Spill The News

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For over 30 years I’ve been teaching teachers to engage in meaningful conversations with their students about real things. Strong teachers know how to pose thoughtful questions, elicit questions from students, and listen and engage…

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To be an educator and a writer is to inhabit a rollercoaster world of hope; at times, you are filled with the excitement and power of possibilities, and at others, you are terrified of losing it. During the Voices of Change fellowship , I…

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While schools have made progress in technology adoption — from artificial intelligence guidelines to vetting education technology — they still struggle with the lack of resources, funding and expertise, according to a new report. The…

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For the past few years, our nation has been flooded with headlines declaring the demise of the college degree. This trend was exacerbated by COVID-19, which accelerated a decline in college interest . I understand, really, I do. Tuition…

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Increased attendance, better attention in classrooms, stronger friendships, and more engaged citizens – these are not a long wishlist of preferred traits in an elementary school student. They are what some advocates believe are a direct…

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The U.S. Surgeon General’s office issued a warning yesterday about the harms of extended uses of screens on children, raising concerns about its impact on academic performance, physical health and mental well-being. The advisory follows a…

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As one fourth grader peers over the top of a 300-foot-tall wind turbine, a classmate stands next to surgeons operating in an emergency room. Nearby, another fourth grader shuffles through an autobody shop. They are not visiting high-risk…

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Keri Rodrigues, a mother of five boys, knows the value of screens. For her boys, four of whom receive school accommodations, screens serve a practical purpose at school. “When you get a kid who's got [a learning plan] for anxiety and a…

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Elementary school is tough. There are playground politics, multiplication tables and learning to read. Imagine dealing with all that in a new language — or even a whole new country. That’s the added challenge for kids who are learning…

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A cyberattack against one of the world’s largest digital education platforms has forced attention onto the vulnerability of U.S. schools’ data. Instructure, the company behind Canvas, a learning management system used by thousands of…

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Bullying. Isolation. Stress. Everyone experiences these on the journey from adolescence to adulthood, but new data on the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth shows the additional pressures they face increases their risk of suicide compared to…

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Among the increasing concern about screen time in school comes a new culprit: the vetting process for school software. A growing group of parents and teachers have spent the last few years fighting against cell phones in the classroom,…

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AI and technology are fundamentally changing what it means to teach and learn, and schools across the country are reimagining their instructional approaches, roles and systems to ensure students receive an education that meets the demands…

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School’s (almost) out for summer. When it comes time to throw open campus doors for the new school year in the fall, research tells us one out of every seven teachers won’t be returning — either because they moved schools or left the…

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Global data on math achievement is revealing a dismaying trend: Girls are doing worse than boys — and the margins are huge. Parsing education data into snack-sized servings. In 2023, fourth-grade boys outperformed their female peers in a…

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More four-year-olds are enrolled in state-funded preschools than ever before, but the quality and availability of preschool programs have experts concerned about creating a system of haves and have-nots. “If providing high-quality…

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In my application to the Voices of Change Fellowship , I quoted musician Olu Dara’s words to his son, the rapper Nas: Quit school if you want to save your own life. These words stunned me as an educator and student who understands the…

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A group of third grade students gather around a board game on a Wednesday afternoon in a Charleston classroom, grabbing game pieces, discussing potential moves and reading out playing cards. The games are not Monopoly, Sorry, or any others…

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In 2021, I was a demoralized educator: not burnt out, but demoralized. As I shared in my first article for EdSurge, demoralization occurs when teachers “encounter consistent and pervasive challenges to enacting the values that motivate…

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As the clock ticked down, schools were simply unprepared to be graded on their assignment. Federal disability law has required local governments to make their websites accessible for decades. Two years ago, during the Biden administration,…

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A big civil rights deadline that impacts schools and vendors will hit this month. Federal law has required accessibility for people with disabilities for decades, says Glenda Sims, chief information accessibility officer at Deque Systems,…

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A big civil rights deadline that impacts schools and vendors will hit this month. Federal law has required accessibility for people with disabilities for decades, says Glenda Sims, chief information accessibility officer at Deque Systems,…

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Even the most well-intentioned edtech can fall short if it does not meet students where they are. After several years studying the usability of edtech for teachers, the research team at ISTE+ASCD turned its attention to students —…

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Reading my articles from the fellowship feels like reading diary entries . They’re raw, honest and they reflect how much I was struggling with teaching at the time . Overwhelm is apparent. So is frustration. As a teacher who was impacted…

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When it comes to universal pre-kindergarten, California has made significant progress — 62 percent of 4-year-olds were enrolled in publicly funded early childhood programs in 2024–25, up from 42% in 2019–20, according to a new Learning…

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Even the most well-intentioned edtech can fall short if it does not meet students where they are. After several years studying the usability of edtech for teachers, the research team at ISTE+ASCD turned its attention to students —…

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Reading my articles from the fellowship feels like reading diary entries . They’re raw, honest and they reflect how much I was struggling with teaching at the time . Overwhelm is apparent. So is frustration. As a teacher who was impacted…

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When it comes to universal pre-kindergarten, California has made significant progress — 62 percent of 4-year-olds were enrolled in publicly funded early childhood programs in 2024–25, up from 42% in 2019–20, according to a new Learning…

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Algorithms. Beauty filters. Endless scrolling. The case over “social media addiction” against Meta and Google in a California courtroom ultimately came down to these elements, legal experts say, and what a jury found was negligence on…

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“I’m just not a good writer.” It’s a phrase teachers hear too often, usually at the exact moment a writing task is assigned. For many students, the leap from understanding a concept to putting it on paper feels like an impossible hurdle.…

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As federal and state legislation swirls over the usage of cellphones and personal devices in classrooms, there is a renewed push for another form of technology: surveillance cameras. Legislators in Florida, Iowa, Maryland, South Carolina…

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Becoming a Voices of Change fellow empowered me to believe I could be a teacher with all my flaws — that “perfection” is not necessary. In fact, it is antithetical to good teaching. I remember sitting in our first workshop where we learned…

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Algorithms. Beauty filters. Endless scrolling. The case over “social media addiction” against Meta and Google in a California courtroom ultimately came down to these elements, legal experts say, and what a jury found was negligence on…

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“I’m just not a good writer.” It’s a phrase teachers hear too often, usually at the exact moment a writing task is assigned. For many students, the leap from understanding a concept to putting it on paper feels like an impossible hurdle.…

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As federal and state legislation swirls over the usage of cellphones and personal devices in classrooms, there is a renewed push for another form of technology: surveillance cameras. Legislators in Florida, Iowa, Maryland, South Carolina…

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Becoming a Voices of Change fellow empowered me to believe I could be a teacher with all my flaws — that “perfection” is not necessary. In fact, it is antithetical to good teaching. I remember sitting in our first workshop where we learned…

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I want to share a story of struggle. Actually, two kinds of struggle. My father completed his doctorate at the University of Utah in the early 1970s. For his dissertation, he ran a statistical analysis on genealogical records to determine…

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I want to share a story of struggle. Actually, two kinds of struggle. My father completed his doctorate at the University of Utah in the early 1970s. For his dissertation, he ran a statistical analysis on genealogical records to determine…

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On a recent evening in suburban Chicago, a group of parents, teachers and administrators gathered to talk about something that, until recently, rarely drew this level of public scrutiny: the role of technology in their schools. The meeting…

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On a recent evening in suburban Chicago, a group of parents, teachers and administrators gathered to talk about something that, until recently, rarely drew this level of public scrutiny: the role of technology in their schools. The meeting…

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My life has changed so much since my time as a Voices of Change fellow during the 2023 school year. As I wrote in my final essay of the fellowship , the beautiful, imperfect school I loved and helped build had closed. With the support of…

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My life has changed so much since my time as a Voices of Change fellow during the 2023 school year. As I wrote in my final essay of the fellowship , the beautiful, imperfect school I loved and helped build had closed. With the support of…

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This article is part of the collection: Teaching Tech: Navigating Learning and AI in the Industrial Revolution. A little over a decade ago, schools were swept into what many described as a movement to prepare students for the future of…

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This article is part of the collection: Teaching Tech: Navigating Learning and AI in the Industrial Revolution. A little over a decade ago, schools were swept into what many described as a movement to prepare students for the future of…

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This article is part of the collection: Teaching Tech: Navigating Learning and AI in the Industrial Revolution. A fourth-grade teacher asked a simple question: “What can I actually use this for in math?” This teacher captured the broader…

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This article is part of the collection: Teaching Tech: Navigating Learning and AI in the Industrial Revolution. A fourth-grade teacher asked a simple question: “What can I actually use this for in math?” This teacher captured the broader…

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The approach of a new school year conjures images of teachers preparing their classrooms and principals greeting students as they walk through the doors on the first day of classes. Parsing education data into snack-sized servings. But…

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The approach of a new school year conjures images of teachers preparing their classrooms and principals greeting students as they walk through the doors on the first day of classes. Parsing education data into snack-sized servings. But…

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In addition to screen time , the type of school to attend, the content children consume and the food they eat, a new concern cropped up for parents over the last few years: Whether to keep their children back a year from entering…

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In addition to screen time , the type of school to attend, the content children consume and the food they eat, a new concern cropped up for parents over the last few years: Whether to keep their children back a year from entering…

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A new survey shows households with children under age 18 are experiencing economic strain, with parents suffering from depression, burnout and hopelessness. Capita launched the new national survey, Quarterly Insights from American Families…

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The screen-time debate is no longer confined to parenting advice. As states introduce legislation limiting devices in schools , and pediatric researchers rethink how digital environments affect development, educators are confronting a…

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A new survey shows households with children under age 18 are experiencing economic strain, with parents suffering from depression, burnout and hopelessness. Capita launched the new national survey, Quarterly Insights from American Families…

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The screen-time debate is no longer confined to parenting advice. As states introduce legislation limiting devices in schools , and pediatric researchers rethink how digital environments affect development, educators are confronting a…

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When high school students step into a cybersecurity internship, they enter a field where the stakes are real. The tools, threats and responsibilities extend well beyond the classroom. In rural communities, such opportunities can be…

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When high school students step into a cybersecurity internship, they enter a field where the stakes are real. The tools, threats and responsibilities extend well beyond the classroom. In rural communities, such opportunities can be…

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When a water-treatment plant outside Denver discovered an algae problem in its pipes, it did not call an engineering firm. It called the students. The aquatic robotics team at the Innovation Center at St. Vrain Valley Schools in Longmont,…

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When a water-treatment plant outside Denver discovered an algae problem in its pipes, it did not call an engineering firm. It called the students. The aquatic robotics team at the Innovation Center at St. Vrain Valley Schools in Longmont,…

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Recently I placed an empty cardboard box in the center of my preschool classroom of 4-year-olds. No label. No instructions. No purpose given. A few years ago, that simple box would have instantly transformed into something magical — a…

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Recently I placed an empty cardboard box in the center of my preschool classroom of 4-year-olds. No label. No instructions. No purpose given. A few years ago, that simple box would have instantly transformed into something magical — a…

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In a system serving nearly 1 million students across more than 1,800 schools, the distance between a central office cubicle and a second grade classroom in New York City Public Schools can feel immense — yet they are inextricably linked.…

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In a system serving nearly 1 million students across more than 1,800 schools, the distance between a central office cubicle and a second grade classroom in New York City Public Schools can feel immense — yet they are inextricably linked.…

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Within the first 24 hours of my daughter’s life, I put a screen in her face. I know. That’s the opposite of all the research I had highlighted and annotated while my wife was pregnant. But it wasn’t by choice. That screen was the only way…

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Within the first 24 hours of my daughter’s life, I put a screen in her face. I know. That’s the opposite of all the research I had highlighted and annotated while my wife was pregnant. But it wasn’t by choice. That screen was the only way…

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When Kim Whitman’s son was in kindergarten in 2015, it was the first time their school district rolled out a one-to-one device program, assigning an electronic device to every child. Beyond using it in the classroom, the children were…

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When Kim Whitman’s son was in kindergarten in 2015, it was the first time their school district rolled out a one-to-one device program, assigning an electronic device to every child. Beyond using it in the classroom, the children were…

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Educators have seen wave after wave of “innovative” solutions promise to address long-standing challenges — from personalization and engagement to college- and career-readiness — yet many issues remain stubbornly unresolved. Too often,…

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Educators have seen wave after wave of “innovative” solutions promise to address long-standing challenges — from personalization and engagement to college- and career-readiness — yet many issues remain stubbornly unresolved. Too often,…

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The alert came around 7 p.m. Brittani Phillips checked her phone. A middle school counselor in Putnam County, Florida, Phillips receives messages from an artificial intelligence-enabled therapy platform that students use during nonschool…

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The alert came around 7 p.m. Brittani Phillips checked her phone. A middle school counselor in Putnam County, Florida, Phillips receives messages from an artificial intelligence-enabled therapy platform that students use during nonschool…

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Several years ago, Jared Cooney Horvath’s interest in teaching took a scientific turn. He entered teaching during a period he calls “ the decade of the brain ” — when much of the buzz around education and learning covered new theories…

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Several years ago, Jared Cooney Horvath’s interest in teaching took a scientific turn. He entered teaching during a period he calls “ the decade of the brain ” — when much of the buzz around education and learning covered new theories…

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Even casual observers of the early childhood space likely noticed the massive push for expanding access to care and education programs over the last year, most notably with universal preschool options . But a less splashy effort has been…

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Even casual observers of the early childhood space likely noticed the massive push for expanding access to care and education programs over the last year, most notably with universal preschool options . But a less splashy effort has been…

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This article is part of the collection: Teaching Tech: Navigating Learning and AI in the Industrial Revolution. During our research project on teaching and learning with AI, Mi Aniefuna talked to a lawyer-turned-teacher-turned AI ethicist.…

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This article is part of the collection: Teaching Tech: Navigating Learning and AI in the Industrial Revolution. During our research project on teaching and learning with AI, Mi Aniefuna talked to a lawyer-turned-teacher-turned AI ethicist.…

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Walk into any school and you will find teachers using classroom technology in very different ways. One teacher builds interactive lessons with embedded videos and real-time polls. Down the hall, another uses technology more selectively,…

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Isaac Rose-Berman doesn’t think that gambling is evil. After deciding not to pursue a doctorate in political science, Rose-Berman became a professional gambler for a time. But these days, in his 20s, he’s finding himself writing, advising…

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Walk into any school and you will find teachers using classroom technology in very different ways. One teacher builds interactive lessons with embedded videos and real-time polls. Down the hall, another uses technology more selectively,…

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Isaac Rose-Berman doesn’t think that gambling is evil. After deciding not to pursue a doctorate in political science, Rose-Berman became a professional gambler for a time. But these days, in his 20s, he’s finding himself writing, advising…

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Today, district leaders are being asked to make irreversible budget decisions with fewer dollars and less margin for error than ever before. Yet many districts are making those decisions with limited evidence of what actually works in…

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Today, district leaders are being asked to make irreversible budget decisions with fewer dollars and less margin for error than ever before. Yet many districts are making those decisions with limited evidence of what actually works in…

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A high-stakes trial sparked by a California woman who first logged onto social media at age 10. Another lawsuit in Georgia filed by a school district despairing at distracted students. Dozens more legal actions brought by state attorneys…

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A high-stakes trial sparked by a California woman who first logged onto social media at age 10. Another lawsuit in Georgia filed by a school district despairing at distracted students. Dozens more legal actions brought by state attorneys…

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After a career counselor visited one of her classes earlier this year, Lily Hatch found herself asking a chatbot for guidance about college. A junior at Wake Forest High School in North Carolina, Hatch had taken an in-class career quiz…

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After a career counselor visited one of her classes earlier this year, Lily Hatch found herself asking a chatbot for guidance about college. A junior at Wake Forest High School in North Carolina, Hatch had taken an in-class career quiz…

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Not long ago, I participated in an exercise that asked educators to define thinking and learning. It was a familiar prompt, one we have returned to countless times over the past decade. This time felt different. The task was to…

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This year, Americans are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence . That statement of foundational political principles and national identity in the summer of 1776 capped off a year of armed conflict marked by…

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Not long ago, I participated in an exercise that asked educators to define thinking and learning. It was a familiar prompt, one we have returned to countless times over the past decade. This time felt different. The task was to…

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This year, Americans are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence . That statement of foundational political principles and national identity in the summer of 1776 capped off a year of armed conflict marked by…

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In classrooms across the country, children are showing progress in reading, yet many students cannot tell you what those words mean, why they matter or how the text connects to their lives. My first grade multilingual learner asked for…

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In classrooms across the country, children are showing progress in reading, yet many students cannot tell you what those words mean, why they matter or how the text connects to their lives. My first grade multilingual learner asked for…

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The story Mike Landry told about his students, who were majority African American, sounded depressingly familiar: poor, raised on the wrong side of the tracks, ignored, forgotten. But it made the rest of their story seem even more…

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The story Mike Landry told about his students, who were majority African American, sounded depressingly familiar: poor, raised on the wrong side of the tracks, ignored, forgotten. But it made the rest of their story seem even more…

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As more legislation sweeps the nation limiting children’s phone use in schools, a new report card shows not all laws are created equal. The “ Phone-Free Schools State Report Card ,” released late last month, gave only two states “A” grades…

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As more legislation sweeps the nation limiting children’s phone use in schools, a new report card shows not all laws are created equal. The “ Phone-Free Schools State Report Card ,” released late last month, gave only two states “A” grades…

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When the American Academy of Pediatrics first set limits for children’s screen time in 2016, the phrase had an entirely different meaning — and connotation — than it does a decade later. “It was created around research on TV viewing — and…

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When the American Academy of Pediatrics first set limits for children’s screen time in 2016, the phrase had an entirely different meaning — and connotation — than it does a decade later. “It was created around research on TV viewing — and…

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When researchers ask students to test educational technology products, a consistent pattern emerges: Tools that impress adults in demos often fall flat with the students who actually use them. Recent studies show that even well-designed…

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I unlock my classroom door each morning, and before I ever reach the board, I reach for a screen. I check messages that came in overnight, scan platform updates and read alerts that did not exist when I was a student. Families reach out…

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When researchers ask students to test educational technology products, a consistent pattern emerges: Tools that impress adults in demos often fall flat with the students who actually use them. Recent studies show that even well-designed…

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I unlock my classroom door each morning, and before I ever reach the board, I reach for a screen. I check messages that came in overnight, scan platform updates and read alerts that did not exist when I was a student. Families reach out…

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For Gen Alpha, social girlhood no longer takes place only in school or on the playground. It plays out online, through social media and online trends that will be the topics of discussion with friends the next day. Parsing education data…

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For Gen Alpha, social girlhood no longer takes place only in school or on the playground. It plays out online, through social media and online trends that will be the topics of discussion with friends the next day. Parsing education data…

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As we drove across the bridge that read, “Trenton Makes, the World Takes,” the red lights brightened my worried face. It took 20 minutes to drive back home from my admissions interview, but the Delaware River felt like the width of the…

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As we drove across the bridge that read, “Trenton Makes, the World Takes,” the red lights brightened my worried face. It took 20 minutes to drive back home from my admissions interview, but the Delaware River felt like the width of the…

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What started off more than five years ago as one-off bans in individual classrooms grew into statewide efforts to curb student cellphone use during school. Now, the idea of limiting children’s tech use has arrived at the Capitol steps in…

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I didn’t choose activism. It chose me the moment I realized my students were walking into my classroom carrying entire systems on their backs — systems too heavy for 15-, 16-, 17-year-old shoulders. But suddenly, in the last year,…

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What started off more than five years ago as one-off bans in individual classrooms grew into statewide efforts to curb student cellphone use during school. Now, the idea of limiting children’s tech use has arrived at the Capitol steps in…

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I didn’t choose activism. It chose me the moment I realized my students were walking into my classroom carrying entire systems on their backs — systems too heavy for 15-, 16-, 17-year-old shoulders. But suddenly, in the last year,…

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For years, K–12 technology conversations revolved around what to adopt next — the newest device, the latest platform, the next big promise. But as district leaders enter 2026, the question has fundamentally shifted from “What should we…

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For years, K–12 technology conversations revolved around what to adopt next — the newest device, the latest platform, the next big promise. But as district leaders enter 2026, the question has fundamentally shifted from “What should we…

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As I approached the first day of teaching my writing course, there was a healthy balance of excitement and anxiety coursing through my veins. But the first-day jitters weren’t for the reason that you would expect. Yes, I worried about how…

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As I approached the first day of teaching my writing course, there was a healthy balance of excitement and anxiety coursing through my veins. But the first-day jitters weren’t for the reason that you would expect. Yes, I worried about how…

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A little girl stared at a list of test questions in her science class, unable to answer the majority. Resigned, she wrote at the top, “I failed badly” — although she misspelled it, instead writing, “I felled bedly.” She was not in an…

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A little girl stared at a list of test questions in her science class, unable to answer the majority. Resigned, she wrote at the top, “I failed badly” — although she misspelled it, instead writing, “I felled bedly.” She was not in an…

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Teacher burnout has reached crisis levels, and proposed solutions often miss the mark. Another professional development session on self-care. Another webinar on stress management. Another reminder to practice gratitude. These well-meaning…

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It started as an “if you know, you know” situation for stressed parents dealing with the high costs of — and often slim options for — child care. Then, during the pandemic, the difficulty mounted. Now, it has reached a new peak, according…

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Teacher burnout has reached crisis levels, and proposed solutions often miss the mark. Another professional development session on self-care. Another webinar on stress management. Another reminder to practice gratitude. These well-meaning…

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It started as an “if you know, you know” situation for stressed parents dealing with the high costs of — and often slim options for — child care. Then, during the pandemic, the difficulty mounted. Now, it has reached a new peak, according…