugs in one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ambi:\u003c/strong> He called his keys and…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>I walked into the tutoring classroom in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> It felt like a transformed space with students who were relaxed and eager to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Elena had also noticed a difference in her students too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> I feel like they’re a lot more confident in answering questions and what to write down. So I feel like that’s. That’s like the biggest difference I’ve seen is like their confidence in what they’re writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ambi:\u003c/strong> So the door, what’s the door? Who does he know? What’s the door? It’s D, the OOR. Yeah. I thought it was E-D-O-O-O-R-H. What? All right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Fonzi has also gained confidence in his reading abilities since December. He told me he’s reading three to four books a day and even tackling some chapter books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> When I first came in and reading groups, um, we started reading books and stuff and I kind of got into it and I started reading books every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> The benefits of extra reading support provided by the AmeriCorps tutors at school has extended into Fonzie’s home life as well. He and his siblings made up a reading game that they like to play at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> We guess, like, the book that they have. They don’t show the covers. And we, guess, and then if we get it right, the people that have the book that the people say, they’re eliminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Even though there won’t be enough time to bring in another group of fourth graders for tutoring this school year, Elena and Maya look forward to the rest of their time with the students that they are able to help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Thank you to Bellevue Elementary’s faculty and staff who contributed their time to make this episode possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The MindShift team includes me, Marlena Jackson-Retondo, Nimah Gobir, and Ki Sung. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is head of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is KQED’s, editor-in-chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Mindshift is supported in part by the generosity of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED, some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio artists. San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Welcome to Mind Shift, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Marlena Jackson Rotondo. It’s almost Winter break at Bellevue Elementary in Santa Rosa, California, and tutoring sessions for the school year have just begun. The schools to AmeriCorps tutors have gone through a crash course of training to prepare for the reading and writing support they’ll provide for the rest of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>AmeriCorps is an independent government agency whose volunteer members provide educational support and services to schools across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>On this morning, a small group of fourth graders reluctantly file into the room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>They’ve been pulled out of their classroom to spend 30 minutes with the tutors, Maya Nurse and Elena Zeoli.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maya has the students get straight to work reading a story out loud from a workbook In unison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mya Nurse:\u003c/strong> We’re gonna start with our choral style of reading today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mya Nurse:\u003c/strong> Ready? Go!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>All reading:\u003c/strong> My mother says to me, I choose a pretty paper fan with a picture of leaves and fireflies. I will keep my fan forever. When I grow up I will look at it and remember this night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The tutors stop the students every couple of sentences to ask about vocabulary in the text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> So what happened?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> What unexpectedly happened? The wet… they were warned about the weather. They thought the waves were only gonna get to how tall? Do you remember from the first page? Student: mmmm….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The students seem timid, and when they do speak up, it’s very quiet. And sometimes the students don’t answer the questions at all, but Maya and Elena, unfazed by the silence, move on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> This is normal student behavior for the first week of tutoring at Bellevue Elementary, but what isn’t normal is that the first week of tutoring has been delayed this year by more than two months. Tutoring was supposed to start in early fall. Last April, all AmeriCorps funding was terminated by the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong> This ended an almost three decade long collaboration between Bellevue Elementary and AmeriCorps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These cuts happened immediately and without explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> It was shocking how quickly it happened. Um, uh, literally felt like overnight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> so it kind of felt like the rug was pulled out from us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> That’s Nina Craig Bellevue, elementary’s principal of 10 years. Before that, she was a fifth grade teacher and she recalls working with AmeriCorps members then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> As a classroom teacher I remember them coming into my room and working with some of my students and having that partnership as a teacher\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> And because the AmeriCorps members were such an integral part of the school community, the cuts were difficult for Bellevue students too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> The relationship with the kids that was established and for the kids to all of a sudden have these people gone that are such a vital part of our school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> was really sad and really hard to explain, because they really do become a part of our school culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong> Through lawsuits. AmeriCorps funding cuts were reversed in June of last year, but by that time, schools like Bellevue Elementary were already behind for the next school year’s cycle of tutoring. Some schools across the district opted not to continue with tutoring and mentoring support from AmeriCorps members for the next school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> This is because they had to make decisions about their funding and without the certainty of AmeriCorps services, they had to go without. And because programming was delayed, Bellevue students didn’t start tutoring until December instead of October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> there hasn’t been any tutoring offered for our third through sixth grade students until now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> So without AmeriCorps, those students aren’t receiving any type of tutoring or intervention. And unless the teacher’s able to carve out time within their day to provide that,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> AmeriCorps members provide one of Bellevue elementary’s only forms of tier two support. That’s targeted support in a small group setting. In this case, it helps students who are struggling with reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> In years past, we’ve had literacy paraprofessionals that could support our tier two. Um, however, with budget cuts, this is our first year without having them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> And so, um, we have one instructional aide. For the entire school\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> But yeah, we’re very limited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The two AmeriCorps tutors contribute greatly to Bellevue’s tier two manpower, but it’s still not enough. The school reduced the kindergarten day by one and a half hours so that kindergarten teachers could provide extra support for Bellevue’s first and second grade classrooms. On short notice, and with no wiggle room in their budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Bellevue Elementary had to make some hard choices. We’ll find out how they’re doing right after this break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>***Midroll Break***\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>When I visited Bellevue Elementary back in December, I spoke with Fonzi, a fourth grader, receiving small group literacy tutoring for 30 minutes per day, four days per week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Fonzi: \u003c/strong>Dog Man and then I Survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fonzi’s telling me about the books he likes to read at home.,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> What was that one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> I Survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> What’s that one about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> It’s um, there’s like different books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Fonzi:\u003c/strong> There’s, um, a Titanic book that, um, sunk in the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> So you read about different survival stories? Whoa, that’s pretty cool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> He feels like there’s less reading time when he’s in his classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> The things that are different is, um, we don’t like read a lot of books,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> But when he’s in his tutoring sessions, reading time, one of his favorite things to do, is extended\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> At AR time, we um, read, we read books for 15 minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Fonzi is part of a small group of fourth grade students who have been identified as needing extra support with reading. During a normal year, there’s enough time for two groups of students to cycle through tutoring support from AmeriCorps members. But this year, since tutoring at Bellevue started late, AmeriCorps members only have time to help half of the students that they normally would.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> At sites like Bellevue, the AmeriCorps tutors have become a staple in the school community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Craig:\u003c/strong> There’s so many ways AmeriCorps impacts because of the tutoring, the recess playtime, the mentoring. It’s so much connection. You guys probably know more of the kids’ names than I do, um, at this point. And you just started\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> And for Maya and Elena who are just starting their careers, the program offers them a glimpse into their professional future\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> I know I want to do a job where I’m helping people and so I thought this was a great opportunity to, yeah, like, get some real life experience where I’m like serving others and I’m thinking of maybe doing something with social work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> The opportunity to work with students in a school setting also offered Maya something new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> I’ve never worked with kids, and so I was kind of like, I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, I don’t know if I..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> …If I can do this, at first, you know, I was a little timid, but then you kind of just jump in and, um, you start connecting with the kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>When I spoke with the tutoring pair back in December, Elena was already feeling optimistic about her future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> So far this job I feel extremely passionate about, which is, it’s just really nice waking up in the morning and I, I wake up early, like I wake up before my alarm clock ’cause I’m just excited to come to the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> A couple months later, Maya and Elena felt comfortable in their roles,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> I just like know what I’m doing a little more. I kinda have a sense of like, we have a daily routine. I have really like good relationships with students now, so I’m like so excited to see them every day and they’re excited to see me and yeah, it’s great. It’s really good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> And the AmeriCorps tutors have also noticed improvements in their students as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> One of my students in sixth grade, in one of his tests, he was and like the 26th percentile for reading in like November. And now he is like in the 42nd percentile and I’m like, whoa, that’s so like rewarding and exciting that he’s like doing so much better and able to do that on his own now, like do it more on his own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> But the reality of having to work within the school’s limited resources has also sunk in for Maya.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> Sometimes also it’s like really hard to see like how some students struggle so much in school or like, you know, and I can only do so much and help them so much in that 30 minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maya Nurse:\u003c/strong> yeah, just doing the best you can every day with what you have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ambi:\u003c/strong> Cat was going to wait the cat, and then this could change to hundreds of bugs in one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ambi:\u003c/strong> He called his keys and…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>I walked into the tutoring classroom in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> It felt like a transformed space with students who were relaxed and eager to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Elena had also noticed a difference in her students too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elena Zeoli:\u003c/strong> I feel like they’re a lot more confident in answering questions and what to write down. So I feel like that’s. That’s like the biggest difference I’ve seen is like their confidence in what they’re writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ambi:\u003c/strong> So the door, what’s the door? Who does he know? What’s the door? It’s D, the OOR. Yeah. I thought it was E-D-O-O-O-R-H. What? All right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Fonzi has also gained confidence in his reading abilities since December. He told me he’s reading three to four books a day and even tackling some chapter books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> When I first came in and reading groups, um, we started reading books and stuff and I kind of got into it and I started reading books every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> The benefits of extra reading support provided by the AmeriCorps tutors at school has extended into Fonzie’s home life as well. He and his siblings made up a reading game that they like to play at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fonzi:\u003c/strong> We guess, like, the book that they have. They don’t show the covers. And we, guess, and then if we get it right, the people that have the book that the people say, they’re eliminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Even though there won’t be enough time to bring in another group of fourth graders for tutoring this school year, Elena and Maya look forward to the rest of their time with the students that they are able to help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Thank you to Bellevue Elementary’s faculty and staff who contributed their time to make this episode possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>The MindShift team includes me, Marlena Jackson-Retondo, Nimah Gobir, and Ki Sung. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is head of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is KQED’s, editor-in-chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Mindshift is supported in part by the generosity of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED, some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio artists. San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Want to Lighten Your Mental Load? First, Let Go of These Gender Myths",
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"content": "\u003cp>Remember to pick up paper towels on your way home from work! Oh, summer camp sign ups are at 6. Ooh, should you include your boss in that upcoming meeting this week?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How do you lighten your mental load — those seemingly never-ending tasks you’re constantly keeping track of in your brain?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a question that sociologist Leah Ruppanner explores in her new book, \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762972/drained-by-leah-ruppanner-phd/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, which comes out today. It offers evidence-based tools to reduce what she calls “emotional thinking work,” so we can use that energy in a more meaningful way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ruppanner, a professor at The University of Melbourne in Australia who has spent decades studying gender, work and family, has found that just being able to acknowledge and measure the mental load can slim it down. “Once we see it, we can’t unsee it. We can start to address it,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While everyone has a mental load to some extent — women carry the greatest burden, she says. In \u003ca href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.13057\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>one study of survey data\u003c/u>\u003c/a> with over 3,000 parents in the United States, she and other researchers found that women were responsible for over 70% of the domestic mental load, including keeping track of everyone’s schedules or remembering to delegate tasks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a conversation with Life Kit, Ruppanner unpacks some of the assumptions that keep a woman’s mental load heavy, and what it takes to reclaim your headspace. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1900x1069+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5a%2Fd4%2F8a13595443ebaf2d8e2dc985ff43%2F260420-lk-drained-16x9.jpg\" alt=\"Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More, is written by sociologist and researcher Leah Ruppanner.\">\u003cfigcaption>\u003cem>Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More\u003c/em>, is written by sociologist and researcher Leah Ruppanner. \u003ccite> (Headshot courtesy of the author, Collage by NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Let’s start with mental load and gender. What are some of the pervasive cultural myths that you wish would go away? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the biggest lies we sell each other is that women are better multitaskers than men, that their brains are just more efficient at keeping track of all these competing things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>The research doesn’t show that\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. What it shows is that \u003cem>none\u003c/em> of us can multitask. What multitaskers are good at doing is task switching, which burns through some of your cognitive capacity and drains some of your energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another myth we tell each other is that women are really good household managers and men are terrible at this. But \u003ca href=\"https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/docs/egm16/BehsonRobbins.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>[research has shown]\u003c/u>\u003c/a> that men who engage in the primary care of children and take care of the household, they’re healthier, they’re happier, they’re more balanced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of these social norms just position [women] to take on the work. Then we set each other up to reinforce these gender roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124119852395\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cu>ran a study\u003c/u>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> testing the stereotype that “men can’t see the mess.” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With colleagues at University of California, Santa Barbara, and New York University, we showed [male and female participants] a messy room and a clean room. And we asked them: Can you rate the messiness of this room?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We found that men and women rate it as equally clean and equally messy. So this idea that “men can’t see the mess or dirt” is nonsense. Let’s stop saying that to each other and believing it. Men can see the socks on the floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You say that one of the most effective ways to lighten the mental load is to figure out what’s exactly on the list. How do you do that? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have this new website where if you want to actually measure your mental load, you can take a \u003ca href=\"https://www.lightenlab.com/assessment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>free assessment \u003c/u>\u003c/a>and see what you’re carrying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Your book also offers a tool called the \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762972/drained-by-leah-ruppanner-phd/#:~:text=%E2%80%A2%20Life%20organization,in%20the%20future\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cu>Mental Load Audit\u003c/u>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>. \u003cstrong>The idea is to sort the tasks in your head into eight categories so you can see where your energy is going. Can you tell us about some of those buckets? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first one is life organization. This is staying on top of the planning and the tasks. The second one is emotional support. This is checking in on family, friends and coworkers to make sure they’re doing OK. Another is individual upkeep, like, did I make that doctor’s appointment? Do I need to get my hair cut?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You can find all eight categories in your book, \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiyQcB4R5O8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cu>and also online\u003c/u>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>. Once you’ve categorized your mental load, what do you do next? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Start thinking about whether these things are drains [to your energy] or credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every day you wake up with a certain amount of capacity, and every day you spend it. You cannot, every day, pull your mental load into deficit. You need to have some energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, for some that will be about reducing some of the mental load. But for others, that will be about figuring out the things that bring you joy, that are replenishing. Then start thinking about how you align your mental spending that way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do we prioritize the tasks that matter most? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Get clear on who’s on your starting lineup. One of the mothers [I interviewed] said, “I’m weighing the requests from my book club, the Parent-Teacher Association and my parents. I can’t say no to any of them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if you have a moment to go, “Who’s really critical right now?” It becomes easier to say no. Then you can filter what decisions are worth the investment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You share another way to lighten your mental load: outsource some of your responsibilities. This tends to cost money — for example, hiring a house cleaner or child care. Are there other ways to offload our tasks without breaking the bank? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Can technology do it? Maybe artificial intelligence can do the meal planning. Or there are apps that can read your emails and put [events] into a shared calendar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the other things I talk about in the book is getting a “good is good enough” mentality, and starting to think about when our standards are too high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like, if you are worried about the way the forks go in the dishwasher, part of your mental load is being spent monitoring that. Sometimes it’s worth it, sometimes it’s not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So what is the ultimate goal here, once you’ve succeeded in lightening the load? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To say: I have enough mental load energy to figure out where I’m going, and I can create new, interesting worlds, or lives that I love to live, where I’m thriving, where I’m happy, where I’m passionate, where I’m excited, and not waking up depleted or burnt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Take the \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.lightenlab.com/assessment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>\u003cu>Mental Load Measurement\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>, a short quiz developed by Ruppanner, to measure where your mental load is heaviest — and get suggestions on how to lighten it. \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The digital story was edited by Malaka Gharib. The visual editor is CJ Riculan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Life Kit on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3LdRb0X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3K3xVln\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, and sign up for our \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xN1tB9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Follow us on Instagram: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>@nprlifekit\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "\"Men can't see the mess.\" \"Women are better at chores.\" These myths position women to take on more emotional thinking, says researcher Leah Ruppanner. She shares what works to reclaim your headspace.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Remember to pick up paper towels on your way home from work! Oh, summer camp sign ups are at 6. Ooh, should you include your boss in that upcoming meeting this week?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How do you lighten your mental load — those seemingly never-ending tasks you’re constantly keeping track of in your brain?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a question that sociologist Leah Ruppanner explores in her new book, \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762972/drained-by-leah-ruppanner-phd/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, which comes out today. It offers evidence-based tools to reduce what she calls “emotional thinking work,” so we can use that energy in a more meaningful way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ruppanner, a professor at The University of Melbourne in Australia who has spent decades studying gender, work and family, has found that just being able to acknowledge and measure the mental load can slim it down. “Once we see it, we can’t unsee it. We can start to address it,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While everyone has a mental load to some extent — women carry the greatest burden, she says. In \u003ca href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.13057\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>one study of survey data\u003c/u>\u003c/a> with over 3,000 parents in the United States, she and other researchers found that women were responsible for over 70% of the domestic mental load, including keeping track of everyone’s schedules or remembering to delegate tasks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a conversation with Life Kit, Ruppanner unpacks some of the assumptions that keep a woman’s mental load heavy, and what it takes to reclaim your headspace. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1900x1069+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5a%2Fd4%2F8a13595443ebaf2d8e2dc985ff43%2F260420-lk-drained-16x9.jpg\" alt=\"Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More, is written by sociologist and researcher Leah Ruppanner.\">\u003cfigcaption>\u003cem>Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More\u003c/em>, is written by sociologist and researcher Leah Ruppanner. \u003ccite> (Headshot courtesy of the author, Collage by NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Let’s start with mental load and gender. What are some of the pervasive cultural myths that you wish would go away? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the biggest lies we sell each other is that women are better multitaskers than men, that their brains are just more efficient at keeping track of all these competing things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>The research doesn’t show that\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. What it shows is that \u003cem>none\u003c/em> of us can multitask. What multitaskers are good at doing is task switching, which burns through some of your cognitive capacity and drains some of your energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another myth we tell each other is that women are really good household managers and men are terrible at this. But \u003ca href=\"https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/docs/egm16/BehsonRobbins.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>[research has shown]\u003c/u>\u003c/a> that men who engage in the primary care of children and take care of the household, they’re healthier, they’re happier, they’re more balanced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of these social norms just position [women] to take on the work. Then we set each other up to reinforce these gender roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124119852395\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cu>ran a study\u003c/u>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> testing the stereotype that “men can’t see the mess.” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With colleagues at University of California, Santa Barbara, and New York University, we showed [male and female participants] a messy room and a clean room. And we asked them: Can you rate the messiness of this room?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We found that men and women rate it as equally clean and equally messy. So this idea that “men can’t see the mess or dirt” is nonsense. Let’s stop saying that to each other and believing it. Men can see the socks on the floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You say that one of the most effective ways to lighten the mental load is to figure out what’s exactly on the list. How do you do that? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have this new website where if you want to actually measure your mental load, you can take a \u003ca href=\"https://www.lightenlab.com/assessment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>free assessment \u003c/u>\u003c/a>and see what you’re carrying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Your book also offers a tool called the \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762972/drained-by-leah-ruppanner-phd/#:~:text=%E2%80%A2%20Life%20organization,in%20the%20future\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cu>Mental Load Audit\u003c/u>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>. \u003cstrong>The idea is to sort the tasks in your head into eight categories so you can see where your energy is going. Can you tell us about some of those buckets? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first one is life organization. This is staying on top of the planning and the tasks. The second one is emotional support. This is checking in on family, friends and coworkers to make sure they’re doing OK. Another is individual upkeep, like, did I make that doctor’s appointment? Do I need to get my hair cut?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You can find all eight categories in your book, \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiyQcB4R5O8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cu>and also online\u003c/u>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>. Once you’ve categorized your mental load, what do you do next? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Start thinking about whether these things are drains [to your energy] or credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every day you wake up with a certain amount of capacity, and every day you spend it. You cannot, every day, pull your mental load into deficit. You need to have some energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, for some that will be about reducing some of the mental load. But for others, that will be about figuring out the things that bring you joy, that are replenishing. Then start thinking about how you align your mental spending that way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do we prioritize the tasks that matter most? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Get clear on who’s on your starting lineup. One of the mothers [I interviewed] said, “I’m weighing the requests from my book club, the Parent-Teacher Association and my parents. I can’t say no to any of them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if you have a moment to go, “Who’s really critical right now?” It becomes easier to say no. Then you can filter what decisions are worth the investment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You share another way to lighten your mental load: outsource some of your responsibilities. This tends to cost money — for example, hiring a house cleaner or child care. Are there other ways to offload our tasks without breaking the bank? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Can technology do it? Maybe artificial intelligence can do the meal planning. Or there are apps that can read your emails and put [events] into a shared calendar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the other things I talk about in the book is getting a “good is good enough” mentality, and starting to think about when our standards are too high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like, if you are worried about the way the forks go in the dishwasher, part of your mental load is being spent monitoring that. Sometimes it’s worth it, sometimes it’s not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So what is the ultimate goal here, once you’ve succeeded in lightening the load? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To say: I have enough mental load energy to figure out where I’m going, and I can create new, interesting worlds, or lives that I love to live, where I’m thriving, where I’m happy, where I’m passionate, where I’m excited, and not waking up depleted or burnt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Take the \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.lightenlab.com/assessment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>\u003cu>Mental Load Measurement\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>, a short quiz developed by Ruppanner, to measure where your mental load is heaviest — and get suggestions on how to lighten it. \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The digital story was edited by Malaka Gharib. The visual editor is CJ Riculan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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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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"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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"id": "fresh-air",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"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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},
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"title": "Latino USA",
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"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
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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",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
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"source": "American Public Media"
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"masters-of-scale": {
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"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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"meta": {
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"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>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
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"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
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},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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