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The Top 20 Education Next Articles of 2021

Education Next

Our annual look back at the year’s most popular Education Next articles is itself a popular article with readers. It’s useful as an indicator of what issues are at the top of the education policy conversation.

When we crafted the introduction to this list a year ago, for the top articles of 2020 , we observed, “This year, as our list indicates, race and the Covid-19 pandemic dominated the discussion.” Since then, a new president has been inaugurated, but our list signals that the public hasn’t entirely turned the page: both the pandemic and race-related issues attracted high reader interest in 2021, just as they did the year before.

Several articles directly or indirectly related to the pandemic and its effect made the top-20 list. The no. 1 article, “ Pandemic Parent Survey Finds Perverse Pattern: Students Are More Likely to Be Attending School in Person Where Covid Is Spreading More Rapidly ,” by Michael B. Henderson, Paul E. Peterson, and Martin R. West, reported on what the article called “a troubling pattern: students are most likely to be attending school fully in person in school districts where the virus is spreading most rapidly.” The article explained “To be clear, this pattern does not constitute evidence that greater use of in-person instruction has contributed to the spread of the virus across the United States. It is equally plausible that counties where in-person schooling is most common are places where there are fewer measures and practices in the wider community designed to mitigate Covid spread.”

Other articles whose findings related to the pandemic or had implications for education amid or after the pandemic included “ A Test for the Test-Makers ,” “ The Shrinking School Week ,” “ The Covid-19 Pandemic Is a Lousy Natural Experiment for Studying the Effects of Online Learning ” “ The Politics of Closing Schools ,” “ Addressing Significant Learning Loss in Mathematics During Covid-19 and Beyond ,” and “ Move To Trash: Five pandemic-era education practices that deserve to be dumped in the dustbin .”

Articles about race-related education issues also did well with readers. “ Critical Race Theory Collides with the Law ,” “ Teaching About Slavery ,” “ Ethnic Studies in California ,” and “ Segregation and Racial Gaps in Special Education ” all dealt with those topics.

Perhaps the conflicts over pandemic policies and Critical Race Theory helped provide a push for school choice. Choice—whether in the form of vouchers, scholarships, or charter schools—was the subject of several other articles that made the top 20 list, including “ School Choice Advances in the States ,” “ School Choice and the ‘Truly Disadvantaged,’ ” “ What’s Next in New Orleans ,” and “ Betsy DeVos and the Future of Education Reform .”

Who knows what 2022 will bring? We hope for our readers the year ahead is one of good health and of continued learning. We look forward to a time when pandemic-related articles no longer dominate our list.

The full Top 20 Education Next articles of 2021 list follows:

1. Pandemic Parent Survey Finds Perverse Pattern: Students Are More Likely to Be Attending School in Person Where Covid Is Spreading More Rapidly Majority of students receiving fully remote instruction; Private-school students more likely to be in person full time By Michael B. Henderson, Paul E. Peterson, and Martin R. West

2. Critical Race Theory Collides with the Law Can a school require students to “confess their privilege” in class? By Joshua Dunn

3. Teaching about Slavery “Asking how to teach about slavery is a little like asking why we teach at all” By Danielle Allen, Daina Ramey Berry, David W. Blight, Allen C. Guelzo, Robert Maranto, Ian V. Rowe, and Adrienne Stang

4. Ethnic Studies in California An unsteady jump from college campuses to K-12 classrooms By Miriam Pawel

5. Segregation and Racial Gaps in Special Education New evidence on the debate over disproportionality By Todd E. Elder, David Figlio, Scott Imberman, and Claudia Persico

6. Making Education Research Relevant How researchers can give teachers more choices By Daniel T. Willingham and David B. Daniel

7. Proving the School-to-Prison Pipeline Stricter middle schools raise the risk of adult arrests By Andrew Bacher-Hicks, Stephen B. Billings, and David J. Deming

8. What I Learned in 23 Years Ranking America’s Most Challenging High Schools Most students are capable of much more learning than they are asked to do By Jay Mathews

9. A Test for the Test Makers College Board and ACT move to grow and diversify as the pandemic fuels test-optional admissions trend By Jon Marcus

10. Addressing Significant Learning Loss in Mathematics During Covid-19 and Beyond The pandemic has amplified existing skill gaps, but new strategies and new tech could help By Joel Rose

11. The Shrinking School Week Effects of a four-day schedule on student achievement By Paul N. Thompson

12. Computer Science for All? As a new subject spreads, debates flare about precisely what is taught, to whom, and for what purpose By Jennifer Oldham

13. The Covid-19 Pandemic Is a Lousy Natural Experiment for Studying the Effects of Online Learning Focus, instead, on measuring the overall effects of the pandemic itself By Andrew Bacher-Hicks and Joshua Goodman

14. School Choice Advances in the States Advocates describe “breakthrough year” By Alan Greenblatt

15. The Politics of Closing Schools Teachers unions and the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe By Susanne Wiborg

16. Move to Trash Five pandemic-era education practices that deserve to be dumped in the dustbin By Michael J. Petrilli

17. School Choice and “The Truly Disadvantaged” Vouchers boost college going, but not for students in greatest need By Albert Cheng and Paul E. Peterson

18. The Orchid and the Dandelion New research uncovers a link between a genetic variation and how students respond to teaching. The potential implications for schools—and society—are vast. By Laurence Holt

19. What’s Next in New Orleans The Louisiana city has the most unusual school system in America. But can the new board of a radically decentralized district handle the latest challenges? By Danielle Dreilinger

20. Betsy DeVos and the Future of Education Reform My years as assistant secretary of education gave me a firsthand look at how infighting among education reformers is hampering progress toward change. By Jim Blew

Congratulations to all of our authors!

— Education Next

P.S. You can find the Top 20 Education Next articles of 2020 here , 2019 here , 2018 here , 2017 here , 2016 here , 2015 here , 2014 here and 2013 here .

P.P.S. You can find the Top 10 Education Next blog posts of 2021 here.

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The Top 20 Education Next Articles of 2020

Race and the pandemic dominate the discussion

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Public-School Attendance Zones Violate a Civil Rights Law

The Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 may offer creative litigators a strategy to redraw school-assignment maps.

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In Pandemic, Private Schools Face Peril

Policy choices may help to preserve options for families

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New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

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Best Education Articles of 2022: Our 22 Most Shared Stories About Students & Schools

Amid a fourth school year disrupted by covid, our 22 most discussed articles about learning loss, student safety, innovation, mental health & more.

Every December at The 74, we take a moment to recap and spotlight our most read, shared and debated education articles of the year. Looking back now at our time capsules from December 2020 and December 2021 , one can chart the rolling impact of the pandemic on America’s students, families and school communities. Two years ago, we were just beginning to process the true cost of emergency classroom closures across the country and the depth of students’ unfinished learning. Last year, as we looked back in the shadow of Omicron, a growing sense of urgency to get kids caught up was colliding with bureaucratic and logistical challenges in figuring out how to rapidly convert federal relief funds into meaningful, scalable student assistance. 

This year’s list, publishing amid new calls for mask mandates and yet another spike in hospitalizations, powerfully frames our surreal new normal: mounting concerns about historic test score declines; intensifying political divides that would challenge school systems even if there weren’t simultaneous health, staffing and learning crises to manage; broader economic stresses that are making it harder to manage school systems; and a sustained push by many educators and families to embrace innovations and out-of-the-box thinking to help kids accelerate their learning by any means necessary.

Now, 2½ years into one of the most turbulent periods in the history of American education, these were our 22 most discussed articles of 2022: 

The COVID School Years: 700 Days Since Lockdown  

Learning Loss: 700 days. As we reported Feb. 14, that’s how long it had been since more than half the nation’s schools crossed into the pandemic era. On March 16, 2020, districts in 27 states, encompassing almost 80,000 schools, closed their doors for the first long educational lockdown. Since then, schools have reopened, closed and reopened again. The effects have been immediate — students lost parents, teachers mourned fallen colleagues — and hopelessly abstract as educators weighed “pandemic learning loss,” the sometimes crude measure of COVID’s impact on students’ academic performance. 

With spring approaching, there were reasons to be hopeful. More children had been vaccinated. Mask mandates were ending. But even if the pandemic recedes and a “new normal” emerges, there are clear signs that the issues surfaced during this period will linger. COVID heightened inequities that have long been baked into the American educational system. The social contract between parents and schools has frayed. And teachers are burning out. To mark a third spring of educational disruption, Linda Jacobson interviewed educators, parents, students and researchers who spoke movingly, often unsparingly, about what Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab, called “a seismic interruption to education unlike anything we’ve ever seen.” Read her full report . 

• A 700-Day Parental Awakening : Marguerite Roza, of Georgetown’s Edunomics Lab, reflects on the past years
• 700 Days of Missed Opportunities — and Lingering Inequities : Robin Lake, of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, looks back (and forwards)
• 700 Days of Balancing Student Safety Against Keeping Classrooms Open : Superintendent Pedro Martinez reflects
• 700 Days in Pictures : 24 months inside one resilient school district
• The COVID School Years : See our special report, looking back on 700 days of the pandemic

Threatened & Trolled, School Board Members Quit in Record Numbers

School Leadership : By the time we published this report in May, the chaos and violence at big city school board meetings had dominated headlines for months, as protesters, spurred by ideological interest groups and social media campaigns, railed about race, gender and a host of other hot-button issues. But what does it look like when the boardroom is located in a small community, where the elected officials under fire often have lifelong ties to the people doing the shouting? Over the last 18 months, Minnesota K-12 districts have seen a record number of board members resign before the end of their term. As one said in a tearful explanation to her constituents, “The hate is just too much.” Beth Hawkins takes a look at the possible ramifications .  

• Million-Dollar Records Request : From COVID and critical race theory to teachers’ names & schools, districts flooded with freedom of information document demands

Nation’s Report Card Shows Largest Drops Ever Recorded in 4th and 8th Grade Math

Student Achievement : In a moment the education world had anxiously awaited, the latest round of scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress were released in October — and the news was harsh. Math scores saw the largest drops in the history of the exam, while reading performance also fell in a majority of states. National Center for Education Statistics Commissioner Peggy Carr said the “decline that we’re seeing in the math data is stark. It is troubling. It is significant.” Even as some state-level data has shown evidence of a rebound this year, federal officials warned COVID-19’s lost learning won’t be easily restored. The 74’s Kevin Mahnken breaks down the results .

• Lost Decades : ‘Nation’s Report Card’ shows 20 years of growth wiped out by two years of pandemic
• Economic Toll : Damage from NAEP math losses could total nearly $1 trillion
• COVID Recovery : Can districts rise to the challenge of new NAEP results? Outlook’s not so good 

Virtual Nightmare: One Student’s Journey Through the Pandemic

Mental Health : As the debate over the lingering effects of school closures continues, the term “pandemic recovery” can often lose its meaning. For Jason Finuliar, a California teen whose Bay Area school district was among those shuttered the longest, the journey has been painful and slow. Once a happy, high-achieving student, he descended into academic failure and a depression so severe that he spent 10 days in a residential mental health facility. “I felt so worthless,” he said. It’s taking compassionate counselors, professional help and parents determined to save their son for Jason to regain hope for the future. Linda Jacobson reports .  

16 Under 16: Meet The 74’s 2022 Class of STEM Achievers

This spring, we asked for the country’s help identifying some of the most impressive students, age 16 or younger, who have shown extraordinary achievement in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. After an extensive and comprehensive selection process, we’re thrilled to introduce this year’s class of 16 Under 16 in STEM. The honorees range in age from 12 to 16, specialize in fields from medicine to agriculture to invention and represent the country from coast to coast. We hope these incredible youngsters can inspire others — and offer reassurance that our future can be in pretty good hands. Emmeline Zhao offers a closeup of the 2022 class of 16 Under 16 in STEM — click here to read and watch more about them .

A ‘National Teacher Shortage’? New Research Reveals Vastly Different Realities Between States & Regions

School Staffing : Adding to efforts to understand America’s teacher shortages, a new report and website maps the K-12 teaching vacancy data. Nationally, an estimated 36,504 full-time teacher positions are unfilled, with shortages currently localized in nine states. “There are substantial vacant teacher positions in the United States. And for some states, this is much higher than for other states. … It’s just a question of how severe it is,” said author Tuan Nguyen. Marianna McMurdock reports on America’s uneven crisis . 

Meet the Gatekeepers of Students’ Private Lives

School Surveillance : Megan Waskiewicz used to sit at the top of the bleachers and hide her face behind the glow of a laptop monitor. While watching one of her five children play basketball on the court below, the Pittsburgh mother didn’t want other parents in the crowd to know she was also looking at child porn. Waskiewicz worked on contract as a content moderator for Gaggle, a surveillance company that monitors the online behaviors of some 5 million students across the U.S. on their school-issued Google and Microsoft accounts in an effort to prevent youth violence and self-harm. As a result, kids’ deepest secrets — like nude selfies and suicide notes — regularly flashed onto Waskiewicz’s screen. Waskiewicz and other former moderators at Gaggle believe the company helped protect kids, but they also surfaced significant questions about its efficacy, employment practices and effect on students’ civil rights. Eight former moderators shared their experiences at Gaggle with The 74, describing insufficient safeguards to protect students’ sensitive data, a work culture that prioritized speed over quality, scheduling issues that sent them scrambling to get hours and frequent exposure to explicit content that left some traumatized. Read the latest investigation by The 74’s Mark Keierleber . 

Students Continue to Flee Urban Districts as Boom Towns, Virtual Schools Thrive

Exclusive Data : A year after the nation’s schools experienced a historic decline in enrollment, data shows many urban districts are still losing students, and those that rebounded this year typically haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. Of 40 states and the District of Columbia, few have seen more than a 1% increase compared with 2020-21, when some states experienced declines as high as 5%, according to data from Burbio, a company that tracks COVID-related education trends. Flat enrollment this year “means those kids did not come back,” said Thomas Dee, an education professor at Stanford University. While many urban districts were already losing students before the pandemic, COVID “accelerated” movement into outlying areas and to states with stronger job markets. Experts say that means many districts will have to make some tough decisions in the coming years. Linda Jacobson reports . 

‘Hybrid’ Homeschooling Making Inroads as Families Seek New Models

School Choice : As public school enrollments dip to historic lows, researchers are beginning to track families to hybrid homeschooling arrangements that meet in person a few days per week and send students home for the rest of the time. More formal than learning pods or microschools, many still rely on parents for varying levels of instruction and grading. About 60% to 70% are private, according to a new research center on hybrid schools based at Kennesaw State University, northwest of Atlanta. Greg Toppo reports .

Educators’ ‘Careless’ Child Abuse Reports Devastate Thousands of NYC Families

Student Safety : Thousands of times every year, New York City school staff report what they fear may be child abuse or neglect to a state hotline. But the vast majority of the resulting investigations yield no evidence of maltreatment while plunging the families, most of them Black, Hispanic and low income, into fear and lasting trauma. Teachers are at the heart of the problem: From August 2019 to January 2022, two-thirds of their allegations were false alarms, data obtained by The 74 show. “Teachers, out of fear that they’re going to get in trouble, will report even if they’re just like, ‘Well, it could be abuse.’ … It also could be 10 million other things,” one Bronx teacher said. Read Asher Lehrer-Small’s report . 

The Contagion Effect: From Buffalo to Uvalde, 16 Mass Shootings in Just 10 Days

Gun Violence : May’s mass school shooting in Texas — the deadliest campus attack in about a decade — has refocused attention on the frequency of such devastating carnage on American victims. The tragedy unfolded just 10 days after a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. It could be more than a coincidence: A growing body of research suggests these assaults have a tendency to spread like a viral disease. In fact, The U.S. has experienced 16 mass shootings with at least four victims in just 10 days. Read Mark Keierleber’s report . 

Teachers Leaving Jobs During Pandemic Find ‘Fertile’ Ground in New School Models

Microschools : Feeling that she could no longer effectively meet children’s needs in a traditional school, former counselor Heather Long is among those who left district jobs this year to teach in an alternative model — a microschool based in her New Hampshire home. “For the first time in their lives, they have options,” Jennifer Carolan of Reach Capital, an investment firm supporting online programs and ed tech ventures, told reporter Linda Jacobson. Some experts wonder if microschools are sustainable, but others say the ground is “fertile.” Read our full report . 

Facing Pandemic Learning Crisis, Districts Spend Relief Funds at a Snail’s Pace

School Funding : Schools that were closed the longest due to COVID have spent just a fraction of the billions in federal relief funds targeted to students who suffered the most academically, according to an analysis by The 74. The delay is significant, experts say, because research points to a direct correlation between the closures and lost learning. Of the 25 largest districts, the 12 that were in remote learning for at least half the 2020-21 school year have spent on average roughly 15% of their American Rescue Plan funds — and districts are increasing pressure on the Education Department for more time. Linda Jacobson reports .

Slave Money Paved the Streets. Now, This Posh Rhode Island City Strives to Teach Its Past  

Teaching History : Every year, millions of tourists marvel at Newport, Rhode Island’s colonial architecture, savor lobster rolls on the wharf and gaze at waters that — many don’t realize — launched more slave trading voyages than anywhere else in North America. But after years of invisibility, that obscured chapter is becoming better known, partly because the Ocean State passed a law in 2021 requiring schools to teach Rhode Island’s “African Heritage History.” Amid recent headlines that the state’s capital city is now moving forward with a $10 million reparations program, read Asher Lehrer-Small’s examination of how Newport is looking to empower schools to confront the city’s difficult past .  

Harvard Economist Thomas Kane on Learning Loss, and Why Many Schools Aren’t Prepared to Combat It  

74 Interview : This spring, Harvard economist Thomas Kane co-authored one of the biggest — and most pessimistic — studies yet of COVID learning loss, revealing that school closures massively set back achievement for low-income students. The effects appear so large that, by his estimates, many schools will need to spend 100% of their COVID relief to counteract them. Perversely, though, many in the education world don’t realize that yet. “Once that sinks in,” he said, “I think people will realize that more aggressive action is necessary.” Read Kevin Mahnken’s full interview . 

In White, Wealthy Douglas County, Colorado, a Conservative School Board Majority Fires the Superintendent, and Fierce Backlash Ensues

Politics : The 2021 election of four conservative members to Colorado’s Douglas County school board led to the firing in February of schools Superintendent Corey Wise, who had served the district in various capacities for 26 years. The decision, which came at a meeting where public comment was barred, swiftly mobilized teachers, students and community members in opposition. Wise’s ouster came one day after a 1,500-employee sickout forced the shutdown of the state’s third-largest school district . A few days later, students walked out of school en masse, followed by litigation and talk of a school board recall effort. The battle mirrors those being fought in numerous districts throughout the country, with conservative parents, newly organized during the pandemic, championing one agenda and more moderate and liberal parent groups beginning to rise up to counter those views. Jo Napolitano reports .

Weaving Stronger School Communities: Nebraska’s Teacher of the Year Challenges Her Rural Community to Wrestle With the World  

Inspiring : Residents of tiny Taylor, Nebraska, call Megan Helberg a “returner” — one of the few kids to grow up in the town of 190 residents, leave to attend college in the big city and then return as an adult to rejoin this rural community in the Sandhills. Honored as the state’s 2020 Teacher of the Year, Helberg says she sees her role as going well beyond classroom lessons and academics. She teaches her students to value their deep roots in this close-knit circle. She advocates on behalf of her school — the same school she attended as a child — which is always threatened with closure due to small class sizes. She has also launched travel clubs through her schools, which Helberg says has strengthened her community by breaking students, parents and other community members out of their comfort zone and helping them gain a better view of the world outside Nebraska while also seeing their friends and neighbors in a whole new light. This past winter, as part of a broader two-month series on educators weaving community, a team from The 74 made multiple visits to Taylor to meet Helberg and see her in action with her students. Watch the full documentary by Jim Fields, and read our full story about Helberg’s background and inspiration by Laura Fay . 

Other profiles from this year’s Weaver series: 

• Texas’s Alejandro Salazar : The band teacher who kept his school community connected through COVID’s chaos
• Hawaii’s Heidi Maxie : How an island teacher builds community bridges through her Hawaii school
• Georgia’s Allie Reeser : Living and learning among refugees in the ‘Ellis Island of the South’
• See the full series : Meet 12 educators strengthening school communities amid the pandemic

Research: Babies Born During COVID Talk Less with Caregivers, Slower to Develop Critical Language Skills

Big Picture : Independent studies by Brown University and a national nonprofit focused on early language development found infants born during the pandemic produced significantly fewer vocalizations and had less verbal back-and-forth with their caretakers compared with those born before COVID. Both used the nonprofit LENA’s “talk pedometer” technology, which delivers detailed information on what children hear throughout the day, including the number of words spoken near the child and the child’s own language-related vocalizations. It also counts child-adult interactions, called “conversational turns,” which are critical to language acquisition. The joint finding is the latest troubling evidence of developmental delays discovered when comparing babies born before and after COVID. “I’m worried about how we set things up going forward such that our early childhood teachers and early childhood interventionalists are prepared for what is potentially a set of children who maybe aren’t performing as we expect them to,” Brown’s Sean Deoni tells The 74’s Jo Napolitano. Read our full report . 

Minneapolis Teacher Strike Lasted 3 Weeks. The Fallout Will Be Felt for Years

Two days after Minneapolis teachers ended their first strike in 50 years this past May, Superintendent Ed Graff walked out of a school board meeting, ostensibly because a student protester had used profanity. The next morning, he resigned. The swearing might have been the last straw, but the kit-bag of problems left unresolved by the district’s agreement with the striking unions is backbreaking indeed. Four-fifths of the district’s federal pandemic aid is now committed to staving off layoffs and giving classroom assistants and teachers bonuses and raises, leaving little for academic recovery at a moment when the percentage of disadvantaged students performing at grade level has dipped into the single digits. From potential school closures and misinformation about how much money the district actually has to layoffs of Black teachers, a lack of diversity in the workforce and how to make up for lost instructional time, Beth Hawkins reports on the aftermath . 

After Steering Mississippi’s Unlikely Learning Miracle, Carey Wright Steps Down

Profile : Mississippi, one of America’s poorest and least educated states, emerged in 2019 as a fast-rising exemplar in math and reading growth. The transformation of the state’s long-derided school system came about through intense work — in the classroom and the statehouse — to raise learning standards, overhaul reading instruction and reinvent professional development. And with longtime State Superintendent Carey Wright retiring at the end of June, The 74’s Kevin Mahnken looked at what comes next .

As Schools Push for More Tutoring, New Research Points to Its Effectiveness — and the Challenge of Scaling it to Combat Learning Loss

Learning Acceleration : In the two years that COVID-19 has upended schooling for millions of families, experts and education leaders have increasingly touted one tool as a means for coping with learning loss: personalized tutors. In February, just days after the secretary of education declared that every struggling student should receive 90 minutes of tutoring each week, a newly released study offers more evidence of the strategy’s potential — and perhaps its limitations. An online tutoring pilot launched last spring did yield modest, if positive, learning benefits for the hundreds of middle schoolers who participated. But those gains were considerably smaller than the impressive results from some previous studies, perhaps because of the project’s design: It relied on lightly trained volunteers, rather than professional educators, and held its sessions online instead of in person. “There is a tradeoff in navigating the current climate where what is possible might not be scalable,” the study’s co-author, Matthew Kraft, told The 74’s Kevin Mahnken. “So instead of just saying, ‘Come hell or high water, I’m going to build a huge tutoring program,’ we might be better off starting off with a small program and building it over time.” Read our full report . 

Florida Teen Invents World’s First Sustainable Electric Vehicle Motor

STEM : Robert Sansone was born to invent. His STEM creations range from springy leg extensions for sprinting to a go-kart that can reach speeds of 70 mph. But his latest project aims to solve a global problem: the unsustainability of electric car motors that use rare earth materials that are nonrenewable, expensive and pollute the environment during the mining and refining process. In Video Director James Field’s video profile, the Florida high schooler talks about his creation, inspiration and what he plans to do with his $75,000 prize from the 2022 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. Learn more right here , and watch our full portrait below: 

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Florida A&M University announced a "transformative" donation earlier this month — but the school said it ceased contact with the donor after questions arose about the funds. Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images hide caption

A mega-gift for an HBCU college fell through. Here's what happened — and what's next

May 24, 2024 • To people who watch high-level philanthropy, Florida A&M's embarrassing incident wasn't only a shocking reversal. It was something they've seen before. The school is now investigating what went wrong.

Due to the success of the State Department's J-1 Visa program, the Kuspuk School District and other rural districts in Alaska are looking at ways to utilize other visa programs to keep foreign teachers in classrooms for longer. Emily Schwing for NPR/Emily Schwing hide caption

Visa program draws foreign teachers to a rural Alaska school district facing a staffing crisis

Kyuk service.

May 24, 2024 • Teacher retention and recruitment is difficult and some schools make use of J-1 Visas to recruit teachers from outside the U.S. In one rural school district in Alaska, foreign teachers make up over half the staff.

Robert Hale gives an envelope with cash to a graduating UMass Dartmouth student at last week's commencement. Each of the 1,200 graduates received $1,000 onstage, half to keep and half to donate. Karl Christoff Dominey/University of Massachusetts Dartmouth hide caption

A billionaire surprised graduates onstage with cash, but it's not all theirs to keep

May 23, 2024 • Billionaire philanthropist Rob Hale gave UMass Dartmouth graduates $1,000 each, and instructed them to donate half. He tells NPR the best cause students can support is one that matters to them.

U-Mass Dartmouth graduates got a surprise gift from a billionaire at graduation

Starting Your Podcast: A Guide For Students

New to podcasting? Don't panic.

From left: Alexis Jones (Cornell University), Mei Lamison (New York University), Anaka Srinivas (Northwestern University). Alexis Jones; Mei Lamison; Anaka Srinivas hide caption

Consider This from NPR

A concentrated dose of history: the class of 2024 looks back.

May 22, 2024 • Everyone says you live through history, but "I don't think anyone prepared us for this much history," say the students in the Class of 2024.

Student Podcast Challenge

May 22, 2024 • Student Podcast Challenge invites students from around the country to create a podcast and compete for a chance to have your work featured on NPR.

Pedestrians pass through The Ohio State University's student union. John Minchillo/AP hide caption

Ohio reviewing race-based scholarships after Supreme Court affirmative action ruling

May 18, 2024 • Higher education officials in Ohio are reviewing race-based scholarships after last year's Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action.

These teens were missing too much school. Here's what it took to get them back

May 18, 2024 • Since the pandemic, chronic absenteeism in the nation's K-12 schools has skyrocketed. These teens are working to get their attendance back on track.

Perspective

Code switch, in a debate over a school name, it's not just parents who are attached to the past.

May 18, 2024 • At the height of the racial reckoning, a school district in Virginia voted to rename two schools that had been previously named for Confederate generals. This month, that decision was reversed.

Basil Rodriguez was arrested linking arms outside Hamilton Hall, but said the arrest had strengthened their resolve to continue protesting. The trespassing charge Rodriguez faced was dismissed this week. Keren Carrión/NPR hide caption

Campus protests over the Gaza war

Arrested. injured. suspended. six nyc university students say they'll keep protesting.

May 18, 2024 • Students arrested at Columbia University and the City College of New York spoke with NPR about their choice to risk legal and academic consequences.

Des Moines Superintendent Ian Roberts races students on an Iowa track. Phil Roeder/Des Moines Public Schools hide caption

Iowa superintendent and former Olympian bested in footrace by 5th-grader

May 18, 2024 • Ian Roberts has competed in some of the most high-profile races in the world. But his biggest competition to date was a determined fifth-grader in jean shorts and Nike tennis shoes.

Earlier this month, President Biden spoke about protests that have roiled many U.S. college campuses. Among their demands is for the Israeli military to leave Gaza. Biden said students have a right to protest but not to be disruptive. He is set to speak at Morehouse College in Atlanta on Sunday. Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Biden is set for the Morehouse graduation. Students are divided

May 17, 2024 • Ahead of Biden's address at Morehouse, students share their frustrations

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1,500 college applicants thought they were accepted. They soon learned it was an error

May 16, 2024 • Georgia State University says the students were not sent an official acceptance letter but "communication" from a department welcoming those who intend to major in a specific academic area.

Kansas City Chiefs player Harrison Butker, pictured at a press conference in February, is in hot water for his recent commencement speech at Benedictine College in Kansas. Chris Unger/Getty Images hide caption

The NFL responds after a player urges female college graduates to become homemakers

May 16, 2024 • Harrison Butker of the Kansas City Chiefs urged female graduates to embrace the title of "homemaker" in a controversial commencement speech. The NFL says he was speaking "in his personal capacity."

Announcing the 2023 College Podcast Challenge Honorable Mentions

May 15, 2024 • Here are the honorable mentions from the 2023 College Podcast Challenge. Congrats!

Why children with disabilities are missing school and losing skills

May 15, 2024 • A special education staffing crisis is raging through many U.S. school districts. It's taking a toll on students and families.

Illustration of a rally where "peaceful protesters" march alongside "violent looters." LA Johnson/NPR hide caption

Why the trope of the 'outside agitator' persists

May 15, 2024 • As protests continue to rock the campuses of colleges and universities, a familiar set of questions is being raised: Are these protests really being led by students? Or are the real drivers of the civil disobedience outsiders , seizing on an opportunity to wreak chaos and stir up trouble?

Students with disabilities are missing school because of staff shortages

May 14, 2024 • There's a special education staffing crisis in a northern California school district. It means some of the district's most vulnerable students have missed weeks and even months of school.

Public Health student Hanna Stutzman helps establish new native plantings at The College of New Jersey. Nathaniel Johnson/The College of New Jersey hide caption

Environment

Bringing the wild things back to campus.

May 14, 2024 • The College of New Jersey is making room for native plants, and students are digging it.

Dr. Thorsten Siess shows the Impella. Annegret Hilse/Reuters hide caption

Shots - Health News

He invented a successful medical device as a student. here's his advice for new grads.

May 14, 2024 • When Thorsten Siess was in graduate school, he came up with the idea for a heart device that's now been used in hundreds of thousands of patients around the world.

Deadline Extended: NPR Student Podcast Challenge entries are now due May 31

May 13, 2024 • Entries for our sixth annual contest for middle and high school students (and our first-ever fourth grade competition) are now due Friday, May 31 at midnight E.T.

Graduate students and demonstrators at the University of Texas at Austin protest the war in Gaza after walking out of commencement at the DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium on May 11, 2024 in Austin. Brandon Bell/Getty Images hide caption

Student protests caused mostly minor disruptions at several graduation ceremonies

May 12, 2024 • From California to North Carolina, students staged chants and walkouts over the weekend in protest of Israel's ongoing military offensive in Gaza.

Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning

May 11, 2024 • Researchers are learning that handwriting engages the brain in ways typing can't match, raising questions about the costs of ditching this age-old practice, especially for kids.

Students and protesters raise peace signs in the air while listening to speakers at the encampment for Palestine on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, at the University of Washington Quad in Seattle. Large crowds amassed ahead of a speech by Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk at the HUB on UW's campus. Megan Farmer/KUOW hide caption

The Picture Show

Photos: campus protests continue, police make arrests and clear encampments.

May 10, 2024 • Photojournalists at NPR member stations documented protests at college and university campuses nationwide this week.

Student protesters demanding university divestment from Israel have set up encampments over the past month at dozens of campuses across the nation, including at MIT in Cambridge, Mass. Steven Senne/AP hide caption

From pandemic to protests, the Class of 2024 has been through a lot

May 10, 2024 • Pomp and circumstance again fall victim to circumstance for some students in the graduating class of 2024, as protests over the war in Gaza threaten to disrupt commencement ceremonies.

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The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2021

From reframing our notion of “good” schools to mining the magic of expert teachers, here’s a curated list of must-read research from 2021.

It was a year of unprecedented hardship for teachers and school leaders. We pored through hundreds of studies to see if we could follow the trail of exactly what happened: The research revealed a complex portrait of a grueling year during which persistent issues of burnout and mental and physical health impacted millions of educators. Meanwhile, many of the old debates continued: Does paper beat digital? Is project-based learning as effective as direct instruction? How do you define what a “good” school is?

Other studies grabbed our attention, and in a few cases, made headlines. Researchers from the University of Chicago and Columbia University turned artificial intelligence loose on some 1,130 award-winning children’s books in search of invisible patterns of bias. (Spoiler alert: They found some.) Another study revealed why many parents are reluctant to support social and emotional learning in schools—and provided hints about how educators can flip the script.

1. What Parents Fear About SEL (and How to Change Their Minds)

When researchers at the Fordham Institute asked parents to rank phrases associated with social and emotional learning , nothing seemed to add up. The term “social-emotional learning” was very unpopular; parents wanted to steer their kids clear of it. But when the researchers added a simple clause, forming a new phrase—”social-emotional & academic learning”—the program shot all the way up to No. 2 in the rankings.

What gives?

Parents were picking up subtle cues in the list of SEL-related terms that irked or worried them, the researchers suggest. Phrases like “soft skills” and “growth mindset” felt “nebulous” and devoid of academic content. For some, the language felt suspiciously like “code for liberal indoctrination.”

But the study suggests that parents might need the simplest of reassurances to break through the political noise. Removing the jargon, focusing on productive phrases like “life skills,” and relentlessly connecting SEL to academic progress puts parents at ease—and seems to save social and emotional learning in the process.

2. The Secret Management Techniques of Expert Teachers

In the hands of experienced teachers, classroom management can seem almost invisible: Subtle techniques are quietly at work behind the scenes, with students falling into orderly routines and engaging in rigorous academic tasks almost as if by magic. 

That’s no accident, according to new research . While outbursts are inevitable in school settings, expert teachers seed their classrooms with proactive, relationship-building strategies that often prevent misbehavior before it erupts. They also approach discipline more holistically than their less-experienced counterparts, consistently reframing misbehavior in the broader context of how lessons can be more engaging, or how clearly they communicate expectations.

Focusing on the underlying dynamics of classroom behavior—and not on surface-level disruptions—means that expert teachers often look the other way at all the right times, too. Rather than rise to the bait of a minor breach in etiquette, a common mistake of new teachers, they tend to play the long game, asking questions about the origins of misbehavior, deftly navigating the terrain between discipline and student autonomy, and opting to confront misconduct privately when possible.

3. The Surprising Power of Pretesting

Asking students to take a practice test before they’ve even encountered the material may seem like a waste of time—after all, they’d just be guessing.

But new research concludes that the approach, called pretesting, is actually more effective than other typical study strategies. Surprisingly, pretesting even beat out taking practice tests after learning the material, a proven strategy endorsed by cognitive scientists and educators alike. In the study, students who took a practice test before learning the material outperformed their peers who studied more traditionally by 49 percent on a follow-up test, while outperforming students who took practice tests after studying the material by 27 percent.

The researchers hypothesize that the “generation of errors” was a key to the strategy’s success, spurring student curiosity and priming them to “search for the correct answers” when they finally explored the new material—and adding grist to a 2018 study that found that making educated guesses helped students connect background knowledge to new material.

Learning is more durable when students do the hard work of correcting misconceptions, the research suggests, reminding us yet again that being wrong is an important milestone on the road to being right.

4. Confronting an Old Myth About Immigrant Students

Immigrant students are sometimes portrayed as a costly expense to the education system, but new research is systematically dismantling that myth.

In a 2021 study , researchers analyzed over 1.3 million academic and birth records for students in Florida communities, and concluded that the presence of immigrant students actually has “a positive effect on the academic achievement of U.S.-born students,” raising test scores as the size of the immigrant school population increases. The benefits were especially powerful for low-income students.

While immigrants initially “face challenges in assimilation that may require additional school resources,” the researchers concluded, hard work and resilience may allow them to excel and thus “positively affect exposed U.S.-born students’ attitudes and behavior.” But according to teacher Larry Ferlazzo, the improvements might stem from the fact that having English language learners in classes improves pedagogy , pushing teachers to consider “issues like prior knowledge, scaffolding, and maximizing accessibility.”

5. A Fuller Picture of What a ‘Good’ School Is

It’s time to rethink our definition of what a “good school” is, researchers assert in a study published in late 2020.⁣ That’s because typical measures of school quality like test scores often provide an incomplete and misleading picture, the researchers found.

The study looked at over 150,000 ninth-grade students who attended Chicago public schools and concluded that emphasizing the social and emotional dimensions of learning—relationship-building, a sense of belonging, and resilience, for example—improves high school graduation and college matriculation rates for both high- and low-income students, beating out schools that focus primarily on improving test scores.⁣

“Schools that promote socio-emotional development actually have a really big positive impact on kids,” said lead researcher C. Kirabo Jackson in an interview with Edutopia . “And these impacts are particularly large for vulnerable student populations who don’t tend to do very well in the education system.”

The findings reinforce the importance of a holistic approach to measuring student progress, and are a reminder that schools—and teachers—can influence students in ways that are difficult to measure, and may only materialize well into the future.⁣

6. Teaching Is Learning

One of the best ways to learn a concept is to teach it to someone else. But do you actually have to step into the shoes of a teacher, or does the mere expectation of teaching do the trick?

In a 2021 study , researchers split students into two groups and gave them each a science passage about the Doppler effect—a phenomenon associated with sound and light waves that explains the gradual change in tone and pitch as a car races off into the distance, for example. One group studied the text as preparation for a test; the other was told that they’d be teaching the material to another student.

The researchers never carried out the second half of the activity—students read the passages but never taught the lesson. All of the participants were then tested on their factual recall of the Doppler effect, and their ability to draw deeper conclusions from the reading.

The upshot? Students who prepared to teach outperformed their counterparts in both duration and depth of learning, scoring 9 percent higher on factual recall a week after the lessons concluded, and 24 percent higher on their ability to make inferences. The research suggests that asking students to prepare to teach something—or encouraging them to think “could I teach this to someone else?”—can significantly alter their learning trajectories.

7. A Disturbing Strain of Bias in Kids’ Books

Some of the most popular and well-regarded children’s books—Caldecott and Newbery honorees among them—persistently depict Black, Asian, and Hispanic characters with lighter skin, according to new research .

Using artificial intelligence, researchers combed through 1,130 children’s books written in the last century, comparing two sets of diverse children’s books—one a collection of popular books that garnered major literary awards, the other favored by identity-based awards. The software analyzed data on skin tone, race, age, and gender.

Among the findings: While more characters with darker skin color begin to appear over time, the most popular books—those most frequently checked out of libraries and lining classroom bookshelves—continue to depict people of color in lighter skin tones. More insidiously, when adult characters are “moral or upstanding,” their skin color tends to appear lighter, the study’s lead author, Anjali Aduki,  told The 74 , with some books converting “Martin Luther King Jr.’s chocolate complexion to a light brown or beige.” Female characters, meanwhile, are often seen but not heard.

Cultural representations are a reflection of our values, the researchers conclude: “Inequality in representation, therefore, constitutes an explicit statement of inequality of value.”

8. The Never-Ending ‘Paper Versus Digital’ War

The argument goes like this: Digital screens turn reading into a cold and impersonal task; they’re good for information foraging, and not much more. “Real” books, meanwhile, have a heft and “tactility”  that make them intimate, enchanting—and irreplaceable.

But researchers have often found weak or equivocal evidence for the superiority of reading on paper. While a recent study concluded that paper books yielded better comprehension than e-books when many of the digital tools had been removed, the effect sizes were small. A 2021 meta-analysis further muddies the water: When digital and paper books are “mostly similar,” kids comprehend the print version more readily—but when enhancements like motion and sound “target the story content,” e-books generally have the edge.

Nostalgia is a force that every new technology must eventually confront. There’s plenty of evidence that writing with pen and paper encodes learning more deeply than typing. But new digital book formats come preloaded with powerful tools that allow readers to annotate, look up words, answer embedded questions, and share their thinking with other readers.

We may not be ready to admit it, but these are precisely the kinds of activities that drive deeper engagement, enhance comprehension, and leave us with a lasting memory of what we’ve read. The future of e-reading, despite the naysayers, remains promising.

9. New Research Makes a Powerful Case for PBL

Many classrooms today still look like they did 100 years ago, when students were preparing for factory jobs. But the world’s moved on: Modern careers demand a more sophisticated set of skills—collaboration, advanced problem-solving, and creativity, for example—and those can be difficult to teach in classrooms that rarely give students the time and space to develop those competencies.

Project-based learning (PBL) would seem like an ideal solution. But critics say PBL places too much responsibility on novice learners, ignoring the evidence about the effectiveness of direct instruction and ultimately undermining subject fluency. Advocates counter that student-centered learning and direct instruction can and should coexist in classrooms.

Now two new large-scale studies —encompassing over 6,000 students in 114 diverse schools across the nation—provide evidence that a well-structured, project-based approach boosts learning for a wide range of students.

In the studies, which were funded by Lucas Education Research, a sister division of Edutopia , elementary and high school students engaged in challenging projects that had them designing water systems for local farms, or creating toys using simple household objects to learn about gravity, friction, and force. Subsequent testing revealed notable learning gains—well above those experienced by students in traditional classrooms—and those gains seemed to raise all boats, persisting across socioeconomic class, race, and reading levels.

10. Tracking a Tumultuous Year for Teachers

The Covid-19 pandemic cast a long shadow over the lives of educators in 2021, according to a year’s worth of research.

The average teacher’s workload suddenly “spiked last spring,” wrote the Center for Reinventing Public Education in its January 2021 report, and then—in defiance of the laws of motion—simply never let up. By the fall, a RAND study recorded an astonishing shift in work habits: 24 percent of teachers reported that they were working 56 hours or more per week, compared to 5 percent pre-pandemic.

The vaccine was the promised land, but when it arrived nothing seemed to change. In an April 2021 survey  conducted four months after the first vaccine was administered in New York City, 92 percent of teachers said their jobs were more stressful than prior to the pandemic, up from 81 percent in an earlier survey.

It wasn’t just the length of the work days; a close look at the research reveals that the school system’s failure to adjust expectations was ruinous. It seemed to start with the obligations of hybrid teaching, which surfaced in Edutopia ’s coverage of overseas school reopenings. In June 2020, well before many U.S. schools reopened, we reported that hybrid teaching was an emerging problem internationally, and warned that if the “model is to work well for any period of time,” schools must “recognize and seek to reduce the workload for teachers.” Almost eight months later, a 2021 RAND study identified hybrid teaching as a primary source of teacher stress in the U.S., easily outpacing factors like the health of a high-risk loved one.

New and ever-increasing demands for tech solutions put teachers on a knife’s edge. In several important 2021 studies, researchers concluded that teachers were being pushed to adopt new technology without the “resources and equipment necessary for its correct didactic use.” Consequently, they were spending more than 20 hours a week adapting lessons for online use, and experiencing an unprecedented erosion of the boundaries between their work and home lives, leading to an unsustainable “always on” mentality. When it seemed like nothing more could be piled on—when all of the lights were blinking red—the federal government restarted standardized testing .

Change will be hard; many of the pathologies that exist in the system now predate the pandemic. But creating strict school policies that separate work from rest, eliminating the adoption of new tech tools without proper supports, distributing surveys regularly to gauge teacher well-being, and above all listening to educators to identify and confront emerging problems might be a good place to start, if the research can be believed.

How do we reinvent education? These TED Talks explore the latest thinking — from teachers, parents, kids — on how to build a better school.

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Transforming lives through education

Transforming education to change our world

UNESCO provides global and regional leadership on all aspects of education from pre-school to higher education and throughout life. It works through its Member States and brings together governments, the private sector and civil society to strengthen education systems worldwide in order to deliver quality education for all. As a thought leader it publishes landmark reports and data for policy-makers, implements programmes on the ground from teacher training to emergency responses and establishes and monitors norms and standards for all to guide educational developments.  

Right to education in a ruined world

Southern Italy, 1950. Three children are huddled around a makeshift desk made out of reclaimed wood, scribbling in their notebooks. The classroom has an earthen floor and roughly clad walls. The children’s clothes are ragged. They are wearing home-made slippers because shoes and the money to buy them are rare commodities in the war-ravaged south. 

Although World War II ended five years earlier, the scars of conflict are still visible in this black and white photo from a report commissioned by UNESCO from legendary photojournalist David Seymour. 

At the time when the photograph was taken, less than half of Italy’s population could read and write and just a third completed primary school. 70 years later, these children’s grandchildren enjoy an over 99% literacy rate. In the wake of the war, UNESCO led a major education campaign in Europe to respond to the education crisis, to rebuild links between people and to strengthen democracy and cultural identities after years of conflict. The emphasis then was on the fundamental learning skill of literacy.  

Immediately after World War two UNESCO led a major education campaign in Europe to respond to the education crisis, fix and rebuild links between people and strengthen cultural identities after years of conflict. David Seymour’s images show the extent of the fight against illiteracy led by the post-war Italian government and non-governmental organisations backed by UNESCO. 

Looking back at the deprived surroundings Seymour captured in his photo essay, one can see the extent of success. Seventy-one years later, those children’s grandchildren enjoy a 99.16 per cent literacy rate. 

Similar programmes were held across the globe, for instance in devastated Korea where UNESCO led a major education textbook production programme in the 1950s. Several decades after, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations and Korean citizen Ban Ki-Moon expressed the importance of such a programme for the country's development: 

The flowering of literacy

In a Korea devastated by war and where UNESCO led a major education textbook production programme in the 1950s, one student, Ban Ki-Moon, now Former Secretary-General of the United Nations, saw the world open up to him through the pages of a UNESCO textbook. Several decades after, he expressed the importance of such a programme for his country's development on the world stage.

Reaching the remote villages perched atop the Andes in Peru during the early 1960s wasn’t without its challenges for UNESCO’s technical assistance programme to bring literacy to disadvantaged communities. While Peru’s economy was experiencing a prolonged period of expansion, not all Peruvians were able to benefit from this growth which was limited to the industrialised coast. Instead, Andes communities were grappling with poverty, illiteracy and depopulation. 

Today, the number of non-literate youths and adults around the world has decreased dramatically, while the global literacy rate for young people aged 15-24 years has reached 92 %. These astonishing successes reflect improved access to schooling for younger generations.

Photojournalist Paul Almasy has left us the poignant image of a barefoot older man while he’s deciphering a newspaper thanks to his newfound literacy skills.

The classroom at the UNESCO mission in Chinchera, in the Andean highlands of Peru, had allowed the old man to discover the world beyond his tiny village.

However, there are still huge obstacles to overcome. Data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics shows that 617 million children and adolescents worldwide are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. Since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 it is still the case that globally more than 450 million children - six out of 10 - have failed to gain basic literacy skills by the age of 10. And beyond literacy programmes, massive investments in skills for work and life, teacher training, and education policies are needed in a world that is changing ever faster. 

Global priorities

Africa, home to the world’s youngest population, is not on track to achieve the targets of SDG 4. Sub-Saharan Africa alone is expected to account for 25% of the school-age population by 2030, up from 12% in 1990, yet it remains the region with the highest out-of-school rates. Girls are more likely to be permanently excluded from education than boys. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated inequalities, with 89% of learners not having access to computers and 82% lacking internet access to benefit from distance learning. The lack of trained teachers further jeopardizes progress towards SDG4: pre-pandemic only 64% of whom were trained at the primary level and 58% at the lower secondary level.

As part of its Priority Africa Flagship 2022 – 2029 , UNESCO has launched Campus Africa: Reinforcing Higher Education in Africa with the objective to build integrated, inclusive, and quality tertiary education systems and institutions, for the development of inclusive and equitable societies on the continent.

Gender    

There are immense gender gaps when it comes to access, learning achievement and education, most often at the expense of girls and women. It is estimated that some 127 million girls are out of school around the world. For many girls and women around the world, the classroom remains an elusive, often forbidden space. UNESCO monitors the educational rights of girls and women around the world and shares information on the legal progress toward securing the right to education for women in all countries. Despite important progress in recent decades, the right to education is still far from being a reality for many girls and women. Discriminatory practices stand in the way of girls and women fully exercising their right to participate in, complete, and benefit from education. And while girls have difficulty with access, boys face increasing challenges, and particularly disengagement , from education at later stages. Globally only 88 men are enrolled in tertiary education for every 100 women. In 73 countries, fewer boys than girls are enrolled in upper-secondary education.

UNESCO's Her Atlas analyzes the legal frameworks of nearly 200 states to track which laws are enabling---or inhibiting---the right to education for girls and women. This interactive world map uses a color-coded scoring system to monitor 12 indicators of legal progress towards gender equality in the right to education.

Monitoring the right to education for girls and women

What makes me proud is that soon I will finish building a new house. I have already been able to buy a cow and I will soon be able to have another pond

Madagascar’s coastal Atsinanana region is known for its lush rainforests and fish breeding.

The country has a young population, but only one out of three children can complete primary education. Among those who are able to finish primary school, only 17% have minimum reading skills, while just a fifth of them have basic maths competencies. Once they leave school, children face a precarious labour market and unstable jobs, just like their parents.

Natacha Obienne is only 21 years old, but she is already in charge of a small fish farm, a career that is usually pursued by men. As one of the many out-of-school women in her area, she was able to set up her own business after vocational training taught her the basics of financial management and entrepreneurship, as well as the practicalities of breeding fish.

She understood that fish feeding depends on the temperature of the water. If it’s well managed, a higher number of fish is produced. ‘I immediately applied everything I learnt’ she says.

The classroom she attended changed the course of her life and she hopes other young people will follow in her footsteps.

I no longer depend on my parents and I am financially independent

She’s not alone. Around 3,000 youths in Madagascar have been trained since the start of the UNESCO-backed programme, some of whom have set up their own business and achieved financial independence. Education was the best way to ease people's emancipation.

Like Emma Claudia, 25, who after her vocational training started a restaurant with just a baking tray and a saucepan.

What does my family think? They are surprised and amazed by my evolution because I haven’t been able to complete my studies. I don’t have any school diplomas.

While Natacha and Emma Claudia have been able to transform their world through education, millions of children out of school around the world are still denied that dream.

Discrimination against girls remains widespread and nearly one billion adults, mostly women, are illiterate. The lack of qualified teachers and learning materials continues to be the reality in too many schools.

Challenging these obstacles is getting harder as the world grapples with the acceleration of climate change, the emergence of digitization and artificial intelligence, and the increasing exclusion and uncertainty brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.

We resumed school a while ago and it’s been stressful. We are trying to retrieve what we lost during quarantine, the worst thing about not being in school is the number of things you miss. Learning behind a screen and learning in person are incomparable.

Aicha is lucky to be able to continue her education. Her country has the highest rate of out-of-school children in the world – 10.5 million – and nearly two-thirds are women. To compound the problem, Nigeria’s northern states suffer from the violence that targets education.

In Russia, too, Alexander and his school friends had to cope with virtual learning and the lack of interactions.

All Russian students were moved to online studying. Needless to say, it was a rough year for all of us, several friends were struggling with depressive moods. They were missing their friends and teachers. So did I.

To protect their right to education during this unprecedented disruption and beyond, UNESCO has launched the Global Education Coalition , a platform for collaboration and exchange that brings together more than 175 countries from the UN family, civil society, academia and the private sector to ensure that learning never stops.

Building skills where they are most needed

Crouched over a pedal-powered sewing machine, Harikala Buda looks younger than her 30 years. Her slim fingers fold a cut of turquoise brocade before deftly pushing it under the needle mechanism.

Harikala lives in rural Nepal, where many villagers, particularly women, don’t have access to basic education. Women like Harikala rely on local community UNESCO-supported learning centres to receive literacy and tailoring skills. In a country where 32% of people over 15 are illiterate, particularly women and those living in rural areas, education is the only route to becoming self-reliant.

I have saved a small amount. My husband’s income goes towards running the house, mine is saved. We must save today to secure our children’s future

Having access to a classroom is the first step to creating a better world for the student, the student’s children and the student’s community. This is a lesson that matters a lot to

Kalasha Khadka Khatri, a 30-year-old Nepali mother. She grew up in a family of 21, with no option to go to school. Two of her children didn’t survive infancy because she was unable to pay for medical treatment. After acquiring sewing skills at her local community learning centre, Kalasha can now provide for her family.

Harikala and Kalasha were able to learn their skills through the support of the UNESCO’s Capacity Development for Education Programme (CapED), an initiative that operates in some 26 least-developed and fragile countries. 

Reimagining the future of education

As the world slowly recovers after the COVID-19 crisis, 244 million children and youth worldwide are still out of school. And a 2022 survey by UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank and OECD finds that one quarter of countries have yet to collect information on children who have and have not returned to school since the pandemic started.

Rebuilding how and where we learn requires policy advice, stronger education legislation, funds mobilisation, advocacy, targeted programme implementation based on sound analysis, statistics and global information sharing. Quality education also calls for the teaching of skills far beyond literacy and maths, including critical thinking against fake news in the digital era, living in harmony with nature and the ethics of artificial intelligence, to name a few of the critical skills needed in the 21st century. 

UNESCO  captured the debate around the futures of education in its landmark report from 2022 entitled Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education.

The Transformative Education Summit , that took place during the United Nations General Assembly in September 2022, as well as the Pre-Summit hosted by UNESCO to forge new approaches to education after the COVID-19 crisis, address the toughest bottlenecks to achieving SDG 4 and inspire young people to lead a global movement for education. World leaders committed to put education at the top of the political agenda. UNESCO has been mobilizing and consulting all stakeholders and partners to galvanize the transformation of every aspect of learning. UNESCO launched a number of key initiatives such as expanding public digital learning, making education responsive to the climate and environmental emergency, and improving access for crisis-affected children and youth.

The two children sitting at their makeshift desk in Italy in 1950 could not have imagined what a modern learning space might look like or how a modern curriculum or the tools and teacher training to deliver it might have been thought out and shaped to offer them the most from education. They could not have imagined the global drive to ensure that everyone was given a chance to learn throughout life. The only thing that has not changed since the photo was taken is the fact that education remains a fundamental and universal human right that can change the course of a life. To the millions still living in conditions of poverty, exclusion displacement and violence it opens a door to a better future.

Explore all the work and expertise of UNESCO in education

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Opinion How geography and religion drive America’s blue vs. red divide

Race and education aren’t the only things driving how Americans vote. They aren’t even the most important.

After Barack Obama’s 2012 victory, political commentators, including some Republicans, fixated on the racial divide. Democrats, they (wrongly) predicted, would win most elections in the future because voters of color were overwhelmingly backing them. The past few years, education has replaced race as the explanation for everything. Journalists and officials in both parties at times speak as if every Democratic voter has a college degree and none of the Republicans do.

But race and education aren’t the only things driving how Americans vote — and arguably aren’t even the most important. Religion, geography and other factors play major roles. Democrats and the broader anti-Trump coalition are too fixated on the education divide and are ignoring everything else.

There is a big split between the nearly 70 percent of American voters who identify as Christians and lean strongly Republican as a group, and the 30 percent who say they aren’t Christians and are much more Democratic, according to polling this cycle and the results from the 2020 and 2022 elections. Another fissure is between those who live in rural areas (very Republican) compared with those in urban ones (very Democratic).

Religion and population density often outweigh race and education in terms of how people vote. White evangelical Christians, even those with college degrees, overwhelmingly vote for Republicans . Asian Americans who are Christian are much more conservative than their non-Christian counterparts . White people without degrees who live in urban areas are significantly more liberal than those in rural areas .

Beyond the urban-rural divide, another geographic factor that is perhaps underappreciated in shaping Americans’ political views is the state they live in. Blue states aren’t just full of atheists, urbanites, minorities and college graduates; red ones aren’t just evangelical Christians, Whites and people without degrees living on farms. States have political cultures and institutions that push people toward certain ideological and partisan views. President Biden’s biggest margin of victory in 2020 was in Vermont, even though it’s one of the Whitest and most rural states .

Age matters, too, largely because voters under 30 tend to be very Democratic-leaning . As does race, mainly because of the huge difference between White voters (about 40 percent back Democrats) and Black ones (more than 80 percent support Democrats.) And there is a growing diploma divide, particularly among White voters . (College graduates are increasingly Democratic, while those without degrees are more Republican.)

A gender gap exists, too. (Women prefer Democrats, men Republicans.) But it’s much smaller than some of the other divides.

The biggest divides and predictors of voting are, of course, ideology and partisanship. Democrats and liberals overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates ; Republicans and conservatives back Republican politicians. But ideology and partisanship are shaped by other factors.

People often become a Democrat or a Republican because that’s what their friends or family are and then adopt the policy views of that party. So getting someone to join a church with lots of right-leaning members might be a more effective way to get them to vote Republican than convincing them of the value of tax cuts for economic growth.

Why does understanding these divides matter? First of all, I worry my industry (the news media) is presenting a flawed view of how people come to their political identities, positions on issues and preferred candidates. The description by many journalists during Obama’s presidency of a monolithic, left-leaning voters of color bloc was overly simplistic. But replacing that with a similarly monolithic frame of right-leaning voters without degrees isn’t any better.

Secondly, I worry those I agree with politically (people opposed to the Republican Party and former president Donald Trump) are misreading the electorate. Both centrist and progressive Democrats have spent much of the past eight years openly discussing their plans to win back the working class, defined as people without bachelor’s degrees. They often publicly brag about initiatives that will create jobs specifically for people who didn’t graduate from college.

I largely agree with those policies. But Democrats aren’t gaining much ground among people without degrees.

There are many reasons for the party’s struggles among these voters, such as continued high prices for some goods and Biden’s age. But I suspect we are also seeing the results of a flawed political analysis and resulting strategy. No one self-identifies as “Jake without a college degree.” There are no institutions or clubs that people join specifically to connect with other noncollege graduates. I doubt most of the 62 percent of American adults without a bachelor’s degree consider themselves part of some collective working class.

Americans do describe themselves as Christians, residents of small towns or, alternatively, people who like to live in urban, walkable areas. Christians congregate in specific places (churches). So do non-Christians (mosques, synagogues). Christians have a set of shared values; so do Muslims and Jewish people. People who prefer cities self-identify as tolerant and inclusive; rural Americans often say they value tightknit communities.

“When it comes to understanding people’s political views and behaviors, their sense of identity is much more important than demographics alone,” said Lauren Goldstein, a pollster at the left-leaning firm Change Research.

I wish the Democratic Party, instead of defining its problem principally as noncollege voters over the last several years, had also tried to appeal to people based on these other identities. There hasn’t been a deep, sustained effort by the party to reduce its margins of defeat in small towns or to develop a rural Democratic identity with corresponding policies.

It’s obviously tricky to appeal to Christians without turning off people of other faiths or violating the principles of separation of church and state. But Obama gave memorable speeches connecting faith and religion to politics and policy. So did Bill Clinton. It’s unclear why Democrats collectively don’t spend more time emphasizing how their policies come from religious values such as charity and forgiveness, even if they aren’t quoting the Bible constantly.

On the flip side, the party could take advantage of the fact that living in a densely populated area and/or not being a Christian tend to make people more likely to vote Democratic. I wrote last year about the potential value of creating church-like institutions for the growing ranks of Americans who aren’t Christians. Perhaps no one would join those. But surely it’s worth people on the left trying to establish new institutions that connect urbanites and nonbelievers with one another, instead of pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into boring TV ads every election cycle.

The speech Obama gave at the Democratic National Convention 20 years ago, in which he downplayed the divide between blue states and red states, was great political strategy but terrible political analysis. We have blue and red states and, really, blue and red people. We are very divided. Understanding the real divides is a key step to addressing them.

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Our Best Education Articles of 2019

Looking for inspiration to start the new decade off on the right foot? Our most popular education articles of 2019 explore how children develop purpose, how we can best support our students’ mental health and social-emotional development, why we benefit from listening to each other’s stories, and more.

And…if you want to put the scientific findings from these articles into practice, check out our new website for educators, Greater Good in Education (GGIE), officially launching on February 20, 2020.

In response to our readers’ call for more practical resources for the classroom, GGIE features free research-based practices, lessons, and strategies for educators to foster their students’ and their own well-being, and for school leaders to develop positive school climates—all in the service of cultivating kinder, happier, and more equitable classrooms and schools.

If you’d like to take a deeper dive into the science behind social-emotional learning, mindfulness, and ethical development, join us for our annual Summer Institute for Educators . Applications are due February 15, 2019.

To whet your appetite, here are the 10 best education articles of 2019, based on a composite ranking of pageviews and editors’ picks.

What Are the Best Ways to Prevent Bullying in Schools? , by Diana Divecha: A new study identifies the most effective approaches to bullying prevention.

How to Help Young People Transition into Adulthood , by Betty Ray: Modern “rites of passage” can help teens prepare for an uncertain future.

Five Childhood Experiences That Lead to a More Purposeful Life , by Maryam Abdullah: Research suggests that our paths to finding purpose can be shaped by early childhood experiences.

How Colleges Today Are Supporting Students’ Mental Health , by Amy L. Eva:   Colleges and universities are addressing well-being in students with new and innovative approaches.

How Understanding Your Brain Can Help You Learn , by Jill Suttie: A new book explains six keys to learning that can help anyone overcome barriers to success in school or in life.

Four Ways Schools Can Support the Whole Child , by Lisa Flook: Beyond just teaching academics, schools can foster students’ development in their relationships, identity, emotional skills, and overall well-being.

Honoring the Teacher's Heart: Well-Being Practices for School Change

Join our new online Community of Practice for educators!

How to Support Teens’ Social-Emotional Development , by Amy L. Eva: We need to appeal to teens’ need for status and respect for SEL to work in high schools.

How to Help Students with Learning Disabilities Focus on Their Strengths , by Rebecca Branstetter: We can empower students with learning disabilities with the language we use and the way we teach and guide them.

How to Become a Scientist of Your Own Emotions , by Jill Suttie: A Q&A with researcher Marc Brackett about how to cultivate emotional intelligence in ourselves and our kids.

What Happens When We Listen to Teachers’ Stories? by Amy L. Eva: Teachers of Oakland wants to change the conversation about education by humanizing teachers. 

What Teens Are Actually Thankful For (video), by Jane Park: A first-grade teacher, a best friend, a parent—high schoolers share their gratitude letters with their recipients. 


 A Lesson in Thanks and Vulnerability (podcast): A junior high school teacher spent his life defying stereotypes about how men should express their emotions. Here he takes on a new challenge: getting his students to express gratitude.

About the Author

Amy L. Eva, Ph.D. , is the associate education director at the Greater Good Science Center. As an educational psychologist and teacher educator with over 25 years in classrooms, she currently writes, presents, and leads online courses focused on student and educator well-being, mindfulness, and courage. Her new book, Surviving Teacher Burnout: A Weekly Guide To Build Resilience, Deal with Emotional Exhaustion, and Stay Inspired in the Classroom, features 52 simple, low-lift strategies for enhancing educators’ social and emotional well-being.

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Are 529 Plans Worth It? Benefits, Drawbacks, and Comparisons

By Rob Zodda

May 28, 2024

So you’re thinking about how your family will pay for your child’s college. That’s smart! It’s never too early to start. You may have heard of a 529 college savings plan and might be wondering what it is and what makes it different from a regular savings account. Or maybe you heard that it’s a type of “investment” account, and you’re not sure if that’s right for you.

Don’t worry. We’ll cover everything from “are 529 plans worth it?” to benefits, drawbacks, and comparisons to other savings methods.

Understanding 529 Plans

Let’s start with the basics. A 529 plan is a tax-advantaged investment account designed to help families save and pay for a college education, graduate school, or another form of higher education. In this case, “tax-advantaged” means your contributions grow tax-free while in the account. You can take out the money and pay no federal income tax if the funds are used for qualified education expenses .

As of 2023, 30% of all college savings are in 529 plans – more than any other savings method. On average, Americans have saved $27,741 in their 529s, and many of the families who are saving still have very young children, not even close to college age.

How Does a 529 Plan Work

A 529 plan is similar to other investment accounts, like an IRA or 401k plan. Instead of investing for retirement, you’re investing to pay for higher education. You can open a 529 plan account with whichever brokerage firm you want . Almost all states have 529 plans with tax breaks for state residents. 

It’s important to note that you’re not limited to your own state’s plan—and your chosen plan does not impact where the beneficiary can go to school. They don’t need to choose an in-state school. 

You can choose age-based investment strategies that evolve as your beneficiary approaches college age. Or you can create a customized mix of investment options based on what’s available through your brokerage firm. Like any investment, there is some risk, and 529s experience market fluctuations that affect their value over time.

Opening and Contributing to a 529 Plan

Anyone over 18 who wants to save for higher education can open a 529 plan — for themselves or someone else. Usually, parents open accounts with their children as beneficiaries. However, family members, like grandparents, can open them to save for their grandchildren. If you open a 529 plan for someone who decides not to pursue higher education, you can change the beneficiary at any time. The account owner always remains in charge of the money. 

Most 529 plans have very low minimums required to open an account—some as low as $0. The best way to contribute is to make it automatic, with recurring contributions straight from your bank account or paycheck every month – or whatever works for you. 

Benefits of Investing in a 529 Plan

There are many benefits to using a 529 plan , like federal income tax benefits and state tax deductions. Plus, 529s offer several advantages compared to traditional savings accounts and other methods of saving for higher education.

Tax Advantages of a 529 Plan

Federal income tax benefits.

The largest benefit of 529 plans is that your investment has the potential to grow and can later be withdrawn free of federal income tax. That means you don’t have to pay federal income tax on earnings from your investments. When it’s time to pay for higher education, the money in the account can be withdrawn tax-free to pay for qualifying expenses.

State tax deductions

Many state 529 plans offer annual tax breaks for plan participants, which means you may be able to deduct your 529 contributions from your earned income for state income tax purposes. To be eligible for a tax deduction or credit, you must live and file your taxes in the same state that manages your plan. Nine states do not have income tax and, therefore, don’t offer 529 state tax deductions.

Other Benefits of Investing in a 529 Plan—Jumpstart a Roth IRA

Here’s another upside of 529 plans you might not have known about. Starting in 2024 , if you have a 529 plan and no longer need the funds for education expenses, you can move up to $35,000 in total into a beneficiary Roth IRA (Individual Retirement Account) without paying taxes or penalties.

When moving money from a 529 plan to a Roth IRA, you must follow the IRS rules. The 529 account must have existed for at least 15 years to avoid penalties for moving funds. And you can only move over a certain amount at a time, up to the yearly limit. The 2024 annual limit is $7,000 ($8,000 if you’re 50 or older). It’s important to note that the person you’re saving for must have earned money equal to what you’re transferring each year.

This is a big win! If you were thinking, “if my beneficiary doesn’t pursue higher education, is a 529 plan a waste?” It’s not a waste now that increased flexibility allows unused funds to be put toward a retirement account. 

How Do 529 Plans Compare to Other Types of Accounts?

Traditional savings accounts.

If you’ve just started saving for your child’s higher education and you’re putting money into a savings account—that’s a good start. But don’t stop there! As of April 2024, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) listed the average interest rate on a traditional savings account at just 0.46%. That’s not great – to say the least. With a traditional savings account, your money is stagnant, earning almost no interest. 

A 529 plan invests your money based on your specific goals, risk tolerance levels, and timeline. There’s much more growth potential with a 529 plan than with a traditional savings account. And let’s face it, college costs haven’t shown signs of dropping. 

Impact on Financial Aid Eligibility

Don’t forgo investing in a 529 plan because you’re worried it will make your beneficiary ineligible for federal financial aid. 

Yes, it generally affects their eligibility for need-based financial aid. But what’s the alternative? Save nothing and hope your child gets a full slate of need-based aid? It’s not a great move. Oftentimes, a large amount of the financial aid students are offered is in the form of federal student loans, which need to be paid back with interest . So, while those student loans can be helpful, they’re still debt.

One way to minimize the impact of a 529 plan on financial aid eligibility is for you, the parent, to own the account, with the student as the beneficiary. When a parent owns a 529 plan for their dependent student, the 529 plan is considered an asset of the parent, which can reduce financial aid eligibility by up to 5.64% of the asset value. If a student owns the account themselves, it would be counted as a student asset and may reduce financial aid eligibility by 20% of the asset value.

Another strategy for minimizing the impact of a 529 on financial aid is the ” grandparent loophole,” which allows non-parents to help pay for a student’s education without affecting their financial aid eligibility. 

Drawbacks and Limitations of a 529 Plan

When considering investing for college with a 529 plan, you need to understand the drawbacks and limitations along with the benefits.

The main limitation is that 529 funds should be used for qualified education expenses, like college or vocational school tuition, books, supplies, a computer, and room and board. Funds from 529 plans can even be used for K-12 tuition , with a $10,000 limit annually.

Penalties for Non-Qualified Withdrawals

A 529 plan is intended for higher education, not saving for a new car or vacation. You can take distribution of funds from the account at any time if you need to. However, a penalty tax (generally 10%) will be applied to the earnings from your investments. Plus, some education-related costs are still considered non-qualified expenses that you’ll want to be aware of, like college application and testing fees. 

Limited Flexibility in Investment Options

If you’re a personal finance expert or an experienced investor who prefers to take a more hands-on approach to investing, a 529 plan might be limiting.

When you set up a 529 plan, you choose from a selection of strategies for investing instead of choosing specific stocks or bonds. When you add money to the plan, it gets invested based on what you chose initially. A 529 plan isn’t like a regular investment account where you buy stocks yourself. Instead, the money in the plan gets invested in the stock market and grows as the market moves. You can pick different mixes of investments based on the beneficiary’s age and choose between safer or riskier options.

529 Plan Vs. Other Education Funding Options

If you’re considering a 529 plan, you may have heard about other popular ways families save and invest for higher education, like Coverdell ESAs and UGMA/UTMA accounts. Here’s how they compare:

Coverdell ESA

Like 529s, Coverdell Educations Savings Accounts (ESA) are tax-advantaged investment accounts. The main difference is that 529s can be used to pay up to $10,000 annually in K-12 tuition.

Coverdell ESAs also include qualifying expenses for K-12 education, like books, supplies, tutoring costs, and other special services related to enrollment at an eligible school . If you’ve got a pricey private elementary or high school in mind for your kids, a Coverdell ESA might be right for you.

Additionally, Coverdell ESAs generally have lower contribution limits. They do not allow for any more contributions after the beneficiary reaches 18 years old, whereas 529s do not have age limits.

The major differences between a Uniform Gifts to Minors Act ( UGMA ) or Uniform Transfer to Minors Act ( UTMA ) and a 529 plan relate to account ownership and control, tax impact, and effect on financial aid.

UGMAs and UTMAs are controlled by a custodian until the beneficiary reaches the age of majority (in most states, that’s 18 years old). Unlike 529 plans, which are intended to be tax-free, taxes are paid annually on any earnings. 

UGMAs and UTMAs are also considered the child’s assets. They are taxed at the child’s tax rate and are reported as the child’s asset when submitting the FAFSA. That means they could reduce financial aid eligibility by 20% of the asset’s value. Comparatively, 529 plans are reported as a parent asset and can reduce financial aid eligibility by up to 5.64% of the asset value.

Another important distinction is that, unlike with a 529 plan, you can’t change the beneficiary of a UGMA or UTMA.

In other ways, UGMAs and UTMAs are more flexible. For example, there are no contribution limits, more investment options, and permitted uses are not limited to educational expenses.

Evaluating the Best Option for You

There are benefits and drawbacks to all of these methods. Here are some important questions to ask yourself when thinking about which might be the best option for you:

• Am I committed to saving for higher education? Or do I want flexibility to access funds for K-12 education or other expenses?
• How concerned am I that my choice might impact my student’s eligibility for federal financial aid?
• Do I want full control over this account, or would I like it to transition to a beneficiary once they reach the age of majority?
• Do I want the ability to change my beneficiary at any time, even to myself?
• If my beneficiary does not need these funds for college expenses or other higher education costs, would I still like to invest for their future by moving funds into a Roth IRA?

So, Are 529 Plans Worth It?

A 529 plan is not the only way to save for higher education. And 529s are indeed investment accounts, and any form of investing comes with some risk. 

However, there are plenty of 529 plans to choose from, often with tax benefits for residents who choose their state’s plan. Investments grow tax-free, and funds are withdrawn tax-free when used for education expenses. Plus, you always have the option to change your beneficiary entirely — or transition the funds into a Roth IRA for their retirement. More and more families are realizing the benefits of 529s and making them part of their saving-for-college plan.

Related Articles

Answers to Questions about 529 Plans in Different States

The Latest 529 Plan Rule Changes: What's New for 2024

Top 10 ways to maximize 529 plan benefits

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National Spelling Bee competitors try to address weaknesses, including short and tricky words

Shradha Rachamreddy, 14, of San Jose, Calif., spells a word during competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Wearing coordinating jackets, Abena Kwaffo, 13, of Accra, Ghana, right, spells her word as Giovanni Adjei, 10, of Accra, Ghana, waits for his turn, during competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. All three of the Ghanian competitors made it into the next round. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

N’Adom Darko-Asare, 13, of Accra, Ghana, left, congratulates Giovanni Adjei, 10, of Accra, Ghana, during competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. All three of the Ghanian competitors made it into the next round. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Aryan Khedkar, 13, Rochester Hills, Mich., types his word in the air during the third round of competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Aditi Muthukumar, 13, of Westminster, Colo., spells a word during competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Phaneendra Bulusu, 13, of Concord, North Carolina, participates in the competition during the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

Orrin Lam, 14, of Benson, N.C., reacts for a question during competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

A little boy waves to his family member during a break in competition during the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Ethan Dunlap, 12, of Spring Lake, N.C., spells his word during competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Girls who already spelled their words correctly cheer for a speller after he got his word correct during competition at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Arabella Mendoza, 12, of Carson City, Nev., reacts as a fellow competitor spells his word during competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

CORRECTS IDENTIFICATION TO ADVAIT NISHIT AND HOMETOWN TO STRONGSVILLE, OHIO - Advait Nishit, 14, of Strongsville, Ohio, spells a word on his arm during competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Sariah Titus, 11, of Abilene, Texas, reacts after making a mistake during competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Jashit Verma, 9, of Germantown, Tenn., who also goes by the name Josh, reacts after spelling his word correctly during competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Angelo Aldoph, 14, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, listens during the competition at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

Meredith Dunlap, 13, of Proctorville, Ohio, answers a question during competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

Ryan Frazee, 15, of Portsmouth, Ohio , participates in the competition during the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

Johannes Roxburgh, 13, of Durham, North Carolina, left, participates in the competition during the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Md., Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

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OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — A four-letter word sent Shradha Rachamreddy to a third-place finish in last year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee.

As the remaining spellers dwindled, Shradha was given “orle,” a heraldry term that means several small charges arranged to form a border within the edge of a field. It sounds exactly like “oral.” Shradha went with “orel” and heard the dreaded bell that signals a misspelled word.

“I overcomplicated it,” Shradha said nearly a year later. “It looks simple. It should have been simple, but I missed it.”

The good news for Shradha was that she nearly won it all as a seventh-grader, meaning she had one year of eligibility left. The 14-year-old from San Jose, California, returned as one of 245 spellers competing in this year’s bee, which began with Tuesday’s preliminary rounds at a convention center outside Washington, D.C.

Like other returning spellers, Shradha tried to learn from her mistake. She devoted part of her studying this year to the sorts of words she tends to miss.

“I did miss on a four-letter word, so my weakness tends to be those super short, tricky words, and I worked on compiling those into one list,” Shradha said. “I try to identify the words that seem likely to show up. If they’re not spelled particularly the way they sound, then I’m like, ‘OK, it’s fair game,’ and I study that.”

Learning as many words as possible isn’t a foolproof approach. No one in the nearly century-long history of the bee has been able to memorize the more than 500,000 words in Webster’s Unabridged dictionary, any of which can be selected for inclusion by Scripps’ word panel of former bee champions, linguists and other experts.

Last year’s champion, Dev Shah, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that to become a champion speller, you must accept that you’ll be asked a word you don’t know — and be calm enough to figure it out.

“The skill of guessing is everything,” he wrote.

Aryan Khedkhar, a 13-year-old from Rochester Hills, Michigan, who finished tied for fifth last year, breaks down tricky words into categories.

“There are words with roots and words without roots that you just have to memorize. The ones that you have to memorize, I use language patterns. That really helps. If it doesn’t have language patterns, I just try to use the simplest way possible,” Aryan said. “That’s what the spelling bee is about. It’s not about knowing as many words as you can.”

Aditi Muthukumar said she tried to address her weaknesses on words derived from French or from the many languages of the Indian subcontinent. But the 13-year-old from Westminster, Colorado, expects she’ll have to confront a word she doesn’t know while competing in her final bee.

“I mean, probably,” she said, “and I hope I’ll be OK with it.”

This year’s three spellers from Ghana showed up in a uniform — black turtlenecks, white pants, shoes adorned with the Ghanian flag. The centerpiece: custom-designed jackets with sleeves made of woven kente fabric.

“We have to wear it,” speller Abena Kwaffo said with a laugh.

Spelling is an individual pursuit, but Team Ghana was unified by national pride. Ghana has sent a contingent of spellers for years, long enough that former competitor Darren Sackey is coaching this year’s trio.

“It’s teamwork. The spellers work very hard together,” said Salome Dzakpasu, the Ghanian program director. “Training together on weekends, on weekdays, sometimes evenings, learning how to combine schoolwork and preparing for the bee.”

While the past quarter-century of the bee has been dominated by the offspring of Indian immigrants , the only international champion was Jody-Anne Maxwell of Jamaica in 1998. Ghana’s best finish was a tie for 18th by Afua Ansah in 2016.

N’Dom Darko-Asare, a Ghanian seventh-grader competing for the third time, is more comfortable than ever.

“You may be scared of standing on stage. Once you’ve been there before, it doesn’t really intimidate you as much,” 13-year-old N’Dom said.

VOCABULARY, DEFINED

Spellers have been asked multiple-choice vocabulary questions onstage since 2021, and before that, vocabulary was part of a written test that determined which spellers made the semifinals.

Nonetheless, Scripps treated “vocabulary” like a dirty word, instead employing a euphemism: “word meaning.” That meant when introducing the vocabulary questions, pronouncers Jacques Bailly and the Rev. Brian Sietsema were forced to use the awkward construction, “Your word meaning word is ...”

In Tuesday’s preliminary rounds, Sietsema handled pronunciation duties for the first batch of spellers. Those who spelled their first word correctly remained at the microphone while Sietsema told them, to cite one example, “Your vocabulary word is ‘terrarium.’” (Jordin Oremosu, a 14-year-old speller from Florida, giggled with relief when she was asked to define that word.)

“There were discussions about it,” Bailly said, adding though he wasn’t responsible for the change, “I always thought it should be ‘vocabulary.’”

Ben Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012. Follow him at https://x.com/APBenNuckols