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"content": "\u003cp>The U.S. Department of Education \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-announces-agreement-missouri-end-biden-administrations-illegal-save-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced Tuesday\u003c/a> that it had reached a proposed settlement agreement to end a popular, yet controversial Biden-era student loan repayment plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Saving on a Valuable Education plan, better known as SAVE, was the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/07/14/1187545921/student-loan-forgiveness-save-repayment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">most flexible and generous\u003c/a> of all income-driven repayment plans, promising expedited loan forgiveness and monthly payments as low as $0 for low-income borrowers. Republican state attorneys general, led by Missouri, sued the Biden administration, arguing in court that SAVE was too generous.\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>The legal challenges put all SAVE borrowers in limbo for months, during which they were not required to make payments on their loans – even after many had already spent years in a pandemic payment pause. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Interest resumed accruing\u003c/a> on SAVE loans in August.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The law is clear: if you take out a loan, you must pay it back,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement announcing the proposed agreement. “Thanks to the State of Missouri and other states fighting against this egregious federal overreach, American taxpayers can now rest assured they will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for illegal and irresponsible student loan policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday’s agreement, pending court approval, would end the long legal battle over SAVE by ending SAVE itself. The Education Department would commit not to enroll more borrowers in SAVE, to deny all pending SAVE applications and to move the roughly 7 million borrowers still enrolled in SAVE into other repayment plans – though some of those plans \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">are also in flux\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department also said student loan borrowers would have “a limited time to select a new, legal repayment plan.” Borrowers will have to choose between two types of plans: 1.) \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans#fixed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fixed payment plans\u003c/a> or 2.) plans with \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans#income-driven\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">payments based on a borrower’s income\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">two new plans\u003c/a> created by Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will roll out in July 2026, and will include a revised standard plan and a new income-driven plan called the Repayment Assistance Plan. Though SAVE borrowers will likely be expected to change plans before then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SAVE plan’s days were already numbered. Under the OBBBA, borrowers would have had to change plans by July 1, 2028. Tuesday’s news would move that deadline up, though the administration has not provided a timeframe for the changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the proposal is approved by the court, transitioning millions of borrowers to other plans will be a Herculean feat for loan servicing companies that handle day-to-day loan operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s gonna be bumpy,” says Scott Buchanan, head of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance. “Remember, SAVE borrowers have not been in repayment for years. They’re gonna have a ton of questions and will need a ton of hand-holding to get back into repayment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The settlement arrives as millions of borrowers are struggling to keep up with their payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are sitting on the precipice of millions of borrowers defaulting on their loans,” says Persis Yu, of Protect Borrowers. “And instead of choosing to defend a plan that would have been affordable for these borrowers, this Department of Education has capitulated to the AGs and is going to make life much more expensive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The American Enterprise Institute, AEI, \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/education/new-student-loan-data-show-a-historic-spike-in-borrowers-falling-behind/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently published an analysis\u003c/a> of the latest federal student loan data: In addition to the 5.5 million borrowers who are currently in default, another 3.7 million are more than 270 days late on their payments and on the edge of default. Another 2.7 million borrowers are in the earlier stages of delinquency. In all, some 12 million borrowers are worryingly behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCOTT DETROW, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s big news today for millions of federal student loan borrowers. The U.S. Department of Education says it’s reached a proposed settlement. It would end a Biden-era repayment plan that has been tied up in the courts for more than a year. NPR’s Cory Turner has been following the story and joins us now. Hi, Cory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Hello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: Before we get to the news of the settlement, remind us what this repayment plan was and why it ended up in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah. It’s the Saving on a Valuable Education plan, but it’s better known as SAVE. It was the most flexible and generous of all the income-driven repayment plans. It promised fast-tracked loan forgiveness, monthly payments as low as $0 for low-income borrowers. But it turns out, Scott, it was so generous that Republican state attorneys general sued the Biden administration, arguing in court it was too generous and that if Congress had wanted to create a plan like this, it would have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so SAVE has been in legal limbo ever since. Now though, you know, President Trump’s Education Department agrees with those Republican AGs, and so they appear to have cut a deal. Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement announcing the proposed settlement today, quote, “American taxpayers can now rest assured they will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for illegal and irresponsible student loan policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: There’s probably a lot of people listening who are enrolled in the SAVE plan. What do they need to know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Well, they’re in good company. There are about 7 million borrowers still in SAVE. So this agreement is a big deal, pending court approval. It’s also worth saying many of these borrowers haven’t had to make payments in years because of the legal limbo I just mentioned, during which they didn’t have to make payments. But that followed on the heels of the long pandemic payment pause. Not only, though, is this going to be a financial stretch for many borrowers, it’s going to be a huge logistical challenge for the servicing companies that manage the federal student loan portfolio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was talking earlier today with Scott Buchanan. He’s head of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, and he told me it’s going to be bumpy. That was his word. He said SAVE borrowers are going to have a ton of questions. They will need a ton of handholding to get back into repayment. And part of the problem here is the options available to them are a little murky. Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act created two new repayment plans, but they’re not going to roll out till July, which is too late for the purposes of SAVE borrowers now. Meanwhile, borrower advocates were sounding in the alarm today. Here’s Persis Yu with the group Protect Borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PERSIS YU: The reality is, is that the SAVE plan was created because the other plans were unaffordable for millions of borrowers. So many borrowers are going to be in the difficult spot of making this decision about whether or not to stay current on their loans or feed their families and keep a roof over their head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: And Scott, this settlement lands at a time when millions of other borrowers are already way behind on their loan payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: Yeah. Do we have a sense of what exactly is going on there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah. According to the latest tranche of data from the Education Department, some 12 million borrowers are either really behind on their payments or already in default. That’s at least a quarter of all federal student loan borrowers. And everybody I talk to on both sides of the aisle here say this is a crisis. And now we’re talking about how to get these 7 million SAVE borrowers, many of whom are low-income, back into repayment. This is going to be an incredible test for the department and obviously for these borrowers. And my best advice right now to these borrowers is to go to studentaid.gov and start reading up on the other repayment plans out there so you know what your options are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: That is NPR education correspondent Cory Turner. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF FREDDIE GIBBS AND MADLIB SONG, “GAT D***”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The U.S. Department of Education \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-announces-agreement-missouri-end-biden-administrations-illegal-save-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced Tuesday\u003c/a> that it had reached a proposed settlement agreement to end a popular, yet controversial Biden-era student loan repayment plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Saving on a Valuable Education plan, better known as SAVE, was the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/07/14/1187545921/student-loan-forgiveness-save-repayment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">most flexible and generous\u003c/a> of all income-driven repayment plans, promising expedited loan forgiveness and monthly payments as low as $0 for low-income borrowers. Republican state attorneys general, led by Missouri, sued the Biden administration, arguing in court that SAVE was too generous.\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>The legal challenges put all SAVE borrowers in limbo for months, during which they were not required to make payments on their loans – even after many had already spent years in a pandemic payment pause. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Interest resumed accruing\u003c/a> on SAVE loans in August.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The law is clear: if you take out a loan, you must pay it back,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement announcing the proposed agreement. “Thanks to the State of Missouri and other states fighting against this egregious federal overreach, American taxpayers can now rest assured they will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for illegal and irresponsible student loan policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday’s agreement, pending court approval, would end the long legal battle over SAVE by ending SAVE itself. The Education Department would commit not to enroll more borrowers in SAVE, to deny all pending SAVE applications and to move the roughly 7 million borrowers still enrolled in SAVE into other repayment plans – though some of those plans \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">are also in flux\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department also said student loan borrowers would have “a limited time to select a new, legal repayment plan.” Borrowers will have to choose between two types of plans: 1.) \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans#fixed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fixed payment plans\u003c/a> or 2.) plans with \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans#income-driven\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">payments based on a borrower’s income\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">two new plans\u003c/a> created by Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will roll out in July 2026, and will include a revised standard plan and a new income-driven plan called the Repayment Assistance Plan. Though SAVE borrowers will likely be expected to change plans before then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SAVE plan’s days were already numbered. Under the OBBBA, borrowers would have had to change plans by July 1, 2028. Tuesday’s news would move that deadline up, though the administration has not provided a timeframe for the changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the proposal is approved by the court, transitioning millions of borrowers to other plans will be a Herculean feat for loan servicing companies that handle day-to-day loan operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s gonna be bumpy,” says Scott Buchanan, head of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance. “Remember, SAVE borrowers have not been in repayment for years. They’re gonna have a ton of questions and will need a ton of hand-holding to get back into repayment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The settlement arrives as millions of borrowers are struggling to keep up with their payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are sitting on the precipice of millions of borrowers defaulting on their loans,” says Persis Yu, of Protect Borrowers. “And instead of choosing to defend a plan that would have been affordable for these borrowers, this Department of Education has capitulated to the AGs and is going to make life much more expensive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The American Enterprise Institute, AEI, \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/education/new-student-loan-data-show-a-historic-spike-in-borrowers-falling-behind/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently published an analysis\u003c/a> of the latest federal student loan data: In addition to the 5.5 million borrowers who are currently in default, another 3.7 million are more than 270 days late on their payments and on the edge of default. Another 2.7 million borrowers are in the earlier stages of delinquency. In all, some 12 million borrowers are worryingly behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCOTT DETROW, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s big news today for millions of federal student loan borrowers. The U.S. Department of Education says it’s reached a proposed settlement. It would end a Biden-era repayment plan that has been tied up in the courts for more than a year. NPR’s Cory Turner has been following the story and joins us now. Hi, Cory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Hello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: Before we get to the news of the settlement, remind us what this repayment plan was and why it ended up in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah. It’s the Saving on a Valuable Education plan, but it’s better known as SAVE. It was the most flexible and generous of all the income-driven repayment plans. It promised fast-tracked loan forgiveness, monthly payments as low as $0 for low-income borrowers. But it turns out, Scott, it was so generous that Republican state attorneys general sued the Biden administration, arguing in court it was too generous and that if Congress had wanted to create a plan like this, it would have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so SAVE has been in legal limbo ever since. Now though, you know, President Trump’s Education Department agrees with those Republican AGs, and so they appear to have cut a deal. Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement announcing the proposed settlement today, quote, “American taxpayers can now rest assured they will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for illegal and irresponsible student loan policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: There’s probably a lot of people listening who are enrolled in the SAVE plan. What do they need to know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Well, they’re in good company. There are about 7 million borrowers still in SAVE. So this agreement is a big deal, pending court approval. It’s also worth saying many of these borrowers haven’t had to make payments in years because of the legal limbo I just mentioned, during which they didn’t have to make payments. But that followed on the heels of the long pandemic payment pause. Not only, though, is this going to be a financial stretch for many borrowers, it’s going to be a huge logistical challenge for the servicing companies that manage the federal student loan portfolio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was talking earlier today with Scott Buchanan. He’s head of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, and he told me it’s going to be bumpy. That was his word. He said SAVE borrowers are going to have a ton of questions. They will need a ton of handholding to get back into repayment. And part of the problem here is the options available to them are a little murky. Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act created two new repayment plans, but they’re not going to roll out till July, which is too late for the purposes of SAVE borrowers now. Meanwhile, borrower advocates were sounding in the alarm today. Here’s Persis Yu with the group Protect Borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PERSIS YU: The reality is, is that the SAVE plan was created because the other plans were unaffordable for millions of borrowers. So many borrowers are going to be in the difficult spot of making this decision about whether or not to stay current on their loans or feed their families and keep a roof over their head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: And Scott, this settlement lands at a time when millions of other borrowers are already way behind on their loan payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: Yeah. Do we have a sense of what exactly is going on there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah. According to the latest tranche of data from the Education Department, some 12 million borrowers are either really behind on their payments or already in default. That’s at least a quarter of all federal student loan borrowers. And everybody I talk to on both sides of the aisle here say this is a crisis. And now we’re talking about how to get these 7 million SAVE borrowers, many of whom are low-income, back into repayment. This is going to be an incredible test for the department and obviously for these borrowers. And my best advice right now to these borrowers is to go to studentaid.gov and start reading up on the other repayment plans out there so you know what your options are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: That is NPR education correspondent Cory Turner. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF FREDDIE GIBBS AND MADLIB SONG, “GAT D***”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\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>This month MindShift is sharing an episode from MITs TeachLab podcast. Hosts Jessie Dukes and Justin Reich have interviewed teachers, school leaders and students about how the debut of ChatGPT and Generative AI is actually playing out in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ve compiled their learnings into a mini series called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.teachlabpodcast.com/\">Homework Machine\u003c/a>.\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=KQINC3473844164\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\nKi Sung:\u003c/strong> Hey MindShift listeners, It’s Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today we’ve got a special episode to share with you. It’s from our friends at Teach Lab, a podcast about the art and craft of teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In their mini series, called The Homework Machine, hosts Jesse Dukes and Justin Reich explore the reactions to AI when it first debuted as a strange new technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll let our friends from Teach Lab take it from here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Episode Transcript\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> This is the Teach Lab podcast, I’m Justin Reich.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> And I’m Jesse Dukes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Devon O’Neil is a high school social studies teacher in Oregon. Back in 2021, after six years of teaching, she took 2 years off while her husband attended grad school. At MIT actually. And during her break from teaching, she worked designing classroom curriculum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> Which is a super cool experience, very different from being in the classroom, and also really reinforced that I wanted to be in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> When she was on her break, O’Neil missed two momentous years for schools. There was a pandemic, remote learning, hybrid learning, returning to school buildings. And when she went back to the classroom, in the fall of 2023, she said, there was some culture shock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> It was those two, like super crazy post-Covid years. So I come back, and it’s like, like those movies where the caveman, like defrost or whatever. And they’re like “what is this?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> It wasn’t just that her fellow teachers were harrowed and burned out, while she was fresh and energetic. She also noticed that the student work was, well, different from what she remembered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> I’d have these really well written paragraphs or snippets that are looked to be very well researched and all this, but not at all on topic. Grammar was off. Even the most brilliant 14-year-old still talks like a 14-year-old and still writes like a 14-year-old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> So, the grammar was oddly good. O’Neil can see her students’ screens, and she sometimes watches them work. And, one day, she noticed they were using an unusual search engine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> Bing! I was noticing a lot of them were using Bing. To Google stuff, see even to Google stuff. And I was like, that’s the weirdest choice. Who uses Bing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> And then, one day, she was watching a student complete a writing assignment in a google doc. And poof, a whole well-written paragraph just appeared. Out of nowhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> Like one minute it’s not there, and one minute it’s there. And, it said like “here are your results”. And they forgot to delete that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> And that’s when Devon realized her students were using ChatGPT to complete in class writing assignments. They would copy and paste the questions she would give them into Bing’s Copilot, which was a free way to use ChatGPT. Then, the students copied the answer, sometimes without any editing, right into their google document.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil: \u003c/strong>Which is kind of a rookie mistake, like if they’re going to cheat, you want them to cheat a little better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> We first talked to Devon in 2023, just a few weeks after she figured out what was going on. She says that since then, she’s gotten a lot more savvy about ChatGPT. But her experience speaks to how much can, and did, change in schools, in just a couple of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> In November of 2022, ChatGPT was launched as a free research preview of advanced generative AI, like a pilot, or beta version. Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, especially text, but also images, videos, and music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ChatGPT is the most famous example of generative AI. There are competitors like Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and the Chinese company, DeepSeek. And rather quickly, students figured out, ChatGPT was pretty good at doing their homework for them. Devon, out of school for two years, working on curriculum, had missed the arrival of the new homework machine. But her students had not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> The arrival of chatGPT, and then fairly quick upgrades with GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 within a couple of years, has been the big story in education technology since the fall of 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Waterfall of news stories]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News anchor 1: \u003c/strong>So how does it work? Students can drop an assignment into something like ChatGPT, click a button and their homework is done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News anchor 2: \u003c/strong>She is talking about ChatGPT. School districts like New York cities are banning it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News anchor 3: \u003c/strong>ChatGPT is the new artificial intelligence tool causing a stir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Schools have scrambled to figure out what to do about ChatGPT. Ban it? Embrace it? Teachers have scrambled to try to get ahead of the “cheating” problem, and to find ways in which AI can support education. Some Students have scrambled to figure out how to use AI without their teachers detecting it. And education technology companies have scrambled to create AI powered ed tech. And have made many promises about how generative AI will transform education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sal Khan:\u003c/strong> But I think we’re at the cusp of using AI for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen, and the way we’re going to do that is by giving every student on the planet an artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> My career has been devoted to studying education technology. Over and over again, we’ve seen new technologies emerge in education, and the technology developers will promise, every time, that the new tech will transform and democratize education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sal Khan :\u003c/strong>That’s what’s about to happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> And while the technologies do sometimes help teachers and students, those big transformations to schools, they never happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> But there is something different about Chat GPT and other AI. Throughout history, most education technology has been adopted by schools, who hope it will help them do better work, teaching students. But Generative AI wasn’t invited into schools. Not for the most part. It crashed the party. Even if schools ban it from school laptops, students can often get around that ban, by using Bing, for example. Or they have their own laptop. Or they can access it on their mobile phone, which over 95% of teenagers have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, the kids have access to generative AI. And they’re using it, whether their teachers want them to, or not. That’s having a big impact on schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, a little about me, and this project. I am a journalist, and for the past year and a half, I’ve been working with Justin and other colleagues at MIT’s Teaching Systems Lab. We’ve interviewed over 85 teachers and school leaders, and over 35 students about how all of this is actually playing out in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ve been hearing about why students cheat using AI, what teachers are doing to stop them, and how some teachers and students have found ChatGPT to be helpful for learning. And for the next several weeks, we’re going to share what we’ve learned with you in a mini series we’re calling the Homework Machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> And now, Jesse, who has immersed himself in this research, will be our host and guide for these episodes. Jesse, you can take it from here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Thanks Justin, but not so fast. We’re going to want your historical knowledge about educational technology to help us unpack and contextualize these stories. So stay close, and keep your mic handy. In fact, we’re going to hear from you again in this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Sounds good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Alright, well, let’s go back to A beginning: December of 2022. We’ll start with Steve Ouellette. He’s a technology director at the Westwood School district, southwest of Boston. His job includes keeping track of computers and software for the district, but also helping teachers think through how to use technology in their work. He remembers the exact moment he heard about generative AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> So I think it was, it was December 8th. And I was home sick with Covid. I got an email, I’m on a listserv, you know, with all the tech directors in Massachusetts and I got an email that said: Have AI write your next English paper. The sub caption was: Buckle up, here it comes. And someone had basically shared a video of this thing called ChatGPT, that was generating an essay about, I think it was about Raisin in the Sun. And I was like “What is going on here?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>Watching the video, Ouellette says he immediately realized that this was a big deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that was, that was a moment. You know, I’ve been in this business since 1993 and I don’t remember having like, a really specific, like, reaction to something the way I did when I saw that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Ouellette emailed the district’s superintendent, and explained the situation to her. There was a new technological tool, available to students, that could do their schoolwork. Pretty effectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> And she had no idea what it was. And I explained to her what it was and sent her a link and she shot back to me five minutes later and she’s like, yeah, we need to write about this. And so we, we felt, we both felt this sense of like, urgency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> The superintendent asked Ouellette to write a memo to the district’s teachers. Ouellette is a technology guy, and out of curiosity and excitement, he decided to experiment. Could ChatGPT draft the memo? He asked ChatGPT to write the first draft and sent it to the superintendent. She read it and told Ouellette, this is pretty formal language, it doesn’t sound like you. Make it more casual sounding. But Ouellette didn’t rewrite the memo himself. He prompted ChatGPT to revise the memo. And he told it: “Make it more conversational.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> I said, you need to write something funny about how, you know France was gonna win the World Cup. And it like, seamlessly incorporated a little like parenthetical thing about, oh by the way, France is gonna win the World Cup. And in the way it did, it was like magnificent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Here’s the memo ChatGPT wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ChatGPT: \u003c/strong> ChatGPT could also be used to help students learn other languages, such as Spanish or French (which, by the way, I think will win the 2022 World Cup). Imagine being able to have a conversation with ChatGPT in French and receiving instant corrections and feedback on your pronunciation and grammar. The possibilities are truly endless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Side note, I’m not that impressed with how ChatGPT did with that World Cup joke. It says that “French” will win the world cup, not “France”. But, that aside, they sent the memo out that Monday. Remember, this was December of 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next few months, Ouellette formed an AI working group in the district. They brought in a guest speaker. They looked at academic policies. They talked to teachers and students. And by the summer of 2023, they had revised academic integrity guidelines as well as some basic training for teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> The goal was to inform staff about what this stuff is, to let them know that there are guidelines, and that if they have students, you know, in grades eight or higher, they can use it with their students. But we also wanted to inform staff how to use it for themselves to make their own work more efficient. The theory behind that is if they’re using it, then they’ll be more informed to use it responsibly with their kids. And it’s nowhere near where what it needs to be. I’ll be the first to admit it, but we did something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> What Westwood did was quite a bit more than most districts. Last fall, a survey found only about one quarter of teachers said their school district had provided any guidance or professional development, about AI. That’s two years after the arrival of the technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Westwood, the faculty learned about ChatGPT pretty early on. Likely before many of their students heard about it. That was NOT true for other schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> The First Time I heard about ChatGPT was in my English Class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>This is Nanki Kaur. She just graduated from American High School, in Fremont, California. And she heard about ChatGPT from another student back in the spring of 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> We were having a conversation about how we were going to approach our research paper assignment that was coming up, and you would have to pick an individual of American significance and prove why they were of American significance and what impact they had. And he was talking about how he just asked this AI platform about how his person of American Significance who was BLEEP, had an impact on America and he got a really strong thesis statement. And he said, I didn’t even have to do anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Now, I bleeped that last bit so this student won’t get in trouble.But the point here, Nanki says the thesis statement was actually pretty good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> And we were all confused and we were like, what are you talking about? Like how did you not have to do anything and how do you have such a strong thesis statement? ’cause we were just learning how to write a thesis statement at that time. And he said, there’s this online platform, it’s driven by artificial intelligence and it just writes it for you and it’s, it’s really thorough.It’s really good. You guys should try it. And so that was the first time I heard about it and I was shocked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>Nanki talked with our colleague Holly McDede, a reporter based in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Holly McDede:\u003c/strong> Did you try it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> I did go home and try it. Not for the same assignment, but I went home and I looked it up like Chat GPT, OpenAI, what is it? And then I asked it a couple questions like what is the weather like, and if I were to write a story about a certain situation,could you write me a story? And it actually answered all my prompts and it wrote me like a solid paragraph, and so I was shocked. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Nanki says she doesn’t know what the other student did with his thesis statement, but she has a guess:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> I think he did turn it in and I don’t know what kind of disciplinary action he got because there wasn’t really much set in stone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Holly McDede:\u003c/strong> Do you suspect he didn’t get any disciplinary action?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> I do suspect that because he was oddly smug about how well he had done on that assignment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> As far as Nanki knows, that student didn’t get in any trouble. In fact, she’s not sure the teachers knew about ChatGPT at that point. And Nanki says that the school didn’t seem to catch on that students were using ChatGPT to cheat until the fall of 2023, the next school year. A whole year after ChatGPT launched.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Nanki says when they did realize what was happening, the school came down hard. Nanki’s AP English teacher held a special class meeting to present the new academic integrity policy, with a list of sanctions if students were caught using Chat GPT or other AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> Which included, zeros on the assignments or administrative disciplinary action. And if worse comes to worst, then it would be, suspensions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> At American High School Nanki says their policies didn’t just ban ChatGPT. Students were also told they couldn’t use Grammarly, the grammar check program, or similar AI tools that are often built into students’ browsers. But, the policies weren’t applied consistently. Nanki says her social studies teacher actually encouraged her to use AI for research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> Because she said, I think it’s a really good tool to get all the facts in one spot. Obviously, I’m gonna ask you guys to fact check and cross check, make sure that everything is correct. But I think it’s a really great, you know, tool for you guys to use so that you have everything in one place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Holly McDede:\u003c/strong> Was that confusing for you or other students?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> It was confusing for me, personally because I was like, I just don’t want to use it at all. Like I don’t even care because I don’t need like this habit. I don’t want it on my computer. I don’t want it anywhere, like I just want it like away from me because I didn’t want to jeopardize any chance of having a good grade in that class or in any of my classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Some 3000 miles away from Nanki, another student had quite a different experience. Woody Goss was wrapping up 8th grade in a public school in the suburbs north of New York city when he spoke to us in the spring of 2024. He says his teachers didn’t really respond to the arrival of ChatGPT. And, that students used AI to get their schoolwork done in almost all of his classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says his science class was the worst. The students all have laptops, but the teacher sits in front of the class, and can’t see what’s on the screens. Woody sits in the back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> And you can see everybody’s screen and you can see ChatGPT spitting out the text, and you can see them copy and pasting it into their paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> You could literally see your fellow students using ChatGPT…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss: \u003c/strong> And copying and pasting it, yup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> If you could estimate how many people in a classroom of 20 students, how many were using it to cheat in the way you’re describing. How many would you say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> So I’d say that there’s 10 people in that class using it for everything like cheating on, the whole paper is AI, I’d say there’s another 5 that probably half of it’s written by AI, but they do actually read it through and go, “Gee, maybe I don’t wanna include the part that says ‘As a large language model…’” but they like read it through and copy parts and splice bits and do whatever. Then I’d say of, so you’ve got five remaining. I’d say probably 4 of that 5 do the paper legitimately. So there’s 4 people doing it legitimately, and then there’s another one that’s going, and I don’t know, they, it’s kind of a mix, like they plagiarized stuff, but it’s like a paragraph in their entire thing. And I would say, of those 4, I mean, unless you’ve got a really, not a super smart tech kid, I’d say probably all four of those are using AI in some way. It’s just using it appropriately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>Woody says that some of his teachers were apparently totally oblivious to generative AI. But not his science teacher. She tried to encourage students to use it in a way that would help them learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> That teacher was really trying, she seemed to grasp the concept that there was AI being used, and she was like, we’re gonna learn how to use AI, legitimately and like how do we use it in our research? And everybody heard, oh, you can use AI in your paper. And they all didn’t actually listen to what she was saying. Please use it as like a secondary source. And they all went, “okay, I’m gonna use ChatGPT to write my paper. “\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Um, do you have any teachers who effectively managed this? You know, either in their…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> No, I have the science teacher really tried. She really, she did actually provide, unlike all the other teachers, she actually provided instruction like, Hey, here’s how we’re gonna use it. Everybody ignored it, but she did try, right? All my other teachers just flat out ignored it the whole year. Um, except for the ELA teacher who said, we’re all writing paper benchmarks, which was a nightmare. That was just…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Why, why was that a nightmare?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> Because I’d say for a lot of us, not, not even including AI, we’re all digital people on Chromebooks. We don’t, we don’t know how to write a paper benchmark, which you could argue is its own problem. But then you had a million kids yelling and screaming about that, because god forbid you have to write a paper benchmark. Eww.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> So, according to Woody, his English teacher made the students write things out by hand, which actually did keep people from using ChatGPT. Although Woody thinks that created other problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some people have suggested that Woody doesn’t need to worry. According to him he’s doing his work legitimately. Assuming that’s true, and that the other students are using ChatGPT, then it’ll all come out in the wash. He’ll actually learn what he’s supposed to, and the others won’t, and eventually, that will be obvious, and give him an advantage. Maybe in getting into college, maybe on tests, maybe in life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Woody doesn’t see it that way. In his world. Grades matter. Students are under pressure. When students choose to cheat, that can impact how the teachers teach the material. And the pace of learning, which puts even more pressure on the students who are trying to do the work themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> I mean, it’s frustrating. It’s a compounding effect. I’d say at the beginning of the year, there weren’t a lot of students using AI, and I’d say it’s shifted as the pacing gets faster, then more kids feel like they need it ’cause they feel like they’re gonna fail if they don’t have it. So it piles on itself, and it also, I was never the fast worker in the class. I can do the work, but I’m like dyslexic anyway, so it takes me forever to do the work anyway. I’d say the number of people not using it, like the number of people holding out and being like, “I’m gonna do my work legitimately” is going down because it’s just, there’s no room for, especially in the district where I am, where a lot of, we’re very grade grubby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s expected, like you gotta have an A in every class. So everybody is, “I gotta get that A, I gotta get this assignment in on time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> All right. I’d like to bring Justin Reich back to the program. Justin has studied technology in schools over the decades, and he can help us make sense of the stories we just heard. Welcome back Justin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me, Jesse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> So the interviews that I shared took place over a year ago, and we’re now coming up on 3 years since ChatGPT was unveiled in November of 2022. So I’m curious what overall reactions you’re having as you listen back to these stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Well, the first thing it makes me think of is something that we’ve talked about before, which is just this idea of instantaneous arrival is so unusual for an education technology. I mean, the joke we make sometimes is that, you know, “no kid ever dragged their own smart board into a classroom”. Typically education technology was purchased by schools, and that meant the schools could have at least something of a plan before they gave all their teachers online grade books, or they bought all their kids’ Chromebooks, or they bought all their kids’ iPads, or whatever else it is. But there is zero time for planning. There’s zero time for preparation. You know, Steve Ouellette says, “This is urgent”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s just, there’s something which is happening right now and we need to deal with it. And then schools have really different capacities to deal with that. So an affluent place like Westwood, where they probably have recovered pretty well from the pandemic where things are feeling like they’re back on track, they probably have plenty of resources to hire substitute teachers, you know, the population of kids they serve have all kinds of challenges, but not nearly, the challenges they might encounter in some of their urban neighborhoods nearby or rural neighborhoods out west. They’re in a good place to be able to say, “Oh, we’ve, I’ve got some extra time to be able to manage this. Like, let’s get started.” Let’s, you know, teachers have extra time to be on the working group, “Let’s get started working on this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For, at other places, many, many schools in November 2022, in the spring of 2023, were still drowning in the challenges of chronic absenteeism of learning, loss of school that felt like it really hadn’t bounced back yet. And so this new thing shows up, and not every school in the country is on the same footing in figuring out how to deal with it. But of course, even if a school doesn’t have an institutional plan to deal with it, every teacher has to deal with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Ms O’Neill walks into her classroom and all of her students are using Bing. And she goes, well, you know, Bing! Bing is the web browser that you use to download Google Chrome, so you can never have to use Bing again. Why are all my students using Bing on a Chromebook? Like none of this makes sense. And what a great story, to remind us how significantly and quickly things changed and how there was no choice to postpone this. There was no way to say, ah, “ we’ll just buy, maybe we’ll buy the smart boards, but we’ll buy them next year, or we’ll buy them two years after that. Let’s just work on other stuff for now.” You, as an educator, had this in your classroom and had to decide what you were gonna do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Well, speaking of no option to postpone, I wanna play you something that Sam Altman said about all of this back in 2023. You know that Sam Altman was one of the founders of OpenAI, the company responsible for ChatGPT. And he’s the CEO. You may remember he was actually ousted from the company briefly and then reinstated in an episode they’re now calling the blip, and one thing he’s gotten some criticism for is just releasing new versions of ChatGPT out into the world, arguably without a lot of thought about what impact that might have or without a lot of support for institutions like schools that might be impacted by AI. And in 2023, the hosts of the New York Times podcast, Hard Fork asked him about that. And here’s what he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam Altman:\u003c/strong> You know, one example that I mean is instructive because it was the first and the loudest is what happened with ChatGPT and education. Days, at least weeks. But I think days after the release of ChatGPT school districts were like falling all over themselves to ban ChatGPT. And that didn’t really surprise us, like that we could have predicted and did predict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The thing that happened after that quickly was, you know, like weeks to months, was school districts and teachers saying, Hey, actually we made a mistake and this is really important part of the future of education and the benefits far outweigh the downside. And not only are we banning it, we’re encouraging our teachers to make use of it in the classroom. We’re encouraging our students to get really good at this tool because it’s gonna be part of the way people live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, you know, then there was like a big discussion about what, what the kind of path forward should be. And that is just not something that could have happened without releasing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>So Justin, you were paying pretty close attention in 2022 and 2023 when ChatGPT was first unleashed upon schools. Do you think Altman’s account is historically accurate?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich: \u003c/strong>Well, I actually got to hear Sam Altman give some version of this because he came to MIT, not long after November, 2022, gave a talk that was facilitated by Sally Kornbluth, our president. And he said something along the lines, I think the question was something like, you know, where are there big wins for ChatGPT? And he was like, well, education’s a slam dunk. This is a place where very obviously, we’re seeing benefits, not really seeing any downsides. Things are just immediately improving society. So this is gonna be a fast win for us. And yeah, you know, it’s, it’s delusional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not at all connected to what is actually happening in reality in schools. I’m sure some of it is, if I built a technology product, I’d be pretty excited to hear the voices of people who are happy with it. You know, people in powerful places don’t always have great sources of information about what happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes : \u003c/strong>And, and everything he says has a kind of factual basis to it, but it adds up to a kind of orderly picture of what happens, that to me doesn’t really reflect the chaos that educators were experiencing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Also, if you just know something about schools, this idea that, like, “as soon as it was released they were all doing something”, it’s like, no, that’s not how schools work. And then “really quickly after doing it, they reverse themselves” and you’re like, no, you do not under- like, schools are carrier fleets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Schools are super tankers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich: \u003c/strong>Schools are super tankers. Like when they turn, they turn slowly and they turn with inertia. And when they go back it takes a lot of time to move that backwards, but even just in the handful of stories that we heard,we heard from a couple of students, one teacher who said there was nothing happening in their schools. It wasn’t being banned, it wasn’t being encouraged. Teachers were kind of figuring out on their own what to do with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I mean, if you talk to teachers and students, it’s not very hard to get stories where you get the sense of like, oh, this is not an unambiguously good thing. Like this is making Nanki nervous because pretty clearly students are using this to bypass their learning in ways that they shouldn’t. Woody is really concerned that his classes are moving faster than they’re supposed to because teachers are getting the wrong feedback. From students because students, instead of doing the work and doing the learning and figuring things out, are just copying, pasting questions from ChatGPT into their assignments and this, and Woody is trying to, is telling us he’s trying to do the right thing and this isn’t working here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And even Steve, who’s in like the best possible circumstances, a really experienced, really talented tech director with a really supportive superintendent, really supportive community, cool things happening in their schools. As much good work as he’s doing, I think he still feels like, that he’s just barely taking the first steps that might be needed to get his hands wrapped around this thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and in fact, I actually played that Sam Altman tape for him and you know, he, and arguably what Sam Altman describes most closely resembles Westwood and Steve Ouellette, like of all the people we heard from, his story is the closest to Sam Altman’s account of what happened. But this, this is what he had to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette: \u003c/strong>Not to highlight Westwood, but when I talk to my peers in neighboring districts, no one’s doing anything. Like they’re just starting to create, think about creating guidelines. And so, we’re kind of just like building the plane, you know, while we fly it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> For the next 6 episodes, we’re going to hear stories of building the plane as we fly it. We’ll hear from the teachers who are struggling to prevent their students from using ChatGPT to bypass learning and thinking; We’ll talk with students about why they turn to AI to get their work done, and what it feels like to be falsely accused of using AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And we’ll hear from teachers, students, and school leaders who have found ways to use AI to help them teach or learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in our next episode, what even is generative AI? And why does the so-called “jagged frontier” of this technology make it so challenging when it shows up in schools?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It doesn’t think, it doesn’t understand, it predicts one word at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>That’s next time on the Homework Machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode was produced by me, Jesse Dukes. We had editing from Ruxandra Guidi and Alexandra Salomon. Reporting and research from Holly McDede, Natasha Esteves, Andrew Meriwether, and Chris Bagg. Sound design and music supervision by Steven Jackson. Production support from Yebu Ji. Data analysis from Manee Ngozi Nnamani and Manasa Kudumu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Josh Sheldon, Camila Lee, Liz Hutner, and Eric Klopfer. Administrative support from Jessica Rondon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research and reporting you heard in this episode was supported by the Spencer Foundation, the Kapor Foundation, the Jameel World Education Lab, the Social and Ethical Responsibility of Computing Initiative at MIT, and the RAISE initiative, Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education also at MIT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, we had support from Google’s Academic Research Awards program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Homework Machine is a production of the Teaching Systems Lab, Justin Reich Director, the lab is located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, more commonly known to the world as MIT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://teachlabpodcast.com/\">teachlabpodcast.com\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://tsl.mit.edu/AI\">tsl.mit.edu/AI\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>That was The Homework Machine from MIT’s Teachlab podcast.\u003cbr>\nYou can find the whole series wherever you get your podcasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll be back next month with a brand new episode of Mindshift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening!\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This month MindShift is sharing an episode from MITs TeachLab podcast. Hosts Jessie Dukes and Justin Reich have interviewed teachers, school leaders and students about how the debut of ChatGPT and Generative AI is actually playing out in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ve compiled their learnings into a mini series called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.teachlabpodcast.com/\">Homework Machine\u003c/a>.\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=KQINC3473844164\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\nKi Sung:\u003c/strong> Hey MindShift listeners, It’s Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today we’ve got a special episode to share with you. It’s from our friends at Teach Lab, a podcast about the art and craft of teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In their mini series, called The Homework Machine, hosts Jesse Dukes and Justin Reich explore the reactions to AI when it first debuted as a strange new technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll let our friends from Teach Lab take it from here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Episode Transcript\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> This is the Teach Lab podcast, I’m Justin Reich.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> And I’m Jesse Dukes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Devon O’Neil is a high school social studies teacher in Oregon. Back in 2021, after six years of teaching, she took 2 years off while her husband attended grad school. At MIT actually. And during her break from teaching, she worked designing classroom curriculum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> Which is a super cool experience, very different from being in the classroom, and also really reinforced that I wanted to be in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> When she was on her break, O’Neil missed two momentous years for schools. There was a pandemic, remote learning, hybrid learning, returning to school buildings. And when she went back to the classroom, in the fall of 2023, she said, there was some culture shock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> It was those two, like super crazy post-Covid years. So I come back, and it’s like, like those movies where the caveman, like defrost or whatever. And they’re like “what is this?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> It wasn’t just that her fellow teachers were harrowed and burned out, while she was fresh and energetic. She also noticed that the student work was, well, different from what she remembered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> I’d have these really well written paragraphs or snippets that are looked to be very well researched and all this, but not at all on topic. Grammar was off. Even the most brilliant 14-year-old still talks like a 14-year-old and still writes like a 14-year-old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> So, the grammar was oddly good. O’Neil can see her students’ screens, and she sometimes watches them work. And, one day, she noticed they were using an unusual search engine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> Bing! I was noticing a lot of them were using Bing. To Google stuff, see even to Google stuff. And I was like, that’s the weirdest choice. Who uses Bing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> And then, one day, she was watching a student complete a writing assignment in a google doc. And poof, a whole well-written paragraph just appeared. Out of nowhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> Like one minute it’s not there, and one minute it’s there. And, it said like “here are your results”. And they forgot to delete that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> And that’s when Devon realized her students were using ChatGPT to complete in class writing assignments. They would copy and paste the questions she would give them into Bing’s Copilot, which was a free way to use ChatGPT. Then, the students copied the answer, sometimes without any editing, right into their google document.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil: \u003c/strong>Which is kind of a rookie mistake, like if they’re going to cheat, you want them to cheat a little better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> We first talked to Devon in 2023, just a few weeks after she figured out what was going on. She says that since then, she’s gotten a lot more savvy about ChatGPT. But her experience speaks to how much can, and did, change in schools, in just a couple of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> In November of 2022, ChatGPT was launched as a free research preview of advanced generative AI, like a pilot, or beta version. Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, especially text, but also images, videos, and music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ChatGPT is the most famous example of generative AI. There are competitors like Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and the Chinese company, DeepSeek. And rather quickly, students figured out, ChatGPT was pretty good at doing their homework for them. Devon, out of school for two years, working on curriculum, had missed the arrival of the new homework machine. But her students had not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> The arrival of chatGPT, and then fairly quick upgrades with GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 within a couple of years, has been the big story in education technology since the fall of 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Waterfall of news stories]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News anchor 1: \u003c/strong>So how does it work? Students can drop an assignment into something like ChatGPT, click a button and their homework is done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News anchor 2: \u003c/strong>She is talking about ChatGPT. School districts like New York cities are banning it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News anchor 3: \u003c/strong>ChatGPT is the new artificial intelligence tool causing a stir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Schools have scrambled to figure out what to do about ChatGPT. Ban it? Embrace it? Teachers have scrambled to try to get ahead of the “cheating” problem, and to find ways in which AI can support education. Some Students have scrambled to figure out how to use AI without their teachers detecting it. And education technology companies have scrambled to create AI powered ed tech. And have made many promises about how generative AI will transform education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sal Khan:\u003c/strong> But I think we’re at the cusp of using AI for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen, and the way we’re going to do that is by giving every student on the planet an artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> My career has been devoted to studying education technology. Over and over again, we’ve seen new technologies emerge in education, and the technology developers will promise, every time, that the new tech will transform and democratize education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sal Khan :\u003c/strong>That’s what’s about to happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> And while the technologies do sometimes help teachers and students, those big transformations to schools, they never happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> But there is something different about Chat GPT and other AI. Throughout history, most education technology has been adopted by schools, who hope it will help them do better work, teaching students. But Generative AI wasn’t invited into schools. Not for the most part. It crashed the party. Even if schools ban it from school laptops, students can often get around that ban, by using Bing, for example. Or they have their own laptop. Or they can access it on their mobile phone, which over 95% of teenagers have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, the kids have access to generative AI. And they’re using it, whether their teachers want them to, or not. That’s having a big impact on schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, a little about me, and this project. I am a journalist, and for the past year and a half, I’ve been working with Justin and other colleagues at MIT’s Teaching Systems Lab. We’ve interviewed over 85 teachers and school leaders, and over 35 students about how all of this is actually playing out in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ve been hearing about why students cheat using AI, what teachers are doing to stop them, and how some teachers and students have found ChatGPT to be helpful for learning. And for the next several weeks, we’re going to share what we’ve learned with you in a mini series we’re calling the Homework Machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> And now, Jesse, who has immersed himself in this research, will be our host and guide for these episodes. Jesse, you can take it from here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Thanks Justin, but not so fast. We’re going to want your historical knowledge about educational technology to help us unpack and contextualize these stories. So stay close, and keep your mic handy. In fact, we’re going to hear from you again in this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Sounds good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Alright, well, let’s go back to A beginning: December of 2022. We’ll start with Steve Ouellette. He’s a technology director at the Westwood School district, southwest of Boston. His job includes keeping track of computers and software for the district, but also helping teachers think through how to use technology in their work. He remembers the exact moment he heard about generative AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> So I think it was, it was December 8th. And I was home sick with Covid. I got an email, I’m on a listserv, you know, with all the tech directors in Massachusetts and I got an email that said: Have AI write your next English paper. The sub caption was: Buckle up, here it comes. And someone had basically shared a video of this thing called ChatGPT, that was generating an essay about, I think it was about Raisin in the Sun. And I was like “What is going on here?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>Watching the video, Ouellette says he immediately realized that this was a big deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that was, that was a moment. You know, I’ve been in this business since 1993 and I don’t remember having like, a really specific, like, reaction to something the way I did when I saw that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Ouellette emailed the district’s superintendent, and explained the situation to her. There was a new technological tool, available to students, that could do their schoolwork. Pretty effectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> And she had no idea what it was. And I explained to her what it was and sent her a link and she shot back to me five minutes later and she’s like, yeah, we need to write about this. And so we, we felt, we both felt this sense of like, urgency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> The superintendent asked Ouellette to write a memo to the district’s teachers. Ouellette is a technology guy, and out of curiosity and excitement, he decided to experiment. Could ChatGPT draft the memo? He asked ChatGPT to write the first draft and sent it to the superintendent. She read it and told Ouellette, this is pretty formal language, it doesn’t sound like you. Make it more casual sounding. But Ouellette didn’t rewrite the memo himself. He prompted ChatGPT to revise the memo. And he told it: “Make it more conversational.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> I said, you need to write something funny about how, you know France was gonna win the World Cup. And it like, seamlessly incorporated a little like parenthetical thing about, oh by the way, France is gonna win the World Cup. And in the way it did, it was like magnificent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Here’s the memo ChatGPT wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ChatGPT: \u003c/strong> ChatGPT could also be used to help students learn other languages, such as Spanish or French (which, by the way, I think will win the 2022 World Cup). Imagine being able to have a conversation with ChatGPT in French and receiving instant corrections and feedback on your pronunciation and grammar. The possibilities are truly endless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Side note, I’m not that impressed with how ChatGPT did with that World Cup joke. It says that “French” will win the world cup, not “France”. But, that aside, they sent the memo out that Monday. Remember, this was December of 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next few months, Ouellette formed an AI working group in the district. They brought in a guest speaker. They looked at academic policies. They talked to teachers and students. And by the summer of 2023, they had revised academic integrity guidelines as well as some basic training for teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> The goal was to inform staff about what this stuff is, to let them know that there are guidelines, and that if they have students, you know, in grades eight or higher, they can use it with their students. But we also wanted to inform staff how to use it for themselves to make their own work more efficient. The theory behind that is if they’re using it, then they’ll be more informed to use it responsibly with their kids. And it’s nowhere near where what it needs to be. I’ll be the first to admit it, but we did something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> What Westwood did was quite a bit more than most districts. Last fall, a survey found only about one quarter of teachers said their school district had provided any guidance or professional development, about AI. That’s two years after the arrival of the technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Westwood, the faculty learned about ChatGPT pretty early on. Likely before many of their students heard about it. That was NOT true for other schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> The First Time I heard about ChatGPT was in my English Class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>This is Nanki Kaur. She just graduated from American High School, in Fremont, California. And she heard about ChatGPT from another student back in the spring of 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> We were having a conversation about how we were going to approach our research paper assignment that was coming up, and you would have to pick an individual of American significance and prove why they were of American significance and what impact they had. And he was talking about how he just asked this AI platform about how his person of American Significance who was BLEEP, had an impact on America and he got a really strong thesis statement. And he said, I didn’t even have to do anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Now, I bleeped that last bit so this student won’t get in trouble.But the point here, Nanki says the thesis statement was actually pretty good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> And we were all confused and we were like, what are you talking about? Like how did you not have to do anything and how do you have such a strong thesis statement? ’cause we were just learning how to write a thesis statement at that time. And he said, there’s this online platform, it’s driven by artificial intelligence and it just writes it for you and it’s, it’s really thorough.It’s really good. You guys should try it. And so that was the first time I heard about it and I was shocked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>Nanki talked with our colleague Holly McDede, a reporter based in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Holly McDede:\u003c/strong> Did you try it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> I did go home and try it. Not for the same assignment, but I went home and I looked it up like Chat GPT, OpenAI, what is it? And then I asked it a couple questions like what is the weather like, and if I were to write a story about a certain situation,could you write me a story? And it actually answered all my prompts and it wrote me like a solid paragraph, and so I was shocked. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Nanki says she doesn’t know what the other student did with his thesis statement, but she has a guess:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> I think he did turn it in and I don’t know what kind of disciplinary action he got because there wasn’t really much set in stone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Holly McDede:\u003c/strong> Do you suspect he didn’t get any disciplinary action?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> I do suspect that because he was oddly smug about how well he had done on that assignment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> As far as Nanki knows, that student didn’t get in any trouble. In fact, she’s not sure the teachers knew about ChatGPT at that point. And Nanki says that the school didn’t seem to catch on that students were using ChatGPT to cheat until the fall of 2023, the next school year. A whole year after ChatGPT launched.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Nanki says when they did realize what was happening, the school came down hard. Nanki’s AP English teacher held a special class meeting to present the new academic integrity policy, with a list of sanctions if students were caught using Chat GPT or other AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> Which included, zeros on the assignments or administrative disciplinary action. And if worse comes to worst, then it would be, suspensions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> At American High School Nanki says their policies didn’t just ban ChatGPT. Students were also told they couldn’t use Grammarly, the grammar check program, or similar AI tools that are often built into students’ browsers. But, the policies weren’t applied consistently. Nanki says her social studies teacher actually encouraged her to use AI for research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> Because she said, I think it’s a really good tool to get all the facts in one spot. Obviously, I’m gonna ask you guys to fact check and cross check, make sure that everything is correct. But I think it’s a really great, you know, tool for you guys to use so that you have everything in one place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Holly McDede:\u003c/strong> Was that confusing for you or other students?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> It was confusing for me, personally because I was like, I just don’t want to use it at all. Like I don’t even care because I don’t need like this habit. I don’t want it on my computer. I don’t want it anywhere, like I just want it like away from me because I didn’t want to jeopardize any chance of having a good grade in that class or in any of my classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Some 3000 miles away from Nanki, another student had quite a different experience. Woody Goss was wrapping up 8th grade in a public school in the suburbs north of New York city when he spoke to us in the spring of 2024. He says his teachers didn’t really respond to the arrival of ChatGPT. And, that students used AI to get their schoolwork done in almost all of his classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says his science class was the worst. The students all have laptops, but the teacher sits in front of the class, and can’t see what’s on the screens. Woody sits in the back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> And you can see everybody’s screen and you can see ChatGPT spitting out the text, and you can see them copy and pasting it into their paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> You could literally see your fellow students using ChatGPT…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss: \u003c/strong> And copying and pasting it, yup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> If you could estimate how many people in a classroom of 20 students, how many were using it to cheat in the way you’re describing. How many would you say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> So I’d say that there’s 10 people in that class using it for everything like cheating on, the whole paper is AI, I’d say there’s another 5 that probably half of it’s written by AI, but they do actually read it through and go, “Gee, maybe I don’t wanna include the part that says ‘As a large language model…’” but they like read it through and copy parts and splice bits and do whatever. Then I’d say of, so you’ve got five remaining. I’d say probably 4 of that 5 do the paper legitimately. So there’s 4 people doing it legitimately, and then there’s another one that’s going, and I don’t know, they, it’s kind of a mix, like they plagiarized stuff, but it’s like a paragraph in their entire thing. And I would say, of those 4, I mean, unless you’ve got a really, not a super smart tech kid, I’d say probably all four of those are using AI in some way. It’s just using it appropriately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>Woody says that some of his teachers were apparently totally oblivious to generative AI. But not his science teacher. She tried to encourage students to use it in a way that would help them learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> That teacher was really trying, she seemed to grasp the concept that there was AI being used, and she was like, we’re gonna learn how to use AI, legitimately and like how do we use it in our research? And everybody heard, oh, you can use AI in your paper. And they all didn’t actually listen to what she was saying. Please use it as like a secondary source. And they all went, “okay, I’m gonna use ChatGPT to write my paper. “\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Um, do you have any teachers who effectively managed this? You know, either in their…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> No, I have the science teacher really tried. She really, she did actually provide, unlike all the other teachers, she actually provided instruction like, Hey, here’s how we’re gonna use it. Everybody ignored it, but she did try, right? All my other teachers just flat out ignored it the whole year. Um, except for the ELA teacher who said, we’re all writing paper benchmarks, which was a nightmare. That was just…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Why, why was that a nightmare?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> Because I’d say for a lot of us, not, not even including AI, we’re all digital people on Chromebooks. We don’t, we don’t know how to write a paper benchmark, which you could argue is its own problem. But then you had a million kids yelling and screaming about that, because god forbid you have to write a paper benchmark. Eww.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> So, according to Woody, his English teacher made the students write things out by hand, which actually did keep people from using ChatGPT. Although Woody thinks that created other problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some people have suggested that Woody doesn’t need to worry. According to him he’s doing his work legitimately. Assuming that’s true, and that the other students are using ChatGPT, then it’ll all come out in the wash. He’ll actually learn what he’s supposed to, and the others won’t, and eventually, that will be obvious, and give him an advantage. Maybe in getting into college, maybe on tests, maybe in life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Woody doesn’t see it that way. In his world. Grades matter. Students are under pressure. When students choose to cheat, that can impact how the teachers teach the material. And the pace of learning, which puts even more pressure on the students who are trying to do the work themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> I mean, it’s frustrating. It’s a compounding effect. I’d say at the beginning of the year, there weren’t a lot of students using AI, and I’d say it’s shifted as the pacing gets faster, then more kids feel like they need it ’cause they feel like they’re gonna fail if they don’t have it. So it piles on itself, and it also, I was never the fast worker in the class. I can do the work, but I’m like dyslexic anyway, so it takes me forever to do the work anyway. I’d say the number of people not using it, like the number of people holding out and being like, “I’m gonna do my work legitimately” is going down because it’s just, there’s no room for, especially in the district where I am, where a lot of, we’re very grade grubby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s expected, like you gotta have an A in every class. So everybody is, “I gotta get that A, I gotta get this assignment in on time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> All right. I’d like to bring Justin Reich back to the program. Justin has studied technology in schools over the decades, and he can help us make sense of the stories we just heard. Welcome back Justin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me, Jesse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> So the interviews that I shared took place over a year ago, and we’re now coming up on 3 years since ChatGPT was unveiled in November of 2022. So I’m curious what overall reactions you’re having as you listen back to these stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Well, the first thing it makes me think of is something that we’ve talked about before, which is just this idea of instantaneous arrival is so unusual for an education technology. I mean, the joke we make sometimes is that, you know, “no kid ever dragged their own smart board into a classroom”. Typically education technology was purchased by schools, and that meant the schools could have at least something of a plan before they gave all their teachers online grade books, or they bought all their kids’ Chromebooks, or they bought all their kids’ iPads, or whatever else it is. But there is zero time for planning. There’s zero time for preparation. You know, Steve Ouellette says, “This is urgent”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s just, there’s something which is happening right now and we need to deal with it. And then schools have really different capacities to deal with that. So an affluent place like Westwood, where they probably have recovered pretty well from the pandemic where things are feeling like they’re back on track, they probably have plenty of resources to hire substitute teachers, you know, the population of kids they serve have all kinds of challenges, but not nearly, the challenges they might encounter in some of their urban neighborhoods nearby or rural neighborhoods out west. They’re in a good place to be able to say, “Oh, we’ve, I’ve got some extra time to be able to manage this. Like, let’s get started.” Let’s, you know, teachers have extra time to be on the working group, “Let’s get started working on this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For, at other places, many, many schools in November 2022, in the spring of 2023, were still drowning in the challenges of chronic absenteeism of learning, loss of school that felt like it really hadn’t bounced back yet. And so this new thing shows up, and not every school in the country is on the same footing in figuring out how to deal with it. But of course, even if a school doesn’t have an institutional plan to deal with it, every teacher has to deal with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Ms O’Neill walks into her classroom and all of her students are using Bing. And she goes, well, you know, Bing! Bing is the web browser that you use to download Google Chrome, so you can never have to use Bing again. Why are all my students using Bing on a Chromebook? Like none of this makes sense. And what a great story, to remind us how significantly and quickly things changed and how there was no choice to postpone this. There was no way to say, ah, “ we’ll just buy, maybe we’ll buy the smart boards, but we’ll buy them next year, or we’ll buy them two years after that. Let’s just work on other stuff for now.” You, as an educator, had this in your classroom and had to decide what you were gonna do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Well, speaking of no option to postpone, I wanna play you something that Sam Altman said about all of this back in 2023. You know that Sam Altman was one of the founders of OpenAI, the company responsible for ChatGPT. And he’s the CEO. You may remember he was actually ousted from the company briefly and then reinstated in an episode they’re now calling the blip, and one thing he’s gotten some criticism for is just releasing new versions of ChatGPT out into the world, arguably without a lot of thought about what impact that might have or without a lot of support for institutions like schools that might be impacted by AI. And in 2023, the hosts of the New York Times podcast, Hard Fork asked him about that. And here’s what he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam Altman:\u003c/strong> You know, one example that I mean is instructive because it was the first and the loudest is what happened with ChatGPT and education. Days, at least weeks. But I think days after the release of ChatGPT school districts were like falling all over themselves to ban ChatGPT. And that didn’t really surprise us, like that we could have predicted and did predict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The thing that happened after that quickly was, you know, like weeks to months, was school districts and teachers saying, Hey, actually we made a mistake and this is really important part of the future of education and the benefits far outweigh the downside. And not only are we banning it, we’re encouraging our teachers to make use of it in the classroom. We’re encouraging our students to get really good at this tool because it’s gonna be part of the way people live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, you know, then there was like a big discussion about what, what the kind of path forward should be. And that is just not something that could have happened without releasing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>So Justin, you were paying pretty close attention in 2022 and 2023 when ChatGPT was first unleashed upon schools. Do you think Altman’s account is historically accurate?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich: \u003c/strong>Well, I actually got to hear Sam Altman give some version of this because he came to MIT, not long after November, 2022, gave a talk that was facilitated by Sally Kornbluth, our president. And he said something along the lines, I think the question was something like, you know, where are there big wins for ChatGPT? And he was like, well, education’s a slam dunk. This is a place where very obviously, we’re seeing benefits, not really seeing any downsides. Things are just immediately improving society. So this is gonna be a fast win for us. And yeah, you know, it’s, it’s delusional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not at all connected to what is actually happening in reality in schools. I’m sure some of it is, if I built a technology product, I’d be pretty excited to hear the voices of people who are happy with it. You know, people in powerful places don’t always have great sources of information about what happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes : \u003c/strong>And, and everything he says has a kind of factual basis to it, but it adds up to a kind of orderly picture of what happens, that to me doesn’t really reflect the chaos that educators were experiencing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Also, if you just know something about schools, this idea that, like, “as soon as it was released they were all doing something”, it’s like, no, that’s not how schools work. And then “really quickly after doing it, they reverse themselves” and you’re like, no, you do not under- like, schools are carrier fleets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Schools are super tankers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich: \u003c/strong>Schools are super tankers. Like when they turn, they turn slowly and they turn with inertia. And when they go back it takes a lot of time to move that backwards, but even just in the handful of stories that we heard,we heard from a couple of students, one teacher who said there was nothing happening in their schools. It wasn’t being banned, it wasn’t being encouraged. Teachers were kind of figuring out on their own what to do with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I mean, if you talk to teachers and students, it’s not very hard to get stories where you get the sense of like, oh, this is not an unambiguously good thing. Like this is making Nanki nervous because pretty clearly students are using this to bypass their learning in ways that they shouldn’t. Woody is really concerned that his classes are moving faster than they’re supposed to because teachers are getting the wrong feedback. From students because students, instead of doing the work and doing the learning and figuring things out, are just copying, pasting questions from ChatGPT into their assignments and this, and Woody is trying to, is telling us he’s trying to do the right thing and this isn’t working here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And even Steve, who’s in like the best possible circumstances, a really experienced, really talented tech director with a really supportive superintendent, really supportive community, cool things happening in their schools. As much good work as he’s doing, I think he still feels like, that he’s just barely taking the first steps that might be needed to get his hands wrapped around this thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and in fact, I actually played that Sam Altman tape for him and you know, he, and arguably what Sam Altman describes most closely resembles Westwood and Steve Ouellette, like of all the people we heard from, his story is the closest to Sam Altman’s account of what happened. But this, this is what he had to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette: \u003c/strong>Not to highlight Westwood, but when I talk to my peers in neighboring districts, no one’s doing anything. Like they’re just starting to create, think about creating guidelines. And so, we’re kind of just like building the plane, you know, while we fly it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> For the next 6 episodes, we’re going to hear stories of building the plane as we fly it. We’ll hear from the teachers who are struggling to prevent their students from using ChatGPT to bypass learning and thinking; We’ll talk with students about why they turn to AI to get their work done, and what it feels like to be falsely accused of using AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And we’ll hear from teachers, students, and school leaders who have found ways to use AI to help them teach or learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in our next episode, what even is generative AI? And why does the so-called “jagged frontier” of this technology make it so challenging when it shows up in schools?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It doesn’t think, it doesn’t understand, it predicts one word at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>That’s next time on the Homework Machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode was produced by me, Jesse Dukes. We had editing from Ruxandra Guidi and Alexandra Salomon. Reporting and research from Holly McDede, Natasha Esteves, Andrew Meriwether, and Chris Bagg. Sound design and music supervision by Steven Jackson. Production support from Yebu Ji. Data analysis from Manee Ngozi Nnamani and Manasa Kudumu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Josh Sheldon, Camila Lee, Liz Hutner, and Eric Klopfer. Administrative support from Jessica Rondon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research and reporting you heard in this episode was supported by the Spencer Foundation, the Kapor Foundation, the Jameel World Education Lab, the Social and Ethical Responsibility of Computing Initiative at MIT, and the RAISE initiative, Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education also at MIT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, we had support from Google’s Academic Research Awards program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Homework Machine is a production of the Teaching Systems Lab, Justin Reich Director, the lab is located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, more commonly known to the world as MIT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://teachlabpodcast.com/\">teachlabpodcast.com\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://tsl.mit.edu/AI\">tsl.mit.edu/AI\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>That was The Homework Machine from MIT’s Teachlab podcast.\u003cbr>\nYou can find the whole series wherever you get your podcasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll be back next month with a brand new episode of Mindshift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California finally rolled out free preschool for all 4-year-olds in the 2025-26 school year, after more than a decade of expanding what the state calls transitional kindergarten. Many advocates hoped the move would ease child care shortages and close learning gaps between rich and poor. But a new University of California, Berkeley, \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/18KAT7-aXb1DoHDiFzaknPL9dNXgipri1/view\">study of Los Angeles\u003c/a> shows the opposite happened: More than 150 child care centers closed, and the biggest beneficiaries were families in the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why does free preschool sometimes backfire? The Berkeley report can’t definitively answer that, but the study’s lead author, Bruce Fuller, a retired Berkeley sociologist who has studied early childhood education for decades, says the new public school seats siphoned 4-year-olds away from community child care centers and private preschools. Many centers lost revenue when children left, and it wasn’t easy to pivot to serving younger toddlers or infants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We found this worrisome finding that the death rate, so to speak, of pre-K centers has accelerated since the governor moved toward universal access” to transitional kindergarten, Fuller said. “Private pay centers can’t survive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(California calls it \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/universal-prekindergarten-is-coming-to-california-bumpy-rollout-and-all/\">transitional kindergarten\u003c/a> because it was originally a bridge between preschool and kindergarten for the youngest kindergarteners. But its expansion, quite rapid since 2022, has transformed it into what the rest of the country would call preschool for 4-year-olds.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From 2020 to 2024, 167 Los Angeles County pre-K centers closed their doors or let their preschool licenses expire. That erased 12,000 child care slots. Many communities lost more child care seats than they gained in new public preschool ones. For example, public preschool enrollments climbed by 152 children in the Rolling Hills-Palos Verdes area, but the community then lost four pre-K centers or licensees, eliminating 316 child slots. In middle-class regions, such as Northridge, public preschool enrollments climbed by 96 children, while three pre-K centers shut down, a loss of 184 spaces for preschool children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>As transitional kindergarten increased, slots for 3- and 4-year-olds in public and private pre-K centers decreased\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66013\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 936px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66013\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/Hechinger-TK-enrollment.png\" alt=\"Graph showing one line trend down and the other go up\" width=\"936\" height=\"660\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/Hechinger-TK-enrollment.png 936w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/Hechinger-TK-enrollment-160x113.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/Hechinger-TK-enrollment-768x542.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 936px) 100vw, 936px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The red line shows the decline in child care center slots. The blue line shows enrollment in transitional kindergarten classes at public schools. Enrollment temporarily dipped when the pandemic erupted, but then recovered and continued to grow Source: Figure 9 in “Pre-K Pivot? How Preschools Shift to Younger Children in Los Angeles,” UC Berkeley Equity and Excellence in Early Childhood, December 2025\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fuller’s team also found that families in the highest-income communities were the most likely to apply for the new preschool seats at public schools. In the wealthiest fifth of ZIP codes of Los Angeles County, such as Brentwood, demand for public preschool skyrocketed 148 percent as families opted for a free program instead of paying as much as $36,000 a year for private preschool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, enrollment rose just 50 percent in the poorest fifth of ZIP codes, where many families stuck with subsidized child care centers or relatives — especially since some public schools offered only a half-day option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The full effect on the child care sector is still uncertain. California allowed child care centers that receive subsidies to retain their pre-pandemic budgets even as they lost 4-year-olds. That “hold harmless” subsidy is slated to end in July 2026, and more closures are expected to follow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Policymakers hoped the new public school seats would free up scarce child care slots for younger children, as 4-year-olds flocked to the public schools. But there were many regulatory and financial hurdles that hindered pivoting to younger children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just flipping a switch to say this classroom is now going to serve 2- year-olds,” said Nina Buthee, executive director of EveryChild California, which advocates for publicly funded child care and early education. Operators need to reconfigure classrooms, install new sprinkler systems and hire a lot more teachers, Buthee explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a nightmare,” she said. “You need to get the OK by the fire marshal, and you need to get the OK by the community care licensing division of the Department of Social Services. That, in itself, takes six to 12 months, and that’s only if you have the money to be able to close that classroom and pay for those renovations, and then have new children ready for when you’re reopening.” Many operators decided it was easier to shut down, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More importantly, Buthee said the economics of child care centers rely on older 3- and 4-year-olds, who are cheaper to take care of. State regulations require one teacher for every three or four infants or toddlers. For 4-year-olds, it’s one teacher for every 12 children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Buthee, most child care centers operate their infant programs at a slight loss and offset that with revenue from their preschoolers. “When you’re losing those preschoolers, there are no funds to make up,” said Buthee. “The whole business model completely falls apart.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles officials are aware of the problems. ”The expansion of transitional kindergarten across California has many benefits, as well as unintended consequences,” a spokesperson from the Office for the Advancement of Early Care and Education within the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in an email. That office is trying to help child care and early education operators navigate the challenging market and published a new \u003ca href=\"https://childcare.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Navigating-Universal-Pre-K-in-LA-Guidebook-FINAL_10.21.25_online.pdf\">guidebook\u003c/a> of financial and business resources in October 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One clear lesson, according to both Fuller and Buthee, is to allow community child care centers to be part of the expansion of publicly funded preschool programs rather than just public schools. That way, instead of losing children and revenue, these centers can hold on to older kids and continue operating. When Oklahoma expanded its preschool program in 1998, the state also experienced widespread closures of existing centers. Oklahoma then decided to open funding to community providers. Both Fuller and Buthee praised New York City for including community centers in its pre-K expansion from the start. Still, there were problems there too. As public subsidies rose for 4-year-olds, \u003ca href=\"https://policyequity.com/universal-pre-k-only-works-if-states-also-stabilize-infant-and-toddler-care-otherwise-it-can-be-detrimental/\">infant and toddler slots\u003c/a> shrunk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fuller remains a proponent of early childhood education, and agrees that middle class families need relief from child care expenses, but he warns there can be harmful consequences when well-intentioned ideas are poorly implemented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education systems are complicated and when you tinker with one small part, there can be a ripple effect. Fuller doesn’t have a quick fix. Policymakers have to balance the sometimes conflicting goals of improving education for low-income children and offering relief from the high cost of childcare. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jill-barshay/\">\u003cem>Jill Barshay\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or \u003c/em>\u003cem>barshay@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-la-preschool/\">\u003cem>free preschool\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California finally rolled out free preschool for all 4-year-olds in the 2025-26 school year, after more than a decade of expanding what the state calls transitional kindergarten. Many advocates hoped the move would ease child care shortages and close learning gaps between rich and poor. But a new University of California, Berkeley, \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/18KAT7-aXb1DoHDiFzaknPL9dNXgipri1/view\">study of Los Angeles\u003c/a> shows the opposite happened: More than 150 child care centers closed, and the biggest beneficiaries were families in the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why does free preschool sometimes backfire? The Berkeley report can’t definitively answer that, but the study’s lead author, Bruce Fuller, a retired Berkeley sociologist who has studied early childhood education for decades, says the new public school seats siphoned 4-year-olds away from community child care centers and private preschools. Many centers lost revenue when children left, and it wasn’t easy to pivot to serving younger toddlers or infants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We found this worrisome finding that the death rate, so to speak, of pre-K centers has accelerated since the governor moved toward universal access” to transitional kindergarten, Fuller said. “Private pay centers can’t survive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(California calls it \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/universal-prekindergarten-is-coming-to-california-bumpy-rollout-and-all/\">transitional kindergarten\u003c/a> because it was originally a bridge between preschool and kindergarten for the youngest kindergarteners. But its expansion, quite rapid since 2022, has transformed it into what the rest of the country would call preschool for 4-year-olds.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From 2020 to 2024, 167 Los Angeles County pre-K centers closed their doors or let their preschool licenses expire. That erased 12,000 child care slots. Many communities lost more child care seats than they gained in new public preschool ones. For example, public preschool enrollments climbed by 152 children in the Rolling Hills-Palos Verdes area, but the community then lost four pre-K centers or licensees, eliminating 316 child slots. In middle-class regions, such as Northridge, public preschool enrollments climbed by 96 children, while three pre-K centers shut down, a loss of 184 spaces for preschool children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>As transitional kindergarten increased, slots for 3- and 4-year-olds in public and private pre-K centers decreased\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66013\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 936px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66013\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/Hechinger-TK-enrollment.png\" alt=\"Graph showing one line trend down and the other go up\" width=\"936\" height=\"660\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/Hechinger-TK-enrollment.png 936w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/Hechinger-TK-enrollment-160x113.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/Hechinger-TK-enrollment-768x542.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 936px) 100vw, 936px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The red line shows the decline in child care center slots. The blue line shows enrollment in transitional kindergarten classes at public schools. Enrollment temporarily dipped when the pandemic erupted, but then recovered and continued to grow Source: Figure 9 in “Pre-K Pivot? How Preschools Shift to Younger Children in Los Angeles,” UC Berkeley Equity and Excellence in Early Childhood, December 2025\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fuller’s team also found that families in the highest-income communities were the most likely to apply for the new preschool seats at public schools. In the wealthiest fifth of ZIP codes of Los Angeles County, such as Brentwood, demand for public preschool skyrocketed 148 percent as families opted for a free program instead of paying as much as $36,000 a year for private preschool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, enrollment rose just 50 percent in the poorest fifth of ZIP codes, where many families stuck with subsidized child care centers or relatives — especially since some public schools offered only a half-day option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The full effect on the child care sector is still uncertain. California allowed child care centers that receive subsidies to retain their pre-pandemic budgets even as they lost 4-year-olds. That “hold harmless” subsidy is slated to end in July 2026, and more closures are expected to follow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Policymakers hoped the new public school seats would free up scarce child care slots for younger children, as 4-year-olds flocked to the public schools. But there were many regulatory and financial hurdles that hindered pivoting to younger children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just flipping a switch to say this classroom is now going to serve 2- year-olds,” said Nina Buthee, executive director of EveryChild California, which advocates for publicly funded child care and early education. Operators need to reconfigure classrooms, install new sprinkler systems and hire a lot more teachers, Buthee explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a nightmare,” she said. “You need to get the OK by the fire marshal, and you need to get the OK by the community care licensing division of the Department of Social Services. That, in itself, takes six to 12 months, and that’s only if you have the money to be able to close that classroom and pay for those renovations, and then have new children ready for when you’re reopening.” Many operators decided it was easier to shut down, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More importantly, Buthee said the economics of child care centers rely on older 3- and 4-year-olds, who are cheaper to take care of. State regulations require one teacher for every three or four infants or toddlers. For 4-year-olds, it’s one teacher for every 12 children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Buthee, most child care centers operate their infant programs at a slight loss and offset that with revenue from their preschoolers. “When you’re losing those preschoolers, there are no funds to make up,” said Buthee. “The whole business model completely falls apart.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles officials are aware of the problems. ”The expansion of transitional kindergarten across California has many benefits, as well as unintended consequences,” a spokesperson from the Office for the Advancement of Early Care and Education within the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in an email. That office is trying to help child care and early education operators navigate the challenging market and published a new \u003ca href=\"https://childcare.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Navigating-Universal-Pre-K-in-LA-Guidebook-FINAL_10.21.25_online.pdf\">guidebook\u003c/a> of financial and business resources in October 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One clear lesson, according to both Fuller and Buthee, is to allow community child care centers to be part of the expansion of publicly funded preschool programs rather than just public schools. That way, instead of losing children and revenue, these centers can hold on to older kids and continue operating. When Oklahoma expanded its preschool program in 1998, the state also experienced widespread closures of existing centers. Oklahoma then decided to open funding to community providers. Both Fuller and Buthee praised New York City for including community centers in its pre-K expansion from the start. Still, there were problems there too. As public subsidies rose for 4-year-olds, \u003ca href=\"https://policyequity.com/universal-pre-k-only-works-if-states-also-stabilize-infant-and-toddler-care-otherwise-it-can-be-detrimental/\">infant and toddler slots\u003c/a> shrunk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fuller remains a proponent of early childhood education, and agrees that middle class families need relief from child care expenses, but he warns there can be harmful consequences when well-intentioned ideas are poorly implemented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education systems are complicated and when you tinker with one small part, there can be a ripple effect. Fuller doesn’t have a quick fix. Policymakers have to balance the sometimes conflicting goals of improving education for low-income children and offering relief from the high cost of childcare. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jill-barshay/\">\u003cem>Jill Barshay\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or \u003c/em>\u003cem>barshay@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-la-preschool/\">\u003cem>free preschool\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "how-one-city-is-finding-badly-needed-early-educators-and-getting-them-to-stay",
"title": "How One City is Finding Badly Needed Early Educators — And Getting Them to Stay",
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"headTitle": "How One City is Finding Badly Needed Early Educators — And Getting Them to Stay | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>SAN FRANCISCO — In a playground outside a YMCA, Mayra Aguilar rolled purple modeling dough into balls that fit easily into the palms of the toddlers sitting across from her. She helped a little girl named Wynter unclasp a bicycle helmet that she’d put on to zoom around the space on a tricycle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aguilar smiled, the sun glinting off her saucer-sized gold hoop earrings. “Say, ‘Thank you, teacher,’” Aguilar prompted Wynter, who was just shy of 3. Other toddlers crowded around Wynter and Aguilar and a big plastic bin of Crayola Dough, and Aguilar took the moment to teach another brief lesson. “Wynter, we share,” Aguilar pressed, scooting the tub between kids. “Say, ‘Can you pass it to me?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aguilar and Wynter are both new at this. Wynter has been in the structured setting of a child care center only since mid-August. Aguilar started teaching preschoolers and toddlers, part-time, in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has been life-changing, in different ways, for them both. Wynter, an only child, is learning to share, count and recognize her letters. Aguilar is being paid to work and earning her first college credits — building the foundation for a new career, all while learning new ways to interact with her own three kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early educators are generally in short supply, and many who attempt this work quickly quit. The pay is on par with wages at fast food restaurants and big box stores, or even less. Yet unlike some other jobs with better pay, working with small children and infants usually requires some kind of education beyond a high school diploma. Moving up the ladder and pay scale often requires a degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s different for Aguilar compared to so many other people trying out this profession is that she is an apprentice — a training arrangement more commonly associated with welders, machinists and pipefitters. Apprentice programs for early childhood education have been in place in different parts of the country for at least a decade, but San Francisco’s program stands out. It is unusually well, and sustainably, funded by a real estate tax voters approved in 2018. The money raised is meant to cover the cost of programs that train early childhood educators and to boost pay enough so teachers can see themselves doing it for the long term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66001\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66001\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Kids reading in a nook\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Children play in the playground of the Wu Yee Children’s Services’ Bayview Early Learning Center in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some policy experts see apprenticeships as a potential game changer for the early educator workforce. The layers of support they provide can keep frazzled newcomers from giving up, and required coursework may cost them nothing. “We want it to be a position people want to go into as opposed to one that puts you in poverty,” said Cheryl Horney, who oversees the Early Learning Program that employs apprentices at Wu Yee Children’s Services in San Francisco, including the site where Aguilar works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aguilar, 32, is paid to work 20 hours a week at the Wu Yee Children’s Services’ Bayview Early Learning Center, tucked inside a Y in a residential neighborhood a little under a mile from San Francisco Bay. She works alongside a mentor teacher who supports and coaches her. The apprenticeship covers the online classes, designed just for her and other apprentices and taught live from City College of San Francisco, that Aguilar takes a few nights a week. She was given all the tools needed for her courses, including a laptop, which she also uses for homework and discussions with other apprentices outside of class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66006\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66006\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Kids work with teachers at tables\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Early educator apprentice Mayra Aguilar, right, and her mentor teacher Jetoria Washington supervise children during outdoor play at the Wu Yee Children’s Services’ Bayview Early Learning Center in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After high school, Aguilar had tried college, a medical assistant program that she quit after a few months. That was more than 10 years ago. She hadn’t touched a computer in all that time. When she was enrolling her youngest daughter at another Wu Yee location, Aguilar saw a flyer about the apprenticeship program and applied. She said is finding this work to be a far better fit: “This — I think I can do it. This, I like it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The need for more early educators is longstanding, and in recent years there’s been a push for early educators to get postsecondary training, both \u003ca href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.4073/csr.2017.1\">to support young children’s development\u003c/a> and so the roles command higher salaries. For example, a 2007 change in federal law required at least half of teachers working in Head Start to have bachelor’s degrees in early childhood education by 2013, \u003ca href=\"https://www.newamerica.org/early-elementary-education/early-ed-watch/head-start-exceeds-requirement-that-half-of-teachers-earn-ba-in-early-childhood/\">a goal the program met\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite efforts to professionalize the workforce, salaries for those who work with young children remain low: \u003ca href=\"https://cscce.berkeley.edu/workforce-index-2020/the-early-educator-workforce/early-educator-pay-economic-insecurity-across-the-states/\">87 percent of U.S. jobs pay more\u003c/a> than a preschool teacher earns on average; 98 percent pay more than what early child care workers earn. In 2022, Head Start lead teachers \u003ca href=\"https://nieer.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/hs_fullreport.pdf#page=27\">earned $37,685 a year\u003c/a> on average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apprenticeships are seen as one way to disrupt that stubborn reality. Would-be teachers are paid while being trained for a range of positions – from entry-level roles that require a small number of college credits or training, to jobs such as running a child care center that require degrees and come with more responsibility and even higher pay. According to a June 2023 report from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank, \u003ca href=\"https://bipartisanpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/BPC_WOIA_Apprenticeship_Report_RV2.pdf#page=9\">35 states\u003c/a> have some kind of early childhood educator apprenticeship program at the city, regional or state level, and more states are developing their own programs. U.S. Department of Labor data shows that more than 1,000 early educator apprentices have completed their programs since the 2021 fiscal year. Early Care & Educator Pathways to Success, which has received Labor Department grants to help set up apprenticeship programs, estimates the numbers are far larger given its work has cultivated hundreds of apprentices in 21 states, including Alaska, California, Connecticut and Nebraska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These programs can be complicated to launch, however. They sometimes require painstaking work to find colleges that will provide coursework specific to local regulations and at hours that work for apprentices who may be in classrooms much of the workday as well as tending to their own children. They require money to pay the apprentices — on top of whatever it already costs to run child care centers and pay existing staff. The apprentices also typically need other layers of support: coaching, computers, sometimes child care and even meals for apprentices’ own kids as they study and take exams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66004\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66004\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Kids working with art supplies at a table\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Children color and glue paper clothes on paper people during a classroom activity at the YMCA of the East Bay Richmond Parkway Early Learning Center in Richmond, Calif., a Head Start center that provides free child care. They had just read “Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?” \u003ccite>(Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, Horney advocated for her employer to set up an apprenticeship program for staffers at its 12 Head Start centers even before the tax money became available. She recalled losing teachers to chain retailers like Costco and Walgreens where they found less stressful jobs with more generous benefits. When she arrived in San Francisco to work in the classroom, with five years of experience and a bachelor’s degree, she was paid $15 an hour. “Now the lowest salary we pay is $28.67 for any sort of educator,” she said, and the wages and apprenticeships are even drawing people from other counties and stabilizing the San Francisco early educator workforce. “It has helped immensely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other parts of the country have seen success with similar initiatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The YWCA Metro St. Louis in Missouri, which hasn’t had a single teacher vacancy at the child care centers it oversees for the last two years, credits its apprenticeship program. In Guilford County, North Carolina, vacancies and staff turnover were a plague until recently, but an apprenticeship program for entry-level early educators has kept new teachers on the job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elsewhere, there is hope for those kinds of results. In the Oklahoma City area, an apprenticeship program started in 2023 just yielded its first graduate, who worked in a child care center for two years and completed a 288-hour training program. Curtiss Mays, who created the program for teachers at the group of Head Start centers he oversees, was in the midst of trying to hire 11 educators just as the first apprentice earned a credential that allows her to back up other teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a pretty major project,” Mays said. “We hope it’s the start of something really good.” Mays worked with the Oklahoma Department of Labor to set up the apprenticeship program, which he said has already pulled one person out of homelessness and is helping to lure more aspiring teachers. It will pay for education all the way through a bachelor’s degree if apprentices stick with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apprenticeship programs can be costly to run, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.young.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senators-young-casey-capito-reintroduce-bill-to-support-child-care-workforce/\">bipartisan federal legislation\u003c/a> to support them has never gained traction. (Advocates note that \u003ca href=\"https://www.first5alameda.org/wp-content/uploads/Measure-C-5-Year-Plan-June-2025.pdf\">apprenticeships can cost far less\u003c/a> than a traditional four-year college degree.) Labor Department money for organizations that help set up and grow early childhood educator apprenticeships helped increase the number of apprentices in so-called \u003ca href=\"https://www.apprenticeship.gov/employers/registered-apprenticeship-program\">registered apprenticeship programs\u003c/a> — ones that are proven and validated by the federal agency. But some of those grants \u003ca href=\"https://www.k12dive.com/news/staffed-up-federal-support-waning-for-registered-teacher-apprenticeships/748913/\">were axed\u003c/a> by the Trump administration in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, while setting up apprenticeships was as labor intensive as in many other places, the 2018 real estate tax provides a new, and deep, well of money to propel the early educator apprentice effort. The money pays for all of the things that are letting Aguilar and dozens of others in the county earn at least 12 college credits this year. In two semesters, Aguilar will have the credentials to be an associate teacher in any early education program in California. Other apprentices across San Francisco, in Head Start centers, family-owned child care programs, even some religious providers, can work toward associate or bachelor’s degrees using the new tax revenue to pay for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66005\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66005\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Kids play at a playground\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Children play at the playground of the YMCA of the East Bay Richmond Parkway Early Learning Center in Richmond, Calif. \u003ccite>(Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Long before the ballot measure across the bay in San Francisco, Pamm Shaw dreamed up the forerunner of an early educator apprenticeship program in a moment of desperation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was over a decade ago, and Shaw, who was then working at the YMCA East Bay overseeing a collection of Head Start centers, said her agency was awarded a grant to add spaces for about 100 additional infants. Except her existing staff didn’t want to work with children younger than 3. So Shaw sent notices to the roughly 1,000 families with children enrolled in YMCA East Bay Head Start programs at the time and convinced about 20 people, largely parents of children enrolled in Head Start, to consider the role. She pulled together the training that would qualify the parents to become early educators — 12 college credits in six months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The education piece, Shaw realized, was a huge draw. Some of the parents had spent 10 years working toward associate degrees on their own without getting them. Giving them the chance to earn those degrees in manageable chunks — while getting paid and receiving raises relatively quickly as their education advanced — proved a powerful recruitment tool. “It changed their lives,” Shaw said. And these new teachers had their eyes opened to how what they would be doing wasn’t just babysitting. They took away lessons they used with their own children — who in turn took notice of their parents studying. “It’s actually child care,” said Shaw. “So much happens in the first year of life that you never get to see again. Never, ever, ever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It changed Shaw’s life, too, and inspired many other apprenticeship programs all over. Her role morphed into fundraising to build out the apprenticeship pipeline. The program, now baked into the YMCA of the East Bay system, reflected the overall early educator workforce: It was made up entirely of women, mostly women of color, some of them immigrants and many first-generation college students. By the time Shaw retired a few years ago, more than 500 people in the Berkeley area had completed the educator apprenticeship program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66003\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66003\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Teacher reads to kids\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Erica Davis, an early educator apprentice who works at the YMCA of the East Bay Richmond Parkway Early Learning Center in Richmond, Calif., reads a book to 2- and 3-year-olds during circle time. She will earn her bachelor’s degree from Cal State East Bay this spring. \u003ccite>(Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Erica Davis, a single mom, is a success story of the program. When she met Shaw, Davis said, she was relying on public assistance and jobs caring for other people’s children, while taking care of a daughter with significant medical needs, as well as her toddler-age son. Davis was at a Head Start dropping off paperwork for the family of a child in her care when an employee told Davis her young son might be eligible for Head Start too. He was, and as Davis enrolled him, she learned about Shaw’s apprenticeship program. Davis missed the first window to apply, but as she put it, “I was blowing their phone up. I needed to get in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was 2020. By this spring, Davis will have earned her bachelor’s degree from Cal State East Bay. She works full-time at a Richmond, California, Head Start center while taking classes and supporting her kids, now in high school and elementary school. She can afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment, owns a car and no longer relies on state or federal assistance to pay bills. She’s on the dean’s list, and, she said proudly, she can squat 205.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t take my education seriously,” Davis, 41, said of her younger self. “I feel like I’m playing catch-up now.” She is in her element at YMCA of the East Bay Richmond Parkway Early Learning Center, reading to children, working on potty training and leading the kids through coloring-and-pasting exercises. She has even become an informal coach for newer apprentices. The network and family feel of these apprenticeships is some of what helps many succeed, she said. “I have a sad story, but it turned into something beautiful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Davis said she prefers the flexibility of taking classes at her own pace, other apprentices thrive in the kind of classes Aguilar attends, with a live instructor who starts off leading students in a mindfulness exercise. That is the same approach to teaching apprentices at EDvance College in San Francisco, which works exclusively with early childhood apprentices, according to its president and CEO, Lygia Stebbing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The college provides general education classes in reading, math and science for apprentices pursuing degrees, taught through an early childhood lens so it feels approachable and relevant. And every lesson can be applied nearly in real time, unlike other paths to degrees, in which in-person teaching experience comes only after many classes, Stebbing said. Before beginning classes, apprentices get a crash course in using technology, from distinguishing between a tablet and a laptop to using Google docs and Zoom, “so they can jump right into things,” she said. A writing coach and other student support staff are available in the evenings, when apprentices are taking courses or doing homework. Because many of the apprentices are older than typical college students and may even have used up their federal Pell Grants and other financial aid taking courses without earning a degree, the college works with foundations and local government agencies to offset the cost of courses so graduates don’t end up in debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve really put the student at the center,” Stebbing said.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66002\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66002\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Two teachers\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Early educator apprentice Mayra Aguilar, left, and her mentor teacher Jetoria Washington at Wu Yee Children’s Services’ Bayview Early Learning Center. Aguilar works 20 hours a week while earning the credentials she needs to get a full-time teaching role. \u003ccite>(Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Mayra Aguilar, her mentor teacher Jetoria Washington is a lifeline who can help her unstick an issue with any aspect of the apprenticeship — in the classes she takes or the classroom where she works. Taking courses online means she can be home with her own kids in the evenings. Earning money for the hours she spends in the classroom means she is not going into debt to earn the credential she needs to find a full-time job. The constellation of support has helped her shift from feeling in over her head to feeling ready to keep working toward a college degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And she is having fun. On the playground, one of the kids had the idea to trace another with sidewalk chalk, working on their pencil grip as much as they were playing. Except it wasn’t just the other kids: They traced Aguilar, too. When it was time to go back inside, powdery green and pink lines crisscrossed the back of her brown pants and black blouse. She wasn’t bothered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I love the kids,” she said. “They always make me laugh.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aguilar has even picked up skills that she uses with her own children, something many apprentices describe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, she sometimes says to her youngest daughter, “Catch a bubble.” That’s preschool speak for “Be quiet.” When a teacher needs the toddlers’ attention, kids hear this phrase, then fill their cheeks with air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the time, at home and at work, a brief silence follows. Then the kids look up, ready to hear what comes next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/nirvi-shah/\">\u003cem>Nirvi Shah\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at \u003c/em>\u003cem>212-678-3445, on Signal at NirviShah.14\u003c/em>\u003cem> or \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"mailto:shah@hechingerreport.org\">\u003cem>shah@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Reporting on this story was supported by the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://citizensandscholars.org/fellowships/higher-ed-media-fellowship/\">\u003cem>Higher Ed Media Fellowship\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/one-city-finding-early-educators/\">\u003cem>preschool teachers\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>The Hechinger Report\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/earlychildhood/\">\u003cem>the Hechinger newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>SAN FRANCISCO — In a playground outside a YMCA, Mayra Aguilar rolled purple modeling dough into balls that fit easily into the palms of the toddlers sitting across from her. She helped a little girl named Wynter unclasp a bicycle helmet that she’d put on to zoom around the space on a tricycle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aguilar smiled, the sun glinting off her saucer-sized gold hoop earrings. “Say, ‘Thank you, teacher,’” Aguilar prompted Wynter, who was just shy of 3. Other toddlers crowded around Wynter and Aguilar and a big plastic bin of Crayola Dough, and Aguilar took the moment to teach another brief lesson. “Wynter, we share,” Aguilar pressed, scooting the tub between kids. “Say, ‘Can you pass it to me?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aguilar and Wynter are both new at this. Wynter has been in the structured setting of a child care center only since mid-August. Aguilar started teaching preschoolers and toddlers, part-time, in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has been life-changing, in different ways, for them both. Wynter, an only child, is learning to share, count and recognize her letters. Aguilar is being paid to work and earning her first college credits — building the foundation for a new career, all while learning new ways to interact with her own three kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early educators are generally in short supply, and many who attempt this work quickly quit. The pay is on par with wages at fast food restaurants and big box stores, or even less. Yet unlike some other jobs with better pay, working with small children and infants usually requires some kind of education beyond a high school diploma. Moving up the ladder and pay scale often requires a degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s different for Aguilar compared to so many other people trying out this profession is that she is an apprentice — a training arrangement more commonly associated with welders, machinists and pipefitters. Apprentice programs for early childhood education have been in place in different parts of the country for at least a decade, but San Francisco’s program stands out. It is unusually well, and sustainably, funded by a real estate tax voters approved in 2018. The money raised is meant to cover the cost of programs that train early childhood educators and to boost pay enough so teachers can see themselves doing it for the long term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66001\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66001\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Kids reading in a nook\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Children play in the playground of the Wu Yee Children’s Services’ Bayview Early Learning Center in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some policy experts see apprenticeships as a potential game changer for the early educator workforce. The layers of support they provide can keep frazzled newcomers from giving up, and required coursework may cost them nothing. “We want it to be a position people want to go into as opposed to one that puts you in poverty,” said Cheryl Horney, who oversees the Early Learning Program that employs apprentices at Wu Yee Children’s Services in San Francisco, including the site where Aguilar works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aguilar, 32, is paid to work 20 hours a week at the Wu Yee Children’s Services’ Bayview Early Learning Center, tucked inside a Y in a residential neighborhood a little under a mile from San Francisco Bay. She works alongside a mentor teacher who supports and coaches her. The apprenticeship covers the online classes, designed just for her and other apprentices and taught live from City College of San Francisco, that Aguilar takes a few nights a week. She was given all the tools needed for her courses, including a laptop, which she also uses for homework and discussions with other apprentices outside of class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66006\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66006\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Kids work with teachers at tables\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-7-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Early educator apprentice Mayra Aguilar, right, and her mentor teacher Jetoria Washington supervise children during outdoor play at the Wu Yee Children’s Services’ Bayview Early Learning Center in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After high school, Aguilar had tried college, a medical assistant program that she quit after a few months. That was more than 10 years ago. She hadn’t touched a computer in all that time. When she was enrolling her youngest daughter at another Wu Yee location, Aguilar saw a flyer about the apprenticeship program and applied. She said is finding this work to be a far better fit: “This — I think I can do it. This, I like it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The need for more early educators is longstanding, and in recent years there’s been a push for early educators to get postsecondary training, both \u003ca href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.4073/csr.2017.1\">to support young children’s development\u003c/a> and so the roles command higher salaries. For example, a 2007 change in federal law required at least half of teachers working in Head Start to have bachelor’s degrees in early childhood education by 2013, \u003ca href=\"https://www.newamerica.org/early-elementary-education/early-ed-watch/head-start-exceeds-requirement-that-half-of-teachers-earn-ba-in-early-childhood/\">a goal the program met\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite efforts to professionalize the workforce, salaries for those who work with young children remain low: \u003ca href=\"https://cscce.berkeley.edu/workforce-index-2020/the-early-educator-workforce/early-educator-pay-economic-insecurity-across-the-states/\">87 percent of U.S. jobs pay more\u003c/a> than a preschool teacher earns on average; 98 percent pay more than what early child care workers earn. In 2022, Head Start lead teachers \u003ca href=\"https://nieer.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/hs_fullreport.pdf#page=27\">earned $37,685 a year\u003c/a> on average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apprenticeships are seen as one way to disrupt that stubborn reality. Would-be teachers are paid while being trained for a range of positions – from entry-level roles that require a small number of college credits or training, to jobs such as running a child care center that require degrees and come with more responsibility and even higher pay. According to a June 2023 report from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank, \u003ca href=\"https://bipartisanpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/BPC_WOIA_Apprenticeship_Report_RV2.pdf#page=9\">35 states\u003c/a> have some kind of early childhood educator apprenticeship program at the city, regional or state level, and more states are developing their own programs. U.S. Department of Labor data shows that more than 1,000 early educator apprentices have completed their programs since the 2021 fiscal year. Early Care & Educator Pathways to Success, which has received Labor Department grants to help set up apprenticeship programs, estimates the numbers are far larger given its work has cultivated hundreds of apprentices in 21 states, including Alaska, California, Connecticut and Nebraska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These programs can be complicated to launch, however. They sometimes require painstaking work to find colleges that will provide coursework specific to local regulations and at hours that work for apprentices who may be in classrooms much of the workday as well as tending to their own children. They require money to pay the apprentices — on top of whatever it already costs to run child care centers and pay existing staff. The apprentices also typically need other layers of support: coaching, computers, sometimes child care and even meals for apprentices’ own kids as they study and take exams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66004\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66004\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Kids working with art supplies at a table\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-5-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Children color and glue paper clothes on paper people during a classroom activity at the YMCA of the East Bay Richmond Parkway Early Learning Center in Richmond, Calif., a Head Start center that provides free child care. They had just read “Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?” \u003ccite>(Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, Horney advocated for her employer to set up an apprenticeship program for staffers at its 12 Head Start centers even before the tax money became available. She recalled losing teachers to chain retailers like Costco and Walgreens where they found less stressful jobs with more generous benefits. When she arrived in San Francisco to work in the classroom, with five years of experience and a bachelor’s degree, she was paid $15 an hour. “Now the lowest salary we pay is $28.67 for any sort of educator,” she said, and the wages and apprenticeships are even drawing people from other counties and stabilizing the San Francisco early educator workforce. “It has helped immensely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other parts of the country have seen success with similar initiatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The YWCA Metro St. Louis in Missouri, which hasn’t had a single teacher vacancy at the child care centers it oversees for the last two years, credits its apprenticeship program. In Guilford County, North Carolina, vacancies and staff turnover were a plague until recently, but an apprenticeship program for entry-level early educators has kept new teachers on the job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elsewhere, there is hope for those kinds of results. In the Oklahoma City area, an apprenticeship program started in 2023 just yielded its first graduate, who worked in a child care center for two years and completed a 288-hour training program. Curtiss Mays, who created the program for teachers at the group of Head Start centers he oversees, was in the midst of trying to hire 11 educators just as the first apprentice earned a credential that allows her to back up other teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a pretty major project,” Mays said. “We hope it’s the start of something really good.” Mays worked with the Oklahoma Department of Labor to set up the apprenticeship program, which he said has already pulled one person out of homelessness and is helping to lure more aspiring teachers. It will pay for education all the way through a bachelor’s degree if apprentices stick with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apprenticeship programs can be costly to run, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.young.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senators-young-casey-capito-reintroduce-bill-to-support-child-care-workforce/\">bipartisan federal legislation\u003c/a> to support them has never gained traction. (Advocates note that \u003ca href=\"https://www.first5alameda.org/wp-content/uploads/Measure-C-5-Year-Plan-June-2025.pdf\">apprenticeships can cost far less\u003c/a> than a traditional four-year college degree.) Labor Department money for organizations that help set up and grow early childhood educator apprenticeships helped increase the number of apprentices in so-called \u003ca href=\"https://www.apprenticeship.gov/employers/registered-apprenticeship-program\">registered apprenticeship programs\u003c/a> — ones that are proven and validated by the federal agency. But some of those grants \u003ca href=\"https://www.k12dive.com/news/staffed-up-federal-support-waning-for-registered-teacher-apprenticeships/748913/\">were axed\u003c/a> by the Trump administration in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, while setting up apprenticeships was as labor intensive as in many other places, the 2018 real estate tax provides a new, and deep, well of money to propel the early educator apprentice effort. The money pays for all of the things that are letting Aguilar and dozens of others in the county earn at least 12 college credits this year. In two semesters, Aguilar will have the credentials to be an associate teacher in any early education program in California. Other apprentices across San Francisco, in Head Start centers, family-owned child care programs, even some religious providers, can work toward associate or bachelor’s degrees using the new tax revenue to pay for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66005\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66005\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Kids play at a playground\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-6-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Children play at the playground of the YMCA of the East Bay Richmond Parkway Early Learning Center in Richmond, Calif. \u003ccite>(Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Long before the ballot measure across the bay in San Francisco, Pamm Shaw dreamed up the forerunner of an early educator apprenticeship program in a moment of desperation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was over a decade ago, and Shaw, who was then working at the YMCA East Bay overseeing a collection of Head Start centers, said her agency was awarded a grant to add spaces for about 100 additional infants. Except her existing staff didn’t want to work with children younger than 3. So Shaw sent notices to the roughly 1,000 families with children enrolled in YMCA East Bay Head Start programs at the time and convinced about 20 people, largely parents of children enrolled in Head Start, to consider the role. She pulled together the training that would qualify the parents to become early educators — 12 college credits in six months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The education piece, Shaw realized, was a huge draw. Some of the parents had spent 10 years working toward associate degrees on their own without getting them. Giving them the chance to earn those degrees in manageable chunks — while getting paid and receiving raises relatively quickly as their education advanced — proved a powerful recruitment tool. “It changed their lives,” Shaw said. And these new teachers had their eyes opened to how what they would be doing wasn’t just babysitting. They took away lessons they used with their own children — who in turn took notice of their parents studying. “It’s actually child care,” said Shaw. “So much happens in the first year of life that you never get to see again. Never, ever, ever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It changed Shaw’s life, too, and inspired many other apprenticeship programs all over. Her role morphed into fundraising to build out the apprenticeship pipeline. The program, now baked into the YMCA of the East Bay system, reflected the overall early educator workforce: It was made up entirely of women, mostly women of color, some of them immigrants and many first-generation college students. By the time Shaw retired a few years ago, more than 500 people in the Berkeley area had completed the educator apprenticeship program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66003\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66003\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Teacher reads to kids\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-4-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Erica Davis, an early educator apprentice who works at the YMCA of the East Bay Richmond Parkway Early Learning Center in Richmond, Calif., reads a book to 2- and 3-year-olds during circle time. She will earn her bachelor’s degree from Cal State East Bay this spring. \u003ccite>(Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Erica Davis, a single mom, is a success story of the program. When she met Shaw, Davis said, she was relying on public assistance and jobs caring for other people’s children, while taking care of a daughter with significant medical needs, as well as her toddler-age son. Davis was at a Head Start dropping off paperwork for the family of a child in her care when an employee told Davis her young son might be eligible for Head Start too. He was, and as Davis enrolled him, she learned about Shaw’s apprenticeship program. Davis missed the first window to apply, but as she put it, “I was blowing their phone up. I needed to get in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was 2020. By this spring, Davis will have earned her bachelor’s degree from Cal State East Bay. She works full-time at a Richmond, California, Head Start center while taking classes and supporting her kids, now in high school and elementary school. She can afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment, owns a car and no longer relies on state or federal assistance to pay bills. She’s on the dean’s list, and, she said proudly, she can squat 205.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t take my education seriously,” Davis, 41, said of her younger self. “I feel like I’m playing catch-up now.” She is in her element at YMCA of the East Bay Richmond Parkway Early Learning Center, reading to children, working on potty training and leading the kids through coloring-and-pasting exercises. She has even become an informal coach for newer apprentices. The network and family feel of these apprenticeships is some of what helps many succeed, she said. “I have a sad story, but it turned into something beautiful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Davis said she prefers the flexibility of taking classes at her own pace, other apprentices thrive in the kind of classes Aguilar attends, with a live instructor who starts off leading students in a mindfulness exercise. That is the same approach to teaching apprentices at EDvance College in San Francisco, which works exclusively with early childhood apprentices, according to its president and CEO, Lygia Stebbing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The college provides general education classes in reading, math and science for apprentices pursuing degrees, taught through an early childhood lens so it feels approachable and relevant. And every lesson can be applied nearly in real time, unlike other paths to degrees, in which in-person teaching experience comes only after many classes, Stebbing said. Before beginning classes, apprentices get a crash course in using technology, from distinguishing between a tablet and a laptop to using Google docs and Zoom, “so they can jump right into things,” she said. A writing coach and other student support staff are available in the evenings, when apprentices are taking courses or doing homework. Because many of the apprentices are older than typical college students and may even have used up their federal Pell Grants and other financial aid taking courses without earning a degree, the college works with foundations and local government agencies to offset the cost of courses so graduates don’t end up in debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve really put the student at the center,” Stebbing said.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66002\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66002\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Two teachers\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/12/EC-Child-Care-Apprentices-3-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Early educator apprentice Mayra Aguilar, left, and her mentor teacher Jetoria Washington at Wu Yee Children’s Services’ Bayview Early Learning Center. Aguilar works 20 hours a week while earning the credentials she needs to get a full-time teaching role. \u003ccite>(Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Mayra Aguilar, her mentor teacher Jetoria Washington is a lifeline who can help her unstick an issue with any aspect of the apprenticeship — in the classes she takes or the classroom where she works. Taking courses online means she can be home with her own kids in the evenings. Earning money for the hours she spends in the classroom means she is not going into debt to earn the credential she needs to find a full-time job. The constellation of support has helped her shift from feeling in over her head to feeling ready to keep working toward a college degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And she is having fun. On the playground, one of the kids had the idea to trace another with sidewalk chalk, working on their pencil grip as much as they were playing. Except it wasn’t just the other kids: They traced Aguilar, too. When it was time to go back inside, powdery green and pink lines crisscrossed the back of her brown pants and black blouse. She wasn’t bothered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I love the kids,” she said. “They always make me laugh.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aguilar has even picked up skills that she uses with her own children, something many apprentices describe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, she sometimes says to her youngest daughter, “Catch a bubble.” That’s preschool speak for “Be quiet.” When a teacher needs the toddlers’ attention, kids hear this phrase, then fill their cheeks with air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the time, at home and at work, a brief silence follows. Then the kids look up, ready to hear what comes next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/nirvi-shah/\">\u003cem>Nirvi Shah\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at \u003c/em>\u003cem>212-678-3445, on Signal at NirviShah.14\u003c/em>\u003cem> or \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"mailto:shah@hechingerreport.org\">\u003cem>shah@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Reporting on this story was supported by the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://citizensandscholars.org/fellowships/higher-ed-media-fellowship/\">\u003cem>Higher Ed Media Fellowship\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/one-city-finding-early-educators/\">\u003cem>preschool teachers\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>The Hechinger Report\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/earlychildhood/\">\u003cem>the Hechinger newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Cynicism is all around us; it’s contagious, and it can permeate an entire generation’s thinking quickly. Young people today are faced with mental health, physical health, social, democracy and climate crises in the classroom. And when crisis is all around us, it can be easy to fall into patterns of cynicism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Jamil Zaki, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, Gen Z is the most cynical generation and this is learned behavior. An \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/64886/the-benefits-of-raising-hopeful-kids-in-cynical-times\">uptick in cynicism\u003c/a> has also led to a glamorization of a cynical mindset or the illusion of the “cynical genius,” said Zaki at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.learningandthebrain.com/\">Learning & the Brain\u003c/a> conference earlier this year. Cynicism isn’t isolated to our attitudes; it can lead to chronic stress, earlier mortality, social division and extremism, and broken social relationships, Zaki added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12022760/wired-for-connection-what-science-tells-us-about-why-we-should-be-hopeful-even-in-hard-times\">But there’s hope\u003c/a> – or at least, the science of hope, a measurable ability to set goals, push forward and track your own path to completion of those goals, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.uttyler.edu/directory/som-student-affairs/crystal-bryce.php\">Crystal Bryce\u003c/a>, an associate professor and assistant dean at The University of Texas at Tyler, who also presented at this year’s conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t until Bryce was in the early stages of her career that she realized that hope could be measured. Previously, Bryce had done research focused on how to promote hope by studying the benefits of having a caring teacher, positive peer interactions and student motivation. But as it turns out, hope is tangible, “and it is something that we can teach,” Bryce told me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This isn’t the type of hope that we use to define blanket optimism in our everyday life; this type of hope is a cognitive skill, Bryce continued, and it “helps us reach our goals by helping us identify how we get there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using \u003ca href=\"https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/resources/questionnaires-researchers/adult-hope-scale\">Snyder’s Adult Hope Scale\u003c/a>, Bryce and her team were able to measure pathway thinking, which helps people get from a to b, and agency thinking, which demonstrates a person’s belief in their ability to reach their goals. Bryce’s team found that increased hope outcomes were related to greater academic achievement, reduced stress and anxiety; and for college students, increased hope was related to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/06/17/1182941164/to-improve-student-retention-some-colleges-consider-ungrading\">higher retention rates\u003c/a> from their first to their second year of college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, her team applied \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/38827/why-understanding-obstacles-is-essential-to-achieving-goals\">WOOP\u003c/a> — wish, outcome, obstacle, plan — which creates a framework for hope in the classroom. Developed by psychologist Gabriele Oettingen, the WOOP method allows educators to guide students throughout an effective \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/41110/how-writing-down-specific-goals-can-empower-struggling-students\">goal-setting\u003c/a> process. The wish and outcome steps of WOOP are self explanatory; a basic scaffold for a project, lesson, or the school year can be created by having students state their goal and desired outcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Bryce, the obstacle and planning steps of the WOOP method are the most important. Identifying potential obstacles during goal setting allows students to think about the future and build extra scaffolding to help them reach their goals and desired outcomes. And planning practice helps to build students’ self-confidence — increasing their hopefulness, and strengthening their ability to pivot when faced with barriers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Extending Hope Into Later Years\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Hope isn’t just a scientific practice; it can also come organically. Young children are really good at having hope, said Bryce. Take a 4-year-old attempting and failing to climb to the top of a structure at the playground. They might fall, but they believe in their ability to reach their goal and will naturally get up to try again, and maybe even try again in a different way. As kids get older, Bryce continued, they start to doubt themselves and their ability to reach their goals. Bryce suggested that this could be due to growing cynicism in early adolescence, or a dwindling support system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bryce and fellow researchers have found that there is a marked decline in hope for adolescents in eighth grade. And this finding was consistent across countries. While there is no definitive answer for why the decline exists for this particular age group, Bryce postulated that the decrease could be related to a combination of puberty, developmental changes, and the generally difficult \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59687/middle-schoolers-are-social-what-opportunity-does-that-create-for-learning\">transitional period between seventh and ninth grades\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, having a peer or older adult as a sounding board can help combat cynicism and keep you looking forward to the future, said Bryce. That sounding board isn’t necessarily there to commiserate or ruminate. “They’re going to say, ‘yeah let’s keep going; what is the next step?’” according to Bryce.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Cynicism is all around us; it’s contagious, and it can permeate an entire generation’s thinking quickly. Young people today are faced with mental health, physical health, social, democracy and climate crises in the classroom. And when crisis is all around us, it can be easy to fall into patterns of cynicism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Jamil Zaki, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, Gen Z is the most cynical generation and this is learned behavior. An \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/64886/the-benefits-of-raising-hopeful-kids-in-cynical-times\">uptick in cynicism\u003c/a> has also led to a glamorization of a cynical mindset or the illusion of the “cynical genius,” said Zaki at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.learningandthebrain.com/\">Learning & the Brain\u003c/a> conference earlier this year. Cynicism isn’t isolated to our attitudes; it can lead to chronic stress, earlier mortality, social division and extremism, and broken social relationships, Zaki added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12022760/wired-for-connection-what-science-tells-us-about-why-we-should-be-hopeful-even-in-hard-times\">But there’s hope\u003c/a> – or at least, the science of hope, a measurable ability to set goals, push forward and track your own path to completion of those goals, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.uttyler.edu/directory/som-student-affairs/crystal-bryce.php\">Crystal Bryce\u003c/a>, an associate professor and assistant dean at The University of Texas at Tyler, who also presented at this year’s conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t until Bryce was in the early stages of her career that she realized that hope could be measured. Previously, Bryce had done research focused on how to promote hope by studying the benefits of having a caring teacher, positive peer interactions and student motivation. But as it turns out, hope is tangible, “and it is something that we can teach,” Bryce told me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This isn’t the type of hope that we use to define blanket optimism in our everyday life; this type of hope is a cognitive skill, Bryce continued, and it “helps us reach our goals by helping us identify how we get there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using \u003ca href=\"https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/resources/questionnaires-researchers/adult-hope-scale\">Snyder’s Adult Hope Scale\u003c/a>, Bryce and her team were able to measure pathway thinking, which helps people get from a to b, and agency thinking, which demonstrates a person’s belief in their ability to reach their goals. Bryce’s team found that increased hope outcomes were related to greater academic achievement, reduced stress and anxiety; and for college students, increased hope was related to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/06/17/1182941164/to-improve-student-retention-some-colleges-consider-ungrading\">higher retention rates\u003c/a> from their first to their second year of college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, her team applied \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/38827/why-understanding-obstacles-is-essential-to-achieving-goals\">WOOP\u003c/a> — wish, outcome, obstacle, plan — which creates a framework for hope in the classroom. Developed by psychologist Gabriele Oettingen, the WOOP method allows educators to guide students throughout an effective \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/41110/how-writing-down-specific-goals-can-empower-struggling-students\">goal-setting\u003c/a> process. The wish and outcome steps of WOOP are self explanatory; a basic scaffold for a project, lesson, or the school year can be created by having students state their goal and desired outcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Bryce, the obstacle and planning steps of the WOOP method are the most important. Identifying potential obstacles during goal setting allows students to think about the future and build extra scaffolding to help them reach their goals and desired outcomes. And planning practice helps to build students’ self-confidence — increasing their hopefulness, and strengthening their ability to pivot when faced with barriers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Extending Hope Into Later Years\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Hope isn’t just a scientific practice; it can also come organically. Young children are really good at having hope, said Bryce. Take a 4-year-old attempting and failing to climb to the top of a structure at the playground. They might fall, but they believe in their ability to reach their goal and will naturally get up to try again, and maybe even try again in a different way. As kids get older, Bryce continued, they start to doubt themselves and their ability to reach their goals. Bryce suggested that this could be due to growing cynicism in early adolescence, or a dwindling support system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bryce and fellow researchers have found that there is a marked decline in hope for adolescents in eighth grade. And this finding was consistent across countries. While there is no definitive answer for why the decline exists for this particular age group, Bryce postulated that the decrease could be related to a combination of puberty, developmental changes, and the generally difficult \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59687/middle-schoolers-are-social-what-opportunity-does-that-create-for-learning\">transitional period between seventh and ninth grades\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, having a peer or older adult as a sounding board can help combat cynicism and keep you looking forward to the future, said Bryce. That sounding board isn’t necessarily there to commiserate or ruminate. “They’re going to say, ‘yeah let’s keep going; what is the next step?’” according to Bryce.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Inauguration Day was a time of hope for the MAGA faithful who watched President Donald Trump take his second oath of office in the Capitol rotunda. But less than a mile away, at the Department of Education, fear and uncertainty reigned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers, contractors and federal staff — the corner of the Education Department that I cover — braced for potentially devastating upheaval. Would the department itself be eliminated, as Trump had promised during the campaign? Would congressionally mandated research and statistical programs move to other agencies? And, if so, which ones?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid the unease, a small but determined force was already at work. The consequences would be profound. As many as 16 members from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team embedded within the agency in early February, according to news reports. These Young Turks reviewed contracts, identified vulnerabilities and quietly plotted what some would later call a blitzkrieg against federal research. As one senior researcher told me, decades of painstaking work vanished overnight in an attack by an inexperienced and ideologically driven staff intent on dismantling the bureaucracy without understanding its purpose.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>February: The carnage begins\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The first blow came in early February. In a single week, DOGE terminated more than \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-doge-death-blow-education-studies/\">100 research contracts\u003c/a> collectively worth over a billion dollars on paper. The consequences were immediate and staggering. Ten Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs), which had helped states pilot literacy and math interventions, were among these early casualties. Mississippi’s remarkable turnaround in reading achievement, commonly called the “Mississippi Miracle,” was nurtured by the Southeast laboratory, and the sudden loss of this infrastructure created uncertainty for other states in the midst of trying to copy Mississippi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOGE canceled an 11-year longitudinal study tracking youth with disabilities through high school into college and the workforce. Data painstakingly collected over five years was effectively discarded overnight. Instruction and support was suddenly yanked from 1,000 students in the study. Disability advocates described it as a “crushing loss.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even core federal datasets were not spared. The termination of a contract for EDFacts, which collects demographic data about students, was inconceivable. The data is essential for administering the highly regarded National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the federal test that tracks reading and math achievement. It is also critical for allocating $18 billion for the Title I program, which gives federal subsidies to high-poverty schools. DOGE killed evidence-based teacher guides for math instruction. Even data on homeschooling — long a conservative priority — was cut. A department spokeswoman said the cuts eliminated “waste, fraud and abuse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of the agency’s work is conducted by outside contractors, and DOGE pressured vendors to accept massive contract reductions; some payments were frozen entirely. The ripple effects were immediate: Research labs, university offices and federal contractors were thrown into chaos, scrambling to save data and unsure of their jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The month ended with a shocking firing at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a major source of reliable data. The commissioner, \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-peggy-carr-interview-nces/\">Peggy Carr\u003c/a>, was escorted out of the building by a security guard under circumstances that remain unclear. She was one of the first in a string of senior Black officials across the federal government who were tossed out by the Trump administration. Former department employees told me Carr had resisted DOGE’s demand to make severe cuts to NAEP. Her removal sent a clear signal that resistance would have consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>March: Mass firings\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The unprecedented devastation continued in March, when nearly half of the Education Department’s workers lost their jobs, including almost 90 percent of staffers assigned to the research and statistics division. The agency Carr led was reduced to a skeletal staff of \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-chaos-confusion-statistics-education/\">three employees\u003c/a> from about 100. In another sign of the internal chaos, Chris Chapman, who had been installed to replace Carr, was fired after only 15 days, adding to the confusion about who, if anyone, was in charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Linda McMahon, newly confirmed as education secretary, publicly defended the cuts, describing them as “a first step” toward closing the agency. With so few staffers to oversee contracts, NAEP test development stalled. DOGE even suggested substituting off-the-shelf tests from private vendors, sources said, undermining decades of federal assessment development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My job was to make sure that the limited public dollars for education research were spent as best as they could be,” a former education official said in March. Her job was to issue grants for the development of new innovations. “We make sure there’s no fraud, waste and abuse. Now there’s no watchdog to oversee it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>April: More cuts, more chaos\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By April, the board that oversees the NAEP exam reluctantly killed more than a \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-smaller-naep/\">dozen assessments\u003c/a> scheduled over the next seven years. The cuts were painful. They meant not measuring how much American students know in science and history or measuring writing skills. They also meant eliminating some state comparisons, diminishing the ability to highlight states that are making progress. But board members described how DOGE threatened the whole NAEP program, and they hoped that these cuts would be enough to preserve the quality of the main biennial tests in math and reading. The board had effectively amputated limbs to save the brain and heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The destruction spread beyond the Education Department. At the National Science Foundation, DOGE-directed cuts targeted education more than any other area. Of the billion dollars in NSF grants that DOGE eliminated, \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-three-fourths-nsf-funding-cuts-education/\">three-quarters were for education\u003c/a> research, largely conducted at universities. Many of the killed projects focused on increasing the participation of women and minorities in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics and on combating misinformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By chance, thousands of researchers and statisticians were in Denver for the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) as DOGE was destroying their field. They fought back. Three lawsuits, including one led by AERA, challenged the legality of contract terminations and mass firings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public outcry grew. McMahon publicly admitted that some cuts had gone too far. “When you are restructuring a company, you hope that you’re just cutting fat,” McMahon said before Congress. “Sometimes you cut a little in the muscle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But by then the damage was deep and far-reaching. Data collections were paused midstream, rendering them useless. Evaluations of efforts to improve teaching and learning were left incomplete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Years of work have gone into these studies,” said Dan McGrath, a Democracy Forward lawyer who is representing plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits. “At some point it won’t be possible to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers were left navigating a landscape that had been transformed overnight, with no clear road map for survival. LinkedIn was flooded with new “open to work” updates. Many fled Washington and the field of education altogether, taking decades of institutional knowledge with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the destruction continued, public scrutiny began to influence the department’s actions. Two days after I wrote a \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-eric-under-threat/\">column on the defunding\u003c/a> of the Education Resources Information Center, an online library of critical educational documents known as ERIC, the department restarted it — albeit with only half its previous budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>May and June: Mixed signals\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By late spring, the relentless onslaught of destruction shifted into a more confusing narrative of tentative reversals, with some contracts restarted and some staff rehired. The flagship “Condition of Education” report, a comprehensive data compilation about U.S. schools, students and teachers, wasn’t published by its June 1 deadline for the first time in history. Hours after I wrote \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-condition-of-education/\">about the missed deadline\u003c/a>, which is mandated by Congress, the department hastily posted some “coming soon” declarations on its website, but the information was late and incomplete. The 2025 report remains unfinished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMahon recognized that she could not operate her agency on such a thin staff. In May, she disclosed that she had quietly brought back \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/36360/McMahon_Defends_President_Trump_s_Skinny_Budget_and_ED_s_Restructuring_at_House_Appropriations_Hearing#:~:text=During%20questioning%2C%20McMahon%20confirmed%20that%20the%20department,who%20were%20initially%20eliminated%20as%20part%20of\">74 of those who had\u003c/a> been fired. Five employees of the board that oversees NAEP were loaned to the Education Department to keep the 2026 exam in reading and math on track. Of course, these numbers are a tiny fraction of the 2,000 employees who were let go, but they were also a sign that the Trump administration saw value in some of the department’s work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More reversals — at least partial ones — followed. Lawsuits and public scrutiny prompted the \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-restart-ed-contracts/\">restart of roughly 20 research and data contracts\u003c/a> and the preservation of data access for researchers. EDFacts was among them. Even so, restorations were often incomplete, sometimes no more than symbolic and with little practical effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one example, the department said it was reinstating a contract for operating the What Works Clearinghouse, a website that informs schools about evidence-based teaching practices, a congressionally mandated function. But, in that same legal disclosure, the department also said that it was not planning to reinstate any of the contracts to produce new content for the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout the Institute of Education Sciences, budgets were slashed, leaving programs under-resourced. And no new research was being reviewed or approved for funding. Trump’s budget proposed slashing IES’ 2026 budget by two-thirds, a move that Republican Senate appropriators would later reject.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, there was a glimmer of hope: At the end of May, McMahon tapped Amber Northern, a respected researcher, to lead an effort to revamp and modernize IES.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>July–September: A Supreme Court ruling\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The fallout continued in July. NAEP scores were delayed because of a leadership vacuum. Matt Soldner, juggling multiple roles inside the Education Department, was assigned yet another one — acting director of NCES — in order to release reports. In August, the administration ordered a new data collection on college admissions, a politically charged project undertaken without sufficient staff or funding. Experts warned it could be weaponized to accuse universities of reverse discrimination. Still, it was an indication that the Trump administration had discovered that the Education Department could be useful in enforcing its political priorities, even if it wasn’t yet willing to fund them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By September, some NAEP results were finally released, three months behind schedule. Higher education data slowly emerged, albeit incomplete. New job postings and public comment requests hinted at a slow rebuilding, but the system remained fragile. Across states, districts and universities, the consequences of eight months of disruption were already visible: delayed reports, stalled research and weakened trust in federal statistics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the spring, a federal court in Boston ordered the return of fired staffers, but in July, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration: The employees would remain fired. In addition, the vast majority of the research contracts would remain terminated while lawsuits slowly moved through the court system — which could take years. The damage was done and probably irreversible.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>October and November: Shutdown and uncertainty\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Oct. 1, everything stopped. More than \u003ca href=\"https://www.regulations.gov/docket/ED-2025-IES-0844\">400 comments\u003c/a> on how to reform IES poured in by the Oct. 15 deadline, but the department couldn’t post them because of the government shutdown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Nov. 18, McMahon announced she was outsourcing a host of Education Department functions to other agencies, creating an end-run around Congress because she wasn’t technically transferring these divisions. (Only Congress has the authority to eliminate the department or transfer its congressionally mandated activities elsewhere.) But research and statistics weren’t mentioned on McMahon’s outsourcing list, and the fate of IES remained unclear. The Education Department didn’t respond to my requests in November to interview an official about IES’ future.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Looking ahead\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Federal education research occupies a narrow but indispensable space. Unlike private foundations, which often chase novelty or seek to make a visible mark on the field, the federal system is designed for the slow, unglamorous work of establishing baseline data in reading and math, conducting large-scale evaluations and studying interventions that schools actually adopt. The system had its flaws — outdated methodologies, expensive vendor contracts, research adrift from classroom needs — and critics had long pushed for reform. But even those critics agreed that you don’t fix a system by gutting it midstream. Real reform requires investment, not indiscriminate cuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some consequences are already evident. Almost no new grants or contracts for fresh research were awarded in 2025, meaning that a generation of studies may never materialize. There were exceptions. On the eve of the shutdown, IES quietly pushed through \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/search-results?searchTerms=From%20Seedlings%20to%20Scale%20Grants%20Program%20(ALN%2084.305J)\">nine small education technology innovation grants\u003c/a>, initiated during the Biden administration, totaling $450,000. Then after the shutdown, IES announced \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/funding/research/programs/small-business-innovation-research-sbir/sbir-awards?&mcontenttype=Contract&lawardstatus=Open&lyearaward=2025&pageNum=1\">$14 million in contracts \u003c/a>to 25 small businesses to develop and test new ed tech products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public confidence in federal data faltered as publications arrived late, abbreviated or not at all. What had once been the backbone of the American educational system began to feel fragile and unreliable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Partial restorations have taken place, but they reveal the limits of what can be reclaimed. The online library ERIC survived on half its funding; NAEP continued, though scaled back; and the regional laboratories that were slated to restart still haven’t. Inside IES, the workforce had been gutted, leaving few people to execute the remaining programs. These restorations highlight the importance of public scrutiny, lawsuits and reporting, yet they cannot undo the carnage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The damage is cumulative and will unfold over years. Longitudinal studies were cut off midstream, multiyear research programs collapsed, and promising lines of inquiry vanished before they could mature. Careers were derailed, but the deeper loss belongs to the children and teachers who will never benefit from the knowledge that would have been generated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a fragmented system where every district makes its own choices, evidence is one of the few forces capable of offering coherence. And the statistics that track the nation’s schools — achievement, inequality, enrollment, finances — are irreplaceable. As it stands now, there is a lot we won’t know, measure or trust in the future of education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The deeper irony is that the cuts did not simply weaken the field of education research, they compromised the country’s ability to see its own school system clearly. Reform may indeed be overdue. But rebuilding confidence in federal data — and recovering the institutional knowledge lost in a single chaotic year — will take far longer than the dismantling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-trump-upended-education-research-2025/\">\u003cem>Trump administration and the Education Department\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Inauguration Day was a time of hope for the MAGA faithful who watched President Donald Trump take his second oath of office in the Capitol rotunda. But less than a mile away, at the Department of Education, fear and uncertainty reigned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers, contractors and federal staff — the corner of the Education Department that I cover — braced for potentially devastating upheaval. Would the department itself be eliminated, as Trump had promised during the campaign? Would congressionally mandated research and statistical programs move to other agencies? And, if so, which ones?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid the unease, a small but determined force was already at work. The consequences would be profound. As many as 16 members from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team embedded within the agency in early February, according to news reports. These Young Turks reviewed contracts, identified vulnerabilities and quietly plotted what some would later call a blitzkrieg against federal research. As one senior researcher told me, decades of painstaking work vanished overnight in an attack by an inexperienced and ideologically driven staff intent on dismantling the bureaucracy without understanding its purpose.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>February: The carnage begins\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The first blow came in early February. In a single week, DOGE terminated more than \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-doge-death-blow-education-studies/\">100 research contracts\u003c/a> collectively worth over a billion dollars on paper. The consequences were immediate and staggering. Ten Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs), which had helped states pilot literacy and math interventions, were among these early casualties. Mississippi’s remarkable turnaround in reading achievement, commonly called the “Mississippi Miracle,” was nurtured by the Southeast laboratory, and the sudden loss of this infrastructure created uncertainty for other states in the midst of trying to copy Mississippi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOGE canceled an 11-year longitudinal study tracking youth with disabilities through high school into college and the workforce. Data painstakingly collected over five years was effectively discarded overnight. Instruction and support was suddenly yanked from 1,000 students in the study. Disability advocates described it as a “crushing loss.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even core federal datasets were not spared. The termination of a contract for EDFacts, which collects demographic data about students, was inconceivable. The data is essential for administering the highly regarded National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the federal test that tracks reading and math achievement. It is also critical for allocating $18 billion for the Title I program, which gives federal subsidies to high-poverty schools. DOGE killed evidence-based teacher guides for math instruction. Even data on homeschooling — long a conservative priority — was cut. A department spokeswoman said the cuts eliminated “waste, fraud and abuse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of the agency’s work is conducted by outside contractors, and DOGE pressured vendors to accept massive contract reductions; some payments were frozen entirely. The ripple effects were immediate: Research labs, university offices and federal contractors were thrown into chaos, scrambling to save data and unsure of their jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The month ended with a shocking firing at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a major source of reliable data. The commissioner, \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-peggy-carr-interview-nces/\">Peggy Carr\u003c/a>, was escorted out of the building by a security guard under circumstances that remain unclear. She was one of the first in a string of senior Black officials across the federal government who were tossed out by the Trump administration. Former department employees told me Carr had resisted DOGE’s demand to make severe cuts to NAEP. Her removal sent a clear signal that resistance would have consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>March: Mass firings\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The unprecedented devastation continued in March, when nearly half of the Education Department’s workers lost their jobs, including almost 90 percent of staffers assigned to the research and statistics division. The agency Carr led was reduced to a skeletal staff of \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-chaos-confusion-statistics-education/\">three employees\u003c/a> from about 100. In another sign of the internal chaos, Chris Chapman, who had been installed to replace Carr, was fired after only 15 days, adding to the confusion about who, if anyone, was in charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Linda McMahon, newly confirmed as education secretary, publicly defended the cuts, describing them as “a first step” toward closing the agency. With so few staffers to oversee contracts, NAEP test development stalled. DOGE even suggested substituting off-the-shelf tests from private vendors, sources said, undermining decades of federal assessment development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My job was to make sure that the limited public dollars for education research were spent as best as they could be,” a former education official said in March. Her job was to issue grants for the development of new innovations. “We make sure there’s no fraud, waste and abuse. Now there’s no watchdog to oversee it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>April: More cuts, more chaos\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By April, the board that oversees the NAEP exam reluctantly killed more than a \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-smaller-naep/\">dozen assessments\u003c/a> scheduled over the next seven years. The cuts were painful. They meant not measuring how much American students know in science and history or measuring writing skills. They also meant eliminating some state comparisons, diminishing the ability to highlight states that are making progress. But board members described how DOGE threatened the whole NAEP program, and they hoped that these cuts would be enough to preserve the quality of the main biennial tests in math and reading. The board had effectively amputated limbs to save the brain and heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The destruction spread beyond the Education Department. At the National Science Foundation, DOGE-directed cuts targeted education more than any other area. Of the billion dollars in NSF grants that DOGE eliminated, \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-three-fourths-nsf-funding-cuts-education/\">three-quarters were for education\u003c/a> research, largely conducted at universities. Many of the killed projects focused on increasing the participation of women and minorities in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics and on combating misinformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By chance, thousands of researchers and statisticians were in Denver for the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) as DOGE was destroying their field. They fought back. Three lawsuits, including one led by AERA, challenged the legality of contract terminations and mass firings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public outcry grew. McMahon publicly admitted that some cuts had gone too far. “When you are restructuring a company, you hope that you’re just cutting fat,” McMahon said before Congress. “Sometimes you cut a little in the muscle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But by then the damage was deep and far-reaching. Data collections were paused midstream, rendering them useless. Evaluations of efforts to improve teaching and learning were left incomplete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Years of work have gone into these studies,” said Dan McGrath, a Democracy Forward lawyer who is representing plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits. “At some point it won’t be possible to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers were left navigating a landscape that had been transformed overnight, with no clear road map for survival. LinkedIn was flooded with new “open to work” updates. Many fled Washington and the field of education altogether, taking decades of institutional knowledge with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the destruction continued, public scrutiny began to influence the department’s actions. Two days after I wrote a \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-eric-under-threat/\">column on the defunding\u003c/a> of the Education Resources Information Center, an online library of critical educational documents known as ERIC, the department restarted it — albeit with only half its previous budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>May and June: Mixed signals\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By late spring, the relentless onslaught of destruction shifted into a more confusing narrative of tentative reversals, with some contracts restarted and some staff rehired. The flagship “Condition of Education” report, a comprehensive data compilation about U.S. schools, students and teachers, wasn’t published by its June 1 deadline for the first time in history. Hours after I wrote \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-condition-of-education/\">about the missed deadline\u003c/a>, which is mandated by Congress, the department hastily posted some “coming soon” declarations on its website, but the information was late and incomplete. The 2025 report remains unfinished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMahon recognized that she could not operate her agency on such a thin staff. In May, she disclosed that she had quietly brought back \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/36360/McMahon_Defends_President_Trump_s_Skinny_Budget_and_ED_s_Restructuring_at_House_Appropriations_Hearing#:~:text=During%20questioning%2C%20McMahon%20confirmed%20that%20the%20department,who%20were%20initially%20eliminated%20as%20part%20of\">74 of those who had\u003c/a> been fired. Five employees of the board that oversees NAEP were loaned to the Education Department to keep the 2026 exam in reading and math on track. Of course, these numbers are a tiny fraction of the 2,000 employees who were let go, but they were also a sign that the Trump administration saw value in some of the department’s work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More reversals — at least partial ones — followed. Lawsuits and public scrutiny prompted the \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-restart-ed-contracts/\">restart of roughly 20 research and data contracts\u003c/a> and the preservation of data access for researchers. EDFacts was among them. Even so, restorations were often incomplete, sometimes no more than symbolic and with little practical effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one example, the department said it was reinstating a contract for operating the What Works Clearinghouse, a website that informs schools about evidence-based teaching practices, a congressionally mandated function. But, in that same legal disclosure, the department also said that it was not planning to reinstate any of the contracts to produce new content for the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout the Institute of Education Sciences, budgets were slashed, leaving programs under-resourced. And no new research was being reviewed or approved for funding. Trump’s budget proposed slashing IES’ 2026 budget by two-thirds, a move that Republican Senate appropriators would later reject.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, there was a glimmer of hope: At the end of May, McMahon tapped Amber Northern, a respected researcher, to lead an effort to revamp and modernize IES.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>July–September: A Supreme Court ruling\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The fallout continued in July. NAEP scores were delayed because of a leadership vacuum. Matt Soldner, juggling multiple roles inside the Education Department, was assigned yet another one — acting director of NCES — in order to release reports. In August, the administration ordered a new data collection on college admissions, a politically charged project undertaken without sufficient staff or funding. Experts warned it could be weaponized to accuse universities of reverse discrimination. Still, it was an indication that the Trump administration had discovered that the Education Department could be useful in enforcing its political priorities, even if it wasn’t yet willing to fund them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By September, some NAEP results were finally released, three months behind schedule. Higher education data slowly emerged, albeit incomplete. New job postings and public comment requests hinted at a slow rebuilding, but the system remained fragile. Across states, districts and universities, the consequences of eight months of disruption were already visible: delayed reports, stalled research and weakened trust in federal statistics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the spring, a federal court in Boston ordered the return of fired staffers, but in July, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration: The employees would remain fired. In addition, the vast majority of the research contracts would remain terminated while lawsuits slowly moved through the court system — which could take years. The damage was done and probably irreversible.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>October and November: Shutdown and uncertainty\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Oct. 1, everything stopped. More than \u003ca href=\"https://www.regulations.gov/docket/ED-2025-IES-0844\">400 comments\u003c/a> on how to reform IES poured in by the Oct. 15 deadline, but the department couldn’t post them because of the government shutdown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Nov. 18, McMahon announced she was outsourcing a host of Education Department functions to other agencies, creating an end-run around Congress because she wasn’t technically transferring these divisions. (Only Congress has the authority to eliminate the department or transfer its congressionally mandated activities elsewhere.) But research and statistics weren’t mentioned on McMahon’s outsourcing list, and the fate of IES remained unclear. The Education Department didn’t respond to my requests in November to interview an official about IES’ future.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Looking ahead\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Federal education research occupies a narrow but indispensable space. Unlike private foundations, which often chase novelty or seek to make a visible mark on the field, the federal system is designed for the slow, unglamorous work of establishing baseline data in reading and math, conducting large-scale evaluations and studying interventions that schools actually adopt. The system had its flaws — outdated methodologies, expensive vendor contracts, research adrift from classroom needs — and critics had long pushed for reform. But even those critics agreed that you don’t fix a system by gutting it midstream. Real reform requires investment, not indiscriminate cuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some consequences are already evident. Almost no new grants or contracts for fresh research were awarded in 2025, meaning that a generation of studies may never materialize. There were exceptions. On the eve of the shutdown, IES quietly pushed through \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/search-results?searchTerms=From%20Seedlings%20to%20Scale%20Grants%20Program%20(ALN%2084.305J)\">nine small education technology innovation grants\u003c/a>, initiated during the Biden administration, totaling $450,000. Then after the shutdown, IES announced \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/funding/research/programs/small-business-innovation-research-sbir/sbir-awards?&mcontenttype=Contract&lawardstatus=Open&lyearaward=2025&pageNum=1\">$14 million in contracts \u003c/a>to 25 small businesses to develop and test new ed tech products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public confidence in federal data faltered as publications arrived late, abbreviated or not at all. What had once been the backbone of the American educational system began to feel fragile and unreliable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Partial restorations have taken place, but they reveal the limits of what can be reclaimed. The online library ERIC survived on half its funding; NAEP continued, though scaled back; and the regional laboratories that were slated to restart still haven’t. Inside IES, the workforce had been gutted, leaving few people to execute the remaining programs. These restorations highlight the importance of public scrutiny, lawsuits and reporting, yet they cannot undo the carnage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The damage is cumulative and will unfold over years. Longitudinal studies were cut off midstream, multiyear research programs collapsed, and promising lines of inquiry vanished before they could mature. Careers were derailed, but the deeper loss belongs to the children and teachers who will never benefit from the knowledge that would have been generated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a fragmented system where every district makes its own choices, evidence is one of the few forces capable of offering coherence. And the statistics that track the nation’s schools — achievement, inequality, enrollment, finances — are irreplaceable. As it stands now, there is a lot we won’t know, measure or trust in the future of education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The deeper irony is that the cuts did not simply weaken the field of education research, they compromised the country’s ability to see its own school system clearly. Reform may indeed be overdue. But rebuilding confidence in federal data — and recovering the institutional knowledge lost in a single chaotic year — will take far longer than the dismantling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-trump-upended-education-research-2025/\">\u003cem>Trump administration and the Education Department\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The teaching profession is one of the most female-dominated in the United States. Among elementary school teachers, 89 percent are women, and in kindergarten, that number is almost 97 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many sociologists, writers and parents have questioned whether this imbalance hinders young boys at the start of their education. Are female teachers less understanding of boys’ need to horse around? Or would male role models inspire boys to learn their letters and times tables? Some advocates point to research that lays out why boys ought to do better with male teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a new national analysis finds no evidence that boys perform or behave better with male teachers in elementary school. This challenges a widespread belief that boys thrive more when taught by men, and it raises questions about efforts, such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.nyc.gov/site/ymi/teach/nyc-men-teach.page\">one in New York City\u003c/a>, to spend extra to recruit them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was surprised,” said Paul Morgan, a professor at the University at Albany and a co-author of the study. “I’ve raised two boys, and my assumption would be that having male teachers is beneficial because boys tend to be more rambunctious, more active, a little less easy to direct in academic tasks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not saying gender matching doesn’t work,” Morgan added. “We’re saying we’re not observing it in K through fifth grade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middle and high school students might see more benefits. Earlier research is mixed and inconclusive. A \u003ca href=\"https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/teachers-and-gender-gaps-student-achievement\">2007 analysis\u003c/a> by Stanford professor Thomas Dee found academic benefits for eighth-grade boys and girls when taught by teachers of their same gender. And studies where researchers observe and interview a small number of students often show how students feel more supported by same-gender teachers. Yet many quantitative studies, like this newest one, have failed to detect measurable benefits for boys. At least 10 since 2014 have found zero or minimal effects. Benefits for girls are more consistent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This latest study, “Fixed Effect Estimates of Teacher-Student Gender Matching During Elementary School,” is a working paper not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal.* Morgan and co-author Eric Hu, a research scientist at Albany, shared a draft with me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan and Hu analyzed a U.S. Education Department dataset that followed a nationally representative group of 8,000 students from kindergarten in 2010 through fifth grade in 2017. Half were boys and half were girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than two-thirds — 68 percent — of the 4,000 boys never had a male teacher in those years while 32 percent had at least one. (The study focused only on main classroom teachers, not extras like gym or music.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the 1,300 boys who had both male and female teachers, the researchers compared each boy’s performance and behavior across those years. For instance, if Jacob had female teachers in kindergarten, first, second and fifth grades, but male teachers in third and fourth, his average scores and behavior were compared between the teachers of different genders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found no differences in reading, math or science achievement — or in behavioral and social measures. Teachers rated students on traits like impulsiveness, cooperation, anxiety, empathy and self-control. The children also took annual executive function tests. The results did not vary by the teacher’s gender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most studies on male teachers focus on older students. The authors noted one other elementary-level study, in Florida, that also found no academic benefit for boys. This new research confirms that finding and adds that there seems to be no behavioral or social benefits either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For students at these young ages, 11 and under, the researchers also didn’t find academic benefits for girls with female teachers. But there were two non-academic ones: Girls taught by women showed stronger interpersonal skills (getting along, helping others, caring about feelings) and a greater eagerness to learn (represented by skills such as keeping organized and following rules).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the researchers combined race and gender, the results grew more complex. Black girls taught by Black women scored higher on an executive function test but lower in science. Asian boys taught by Asian men scored higher on executive function but had lower ratings on interpersonal skills. Black boys showed no measurable differences when taught by Black male teachers. (Previous research has sometimes \u003ca href=\"https://hub.jhu.edu/2018/11/12/black-students-black-teachers-college-gap/\">found benefits\u003c/a> for Black students taught by Black teachers and \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-black-and-white-teachers-from-hbcus-are-better-math-instructors-study-finds/\">sometimes hasn’t.\u003c/a>)**\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if data show no academic or behavioral benefits for students, there may still be compelling reasons to diversify the teaching workforce, just as in other professions. But we shouldn’t expect these efforts to move the needle on student outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you had scarce resources and were trying to place your bets,” Morgan said, “then based on this study, maybe elementary school isn’t where you should focus your recruitment efforts” to hire more men.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To paraphrase Boyz II Men, it’s so hard to say goodbye — to the idea that young boys need male teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>*Clarification: The article has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal but has undergone some peer review.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>**Correction: An earlier version incorrectly characterized how researchers analyzed what happened to students of different races. The researchers focused only on the gender of the teachers, but drilled down to see how students of different races responded to teachers of different genders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This story about \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-male-teachers-elementary-school/\">\u003cem>male teachers\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The teaching profession is one of the most female-dominated in the United States. Among elementary school teachers, 89 percent are women, and in kindergarten, that number is almost 97 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many sociologists, writers and parents have questioned whether this imbalance hinders young boys at the start of their education. Are female teachers less understanding of boys’ need to horse around? Or would male role models inspire boys to learn their letters and times tables? Some advocates point to research that lays out why boys ought to do better with male teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a new national analysis finds no evidence that boys perform or behave better with male teachers in elementary school. This challenges a widespread belief that boys thrive more when taught by men, and it raises questions about efforts, such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.nyc.gov/site/ymi/teach/nyc-men-teach.page\">one in New York City\u003c/a>, to spend extra to recruit them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was surprised,” said Paul Morgan, a professor at the University at Albany and a co-author of the study. “I’ve raised two boys, and my assumption would be that having male teachers is beneficial because boys tend to be more rambunctious, more active, a little less easy to direct in academic tasks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not saying gender matching doesn’t work,” Morgan added. “We’re saying we’re not observing it in K through fifth grade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middle and high school students might see more benefits. Earlier research is mixed and inconclusive. A \u003ca href=\"https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/teachers-and-gender-gaps-student-achievement\">2007 analysis\u003c/a> by Stanford professor Thomas Dee found academic benefits for eighth-grade boys and girls when taught by teachers of their same gender. And studies where researchers observe and interview a small number of students often show how students feel more supported by same-gender teachers. Yet many quantitative studies, like this newest one, have failed to detect measurable benefits for boys. At least 10 since 2014 have found zero or minimal effects. Benefits for girls are more consistent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This latest study, “Fixed Effect Estimates of Teacher-Student Gender Matching During Elementary School,” is a working paper not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal.* Morgan and co-author Eric Hu, a research scientist at Albany, shared a draft with me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan and Hu analyzed a U.S. Education Department dataset that followed a nationally representative group of 8,000 students from kindergarten in 2010 through fifth grade in 2017. Half were boys and half were girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than two-thirds — 68 percent — of the 4,000 boys never had a male teacher in those years while 32 percent had at least one. (The study focused only on main classroom teachers, not extras like gym or music.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the 1,300 boys who had both male and female teachers, the researchers compared each boy’s performance and behavior across those years. For instance, if Jacob had female teachers in kindergarten, first, second and fifth grades, but male teachers in third and fourth, his average scores and behavior were compared between the teachers of different genders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found no differences in reading, math or science achievement — or in behavioral and social measures. Teachers rated students on traits like impulsiveness, cooperation, anxiety, empathy and self-control. The children also took annual executive function tests. The results did not vary by the teacher’s gender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most studies on male teachers focus on older students. The authors noted one other elementary-level study, in Florida, that also found no academic benefit for boys. This new research confirms that finding and adds that there seems to be no behavioral or social benefits either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For students at these young ages, 11 and under, the researchers also didn’t find academic benefits for girls with female teachers. But there were two non-academic ones: Girls taught by women showed stronger interpersonal skills (getting along, helping others, caring about feelings) and a greater eagerness to learn (represented by skills such as keeping organized and following rules).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the researchers combined race and gender, the results grew more complex. Black girls taught by Black women scored higher on an executive function test but lower in science. Asian boys taught by Asian men scored higher on executive function but had lower ratings on interpersonal skills. Black boys showed no measurable differences when taught by Black male teachers. (Previous research has sometimes \u003ca href=\"https://hub.jhu.edu/2018/11/12/black-students-black-teachers-college-gap/\">found benefits\u003c/a> for Black students taught by Black teachers and \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-black-and-white-teachers-from-hbcus-are-better-math-instructors-study-finds/\">sometimes hasn’t.\u003c/a>)**\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if data show no academic or behavioral benefits for students, there may still be compelling reasons to diversify the teaching workforce, just as in other professions. But we shouldn’t expect these efforts to move the needle on student outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you had scarce resources and were trying to place your bets,” Morgan said, “then based on this study, maybe elementary school isn’t where you should focus your recruitment efforts” to hire more men.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To paraphrase Boyz II Men, it’s so hard to say goodbye — to the idea that young boys need male teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>*Clarification: The article has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal but has undergone some peer review.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>**Correction: An earlier version incorrectly characterized how researchers analyzed what happened to students of different races. The researchers focused only on the gender of the teachers, but drilled down to see how students of different races responded to teachers of different genders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This story about \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-male-teachers-elementary-school/\">\u003cem>male teachers\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, educators and academics have studied many aspects of how students learn. The role of grit, resilience and growth mindset, for example, have been closely studied and strategies to develop them widely shared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, the connection between \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/45201/why-emotions-are-integral-to-learning\">emotions and learning\u003c/a> has acquired more attention, as has the role of \u003ca href=\"https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Awe_FINAL.pdf\">awe in human development\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>K-12 educator Deborah Farmer Kris wrote about the benefits of awe in our daily lives in her book, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/products/raising-awe-seekers-how-the-science-of-wonder-helps-our-kids-thrive-153673\">Raising Awe Seekers: How The Science of Wonder Helps our Kids Thrive,\u003c/a>” and joined the MindShift Podcast to talk about her surprising findings. She also has tips on how to\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65520/how-experiencing-wonder-helps-kids-learn\"> cultivate awe in children and adults\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as someone who has taught for two decades, she has advice on what educators can do to find the wonder in subjects they teach several times a day, year over year, to a large number of students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC9148141574\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung. Today I’m speaking to longtime MindShift contributor Debra Farmer Kris. She’s a child development expert and author of the book, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/products/raising-awe-seekers-how-the-science-of-wonder-helps-our-kids-thrive-153673\">Raising Awe Seekers: How The Science of Wonder Helps our Kids Thrive\u003c/a>.” During the depths of pandemic-era parenting, Deborah Farmer Kris discovered that awe is an often overlooked but powerful emotion. We’ll discuss how parents and educators can use awe to drive engagement with classroom materials and connection with the world around us. That conversation, coming up right after this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Let’s start by diving right into the title of your book, “Raising Awe Seekers.” We hear the word awe and its variations like awesome all the time, but let’s take a step back and have you define for us what awe is and why it’s important for human development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> So first awe is an emotion, and that is important because as an emotion, it is something we can feel, uh, and we can recognize when we’re feeling it. And so when you look at emotions, um, you have kind of your core four, like happy, mad, sad, scared, and you have variations of those. So underneath mad, you might have irate or frustrated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Awe is more of a subset of surprise and a is what you feel when you encounter something that is vast. That is, um, wondrous, that is beyond your ordinary frame of reference. You might see something new that moves you, that touches you, that excites you. And the way researchers often talk about how you know you’re feeling it is things like, uh, chills or goosebumps for some people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, maybe your eyes involuntarily spring you with tears, uh, the sound. Wow. Or whoa, you know, you have somebody choose a half court shot and it goes in and people aren’t saying That was an amazing shot. Now they’re making a all guttural sound of Wow. And I think for children as a, as an educator and as a parent, I would put in that category, this wide eyes that it’s almost like they want to absorb what they’re seeing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The really neat thing about this particular emotion is that there is a wealth of research, uh, about 25 years now, most of it out of the \u003ca href=\"https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/awe\">Greater Good Science Center at University of California Berkeley\u003c/a>,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>and it turns out that, most good things we want for our kids from, uh, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/38260/whats-going-on-inside-the-brain-of-a-curious-child\">curiosity and cognitive development\u003c/a> to a sense of mental and emotional wellness, to a sense of connectedness, awe supports all of those outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> it’s interesting that the research has been out for 25 years or around for 25 years because, you know, we see a lot of different types of behaviors getting academic and media scrutiny, like, you know, the popular ones :grit, resilience, anxiety, growth, mindset, but all doesn’t quite get as much attention. Do you know why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> You know, I think there wasn’t really the popularized book for the moment, you know, \u003ca href=\"https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Awe_FINAL.pdf\">Dacher Keltner\u003c/a>, who’s the main researcher on this, one of the lead ones, a year and a half ago, came out with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Awe-Science-Everyday-Wonder-Transform/dp/1984879685\">wonderful book\u003c/a> that has been getting more press.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I think awe is beginning to have a bit of a moment now. But before then you had to kind of be like me, the, the kind of the nerd looking through the journals and looking through the articles and, you know, I was always kind of, because I write for Mind Shift and other sources on the lookout for good research that could be translated, for teachers and parents. And so while it was there, it really hadn’t had its, um, you know it, it’s social moment yet, and I think hopefully we’re at the beginnings of that right now\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> What does awe have to do with, say, being able to pay attention in class, especially for kids who are overscheduled or have a high amount of screen time?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm. So where awe is really helpful. Academically is that it is highly correlated with curiosity. And one thing we know about curiosity from reams of research is that curiosity is a key indicator of academic success. ’cause it relates to internal motivation. I mean, think about it. You have curious about something, you want to learn it, you’re motivated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, and so the link between awe and curiosity is just really tight because you see something you don’t understand. And awe is often related to this wow moment of, you know, I’m, I’m looking at these stars and I’m wondering, I have these, I, I wish I knew more. And that feeling, that curiosity is what propels kids to, to want to learn. And one of the really cool pieces of research that I describe in the book was that when you’re curious about something, it actually primes the brain to remember things. And I, I think about this often with very young children, how you might have a 4-year-old who can memorize the names of all the dinosaurs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So they might be talking about the diplodocus. But they might be struggling with some of their other more basic vocabulary, but because their interest level is so high, they are primed to remember. And so really deep learning often happens at this intersection of, you know, of focus and interest. And so, um, one of the things they have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers have also found is that when the brain is primed with curiosity on wonder that even say 30 minutes later when you’re engaged in an activity that’s not as interesting, not as awe inspiring, your brain is still primed to learn. And so that gets me thinking about how it maybe a class is organized, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So am I doing something at the beginning of class that’s really capturing the imagination or the wonder, um, or the curiosity of students, uh. To prime their brain to remember something that later in the class may be important, but not necessarily as, um, wondrous for them. And so I think this is an interesting way for us to think about students who may not be as engaged,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they’re not as engaged in everything, can we find the one thing? Can we find the thing that excites them, that sparks that awe, that lights them up, and use that as kind of a foundation for other academic learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I wanna talk about parents real quick. Um, when you talk about wonder, I don’t know if I have time for it, because we’re literally so busy. Um, what is the benefit of making the time to wonder, um, how should I exercise restraint in not wanting to rush, Um, tell me how to restrain myself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> So researching awe has absolutely in subtle but profound ways transformed how I parent my kids, um, partly because it has made me more attentive to the world around me. Many of the sources of awe are deeply tied to our sensory system, so sounds, sight, smells, what we’re taking in. One of the great things about awe that you, you don’t need to go to the Sistine Chapel or the Grand Canyon, that it’s a very everyday ordinary emotion, and it’s more about putting ourselves in, in the path of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So for me as a parent, the first thing I had to do was make sure I was making some space for it myself. And the simplest way I, I did this, um, was by adopting, um, one of the practices from research, which was taking an a walk. Now I have a dog, so I am outside with the dog at least three times a day, usually morning, midday, and evening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I made the decision that one of those. Times I was outside, even for five or 10 minutes, I would not have my phone on, I would not be listening to music. I would just be paying attention. I’d be looking up, uh, I would be looking at the trees. Um, and I, I, I literally call it my awe walk, right? Five minutes a day, 10 minutes a day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I noticed that. Over the course of nearly two years now, this has transformed my relationship with my neighborhood. And I don’t just mean my neighbors, although being outside has helped me connect with them. But the trees, the, the birds who I really didn’t even notice were in the neighborhood. And now I can identify so many of them, the, the changing of the seasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, and then I made the very conscious decision as a parent that when I did notice these things, I was going to be more active about sharing them. Uh, and that means that, you know, if I hear a story that of say a human being kind or brave, which is a key source of awe and wonder. Um, I’m gonna talk to my kids about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, if I see a really beautiful sunset, I am going to be the mom who says, come out and look. Just the other day we were driving home and there was a incredible double rainbow. And I pulled over, I was driving my son home from piano lessons and behind me another parent pulled over with their four or 5-year-old and the two of us were standing out there with our two children in the drizzling rain looking at this gorgeous rainbow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I just, you know, thought this was a moment where it’s gonna take me two minutes longer to get home, but this will be something my child remembers where typically a drive home you don’t remember. so it, it’s really not about the big experience, it’s about the little moments in the day of the song, the what you see, the smell that you pause, you notice, and then you take the next step to share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uh, because one of the things I have found slowly over time is that because I do so much sharing of my awe moments, and Itry to just be super authentic in how I do it, because I. Do love sharing and talking to my kids. They are much more likely to share them with me, to tell me their stories or to send me the picture they find or the song they think I will like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so for me, it becomes almost this very authentic way of just sharing our day together and paying attention to what lights me up and what lights my kids up. And yes, that requires a little bit of slowing down, but it doesn’t require. You know, this is gonna be a day of no screens and nothing, or we’re gonna get, take an entirely unplugged vacation for a week, which none of us have the time or resources to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> It’s quite, um. Uh, contrast I think to maybe how our brains are wired to think about only bad things that are very sticky or, um, uh, the worst things that can happen to us. I think a lot of us are just inclined to, um, you know, think negatively, um, and dwell on those things, but seeing the beautiful positive things in the world, um, may also provide a more accurate. Picture or depiction of our daily lives that there are beautiful wonder, wonderful things around us if we just take the time, uh, time to look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Yeah, sometimes I describe awe as the ultimate and emotion. So, you know, awe is different than gratitude. Gratitude is actually, um, it can be quite a cerebral. Emotion where you think back and even though in the moment you didn’t appreciate it, now you do and you’re grateful for that. Um, awe is very involuntary emotion, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You see something beautiful, you feel it. And you know, for me, I call it the “and” emotion because you know, I may be having a really tough day and I’m disturbed by something on the news and just before coming up here, Ki, there was this mass of robins, um, outside that was chattering so loudly. I didn’t actually think they were robins because it was midday. And normally they’re not as that loud midday. And I pulled out my Merlin app to see what they were, and I’m watching them hovering. And I’m wondering, like, I actually Googled, like, why would there be the swarm of Robin’s midday? Um, and it was just a, a brief moment where it was. Again, this, you know, the world is difficult. The world is messy. The world is complicated, and people are doing brave, kind, wonderful things every day. And there are artists making incredible works that will move us. And there’s a natural world out there that is. You know, still full of such mystery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so it’s not, you know, as somebody would talk about toxic positivity saying, you know, just look on the bright side, it’s more of just acknowledging that you can have a difficult day and, you know, taking a step outside, taking a deep breath and hearing that bird song or getting that text from a friend who brings you a moment of, of, of warmth and kindness. Um, those moments can coexist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> So speaking of bird song or something that has that resonant rhythm, um, you interviewed Dacher Keltner of UC, Berkeley, and he had some advice on finding awe that you wrote about a. In your book, uh, can you read to me what his advice was?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Yes, I actually structure it like a poem, uh, in the book. And while I was interviewing him, he was actually out on a walk, which I find quite lovely. And so I said to him, you know, what is your best advice for finding awe? And this is what he said. How do you find awe? You allow unstructured time. How do you find awe?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You wander, you drift through. You take a walk with no aim. How do you find awe? You slow things down. You allow for mystery and open questions rather than test driven answers, you allow people to engage in the humanities of dance and visual art and music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> That really is beautiful. so let’s break it down a little bit. Uh, you have spent 20 years as a K to 12 teacher. What does awe look like for the different age groups? for elementary years, the middle school years, or maybe even the high school years?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> That’s a great question, and I think to answer this, I, I first need to just very briefly talk about the sources because some of these sources will look different at different ages. So when you think about. General categories where people find awe. You have nature and music, the arts, big questions, big ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uh, that feeling of belonging and this, uh, this life cycle. And of course kinda human goodness. So people being kind and brave, and I think at different ages, different of those take priorities. So, you know, for a 4-year-old, one of the things they’re really driven by are why questions. You know, why is this happening?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, there’s some research. That shows, depending on the source, that four year olds can ask, you know, between kind of 70 and a hundred questions a day. Uh, and if you’re raising a kid that age that may actually feel like, you know, a low estimate, but they’re really trying to understand their world and so they’re constantly asking questions, engaging with their world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so. That’s really exciting and, and in fact, one of the challenges I think for educators and parents are how do you get high schoolers to still want to have that sense of wonder and engagement with their world? You know, when your kids are hitting the, the middle of high school years, the. The wonder of belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, there’s a, an expression from Émile Durkheim called Collective Effervescence. Um, that is really key because they want to be part of a group. And collective effervescence basically means that you’re part of a group that is doing, uh, engaged harmoniously toward a common good cause. And so you might think of a sports team or a choral group, or even a Model UN or d and d or robotics club where people are working together toward this common aim, and that feels really good. Um, so when kids, especially teenagers, don’t find that they’re missing out on a. A source of wonder that they’re actually biologically primed for, because this is an age where they’re pulling away from parents and looking to be part of a peer group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so that becomes a really important thing to help kids navigate. How do you find the in-person, peer group?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Um, I think. You know, for any age group being out in nature, um, engaging with art, finding music that speaks to them and that may change dramatically their musical tastes. Um. Those are all kind of ready-made sources of awe that we can be tapping into as, as teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the things I really love about the whole developmental range of childhood is that interest change and that what makes them tick, what lights them up, change, and, um I’ve taught almost every grade K through 12, and really one of my favorites is middle school, partly because it’s such a time of intense change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I think for parents and educators, it can feel tricky when it looks like they are, um, letting go of things that used to make them happy with sources of awe and, and, and wonder for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so it might look like they’re just getting jaded or cynical when in fact they’re undergoing a very natural transition into. Perhaps what is going to be the new face. And so being patient with them and kind of going with it and getting curious, um, have practicing some radical curiosity about, okay, so your kid doesn’t really like soccer anymore after all these years on a, you know, soccer squad, but it looks like they might be interested in joining, um, a drama troupe. And so I’m gonna take a deep breath and go with that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or there might be a sticky time in between where they don’t know who their friend group is and what their interests are. But that is such a great identity formation time, and I feel like awe and wonder are a great tool for parents during that identity formation because if you can start just paying attention to, okay, so what is sparking their interests? What does light them up? What? Where can I see that their eyes did grow wide? And maybe we explore that a little bit. Maybe it sticks, maybe it doesn’t, and that’s okay. But these are all pathways in to mental wellness, emotional wellness, and even academic growth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> That sounds like great advice and you cited, uh, Benjamin Bloom’s research, I believe, when describing that spark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Yeah\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Um, and parents, you know, encouraging kids along that path. Uh. I do have a question for you, for educators. What amazes me whenever I observe teachers in the classroom is how they can be still enthusiastic teaching the same topic, bringing the sense of awe to 30 different kids six times a day for the many, many years they’ve been teaching. How do awe and wonder continue to exist in a classroom when one might get a little tired of doing the same thing over and over again?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> I love that question. I was an English teacher for years as well as an elementary school teacher. And I, I think between reflecting on my own teaching experience. And now this research, I had a bit of an aha moment\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>uh, what kept it fresh was watching my students first encounter with it. their moments of awe, I remember a student coming in and we had just finished Taylor two cities, and she came in and she was crying and she was angry and she threw the book down. She had finished the book in the hallway and she said. It’s not supposed to end this way. And I thought, you know, I’ve read this book a dozen times, but for the first time here, she’s experiencing this emotional catharsis of seeing this kind of final sacrifice of the, the protagonist of this book. And, um, you know, that’s a really exciting thing as a teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, I, I write about my freshman year in college ’cause it’s still so transformational to me. I had this professor who took us out of the classroom. He was an education professor, but he took us to the Museum of Fine Arts. He took us to the Isabella Stewart Garden Museum in Boston. And, um. At one point, uh, you know, I, it was several weeks later I was reading, uh, I, I went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner to, to do some homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was cold in Boston. It was a beautiful courtyard. Um, and he ended up capturing a picture of, of me reading something and giving that to me as a gift. This kind of emblem of, you know, me reading a book in an art museum. And I actually kept that picture in my classroom for years as kind of this reminder of a teacher who saw me, a teacher, introduced me to beauty, uh, and that that was the type, even though I didn’t have the word awe for it at the time, it was absolutely what drew me back to that place. Um, and so I knew almost intuitively that that was the emotion that I wanted to connect with, with the students. And so, you know, if I am bored with what I’m teaching, I need to freshen it up a little bit. Um, but it may be that I just. I also need to tune into the kids in front of me in a way that what sparks me is their spark, um, more than the content itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I think what I’m hearing you say is awe is this connective feeling that motivates you, motivates the students, um, and maybe motivates a lot of people to shape their worlds into something different than what they had before or had been expecting for themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> I think that’s fair because one of the characteristics of awe is what scientists call the small self, uh, which is when you know. I think about this with teenagers where they, they think everybody’s staring at them. Uh, I think a lot of adults feel that too, right? I, I made a mistake. Everybody’s thinking about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And anything that helps you zoom out and get a broader perspective, uh, is something that can help quiet that kind of internal chatter that we have, um, and just kind of realign. Our understanding of the world and our place in it. And one of my favorite pieces of research, uh, and I, I share this with kids a lot and they love it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Um, it, it was conducted at uc, Berkeley, and there’s a science building, which from the back is really a nondescript brick building. Nothing particularly awe inspiring about that architecture. But if you turn your body around, there’s this grove of, um, old growth trees. And so the researchers had their subjects one by one come out and either face the nondescript brick building or face the beautiful grove of trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then after a span of time, somebody else in the study, unbeknownst to the test subject, wanders by and drops things. And they were measuring like, well, who’s gonna help the stranger pick up their things? And it turns out. At a statistically significant level, those who were staring at the trees, uh, were more likely to help a stranger than those staring at a brick building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And what I love about the study is that it’s just, it’s such a metaphor for life in the sense that we can be standing in the exact same place. Right, the same circumstances, but where we direct our gaze, um, what we choose to see also can increase our sense of connectedness, um, to people around us. And one of the other things we know is that, um performing acts of kindness, right? That is a boost to wellbeing as well. Uh, that when somebody is feeling lonely or down or depressed, that acts of service turned out to be a really, really effective and powerful intervention. And so, you know, I. Researchers speculate. Why have we evolved to feel this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because all feelings have functions, right? Disgust is there because we don’t want to eat the rotten chicken and fear motivates us to avoid danger. Uh, so the hypothesis is that awe is designed to help us um be more connected to our communities, um, to kind of bind people toward a common purpose, right? If you know, I, I think about the eclipse and how I was near the path of totality and how the entire neighborhood came out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And here we are, the whole neighborhood staring up at the sky together. Like these are moments. Um. You think of all the people who, who go to a World Series game, um, to cheer together that are, are binding us as a community. And those are things that help us with wellbeing and even survival. And so that’s, that’s a hypothesis and it’s, it’s one I, I think we should continue to explore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Deborah, thanks so much for bringing awe to our attention. I hope that just by bringing this topic into the world or sharing it more with a wider audience, that more people create this positive impact to create a better world. It sounds like we’re already on our way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Debra Farmer Kris is a child development expert and author of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/products/raising-awe-seekers-how-the-science-of-wonder-helps-our-kids-thrive-153673\">Raising Awe Seekers, how The Science of Wonder Helps our Kids Thrive\u003c/a>.” She’s also a longtime MindShift contributor who’s written a lot about emotion so I encourage you to look up those stories. And she also works for PBS Kids as a show consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also check out her children’s book series “All the Time” and “I See You”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is podcast operations manager and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, educators and academics have studied many aspects of how students learn. The role of grit, resilience and growth mindset, for example, have been closely studied and strategies to develop them widely shared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, the connection between \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/45201/why-emotions-are-integral-to-learning\">emotions and learning\u003c/a> has acquired more attention, as has the role of \u003ca href=\"https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Awe_FINAL.pdf\">awe in human development\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>K-12 educator Deborah Farmer Kris wrote about the benefits of awe in our daily lives in her book, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/products/raising-awe-seekers-how-the-science-of-wonder-helps-our-kids-thrive-153673\">Raising Awe Seekers: How The Science of Wonder Helps our Kids Thrive,\u003c/a>” and joined the MindShift Podcast to talk about her surprising findings. She also has tips on how to\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65520/how-experiencing-wonder-helps-kids-learn\"> cultivate awe in children and adults\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as someone who has taught for two decades, she has advice on what educators can do to find the wonder in subjects they teach several times a day, year over year, to a large number of students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC9148141574\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung. Today I’m speaking to longtime MindShift contributor Debra Farmer Kris. She’s a child development expert and author of the book, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/products/raising-awe-seekers-how-the-science-of-wonder-helps-our-kids-thrive-153673\">Raising Awe Seekers: How The Science of Wonder Helps our Kids Thrive\u003c/a>.” During the depths of pandemic-era parenting, Deborah Farmer Kris discovered that awe is an often overlooked but powerful emotion. We’ll discuss how parents and educators can use awe to drive engagement with classroom materials and connection with the world around us. That conversation, coming up right after this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Let’s start by diving right into the title of your book, “Raising Awe Seekers.” We hear the word awe and its variations like awesome all the time, but let’s take a step back and have you define for us what awe is and why it’s important for human development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> So first awe is an emotion, and that is important because as an emotion, it is something we can feel, uh, and we can recognize when we’re feeling it. And so when you look at emotions, um, you have kind of your core four, like happy, mad, sad, scared, and you have variations of those. So underneath mad, you might have irate or frustrated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Awe is more of a subset of surprise and a is what you feel when you encounter something that is vast. That is, um, wondrous, that is beyond your ordinary frame of reference. You might see something new that moves you, that touches you, that excites you. And the way researchers often talk about how you know you’re feeling it is things like, uh, chills or goosebumps for some people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, maybe your eyes involuntarily spring you with tears, uh, the sound. Wow. Or whoa, you know, you have somebody choose a half court shot and it goes in and people aren’t saying That was an amazing shot. Now they’re making a all guttural sound of Wow. And I think for children as a, as an educator and as a parent, I would put in that category, this wide eyes that it’s almost like they want to absorb what they’re seeing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The really neat thing about this particular emotion is that there is a wealth of research, uh, about 25 years now, most of it out of the \u003ca href=\"https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/awe\">Greater Good Science Center at University of California Berkeley\u003c/a>,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>and it turns out that, most good things we want for our kids from, uh, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/38260/whats-going-on-inside-the-brain-of-a-curious-child\">curiosity and cognitive development\u003c/a> to a sense of mental and emotional wellness, to a sense of connectedness, awe supports all of those outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> it’s interesting that the research has been out for 25 years or around for 25 years because, you know, we see a lot of different types of behaviors getting academic and media scrutiny, like, you know, the popular ones :grit, resilience, anxiety, growth, mindset, but all doesn’t quite get as much attention. Do you know why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> You know, I think there wasn’t really the popularized book for the moment, you know, \u003ca href=\"https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Awe_FINAL.pdf\">Dacher Keltner\u003c/a>, who’s the main researcher on this, one of the lead ones, a year and a half ago, came out with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Awe-Science-Everyday-Wonder-Transform/dp/1984879685\">wonderful book\u003c/a> that has been getting more press.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I think awe is beginning to have a bit of a moment now. But before then you had to kind of be like me, the, the kind of the nerd looking through the journals and looking through the articles and, you know, I was always kind of, because I write for Mind Shift and other sources on the lookout for good research that could be translated, for teachers and parents. And so while it was there, it really hadn’t had its, um, you know it, it’s social moment yet, and I think hopefully we’re at the beginnings of that right now\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> What does awe have to do with, say, being able to pay attention in class, especially for kids who are overscheduled or have a high amount of screen time?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm. So where awe is really helpful. Academically is that it is highly correlated with curiosity. And one thing we know about curiosity from reams of research is that curiosity is a key indicator of academic success. ’cause it relates to internal motivation. I mean, think about it. You have curious about something, you want to learn it, you’re motivated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, and so the link between awe and curiosity is just really tight because you see something you don’t understand. And awe is often related to this wow moment of, you know, I’m, I’m looking at these stars and I’m wondering, I have these, I, I wish I knew more. And that feeling, that curiosity is what propels kids to, to want to learn. And one of the really cool pieces of research that I describe in the book was that when you’re curious about something, it actually primes the brain to remember things. And I, I think about this often with very young children, how you might have a 4-year-old who can memorize the names of all the dinosaurs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So they might be talking about the diplodocus. But they might be struggling with some of their other more basic vocabulary, but because their interest level is so high, they are primed to remember. And so really deep learning often happens at this intersection of, you know, of focus and interest. And so, um, one of the things they have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers have also found is that when the brain is primed with curiosity on wonder that even say 30 minutes later when you’re engaged in an activity that’s not as interesting, not as awe inspiring, your brain is still primed to learn. And so that gets me thinking about how it maybe a class is organized, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So am I doing something at the beginning of class that’s really capturing the imagination or the wonder, um, or the curiosity of students, uh. To prime their brain to remember something that later in the class may be important, but not necessarily as, um, wondrous for them. And so I think this is an interesting way for us to think about students who may not be as engaged,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they’re not as engaged in everything, can we find the one thing? Can we find the thing that excites them, that sparks that awe, that lights them up, and use that as kind of a foundation for other academic learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I wanna talk about parents real quick. Um, when you talk about wonder, I don’t know if I have time for it, because we’re literally so busy. Um, what is the benefit of making the time to wonder, um, how should I exercise restraint in not wanting to rush, Um, tell me how to restrain myself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> So researching awe has absolutely in subtle but profound ways transformed how I parent my kids, um, partly because it has made me more attentive to the world around me. Many of the sources of awe are deeply tied to our sensory system, so sounds, sight, smells, what we’re taking in. One of the great things about awe that you, you don’t need to go to the Sistine Chapel or the Grand Canyon, that it’s a very everyday ordinary emotion, and it’s more about putting ourselves in, in the path of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So for me as a parent, the first thing I had to do was make sure I was making some space for it myself. And the simplest way I, I did this, um, was by adopting, um, one of the practices from research, which was taking an a walk. Now I have a dog, so I am outside with the dog at least three times a day, usually morning, midday, and evening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I made the decision that one of those. Times I was outside, even for five or 10 minutes, I would not have my phone on, I would not be listening to music. I would just be paying attention. I’d be looking up, uh, I would be looking at the trees. Um, and I, I, I literally call it my awe walk, right? Five minutes a day, 10 minutes a day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I noticed that. Over the course of nearly two years now, this has transformed my relationship with my neighborhood. And I don’t just mean my neighbors, although being outside has helped me connect with them. But the trees, the, the birds who I really didn’t even notice were in the neighborhood. And now I can identify so many of them, the, the changing of the seasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, and then I made the very conscious decision as a parent that when I did notice these things, I was going to be more active about sharing them. Uh, and that means that, you know, if I hear a story that of say a human being kind or brave, which is a key source of awe and wonder. Um, I’m gonna talk to my kids about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, if I see a really beautiful sunset, I am going to be the mom who says, come out and look. Just the other day we were driving home and there was a incredible double rainbow. And I pulled over, I was driving my son home from piano lessons and behind me another parent pulled over with their four or 5-year-old and the two of us were standing out there with our two children in the drizzling rain looking at this gorgeous rainbow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I just, you know, thought this was a moment where it’s gonna take me two minutes longer to get home, but this will be something my child remembers where typically a drive home you don’t remember. so it, it’s really not about the big experience, it’s about the little moments in the day of the song, the what you see, the smell that you pause, you notice, and then you take the next step to share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uh, because one of the things I have found slowly over time is that because I do so much sharing of my awe moments, and Itry to just be super authentic in how I do it, because I. Do love sharing and talking to my kids. They are much more likely to share them with me, to tell me their stories or to send me the picture they find or the song they think I will like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so for me, it becomes almost this very authentic way of just sharing our day together and paying attention to what lights me up and what lights my kids up. And yes, that requires a little bit of slowing down, but it doesn’t require. You know, this is gonna be a day of no screens and nothing, or we’re gonna get, take an entirely unplugged vacation for a week, which none of us have the time or resources to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> It’s quite, um. Uh, contrast I think to maybe how our brains are wired to think about only bad things that are very sticky or, um, uh, the worst things that can happen to us. I think a lot of us are just inclined to, um, you know, think negatively, um, and dwell on those things, but seeing the beautiful positive things in the world, um, may also provide a more accurate. Picture or depiction of our daily lives that there are beautiful wonder, wonderful things around us if we just take the time, uh, time to look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Yeah, sometimes I describe awe as the ultimate and emotion. So, you know, awe is different than gratitude. Gratitude is actually, um, it can be quite a cerebral. Emotion where you think back and even though in the moment you didn’t appreciate it, now you do and you’re grateful for that. Um, awe is very involuntary emotion, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You see something beautiful, you feel it. And you know, for me, I call it the “and” emotion because you know, I may be having a really tough day and I’m disturbed by something on the news and just before coming up here, Ki, there was this mass of robins, um, outside that was chattering so loudly. I didn’t actually think they were robins because it was midday. And normally they’re not as that loud midday. And I pulled out my Merlin app to see what they were, and I’m watching them hovering. And I’m wondering, like, I actually Googled, like, why would there be the swarm of Robin’s midday? Um, and it was just a, a brief moment where it was. Again, this, you know, the world is difficult. The world is messy. The world is complicated, and people are doing brave, kind, wonderful things every day. And there are artists making incredible works that will move us. And there’s a natural world out there that is. You know, still full of such mystery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so it’s not, you know, as somebody would talk about toxic positivity saying, you know, just look on the bright side, it’s more of just acknowledging that you can have a difficult day and, you know, taking a step outside, taking a deep breath and hearing that bird song or getting that text from a friend who brings you a moment of, of, of warmth and kindness. Um, those moments can coexist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> So speaking of bird song or something that has that resonant rhythm, um, you interviewed Dacher Keltner of UC, Berkeley, and he had some advice on finding awe that you wrote about a. In your book, uh, can you read to me what his advice was?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Yes, I actually structure it like a poem, uh, in the book. And while I was interviewing him, he was actually out on a walk, which I find quite lovely. And so I said to him, you know, what is your best advice for finding awe? And this is what he said. How do you find awe? You allow unstructured time. How do you find awe?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You wander, you drift through. You take a walk with no aim. How do you find awe? You slow things down. You allow for mystery and open questions rather than test driven answers, you allow people to engage in the humanities of dance and visual art and music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> That really is beautiful. so let’s break it down a little bit. Uh, you have spent 20 years as a K to 12 teacher. What does awe look like for the different age groups? for elementary years, the middle school years, or maybe even the high school years?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> That’s a great question, and I think to answer this, I, I first need to just very briefly talk about the sources because some of these sources will look different at different ages. So when you think about. General categories where people find awe. You have nature and music, the arts, big questions, big ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uh, that feeling of belonging and this, uh, this life cycle. And of course kinda human goodness. So people being kind and brave, and I think at different ages, different of those take priorities. So, you know, for a 4-year-old, one of the things they’re really driven by are why questions. You know, why is this happening?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, there’s some research. That shows, depending on the source, that four year olds can ask, you know, between kind of 70 and a hundred questions a day. Uh, and if you’re raising a kid that age that may actually feel like, you know, a low estimate, but they’re really trying to understand their world and so they’re constantly asking questions, engaging with their world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so. That’s really exciting and, and in fact, one of the challenges I think for educators and parents are how do you get high schoolers to still want to have that sense of wonder and engagement with their world? You know, when your kids are hitting the, the middle of high school years, the. The wonder of belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, there’s a, an expression from Émile Durkheim called Collective Effervescence. Um, that is really key because they want to be part of a group. And collective effervescence basically means that you’re part of a group that is doing, uh, engaged harmoniously toward a common good cause. And so you might think of a sports team or a choral group, or even a Model UN or d and d or robotics club where people are working together toward this common aim, and that feels really good. Um, so when kids, especially teenagers, don’t find that they’re missing out on a. A source of wonder that they’re actually biologically primed for, because this is an age where they’re pulling away from parents and looking to be part of a peer group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so that becomes a really important thing to help kids navigate. How do you find the in-person, peer group?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Um, I think. You know, for any age group being out in nature, um, engaging with art, finding music that speaks to them and that may change dramatically their musical tastes. Um. Those are all kind of ready-made sources of awe that we can be tapping into as, as teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the things I really love about the whole developmental range of childhood is that interest change and that what makes them tick, what lights them up, change, and, um I’ve taught almost every grade K through 12, and really one of my favorites is middle school, partly because it’s such a time of intense change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I think for parents and educators, it can feel tricky when it looks like they are, um, letting go of things that used to make them happy with sources of awe and, and, and wonder for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so it might look like they’re just getting jaded or cynical when in fact they’re undergoing a very natural transition into. Perhaps what is going to be the new face. And so being patient with them and kind of going with it and getting curious, um, have practicing some radical curiosity about, okay, so your kid doesn’t really like soccer anymore after all these years on a, you know, soccer squad, but it looks like they might be interested in joining, um, a drama troupe. And so I’m gonna take a deep breath and go with that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or there might be a sticky time in between where they don’t know who their friend group is and what their interests are. But that is such a great identity formation time, and I feel like awe and wonder are a great tool for parents during that identity formation because if you can start just paying attention to, okay, so what is sparking their interests? What does light them up? What? Where can I see that their eyes did grow wide? And maybe we explore that a little bit. Maybe it sticks, maybe it doesn’t, and that’s okay. But these are all pathways in to mental wellness, emotional wellness, and even academic growth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> That sounds like great advice and you cited, uh, Benjamin Bloom’s research, I believe, when describing that spark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Yeah\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Um, and parents, you know, encouraging kids along that path. Uh. I do have a question for you, for educators. What amazes me whenever I observe teachers in the classroom is how they can be still enthusiastic teaching the same topic, bringing the sense of awe to 30 different kids six times a day for the many, many years they’ve been teaching. How do awe and wonder continue to exist in a classroom when one might get a little tired of doing the same thing over and over again?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> I love that question. I was an English teacher for years as well as an elementary school teacher. And I, I think between reflecting on my own teaching experience. And now this research, I had a bit of an aha moment\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>uh, what kept it fresh was watching my students first encounter with it. their moments of awe, I remember a student coming in and we had just finished Taylor two cities, and she came in and she was crying and she was angry and she threw the book down. She had finished the book in the hallway and she said. It’s not supposed to end this way. And I thought, you know, I’ve read this book a dozen times, but for the first time here, she’s experiencing this emotional catharsis of seeing this kind of final sacrifice of the, the protagonist of this book. And, um, you know, that’s a really exciting thing as a teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, I, I write about my freshman year in college ’cause it’s still so transformational to me. I had this professor who took us out of the classroom. He was an education professor, but he took us to the Museum of Fine Arts. He took us to the Isabella Stewart Garden Museum in Boston. And, um. At one point, uh, you know, I, it was several weeks later I was reading, uh, I, I went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner to, to do some homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was cold in Boston. It was a beautiful courtyard. Um, and he ended up capturing a picture of, of me reading something and giving that to me as a gift. This kind of emblem of, you know, me reading a book in an art museum. And I actually kept that picture in my classroom for years as kind of this reminder of a teacher who saw me, a teacher, introduced me to beauty, uh, and that that was the type, even though I didn’t have the word awe for it at the time, it was absolutely what drew me back to that place. Um, and so I knew almost intuitively that that was the emotion that I wanted to connect with, with the students. And so, you know, if I am bored with what I’m teaching, I need to freshen it up a little bit. Um, but it may be that I just. I also need to tune into the kids in front of me in a way that what sparks me is their spark, um, more than the content itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I think what I’m hearing you say is awe is this connective feeling that motivates you, motivates the students, um, and maybe motivates a lot of people to shape their worlds into something different than what they had before or had been expecting for themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> I think that’s fair because one of the characteristics of awe is what scientists call the small self, uh, which is when you know. I think about this with teenagers where they, they think everybody’s staring at them. Uh, I think a lot of adults feel that too, right? I, I made a mistake. Everybody’s thinking about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And anything that helps you zoom out and get a broader perspective, uh, is something that can help quiet that kind of internal chatter that we have, um, and just kind of realign. Our understanding of the world and our place in it. And one of my favorite pieces of research, uh, and I, I share this with kids a lot and they love it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Um, it, it was conducted at uc, Berkeley, and there’s a science building, which from the back is really a nondescript brick building. Nothing particularly awe inspiring about that architecture. But if you turn your body around, there’s this grove of, um, old growth trees. And so the researchers had their subjects one by one come out and either face the nondescript brick building or face the beautiful grove of trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then after a span of time, somebody else in the study, unbeknownst to the test subject, wanders by and drops things. And they were measuring like, well, who’s gonna help the stranger pick up their things? And it turns out. At a statistically significant level, those who were staring at the trees, uh, were more likely to help a stranger than those staring at a brick building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And what I love about the study is that it’s just, it’s such a metaphor for life in the sense that we can be standing in the exact same place. Right, the same circumstances, but where we direct our gaze, um, what we choose to see also can increase our sense of connectedness, um, to people around us. And one of the other things we know is that, um performing acts of kindness, right? That is a boost to wellbeing as well. Uh, that when somebody is feeling lonely or down or depressed, that acts of service turned out to be a really, really effective and powerful intervention. And so, you know, I. Researchers speculate. Why have we evolved to feel this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because all feelings have functions, right? Disgust is there because we don’t want to eat the rotten chicken and fear motivates us to avoid danger. Uh, so the hypothesis is that awe is designed to help us um be more connected to our communities, um, to kind of bind people toward a common purpose, right? If you know, I, I think about the eclipse and how I was near the path of totality and how the entire neighborhood came out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And here we are, the whole neighborhood staring up at the sky together. Like these are moments. Um. You think of all the people who, who go to a World Series game, um, to cheer together that are, are binding us as a community. And those are things that help us with wellbeing and even survival. And so that’s, that’s a hypothesis and it’s, it’s one I, I think we should continue to explore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Deborah, thanks so much for bringing awe to our attention. I hope that just by bringing this topic into the world or sharing it more with a wider audience, that more people create this positive impact to create a better world. It sounds like we’re already on our way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Debra Farmer Kris is a child development expert and author of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/products/raising-awe-seekers-how-the-science-of-wonder-helps-our-kids-thrive-153673\">Raising Awe Seekers, how The Science of Wonder Helps our Kids Thrive\u003c/a>.” She’s also a longtime MindShift contributor who’s written a lot about emotion so I encourage you to look up those stories. And she also works for PBS Kids as a show consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also check out her children’s book series “All the Time” and “I See You”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is podcast operations manager and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Even with the government shut down, lots of people are thinking about how to reimagine federal education research. Public comments on how to reform the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the Education Department’s research and statistics arm, were due on Oct. 15. A total of 434 suggestions were submitted, but no one can read them because the department isn’t allowed to post them publicly until the government reopens. (We know the number because the \u003ca href=\"https://www.regulations.gov/docket/ED-2025-IES-0844\">comment entry page\u003c/a> has an automatic counter.)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A complex numbers game \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There’s broad agreement across the political spectrum that federal education statistics are essential. Even many critics of the Department of Education want its data collection efforts to survive — just somewhere else. Some have suggested moving the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to another agency, such as the Commerce Department, where the U.S. Census Bureau is housed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Diane Cheng, vice president of policy at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a nonprofit organization that advocates for increasing college access and improving graduation rates, warns that shifting NCES risks the quality and usefulness of higher education data. Any move would have to be done carefully, planning for future interagency coordination, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of the federal data collections combine data from different sources within ED,” Cheng said, referring to the Education Department. “It has worked well to have everyone within the same agency.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She points to the \u003ca href=\"https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/\">College Scorecard\u003c/a>, the website that lets families compare colleges by cost, student loan debt, graduation rates, and post-college earnings. It merges several data sources, including the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), run by NCES, and the National Student Loan Data System, housed in the Office of Federal Student Aid. Several other higher ed data collections on \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/npsas/\">student aid\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/bps/\">students’ pathways through college\u003c/a> also merge data collected at the statistical unit with student aid figures. Splitting those across different agencies could make such collaboration far more difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If those data are split across multiple federal agencies,” Cheng said, “there would likely be more bureaucratic hurdles required to combine the data.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Information sharing across federal agencies is notoriously cumbersome, the very problem that led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Hiring and $4.5 million in fresh research grants\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Even as the Trump administration publicly insists it intends to shutter the Department of Education, it is quietly rebuilding small parts of it behind the scenes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September, the department \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-reforming-ies-education-research/\">posted eight new jobs\u003c/a> to replace fired staff who oversaw the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the biennial test of American students’ achievement. In November, it advertised \u003ca href=\"https://www.usajobs.gov/job/849436800?fromemail=true\">four more openings for statisticians\u003c/a> inside the Federal Student Aid Office. Still, nothing is expected to be quick or smooth. The government shutdown stalled hiring for the NAEP jobs, and now a new Trump administration directive to form \u003ca href=\"https://www.semafor.com/article/11/05/2025/trump-administration-requires-federal-employee-hiring-committees-by-nov-17\">hiring committees by Nov. 17\u003c/a> to approve and fill open positions may further delay these hires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the demolition continues. Less than two weeks after the Oct. 1 government shutdown, 466 additional Education Department employees were terminated — on top of the roughly 2,000 lost since March 2025 through firings and voluntary departures. (The department employed about 4,000 at the start of the Trump administration.) A federal judge temporarily \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/us/politics/government-shutdown-trump-layoffs-unions.html\">blocked these latest layoffs\u003c/a> on Oct. 15.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also other small new signs of life. On Sept. 30 — just before the shutdown — the department quietly awarded \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/search-results?searchTerms=From%20Seedlings%20to%20Scale%20Grants%20Program%20(ALN%2084.305J)\">nine new research and development grants\u003c/a> totaling $4.5 million. The grants, listed on the department’s website, are part of a new initiative called, “\u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/funding/research/programs/seedlings-scale-grants-program\">From Seedlings to Scale Grants Program\u003c/a>” (S2S), launched by the Biden administration in \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/funding/grants/2025/seedlings-scale-84-305j\">August 2024\u003c/a> to test whether the Defense Department’s DARPA-style innovation model could work in education. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, invests in new technologies for national security. Its most celebrated project became the basis for the internet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each new project, mostly focused on AI-driven personalized learning, received $500,000 to produce early evidence of effectiveness. Recipients include universities, research organizations and ed tech firms. Projects that show promise could be eligible for future funding to scale up with more students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a person familiar with the program who spoke on background, the nine projects had been selected before President Donald Trump took office, but the formal awards were delayed amid the department’s upheaval. The Institute of Education Sciences — which lost roughly 90 percent of its staff — was one of the hardest hit divisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Granted, $4.5 million is a rounding error compared with IES’s official annual budget of $800 million. Still, these are believed to be the first new federal education research grants of the Trump era and a faint signal that Washington may not be abandoning education innovation altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-risks-higher-ed-data/\">\u003cem>risks to federal education data\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Even with the government shut down, lots of people are thinking about how to reimagine federal education research. Public comments on how to reform the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the Education Department’s research and statistics arm, were due on Oct. 15. A total of 434 suggestions were submitted, but no one can read them because the department isn’t allowed to post them publicly until the government reopens. (We know the number because the \u003ca href=\"https://www.regulations.gov/docket/ED-2025-IES-0844\">comment entry page\u003c/a> has an automatic counter.)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A complex numbers game \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There’s broad agreement across the political spectrum that federal education statistics are essential. Even many critics of the Department of Education want its data collection efforts to survive — just somewhere else. Some have suggested moving the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to another agency, such as the Commerce Department, where the U.S. Census Bureau is housed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Diane Cheng, vice president of policy at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a nonprofit organization that advocates for increasing college access and improving graduation rates, warns that shifting NCES risks the quality and usefulness of higher education data. Any move would have to be done carefully, planning for future interagency coordination, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of the federal data collections combine data from different sources within ED,” Cheng said, referring to the Education Department. “It has worked well to have everyone within the same agency.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She points to the \u003ca href=\"https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/\">College Scorecard\u003c/a>, the website that lets families compare colleges by cost, student loan debt, graduation rates, and post-college earnings. It merges several data sources, including the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), run by NCES, and the National Student Loan Data System, housed in the Office of Federal Student Aid. Several other higher ed data collections on \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/npsas/\">student aid\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/bps/\">students’ pathways through college\u003c/a> also merge data collected at the statistical unit with student aid figures. Splitting those across different agencies could make such collaboration far more difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If those data are split across multiple federal agencies,” Cheng said, “there would likely be more bureaucratic hurdles required to combine the data.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Information sharing across federal agencies is notoriously cumbersome, the very problem that led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Hiring and $4.5 million in fresh research grants\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Even as the Trump administration publicly insists it intends to shutter the Department of Education, it is quietly rebuilding small parts of it behind the scenes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September, the department \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-reforming-ies-education-research/\">posted eight new jobs\u003c/a> to replace fired staff who oversaw the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the biennial test of American students’ achievement. In November, it advertised \u003ca href=\"https://www.usajobs.gov/job/849436800?fromemail=true\">four more openings for statisticians\u003c/a> inside the Federal Student Aid Office. Still, nothing is expected to be quick or smooth. The government shutdown stalled hiring for the NAEP jobs, and now a new Trump administration directive to form \u003ca href=\"https://www.semafor.com/article/11/05/2025/trump-administration-requires-federal-employee-hiring-committees-by-nov-17\">hiring committees by Nov. 17\u003c/a> to approve and fill open positions may further delay these hires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the demolition continues. Less than two weeks after the Oct. 1 government shutdown, 466 additional Education Department employees were terminated — on top of the roughly 2,000 lost since March 2025 through firings and voluntary departures. (The department employed about 4,000 at the start of the Trump administration.) A federal judge temporarily \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/us/politics/government-shutdown-trump-layoffs-unions.html\">blocked these latest layoffs\u003c/a> on Oct. 15.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also other small new signs of life. On Sept. 30 — just before the shutdown — the department quietly awarded \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/search-results?searchTerms=From%20Seedlings%20to%20Scale%20Grants%20Program%20(ALN%2084.305J)\">nine new research and development grants\u003c/a> totaling $4.5 million. The grants, listed on the department’s website, are part of a new initiative called, “\u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/funding/research/programs/seedlings-scale-grants-program\">From Seedlings to Scale Grants Program\u003c/a>” (S2S), launched by the Biden administration in \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/funding/grants/2025/seedlings-scale-84-305j\">August 2024\u003c/a> to test whether the Defense Department’s DARPA-style innovation model could work in education. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, invests in new technologies for national security. Its most celebrated project became the basis for the internet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each new project, mostly focused on AI-driven personalized learning, received $500,000 to produce early evidence of effectiveness. Recipients include universities, research organizations and ed tech firms. Projects that show promise could be eligible for future funding to scale up with more students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a person familiar with the program who spoke on background, the nine projects had been selected before President Donald Trump took office, but the formal awards were delayed amid the department’s upheaval. The Institute of Education Sciences — which lost roughly 90 percent of its staff — was one of the hardest hit divisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Granted, $4.5 million is a rounding error compared with IES’s official annual budget of $800 million. Still, these are believed to be the first new federal education research grants of the Trump era and a faint signal that Washington may not be abandoning education innovation altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-risks-higher-ed-data/\">\u003cem>risks to federal education data\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When the school year began in Virginia this fall, teenagers entering public high schools have something new on their curriculum: instruction on how to better understand and avoid the risks of gambling. Funded by the state’s very own gambling industry, the lessons aim to educate students on luck and chance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65812/what-every-parent-should-know-about-online-gambling\">the risks of addiction, the nature of online betting\u003c/a> and other messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These education measures come into effect seven years after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on gambling within states. Since the court’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf\">\u003cem>Murphy\u003c/em>\u003c/a> decision, 38 states now permit wagering in various forms, much of it online. And while most states require players to be at least 21, many younger people have found a way in. According to the Massachusetts Department of Public \u003ca href=\"https://www.mass.gov/info-details/teens-gambling-its-a-risk\">Health\u003c/a>, 60-80% of teenagers report having gambled at least once over the past year by the time they reach high school. Problem gambling can start as young as 10, and 4-8% of young people struggle with it, versus just 1% of adults. Teenage gambling is also associated with use of illegal \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/faqs-what-is-problem-gambling/\">drugs\u003c/a>, and gambling addiction is more apt to lead to \u003ca href=\"https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/problem-gamblers-have-highest-suicide-rate-of-any-addiction-disorder-studies-show\">suicide\u003c/a> than addiction to drugs or alcohol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s startling about Virginia’s initiative was its original resistance to addressing problem gambling in any context. Along with eight other states, Virginia initially had earmarked scant \u003ca href=\"https://virginiamercury.com/2024/09/03/how-virginia-is-addressing-the-dark-side-of-gambling/\">funding\u003c/a> for research or support services for problem gamblers. But just two years after the state authorized online sports gambling, citizens began to stew over the fusillade of ads for DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM, especially as word spread about tax advantages the industry had secured. Parents called to share stories of young people swept up in wagering. Sam Rasoul, a delegate from the state’s 38\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> district, introduced legislation that promptly passed in 2022. “The political appetite was right,” said \u003ca href=\"https://consultbds.com/about/\">Brianne Doura-Schawohl\u003c/a>, a public health advocate who helped craft the legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://dbhds.virginia.gov/pgts-committee/\">Anne Rogers\u003c/a> oversaw the creation of the educational materials. The head of gambling prevention efforts throughout the state, Rogers worked with Virginia’s 40 community service boards to find effective lessons that would educate teenagers without teaching them how to gamble or entice them to give it a try. They settled on two primary materials: the \u003ca href=\"https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hazelden.org%2Fstore%2Fitem%2F557330%3FStacked-Deck-Second-Edition&data=05%7C02%7Clinda%40flanagansnj.com%7C1a8f3b2d9edf4fdb02b308ddd363c13a%7C7d18c35e6a6640dcb037e7323831f1db%7C0%7C0%7C638899147811795431%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=W3Tt8kpYHMcgDLSY90eCxCJc2MjX4RqU%2BWasjkFLbCU%3D&reserved=0\">Stacked Deck curriculum\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8507822/\">“Who Really Wins?,”\u003c/a> a gambling prevention program designed in Croatia. Teachers suggested that school schedules wouldn’t allow for the recommended 7 to 8 sessions, so Rogers condensed the material into a single 90-minute lesson, some of it interactive, that could be divided up further as needed. The state also offers a free web-based \u003ca href=\"https://www.train.org/virginia/course/1130510/details\">system\u003c/a> on gambling that is available to anyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 90 minutes cover several subjects: understanding gaming, gambling and the laws around them; brain development; media literacy; the impact on physical and emotional health; signs of problem gambling; financial literacy; and how to keep from developing a problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We avoided discussion of myths vs facts,” Rogers explained, because research shows that students remember myths and confuse them with facts. Pulling from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62742/just-say-no-didnt-actually-protect-students-from-drugs-heres-what-could\">failures of the anti-drug D.A.R.E. Program\u003c/a>, the gambling materials tell kids what gambling is without showing them how to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not teaching them how to gamble,” Rogers said. Small tests between sections indicate whether kids understand what they’ve been taught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What are the prospects of more states picking this up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of interest in states wanting to replicate what Virginia is doing,” Rogers said; Massachusetts and New Jersey are considering legislation now. At the same time, the lack of federal leadership impedes state efforts, because there’s no national plan to address problem gambling that states can simply adopt. Governments also can be slow to react to threats that don’t seem to pose imminent dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The school systems haven’t caught up with the health system, and the health system hasn’t caught up with the trends in the gambling industry,” Doura-Schawohl explained, noting that it took about 30 years to get action on the health risks associated with tobacco, alcohol and opioids. The fact that states receive revenue from legalized gambling also dampens enthusiasm for tough regulation; gambling proceeds provide a fresh source of state funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone who studies gambling addiction believes that mandatory, school-based lessons focusing on prohibition are the best approach to preventing problem gambling. \u003ca href=\"https://bri.ucla.edu/people/timothy-fong/\">Timothy Fong\u003c/a>, a psychiatrist and co-director of UCLA’s Gambling Studies Program, and who is passionate about studying all-things-gambling, told me that “addiction and loneliness feed off each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The young people who get swept up into addictive behaviors are looking for quick ways to obtain financial and social success; they can’t resist the promise of “easy” money coming to them from their own devices. “They think, ‘I need money fast in order to feel good about myself”,” Fong said. “What’s missing in their lives is developing kindness, empathy, gratitude, compassion and strengthening civics and pride in themselves and their communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, young people need a grounding in financial literary and probability, but it would be more effective to address false expectations and fantasies about striking it rich through betting, he added. Kids need connection with other humans more than immersion in anti-gambling curriculum, especially adult mentors who can counteract the messaging of social media and misinformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no magic bullet,” Rogers said, acknowledging that tackling the problem will require more than one 90-minute session on the perils of gambling. Kids need tools on how to succeed and better ways of minimizing stress. “This is just one piece,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.jonathandcohen.com/\">Jonathan Cohen\u003c/a>, author of \u003cem>Losing Big: America’s Reckless Bet On Spots Gambling\u003c/em>, told me that school principals have begun calling him, asking for guidance on how to handle their emerging problems, like middle school kids talking openly about gambling and bragging about their wins. Cohen believes parents and schools need to talk to kids about gambling, at the very least to challenge the dominant narrative propagated by social media influencers and celebrities on TV: that wagering is glamorous and fun and no harm can come from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For her part, Doura-Schawohl is troubled by the pace of reform. “A lot of kids are going to die while policy makers wait around and figure out if we should do something, and what they should do,” she said. “And that’s a terrifying fact.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When the school year began in Virginia this fall, teenagers entering public high schools have something new on their curriculum: instruction on how to better understand and avoid the risks of gambling. Funded by the state’s very own gambling industry, the lessons aim to educate students on luck and chance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65812/what-every-parent-should-know-about-online-gambling\">the risks of addiction, the nature of online betting\u003c/a> and other messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These education measures come into effect seven years after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on gambling within states. Since the court’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf\">\u003cem>Murphy\u003c/em>\u003c/a> decision, 38 states now permit wagering in various forms, much of it online. And while most states require players to be at least 21, many younger people have found a way in. According to the Massachusetts Department of Public \u003ca href=\"https://www.mass.gov/info-details/teens-gambling-its-a-risk\">Health\u003c/a>, 60-80% of teenagers report having gambled at least once over the past year by the time they reach high school. Problem gambling can start as young as 10, and 4-8% of young people struggle with it, versus just 1% of adults. Teenage gambling is also associated with use of illegal \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/faqs-what-is-problem-gambling/\">drugs\u003c/a>, and gambling addiction is more apt to lead to \u003ca href=\"https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/problem-gamblers-have-highest-suicide-rate-of-any-addiction-disorder-studies-show\">suicide\u003c/a> than addiction to drugs or alcohol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s startling about Virginia’s initiative was its original resistance to addressing problem gambling in any context. Along with eight other states, Virginia initially had earmarked scant \u003ca href=\"https://virginiamercury.com/2024/09/03/how-virginia-is-addressing-the-dark-side-of-gambling/\">funding\u003c/a> for research or support services for problem gamblers. But just two years after the state authorized online sports gambling, citizens began to stew over the fusillade of ads for DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM, especially as word spread about tax advantages the industry had secured. Parents called to share stories of young people swept up in wagering. Sam Rasoul, a delegate from the state’s 38\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> district, introduced legislation that promptly passed in 2022. “The political appetite was right,” said \u003ca href=\"https://consultbds.com/about/\">Brianne Doura-Schawohl\u003c/a>, a public health advocate who helped craft the legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://dbhds.virginia.gov/pgts-committee/\">Anne Rogers\u003c/a> oversaw the creation of the educational materials. The head of gambling prevention efforts throughout the state, Rogers worked with Virginia’s 40 community service boards to find effective lessons that would educate teenagers without teaching them how to gamble or entice them to give it a try. They settled on two primary materials: the \u003ca href=\"https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hazelden.org%2Fstore%2Fitem%2F557330%3FStacked-Deck-Second-Edition&data=05%7C02%7Clinda%40flanagansnj.com%7C1a8f3b2d9edf4fdb02b308ddd363c13a%7C7d18c35e6a6640dcb037e7323831f1db%7C0%7C0%7C638899147811795431%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=W3Tt8kpYHMcgDLSY90eCxCJc2MjX4RqU%2BWasjkFLbCU%3D&reserved=0\">Stacked Deck curriculum\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8507822/\">“Who Really Wins?,”\u003c/a> a gambling prevention program designed in Croatia. Teachers suggested that school schedules wouldn’t allow for the recommended 7 to 8 sessions, so Rogers condensed the material into a single 90-minute lesson, some of it interactive, that could be divided up further as needed. The state also offers a free web-based \u003ca href=\"https://www.train.org/virginia/course/1130510/details\">system\u003c/a> on gambling that is available to anyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 90 minutes cover several subjects: understanding gaming, gambling and the laws around them; brain development; media literacy; the impact on physical and emotional health; signs of problem gambling; financial literacy; and how to keep from developing a problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We avoided discussion of myths vs facts,” Rogers explained, because research shows that students remember myths and confuse them with facts. Pulling from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62742/just-say-no-didnt-actually-protect-students-from-drugs-heres-what-could\">failures of the anti-drug D.A.R.E. Program\u003c/a>, the gambling materials tell kids what gambling is without showing them how to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not teaching them how to gamble,” Rogers said. Small tests between sections indicate whether kids understand what they’ve been taught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What are the prospects of more states picking this up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of interest in states wanting to replicate what Virginia is doing,” Rogers said; Massachusetts and New Jersey are considering legislation now. At the same time, the lack of federal leadership impedes state efforts, because there’s no national plan to address problem gambling that states can simply adopt. Governments also can be slow to react to threats that don’t seem to pose imminent dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The school systems haven’t caught up with the health system, and the health system hasn’t caught up with the trends in the gambling industry,” Doura-Schawohl explained, noting that it took about 30 years to get action on the health risks associated with tobacco, alcohol and opioids. The fact that states receive revenue from legalized gambling also dampens enthusiasm for tough regulation; gambling proceeds provide a fresh source of state funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone who studies gambling addiction believes that mandatory, school-based lessons focusing on prohibition are the best approach to preventing problem gambling. \u003ca href=\"https://bri.ucla.edu/people/timothy-fong/\">Timothy Fong\u003c/a>, a psychiatrist and co-director of UCLA’s Gambling Studies Program, and who is passionate about studying all-things-gambling, told me that “addiction and loneliness feed off each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The young people who get swept up into addictive behaviors are looking for quick ways to obtain financial and social success; they can’t resist the promise of “easy” money coming to them from their own devices. “They think, ‘I need money fast in order to feel good about myself”,” Fong said. “What’s missing in their lives is developing kindness, empathy, gratitude, compassion and strengthening civics and pride in themselves and their communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, young people need a grounding in financial literary and probability, but it would be more effective to address false expectations and fantasies about striking it rich through betting, he added. Kids need connection with other humans more than immersion in anti-gambling curriculum, especially adult mentors who can counteract the messaging of social media and misinformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no magic bullet,” Rogers said, acknowledging that tackling the problem will require more than one 90-minute session on the perils of gambling. Kids need tools on how to succeed and better ways of minimizing stress. “This is just one piece,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.jonathandcohen.com/\">Jonathan Cohen\u003c/a>, author of \u003cem>Losing Big: America’s Reckless Bet On Spots Gambling\u003c/em>, told me that school principals have begun calling him, asking for guidance on how to handle their emerging problems, like middle school kids talking openly about gambling and bragging about their wins. Cohen believes parents and schools need to talk to kids about gambling, at the very least to challenge the dominant narrative propagated by social media influencers and celebrities on TV: that wagering is glamorous and fun and no harm can come from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For her part, Doura-Schawohl is troubled by the pace of reform. “A lot of kids are going to die while policy makers wait around and figure out if we should do something, and what they should do,” she said. “And that’s a terrifying fact.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
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"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
"title": "Close All Tabs",
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
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"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC6993880386",
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"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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"meta": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnByLm9yZy9yc3MvcG9kY2FzdC5waHA_aWQ9NTEwMzEy",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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}
},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/forum",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
"link": "/forum",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kqeds-forum/id73329719",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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},
"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
"title": "Freakonomics Radio",
"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/4s8b",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
}
},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"meta": {
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"here-and-now": {
"id": "here-and-now",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
"id": "how-i-built-this",
"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"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.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510313/podcast.xml"
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"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. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
"meta": {
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/6c3dd23c-93fb-4aab-97ba-1725fa6315f1/hyphenaci%C3%B3n",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC2275451163"
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"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. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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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"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"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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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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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",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"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",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
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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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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"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"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"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/",
"meta": {
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"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
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