In 10 years, you see a lot. You see students enter kindergarten and grow into young adults ready to step into the world. You see educators develop their craft, take on new challenges and at times struggle under growing demands. You see communities change — economically, culturally, emotionally. And if you are paying attention, you...

Our country has long been committed to maintaining schools as safe spaces for children to learn. Until now. Decades of presidential administrations representing both parties have stood behind policies that kept immigration enforcement out of schools, except in extreme and unusual circumstances. The rules were designed so immigration officers could do their jobs without putting...

For the first time in its history, the Los Angeles Unified School District reports that in 2025, 100% of American Indian seniors graduated from high school. That is a milestone. It deserves to be acknowledged, honored, and protected. But numbers, especially small ones, require us to look more closely. There were 23 American Indian seniors...

After the Eaton fire, I went to see a friend in Altadena. He told me his neighbor saw the embers and came to wake him up. That neighbor saved his life. They spent the night watering down their properties, watching the flames move through the hills. Doing what neighbors do when everything is on fire...

Two months after Donald Trump swore in Linda McMahon as secretary of education, she named “evidence-based literacy” as one of the administration’s top three priorities. Yet the White House’s 2027 budget plan proposes cutting funding for some of America’s most vulnerable students by nearly 70% — from programs that create the conditions for children to learn to read.  You cannot...

We adults are perennially susceptible to panicking about the health and safety of “kids today.” From the alleged perils of mass access to film in the early 1900s to early 1990s nerves over hip hop to today’s anxieties about smartphones and social media, we’re pretty much always finding reasons to collectively worry about American youth. ...

The first time a mother in our study heard her daughter say “Mami,” it wasn’t through speech. It came through a communication tablet at school. Sofía, a 6 year old with autism, pressed a button, and a digital voice spoke the word her mother had waited years to hear. That moment carried more than joy....

California’s schools are facing a dual challenge: closing persistent academic gaps while rebuilding an educator workforce stretched thin. Unacceptably high numbers of students are testing below state standards, 50% in reading and more than 60% in math, according to state assessment data from the California Department of Education. Chronic absenteeism, while improving from pandemic peaks,...

Imagine a restaurant that is losing customers. Instead of cutting back, the owner hires more servers. As revenues decline, the waiters demand higher pay and more busboys to help them serve fewer customers.  That might sound like the premise of an episode of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. But something very similar is happening right now...

America is celebrating its 250th birthday this year. At a moment when new technologies and other societal changes are reshaping how people access information, make decisions, and participate in civic life, it is more important than ever for anyone with a role in public education to reevaluate and assess the question:  What steps are being...