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

Our Best Education Articles of 2020

In February of 2020, we launched the new website Greater Good in Education , a collection of free, research-based and -informed strategies and practices for the social, emotional, and ethical development of students, for the well-being of the adults who work with them, and for cultivating positive school cultures. Little did we know how much more crucial these resources would become over the course of the year during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, as we head back to school in 2021, things are looking a lot different than in past years. Our most popular education articles of 2020 can help you manage difficult emotions and other challenges at school in the pandemic, all while supporting the social-emotional well-being of your students.

In addition to these articles, you can also find tips, tools, and recommended readings in two resource guides we created in 2020: Supporting Learning and Well-Being During the Coronavirus Crisis and Resources to Support Anti-Racist Learning , which helps educators take action to undo the racism within themselves, encourage their colleagues to do the same, and teach and support their students in forming anti-racist identities.

Here are the 10 best education articles of 2020, based on a composite ranking of pageviews and editors’ picks.

Can the Lockdown Push Schools in a Positive Direction? , by Patrick Cook-Deegan: Here are five ways that COVID-19 could change education for the better.

How Teachers Can Navigate Difficult Emotions During School Closures , by Amy L. Eva: Here are some tools for staying calm and centered amid the coronavirus crisis.

Six Online Activities to Help Students Cope With COVID-19 , by Lea Waters: These well-being practices can help students feel connected and resilient during the pandemic.

Help Students Process COVID-19 Emotions With This Lesson Plan , by Maurice Elias: Music and the arts can help students transition back to school this year.

How to Teach Online So All Students Feel Like They Belong , by Becki Cohn-Vargas and Kathe Gogolewski: Educators can foster belonging and inclusion for all students, even online.

How Teachers Can Help Students With Special Needs Navigate Distance Learning , by Rebecca Branstetter: Kids with disabilities are often shortchanged by pandemic classroom conditions. Here are three tips for educators to boost their engagement and connection.

How to Reduce the Stress of Homeschooling on Everyone , by Rebecca Branstetter: A school psychologist offers advice to parents on how to support their child during school closures.

Three Ways to Help Your Kids Succeed at Distance Learning , by Christine Carter: How can parents support their children at the start of an uncertain school year?

How Schools Are Meeting Social-Emotional Needs During the Pandemic , by Frances Messano, Jason Atwood, and Stacey Childress: A new report looks at how schools have been grappling with the challenges imposed by COVID-19.

Six Ways to Help Your Students Make Sense of a Divisive Election , by Julie Halterman: The election is over, but many young people will need help understanding what just happened.

Train Your Brain to Be Kinder (video), by Jane Park: Boost your kindness by sending kind thoughts to someone you love—and to someone you don’t get along with—with a little guidance from these students.

From Othering to Belonging (podcast): We speak with john a. powell, director of the Othering & Belonging Institute, about racial justice, well-being, and widening our circles of human connection and concern.

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Protesters seen in tents on Columbia University's campus on April 24. The school later suspended protesters who didn't leave, and called New York City police to arrest those who occupied a building on campus. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images hide caption

Campus protests over the Gaza war

Columbia and emory universities change commencement plans after weeks of turmoil.

May 6, 2024 • Columbia cancels its main ceremony, while Emory's events will now take place in the suburbs outside its Atlanta campus. The moves come after weeks of protests against the war in Gaza.

The University of Mississippi's school banner is waved during the pregame activities prior to the start of an NCAA college football game in October 2021. The university's leader denounced actions at a protest last week. Rogelio V. Solis/AP hide caption

U of Mississippi opens probe over hostile protest that involved racist taunts

May 5, 2024 • Videos of Thursday's incident at the school were shared on social media showing heated confrontations between pro-Palestinian protesters and a larger group of counterprotesters.

Pedro Noguera at TED@NewYork talent search. Ryan Lash/Flickr hide caption

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Law enforcement form a circle around the encampment of pro-Palestinian protestors on April 29, at the University of Texas at Austin. Michael Minasi/KUT News hide caption

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Photos: campus protests continue nationwide as some turned violent.

May 4, 2024 • Photojournalists at NPR member stations documented protests at college and university campuses nationwide this week.

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NYC mayor says 'outside agitators' are co-opting Columbia protests—students disagree

May 2, 2024 • In an NPR interview, NYC Mayor Eric Adams said he had a 'gut reaction' that outside agitators were leading Columbia anti-war protests. Students beg to differ.

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College student explores rare mental health condition in award-winning podcast

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Biden forgives more than $6 billion in loans for 317,000 Art Institutes students

May 1, 2024 • President Biden announced the relief for attendees of the now-shuttered art schools, saying they "falsified data, knowingly misled students, and cheated borrowers into taking on mountains of debt."

Counterprotesters try to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment set up on the University of California, Los Angeles campus in the early hours of Wednesday. Etienne Laurent/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Violence erupts at UCLA as protests over Israel's war in Gaza escalate across the U.S.

May 1, 2024 • Members of pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups in Los Angeles clashed, with reports of fireworks and pepper spray use. Elsewhere, universities are tearing down encampments and arresting students.

Columbia University faculty and staff gather on the campus in solidarity with student protesters on Monday. Stefan Jeremiah/AP hide caption

How some faculty members are defending student protesters, in actions and in words

May 1, 2024 • The protests sweeping college campuses don't just involve students. Professors are increasingly pushing back against university administrations they see as infringing on students' free speech rights.

Using a tactical vehicle, New York City police enter an upper floor of Hamilton Hall on the Columbia University campus in New York on Tuesday, after protesters took over the building earlier in the day. Craig Ruttle/AP hide caption

New York police arrest 300 people as they clear Hamilton Hall at Columbia University

May 1, 2024 • New York police arrested pro-Palestinian demonstrators on two campuses Tuesday night, as officers cleared out a Columbia University building occupied by protesters.

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As pro-Palestinian protests spread, more university leaders weigh police involvement

April 30, 2024 • As college administrators face growing unrest on campuses, a growing number are grappling with whether to bring in law enforcement to quell the demonstrations.

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Police enter Columbia University's Hamilton Hall amid pro-Palestinian protests

April 30, 2024 • A steady stream of officers entered through a second story window using an NYPD armored vehicle with a mechanized drawbridge.

A man holds up a Palestinian flag as activists and students chant, surrounding piled barricades at an encampment at University Yard at George Washington University on April 29. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images hide caption

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Today's college protests over the gaza war echo history — but there are differences.

April 29, 2024 • Protests against Israel's war in Gaza on college campuses have expanded across the country. They're the biggest student protests, since college students demonstrated against the Vietnam war in the late sixties and early seventies.

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Nearly 300 people arrested at campus protests against the war in Gaza this weekend

April 28, 2024 • Police took more than 250 protesters into custody in Arizona, Indiana, Massachusetts and Missouri this weekend, as the war in Gaza continues to embroil campuses across the nation.

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April 26, 2024 • Hundreds of students have been arrested. Columbia says progress was made in negotiations with protesters, while at GWU, students are flouting orders to clear encampments.

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April 26, 2024 • A college professor who protested the Vietnam War in 1968 compares her experiences with the pro-Palestinian protests currently happening at Columbia University.

What the Future of Education Looks Like from Here

• Posted December 11, 2020
• By Emily Boudreau

After a year that involved a global pandemic, school closures, nationwide remote instruction, protests for racial justice, and an election, the role of education has never been more critical or more uncertain. When the dust settles from this year, what will education look like — and what should it aspire to?

To mark the end of its centennial year, HGSE convened a faculty-led discussion to explore those questions. The Future of Education panel, moderated by Dean Bridget Long and hosted by HGSE’s Askwith Forums , focused on hopes for education going forward, as well as HGSE’s role. “The story of HGSE is the story of pivotal decisions, meeting challenges, and tremendous growth,” Long said. “We have a long history of empowering our students and partners to be innovators in a constantly changing world. And that is needed now more than ever.”

Joining Long were Associate Professor Karen Brennan , Senior Lecturer Jennifer Cheatham , Assistant Professor Anthony Jack, and Professors Adriana Umaña-Taylor and Martin West , as they looked forward to what the future could hold for schools, educators, and communities:

… After the pandemic subsides

The pandemic heightened existing gaps and disparities and exposed a need to rethink how systems leaders design schools, instruction, and who they put at the center of that design. “As a leader, in the years before the pandemic hit, I realized the balance of our work as practitioners was off,” Cheatham said. “If we had been spending time knowing our children and our staff and designing schools for them, we might not be feeling the pain in the way we are. I think we’re learning something about what the real work of school is about.” In the coming years, the panelists hope that a widespread push to recognize the identity and health of the whole-child in K–12 and higher education will help educators design support systems that can reduce inequity on multiple levels.

… For the global community

As much as the pandemic isolated individuals, on the global scale, people have looked to connect with each other to find solutions and share ideas as they faced a common challenge. This year may have brought everyone together and allowed for exchange of ideas, policies, practices, and assessments across boundaries.

… For technological advancements

As educators and leaders create, design, and imagine the future, technology should be used in service of that vision rather than dictating it. As technology becomes a major part of how we communicate and share ideas, educators need to think critically about how to deploy technology strategically. “My stance on technology is that it should always be used in the service of our human purpose and interest,” said Brennan. “We’ve talked about racial equity, building relationships. Our values and purposes and goals need to lead the way, not the tech.”

… For teachers

Human connections and interactions are at the heart of education. At this time, it’s become abundantly clear that the role of the teacher in the school community is irreplaceable. “I think the next few years hinge on how much we’re willing to invest in educators and all of these additional supports in the school which essentially make learning possible,” Umaña-Taylor said, “these are the individuals who are making the future minds of the nation possible.”

Cutting-edge research and new knowledge must become part of the public discussion in order to meaningfully shape the policies and practices that influence the future of education. “I fundamentally believe that we as academics and scholars must be part of the conversation and not limit ourselves to just articles behind paywalls or policy paragraphs at the end of a paper,” Jack said. “We have to engage the larger public.”

… In 25 years

“We shouldn’t underestimate the possibility that the future might look a lot like the present,” West said. “As I think about the potential sources of change in education, and in American education in particular, I tend to think about longer-term trends as the key driver.” Changing student demographics, access to higher education, structural inequality, and the focus of school leaders are all longer-term trends that, according to panelists, will influence the future of education. 

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How technology is reinventing education

Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and other education scholars weigh in on what's next for some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom.

Image credit: Claire Scully

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.”

The turning point: Why we must transform education now

Global warming. Accelerated digital revolution. Growing inequalities. Democratic backsliding. Loss of biodiversity. Devastating pandemics. And the list goes on. These are just some of the most pressing challenges that we are facing today in our interconnected world.

The diagnosis is clear: Our current global education system is failing to address these alarming challenges and provide quality learning for everyone throughout life. We know that education today is not fulfilling its promise to help us shape peaceful, just, and sustainable societies. These findings were detailed in UNESCO’s Futures of Education Report in November 2021 which called for a new social contract for education.

That is why it has never been more crucial to reimagine the way we learn, what we learn and how we learn. The turning point is now. It’s time to transform education. How do we make that happen?

Here’s what you need to know. 

Why do we need to transform education?

The current state of the world calls for a major transformation in education to repair past injustices and enhance our capacity to act together for a more sustainable and just future. We must ensure the right to lifelong learning by providing all learners - of all ages in all contexts - the knowledge and skills they need to realize their full potential and live with dignity. Education can no longer be limited to a single period of one’s lifetime. Everyone, starting with the most marginalized and disadvantaged in our societies, must be entitled to learning opportunities throughout life both for employment and personal agency. A new social contract for education must unite us around collective endeavours and provide the knowledge and innovation needed to shape a better world anchored in social, economic, and environmental justice.  

What are the key areas that need to be transformed?

• Inclusive, equitable, safe and healthy schools

Education is in crisis. High rates of poverty, exclusion and gender inequality continue to hold millions back from learning. Moreover, COVID-19 further exposed the inequities in education access and quality, and violence, armed conflict, disasters and reversal of women’s rights have increased insecurity. Inclusive, transformative education must ensure that all learners have unhindered access to and participation in education, that they are safe and healthy, free from violence and discrimination, and are supported with comprehensive care services within school settings. Transforming education requires a significant increase in investment in quality education, a strong foundation in comprehensive early childhood development and education, and must be underpinned by strong political commitment, sound planning, and a robust evidence base.

• Learning and skills for life, work and sustainable development

There is a crisis in foundational learning, of literacy and numeracy skills among young learners. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, learning poverty has increased by a third in low- and middle-income countries, with an estimated 70% of 10-year-olds unable to understand a simple written text. Children with disabilities are 42% less likely to have foundational reading and numeracy skills compared to their peers. More than 771 million people still lack basic literacy skills, two-thirds of whom are women. Transforming education means empowering learners with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to be resilient, adaptable and prepared for the uncertain future while contributing to human and planetary well-being and sustainable development. To do so, there must be emphasis on foundational learning for basic literacy and numeracy; education for sustainable development, which encompasses environmental and climate change education; and skills for employment and entrepreneurship.

• Teachers, teaching and the teaching profession

Teachers are essential for achieving learning outcomes, and for achieving SDG 4 and the transformation of education. But teachers and education personnel are confronted by four major challenges: Teacher shortages; lack of professional development opportunities; low status and working conditions; and lack of capacity to develop teacher leadership, autonomy and innovation. Accelerating progress toward SDG 4 and transforming education require that there is an adequate number of teachers to meet learners’ needs, and all education personnel are trained, motivated, and supported. This can only be possible when education is adequately funded, and policies recognize and support the teaching profession, to improve their status and working conditions.

• Digital learning and transformation

The COVID-19 crisis drove unprecedented innovations in remote learning through harnessing digital technologies. At the same time, the digital divide excluded many from learning, with nearly one-third of school-age children (463 million) without access to distance learning. These inequities in access meant some groups, such as young women and girls, were left out of learning opportunities. Digital transformation requires harnessing technology as part of larger systemic efforts to transform education, making it more inclusive, equitable, effective, relevant, and sustainable. Investments and action in digital learning should be guided by the three core principles: Center the most marginalized; Free, high-quality digital education content; and Pedagogical innovation and change.

• Financing of education

While global education spending has grown overall, it has been thwarted by high population growth, the surmounting costs of managing education during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the diversion of aid to other emergencies, leaving a massive global education financial gap amounting to US$ 148 billion annually. In this context, the first step toward transformation is to urge funders to redirect resources back to education to close the funding gap. Following that, countries must have significantly increased and sustainable financing for achieving SDG 4 and that these resources must be equitably and effectively allocated and monitored. Addressing the gaps in education financing requires policy actions in three key areas: Mobilizing more resources, especially domestic; increasing efficiency and equity of allocations and expenditures; and improving education financing data. Finally, determining which areas needs to be financed, and how, will be informed by recommendations from each of the other four action tracks .

What is the Transforming Education Summit?

UNESCO is hosting the Transforming Education Pre-Summit on 28-30 June 2022, a meeting of  over 140 Ministers of Education, as well as  policy and business leaders and youth activists, who are coming together to build a roadmap to transform education globally. This meeting is a precursor to the Transforming Education Summit to be held on 19 September 2022 at the UN General Assembly in New York. This high-level summit is convened by the UN Secretary General to radically change our approach to education systems. Focusing on 5 key areas of transformation, the meeting seeks to mobilize political ambition, action, solutions and solidarity to transform education: to take stock of efforts to recover pandemic-related learning losses; to reimagine education systems for the world of today and tomorrow; and to revitalize national and global efforts to achieve SDG-4.

• More on the Transforming Education Summit
• More on the Pre-Summit

Related items

• Future of education
• SDG: SDG 4 - Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

This article is related to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals .

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The 10 Education Issues Everybody Should Be Talking About

• Share article

What issues have the potential to define—or re define—education in the year ahead? Is there a next “big thing” that could shift the K-12 experience or conversation?

These were the questions Education Week set out to answer in this second annual “10 Big Ideas in Education” report.

You can read about last year’s ideas here . In 2019, though, things are different.

This year, we asked Education Week reporters to read the tea leaves and analyze what was happening in classrooms, school districts, and legislatures across the country. What insights could reporters offer practitioners for the year ahead?

Some of the ideas here are speculative. Some are warning shots, others more optimistic. But all 10 of them here have one thing in common: They share a sense of urgency.

Accompanied by compelling illustrations and outside perspectives from leading researchers, advocates, and practitioners, this year’s Big Ideas might make you uncomfortable, or seem improbable. The goal was to provoke and empower you as you consider them.

Let us know what you think, and what big ideas matter to your classroom, school, or district. Tweet your comments with #K12BigIdeas .

No. 1: Kids are right. School is boring.

Out-of-school learning is often more meaningful than anything that happens in a classroom, writes Kevin Bushweller, the Executive Editor of EdWeek Market Brief. His essay tackling the relevance gap is accompanied by a Q&A with advice on nurturing, rather than stifling students’ natural curiosity. Read more.

No. 2: Teachers have trust issues. And it’s no wonder why.

Many teachers may have lost faith in the system, says Andrew Ujifusa, but they haven’t lost hope. The Assistant Editor unpacks this year’s outbreak of teacher activism. And read an account from a disaffected educator on how he built a coalition of his own. Read more.

No. 3: Special education is broken.

Forty years since students with disabilities were legally guaranteed a public school education, many still don’t receive the education they deserve, writes Associate Editor Christina A. Samuels. Delve into her argument and hear from a disability civil rights pioneer on how to create an equitable path for students. Read more.

No. 4: Schools are embracing bilingualism, but only for some students.

Staff Writer Corey Mitchell explains the inclusion problem at the heart of bilingual education. His essay includes a perspective from a researcher on dismantling elite bilingualism. Read more.

No. 5: A world without annual testing may be closer than you think.

There’s agreement that we have a dysfunctional standardized-testing system in the United States, Associate Editor Stephen Sawchuk writes. But killing it would come with some serious tradeoffs. Sawchuk’s musing on the alternatives to annual tests is accompanied by an argument for more rigorous classroom assignments by a teacher-practice expert. Read more.

No. 6: There are lessons to be learned from the educational experiences of black students in military families.

Drawing on his personal experience growing up in an Air Force family, Staff Writer Daarel Burnette II highlights emerging research on military-connected students. Learn more about his findings and hear from two researchers on what a new ESSA mandate means for these students. Read more.

No. 7: School segregation is not an intractable American problem.

Racial and economic segregation remains deeply entrenched in American schools. Staff Writer Denisa R. Superville considers the six steps one district is taking to change that. Her analysis is accompanied by an essay from the president of the American Educational Research Association on what is perpetuating education inequality. Read more.

No. 8: Consent doesn’t just belong in sex ed. class. It needs to start a lot earlier.

Assistant Editor Sarah D. Sparks looked at the research on teaching consent and found schools and families do way too little, way too late. Her report is partnered with a researcher’s practical guide to developmentally appropriate consent education. Read more.

No. 9: Education has an innovation problem.

Are education leaders spending too much time chasing the latest tech trends to maintain what they have? Staff Writer Benjamin Herold explores the innovation trap. Two technologists offer three tips for putting maintenance front and center in school management. Read more.

No. 10: There are two powerful forces changing college admissions.

Some colleges are rewriting the admissions script for potential students. Senior Contributing Writer Catherine Gewertz surveys this changing college admissions landscape. Her insights are accompanied by one teacher’s advice for navigating underserved students through the college application process. Read more.

Wait, there’s more.

Want to know what educators really think about innovation? A new Education Week Research Center survey delves into what’s behind the common buzzword for teachers, principals, and district leaders. Take a look at the survey results.

A version of this article appeared in the January 09, 2019 edition of Education Week as What’s on the Horizon for 2019?

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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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Best of 2022: The Year’s Top Stories About Education & America’s Schools

By Steve Snyder

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What education policy experts are watching for in 2022

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, daphna bassok , daphna bassok nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy @daphnabassok stephanie riegg cellini , stephanie riegg cellini nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy michael hansen , michael hansen senior fellow - brown center on education policy , the herman and george r. brown chair - governance studies @drmikehansen douglas n. harris , douglas n. harris nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy , professor and chair, department of economics - tulane university @douglasharris99 jon valant , and jon valant director - brown center on education policy , senior fellow - governance studies @jonvalant kenneth k. wong kenneth k. wong nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy.

January 7, 2022

Entering 2022, the world of education policy and practice is at a turning point. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt the day-to-day learning for children across the nation, bringing anxiety and uncertainty to yet another year. Contentious school-board meetings attract headlines as controversy swirls around critical race theory and transgender students’ rights. The looming midterm elections threaten to upend the balance of power in Washington, with serious implications for the federal education landscape. All of these issues—and many more—will have a tremendous impact on students, teachers, families, and American society as a whole; whether that impact is positive or negative remains to be seen.

Below, experts from the Brown Center on Education Policy identify the education stories that they’ll be following in 2022, providing analysis on how these issues could shape the learning landscape for the next 12 months—and possibly well into the future.

I will also be watching the Department of Education’s negotiated rulemaking sessions and following any subsequent regulatory changes to federal student-aid programs. I expect to see changes to income-driven repayment plans and will be monitoring debates over regulations governing institutional and programmatic eligibility for federal student-loan programs. Notably, the Department of Education will be re-evaluating Gainful Employment regulations—put in place by the Obama administration and rescinded by the Trump administration—which tied eligibility for federal funding to graduates’ earnings and debt.

But the biggest and most concerning hole has been in the  substitute teacher force —and the ripple effects on school communities have been broad and deep. Based on personal communications with Nicola Soares, president of  Kelly Education , the largest education staffing provider in the country, the pandemic is exacerbating several problematic trends that have been quietly simmering for years. These are: (1) a growing reliance on long-term substitutes to fill permanent teacher positions; (2) a shrinking supply of qualified individuals willing to fill short-term substitute vacancies; and, (3) steadily declining fill rates for schools’ substitute requests. Many schools in high-need settings have long faced challenges with adequate, reliable substitutes, and the pandemic has turned these localized trouble spots into a widespread catastrophe. Though federal pandemic-relief funds could be used to meet the short-term weakness in the substitute labor market (and mainline teacher compensation, too ), this is an area where we sorely need more research and policy solutions for a permanent fix.

First, what’s to come of the vaccine for ages 0-4? This is now the main impediment to resuming in-person activity. This is the only large group that currently cannot be vaccinated. Also, outbreaks are triggering day-care closures, which has a significant impact on parents (especially mothers), including teachers and other school staff.

Second, will schools (and day cares) require the vaccine for the fall of 2022? Kudos to my hometown of New Orleans, which still appears to be the nation’s only district to require vaccination. Schools normally require a wide variety of other vaccines, and the COVID-19 vaccines are very effective. However, this issue is unfortunately going to trigger a new round of intense political conflict and opposition that will likely delay the end of the pandemic.

Third, will we start to see signs of permanent changes in schooling a result of COVID-19? In a previous post on this blog, I proposed some possibilities. There are some real opportunities before us, but whether we can take advantage of them depends on the first two questions. We can’t know about these long-term effects on schooling until we address the COVID-19 crisis so that people get beyond survival mode and start planning and looking ahead again. I’m hopeful, though not especially optimistic, that we’ll start to see this during 2022.

The CTC and universal pre-K top my list for 2022, but it’s a long list. I’ll also be watching the Supreme Court’s ruling on vouchers in Carson v. Makin , how issues like critical race theory and detracking play into the 2022 elections, and whether we start to see more signs of school/district innovation in response to COVID-19 and the recovery funds that followed.

Electoral dynamics will affect several important issues: the selection of state superintendents; the use of American Rescue Plan funds; the management of safe return to in-person learning for students; the integration of racial justice and diversity into curriculum; the growth of charter schools; and, above all, the extent to which education issues are leveraged to polarize rather than heal the growing divisions among the American public.

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May 7, 2024

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• Our Mission

What Is Education For?

Read an excerpt from a new book by Sir Ken Robinson and Kate Robinson, which calls for redesigning education for the future.

What is education for? As it happens, people differ sharply on this question. It is what is known as an “essentially contested concept.” Like “democracy” and “justice,” “education” means different things to different people. Various factors can contribute to a person’s understanding of the purpose of education, including their background and circumstances. It is also inflected by how they view related issues such as ethnicity, gender, and social class. Still, not having an agreed-upon definition of education doesn’t mean we can’t discuss it or do anything about it.

We just need to be clear on terms. There are a few terms that are often confused or used interchangeably—“learning,” “education,” “training,” and “school”—but there are important differences between them. Learning is the process of acquiring new skills and understanding. Education is an organized system of learning. Training is a type of education that is focused on learning specific skills. A school is a community of learners: a group that comes together to learn with and from each other. It is vital that we differentiate these terms: children love to learn, they do it naturally; many have a hard time with education, and some have big problems with school.

There are many assumptions of compulsory education. One is that young people need to know, understand, and be able to do certain things that they most likely would not if they were left to their own devices. What these things are and how best to ensure students learn them are complicated and often controversial issues. Another assumption is that compulsory education is a preparation for what will come afterward, like getting a good job or going on to higher education.

So, what does it mean to be educated now? Well, I believe that education should expand our consciousness, capabilities, sensitivities, and cultural understanding. It should enlarge our worldview. As we all live in two worlds—the world within you that exists only because you do, and the world around you—the core purpose of education is to enable students to understand both worlds. In today’s climate, there is also a new and urgent challenge: to provide forms of education that engage young people with the global-economic issues of environmental well-being.

This core purpose of education can be broken down into four basic purposes.

Education should enable young people to engage with the world within them as well as the world around them. In Western cultures, there is a firm distinction between the two worlds, between thinking and feeling, objectivity and subjectivity. This distinction is misguided. There is a deep correlation between our experience of the world around us and how we feel. As we explored in the previous chapters, all individuals have unique strengths and weaknesses, outlooks and personalities. Students do not come in standard physical shapes, nor do their abilities and personalities. They all have their own aptitudes and dispositions and different ways of understanding things. Education is therefore deeply personal. It is about cultivating the minds and hearts of living people. Engaging them as individuals is at the heart of raising achievement.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasizes that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” and that “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Many of the deepest problems in current systems of education result from losing sight of this basic principle.

Schools should enable students to understand their own cultures and to respect the diversity of others. There are various definitions of culture, but in this context the most appropriate is “the values and forms of behavior that characterize different social groups.” To put it more bluntly, it is “the way we do things around here.” Education is one of the ways that communities pass on their values from one generation to the next. For some, education is a way of preserving a culture against outside influences. For others, it is a way of promoting cultural tolerance. As the world becomes more crowded and connected, it is becoming more complex culturally. Living respectfully with diversity is not just an ethical choice, it is a practical imperative.

There should be three cultural priorities for schools: to help students understand their own cultures, to understand other cultures, and to promote a sense of cultural tolerance and coexistence. The lives of all communities can be hugely enriched by celebrating their own cultures and the practices and traditions of other cultures.

Education should enable students to become economically responsible and independent. This is one of the reasons governments take such a keen interest in education: they know that an educated workforce is essential to creating economic prosperity. Leaders of the Industrial Revolution knew that education was critical to creating the types of workforce they required, too. But the world of work has changed so profoundly since then, and continues to do so at an ever-quickening pace. We know that many of the jobs of previous decades are disappearing and being rapidly replaced by contemporary counterparts. It is almost impossible to predict the direction of advancing technologies, and where they will take us.

How can schools prepare students to navigate this ever-changing economic landscape? They must connect students with their unique talents and interests, dissolve the division between academic and vocational programs, and foster practical partnerships between schools and the world of work, so that young people can experience working environments as part of their education, not simply when it is time for them to enter the labor market.

Education should enable young people to become active and compassionate citizens. We live in densely woven social systems. The benefits we derive from them depend on our working together to sustain them. The empowerment of individuals has to be balanced by practicing the values and responsibilities of collective life, and of democracy in particular. Our freedoms in democratic societies are not automatic. They come from centuries of struggle against tyranny and autocracy and those who foment sectarianism, hatred, and fear. Those struggles are far from over. As John Dewey observed, “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”

For a democratic society to function, it depends upon the majority of its people to be active within the democratic process. In many democracies, this is increasingly not the case. Schools should engage students in becoming active, and proactive, democratic participants. An academic civics course will scratch the surface, but to nurture a deeply rooted respect for democracy, it is essential to give young people real-life democratic experiences long before they come of age to vote.

Eight Core Competencies

The conventional curriculum is based on a collection of separate subjects. These are prioritized according to beliefs around the limited understanding of intelligence we discussed in the previous chapter, as well as what is deemed to be important later in life. The idea of “subjects” suggests that each subject, whether mathematics, science, art, or language, stands completely separate from all the other subjects. This is problematic. Mathematics, for example, is not defined only by propositional knowledge; it is a combination of types of knowledge, including concepts, processes, and methods as well as propositional knowledge. This is also true of science, art, and languages, and of all other subjects. It is therefore much more useful to focus on the concept of disciplines rather than subjects.

Disciplines are fluid; they constantly merge and collaborate. In focusing on disciplines rather than subjects we can also explore the concept of interdisciplinary learning. This is a much more holistic approach that mirrors real life more closely—it is rare that activities outside of school are as clearly segregated as conventional curriculums suggest. A journalist writing an article, for example, must be able to call upon skills of conversation, deductive reasoning, literacy, and social sciences. A surgeon must understand the academic concept of the patient’s condition, as well as the practical application of the appropriate procedure. At least, we would certainly hope this is the case should we find ourselves being wheeled into surgery.

The concept of disciplines brings us to a better starting point when planning the curriculum, which is to ask what students should know and be able to do as a result of their education. The four purposes above suggest eight core competencies that, if properly integrated into education, will equip students who leave school to engage in the economic, cultural, social, and personal challenges they will inevitably face in their lives. These competencies are curiosity, creativity, criticism, communication, collaboration, compassion, composure, and citizenship. Rather than be triggered by age, they should be interwoven from the beginning of a student’s educational journey and nurtured throughout.

From Imagine If: Creating a Future for Us All by Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D and Kate Robinson, published by Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2022 by the Estate of Sir Kenneth Robinson and Kate Robinson.

The unexpected explanation for why school segregation spiked

On eve of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, a study finds policy choices explain the rise in segregated schools.

It’s well documented that after falling for years, school segregation has risen again in the United States. But why? New research by academics at the University of Southern California and Stanford University concludes that some popular theories are not to blame.

Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, a study being released Monday shows a pronounced increase in school segregation since 1988, particularly in large school districts with significant numbers of Black students.

Overall, school segregation between Black and White students has increased by 25 percent since 1991 in the 533 large districts serving at least 2,500 Black students — a significant increase but nowhere near the decline that occurred in the aftermath of Brown , according to the study. (Of note: the paper makes clear that most of the school segregation in the United States is driven by demographic differences between districts , not within them.)

A school district that was entirely segregated would score 1.0 on the researchers’ segregation scale, whereas a perfectly integrated district, where every school perfectly matched the overall district’s demographics, would score 0.0.

Looking at the nation’s 100 largest districts, segregation was 0.45 in 1968. That fell to 0.17 by 1986 and then rose to 0.28 by 2019, researchers found. So while schools are nowhere near as segregated as they were before courts began enforcing the Brown decision, segregation has risen in recent decades.

Researchers offered the example of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools system in North Carolina, where segregation was absolute — a score of 1.0 — in 1950, before Brown . By 1968, it remained a still-high 0.66 — at that time, the average White student’s school was 10 percent Black, while the average Black student’s school was 76 percent Black (the difference between 10 and 76 produces the score of 0.66).

Then, in 1971, after the courts ordered a desegregation plan in another landmark court case, this one involving the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district , the segregation score there shrank to just 0.03. (The average White student’s school was 31 percent Black; the average Black student’s school was 34 percent Black.) By 1991, it was still low at 0.10 before rising again. In 2022, segregation had reached 0.44.

The study finds that the rise nationally was not driven by increasing housing segregation. Housing segregation certainly helps explain school segregation. But since 1991, housing has become less segregated.

The study also finds that rising school segregation is not driven by racial economic inequality because racial economic inequality also declined over this period.

Both of these trends “would have led to lower school segregation, had nothing else changed,” said the paper by Ann E. Owens, a sociologist at USC, and Sean F. Reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford.

So what does explain the rise?

Rather than systemic forces that are difficult to change, these trends are driven by policy choices, they conclude. The researchers point to two specific policies: federal courts releasing school districts, including Charlotte-Mecklenburg, from obligations to desegregate schools beginning in significant numbers in the late 1990s; and school-choice policies that let parents pick what school their children attend.

“It’s not these big structural factors that are outside the school districts’ control that are driving this,” Reardon said in an interview. “It’s things that are under the control of the educational system.”

Court-ordered desegregation plans implemented based on the Brown decision had reduced segregation. But then judges began lifting those orders. “If you switch from an active desegregation effort and go back to neighborhood schools, school segregation is going to go up a lot,” Reardon said.

Had those court orders not been lifted, the study estimates that school segregation would have grown 20 percent less than it did.

At the same time, choice systems such as the introduction of charter schools allowed parents more control — and many used that to choose schools with students like their own. The new study specifically looked at the growth of charter schools and found that if charter schools had not expanded, school segregation would have grown 14 percent less.

These two factors account for all of the rise in school segregation from 2000 to 2019, the paper found.

The rising segregation numbers “appear to be the direct result of educational policy and legal decisions,” the paper concludes. “They are not the inevitable result of demographic changes — and can be changed by alternative policy choices.”

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Here are six ways to make Australian education more inclusive

This is not an easy fix, but our schools should be safe places where students grow and learn together

Australia has a global reputation for high quality education. But inclusion for children and young people with disability in all that education can offer is something we aren’t getting right .

This is not an easy fix – not all schools are resourced or welcoming to students with disability. Families of students with disability often find themselves exhausted by how much they must advocate to have their child understood and have their needs met. This can lead to feeling as if mainstream schools are too hard (and sometimes too scary) and is part of the reason why, despite knowing that inclusive education benefits all children, with or without disability, we are still building new special schools.

When combined with a teacher shortage, and one of the least equitably funded education systems in the world, the aim of achieving inclusive education is often seen as something we know is right but is unaffordable.

Here are six suggestions for what an inclusive system could look like and how it might be funded:

1. Support teachers and students to grow and learn together

We need whole-school approaches with well-trained classroom assistants assigned to early childhood and school teachers. When there’s enough time to co-plan lessons, students can be taught in ways that allow full participation in collaborative classroom activities. Specific training for this needs to be included in Initial teacher education and in ongoing professional development and should include practical skills informed by people with lived experience of disability .

Schools should be safe places where students grow and learn together. Teachers should be confident in their training and resourced to meet the academic, social-emotional and aspirational goals of all students.

There should be support for students who have challenges meeting the behaviour standards that keep classrooms safe, so those children can remain in school every day.

2. A shift towards self-advocacy

Individual education plans should be written and resourced according to each student’s goals and progress. Technology should be available to meet the needs of all students to achieve these goals.

As the student develops capacity, the shift to self-advocacy should be scaffolded so students would be increasingly active in conversations about their support needs. The complexity around funding between the National Disability Insurance Scheme and education specific funding for disability support would be part of this process. School transitions from early childhood through to a meaningful and aspirational post-school life would be planned for and supported by ongoing services.

3. Budget: a complex challenge that requires systemic change

Education in Australia is funded (and administrated) in a complex mixture of political processes negotiated between federal and state governments.

More federal funding is provided to private schools, and state schools receive a mixture of state and federal funding. A significant proportion of students are in private education where generally more money is spent on each student, but most students with disability are educated in state schools.

A commitment to inclusive education has to start with a serious consideration to prioritise federal funding to create universally accessible state education. No federal (or state) funding should be allocated to schools that have policies or processes that exclude students or teachers with disability. Of the $29.1bn the commonwealth pays to schools a year, $11.2bn is allocated to government schools. The commonwealth provides at least 20% of each government school’s Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) and 80% of each non-government school’s SRS . With this funding should come an obligation to inclusive provision.

4. Allocate funding in new and innovative ways

States have different processes for funding students with disability, and generally, how this money is allocated depends on the number of students and the assessment of their needs. Ultimately it is allocated by school leaders to adjust teaching methods and support through providing learning assistance, aids and modifying the school building and any other learning needs.

Some students have additional supports depending on their funding from the NDIS. Some families and carers have more success in using different funding to support students than others. With advancing technology and an already established Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Student with Disability (NCCD), we have the administrative capability to allocate this funding in new and innovative ways.

5. We need accessible infrastructure

An ideal system should have all early childhood centres and school buildings constructed to principles of universal design – from automatic wide entrances to flexible, spacious and well-equipped classrooms with break out areas for those who struggle with loud, overstimulating environments, as well as rmps, lifts and accessible, well-designed toilets. Victoria has some examples of supported inclusion schools and it will be good to watch and learn from this.

6. More transparency

Recent studies of the NDIS highlight the vital role of government stewardship where market solutions fall short, particularly through price controls, equitable sharing of information and innovation in services.

A parallel can be drawn with the country’s education system, where school choice mirrors this market scenario. Unlike the NDIS, which aims to empower individuals by allocating funds directly for services of their choice, access to successful education often correlates with economic status. This issue underscores the necessity for universally inclusive education systems that do not segregate based on financial capabilities.

Currently, a primary tool for school choice is the My Schools website , which provides detailed profiles of each school, including data on student demographics, National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (Naplan) results, funding, enrolment figures and attendance rates. Despite these resources, there remains a notable gap: the lack of a reporting on support for students with disabilities.

There is also an opportunity to enhance transparency and set accessibility standards on this platform, thus aiding families in making well-informed education choices for their children.

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May 5, 2024 | Mikala Kane - Neag School of Education

Neag School of Education Celebrates 165 Bachelor of Science Graduates

Graduates of the Sport Management and Integrated Bachelor's/Master's Teacher Education programs were celebrated Sunday morning at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts

The UConn Neag School of Education Class of 2024 processes from the Gentry Building to the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday, led by Jonathan XIV and banner carrier Carter Newman '24 (ED). (Evan Elmore/Neag School photo)

UConn’s Neag School of Education held its undergraduate commencement ceremony at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday morning, celebrating 165 Bachelor of Science graduates from its Sport Management and Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s Teacher Education programs.

The joyful day began with a beloved Neag School tradition: the procession of graduates down Glenbrook Road from the Gentry Building to the Jorgensen, led by UConn’s mascot Jonathan XIV and Jonathan XV. Once inside the auditorium, the Class of 2024 was greeted by cheers and applause from hundreds of family, friends, and other guests. The Neag School of Education banner was presented and placed onstage by Carter Newman, the class representative. Lead Marshal Megan Staples, associate professor of mathematics education, then opened the commencement ceremony before welcoming Dean Jason G. Irizarry to the podium.

“What a journey it has been for all of you,” Irizarry said to the Class of 2024. “None of us could have imagined, in the Fall of 2020, what your undergraduate years would entail. You have persevered through a global pandemic, online and hybrid learning, and emerged as stronger, more compassionate individuals. Through it all, you have continued to pursue your dreams with enthusiasm and vigor and never given up hope for a brighter future. I am in awe of your resilience and could not be prouder of every single one of you.”

This year’s commencement speaker was Kiana Foster-Mauro ’20 (ED), ’21 MA, the 2024 Connecticut Teacher of the Year and a fourth-grade teacher at Nathan Hale Arts Magnet School in New London. Foster-Mauro has presented at conferences, nationally and locally. She has been a member of the National Association for Multicultural Education since 2018 and was recently accepted to present on facilitating critical conversations around current events, identity, human rights, and mental health.

“As you prepare to take the next steps in your journey, I hope that you hold tight to the things that make you come alive,” Foster-Mauro said to the graduates. “I hope that you continue to chase after the wildest of your dreams. I hope that you set your soul ablaze with what you love and that you are brave enough to share that light with the rest of us. I hope that you have the boldness to speak your truth and stand up for what you know is right. I hope that you are unapologetically yourself.”

While a student at UConn, Foster-Mauro served on the executive board of Leadership in Diversity, a student-led organization dedicated to diversifying education. She is passionate about community and empowering others. She enjoys teaching her students reading, writing, and social studies daily and connecting with former students just down the hall and at her annual classroom family reunion. Outside of the classroom, Foster-Mauro extends her commitment to education, diversity, and community as a dance teacher at The Dance Extension and company advisor to the Community Dance Ensemble.

“Kiana is an educator, activist, and lifelong learner … [she] is committed to empowering her students through culturally sustaining and human rights-centered learning,” Irizarry said.

Another beloved Neag School commencement tradition is a performance by the graduating music education students. This year, 18 graduates performed an arrangement of “Life is a Highway” by Tom Cochrane, prompting nearly the entire room to stand up and dance.

President Radenka Maric was in attendance to congratulate the graduates and confer the Bachelor of Science degrees.

“I charge you now to assume fully the responsibilities of your new status, to enlarge upon the foundations of knowledge which you have acquired, to take upon yourselves the obligations of an enlarged vision, and to seek to do your fair share of the work of this world,” Maric said.

The UConn Neag School of Education commencement ceremony was also livestreamed and is still available for viewing.

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Judge dismisses lawsuit by mother who said school hid teen’s gender expression

FILE - In this photograph provided by Stephen Davis Phillips/Goldwater Institute, Amber Lavigne, of Newcastle, Maine, poses on March 25, 2023, at her home in Newcastle. A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Maine woman who accused school officials of encouraging her teen’s gender expression by providing a chest binder and using a new name and pronouns, without consulting parents. (Stephen Davis Phillips/Goldwater Institute via AP)

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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Maine woman who accused school officials of encouraging her teen’s gender expression by providing a chest binder and using a new name and pronouns, without consulting parents.

U.S. District Judge Jon Levy acknowledged his decision that a mother such as Amber Lavigne “might expect school officials to keep her informed about how her child is navigating matters related to gender identity” but he concluded that she failed to establish legal claims for which the school district could be held liable.

The lawsuit filed last year was the latest to weigh a minor’s right to privacy when confiding in a mental health professional against a parent’s right to supervise their children’s health and education.

According to the lawsuit, a school counselor provided the chest binder and instruction on how to use it. The mother, who has since begun home-schooling her teen, said the school also began calling the 13-year-old by a different name and pronouns.

The lawsuit contended the mother had a “right to control and direct the care, custody, education, upbringing and healthcare decisions of her children,” and that Great Salt Bay Community School in Damariscotta violated her constitutional right by keeping the student’s gender expression from parents.

The judge previously dismissed claims against individual school officials. The remaining claim against the school board was dismissed by the judge in his May 3 order.

WA education minister received letter warning of troubling behaviour of teenager shot dead by police

WARNING: This story contains details and footage that may distress some readers. 

The behaviour of the 16-year-old Perth boy fatally shot by police on the weekend was so concerning, a letter had been written to the education minister about him, WA Premier Roger Cook confirmed on Monday. 

But he said while education authorities "continued to manage" him, police were powerless to act on the concerns as he had not committed any crime.

The news came as parents of students at Rossmoyne Senior High School, where the boy was a student, expressed their shock about the incident on Monday morning. 

One parent told the ABC they were concerned their child was being influenced by the teenager, and had raised their concerns with police weeks ago.

The teenager stabbed a man, aged in his 30s, in the car park of a Bunnings store in Willetton on Saturday night, having rung triple-0 and warned police he was going to commit "acts of violence".

The boy was then fatally shot by police after lunging at officers with a large kitchen knife.

Authorities alleged the youth became radicalised online and is believed to have suffered mental health issues.

Premier Roger Cook said a letter was sent to Education Minister Tony Buti by a parent, raising concerns about the teen's behaviour.

"The minister automatically referred the letter to the Education Department for actioning," Premer Cook told reporters.

"The Education Department took that information on board and continued to manage that young man."

He said several people had become sufficiently worried about the teen to report their concerns to police.

"[The boy] sent a text message to others in the community … many of those people then subsequently contacted police to express their concerns about the elevation in his mood and intentions," Mr Cook said.

The ABC has seen a copy of the text message purportedly sent by the teen to a number of his friends prior to Saturday night's stabbing.

The message refers to his Islamic faith and makes mention of jihad (struggle).

It warns recipients to "clear your technology such as laptops and phones including search history … as the police will likely look into my contacts".

Anti-extremist program

However, the Premier said police were not able to interfere, as the boy had not committed any crimes.

"The police are responsible for enforcing the law. The law does not prohibit people from having extreme thoughts," he said.

The teenager was one of nine people in WA engaged in a state-run anti-extremist program.

Mr Cook said the boy was a voluntary participant in that program for the past two years.

"This young gentleman was part of our Countering Violent Extremism program, so we were obviously well aware of the thoughts that he was harbouring," he said.

Teenager had 'basic phone'

However, the premier denied the teenager was posting his intentions to carry out an attack on social media.

"As part of the countering violent extremism program the individual in question only has a very basic telephone," Mr Cook said.

"There is a range of measures and I think that includes limiting their access to online media and to social media."

School expresses sadness

Rossmoyne's principal, Alan Brown, penned a letter to parents on Sunday expressing "great sadness" over the incident.

"Within the school, we will have support staff available to assist students, staff and parents," the email read.

Mr Brown said the school would contact parents directly if staff were concerned about their child.

"Young people may want to meet in groups or turn to social media for support and to express their feelings," he said.

"Whilst this may be helpful, please be aware of potential misinformation or inappropriate comments."

Some parents spoke with the media outside the school on Monday morning, expressing their shock. 

One mother, whose daughter is in Year 11, said "the whole community is very sad".

"As a community we are sad, I'm very sad, the children are sad," she said.

"They couldn't sleep or study yesterday all day – I don't know what we should do about this."

'Kind-hearted' boy

She said her daughter was anxious about going to school, so she "asked the school to take care of [her]" on Monday.

"I got an email from the principal yesterday and they have offered some services, but I have no words," she said.

The woman's younger son is in year nine at the school and knew the16-year-old.

"He was a very kind-hearted and helpful child," she said.

 "My son ... said he was very friendly and he has helped him before as a friend – he's a good child."

The premier said the government and police were providing extra support at the high school.

"We have people at Rossmoyne today and there is an increased police presence as a result of the anxieties the community must be feeling," Mr Cook said.

Mr Cook met with dozens of community and cultural leaders on Sunday afternoon, thanking them for their role in assisting police with their rapid response.

Mr Cook said the Islamic community attempted to redirect the boy's extremist views and gave police "as much notice as possible," when they noticed a shift in his behaviour.

'Single person acting alone'

The incident has not been classified as a terrorist attack.

"We are confident that this was a single act by a single person acting alone. There is no further threat to the community," Mr Cook said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reiterated that sentiment and said WA Police were taking a considered approach.

When questioned about whether the definition of terrorism should be changed to politically motivated rather than religiously motivated, Mr Albanese said "it's the right time to back our police".

"It's the right time to back in our processes that they undertake but my first thoughts are with the victim of this incident but also, to applaud the very swift action of WA Police," he said.

"But also, to also acknowledge the very important work that the Muslim community did to alert police to the messages that had been sent out by this young man."

Mr Albanese acknowledged concerns about the threat of extreme material being accessed on social media.

"Social media where people can be pushed through the use of algorithms of what occurs towards more extreme positions is of course a concern," he said.

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The perth teenager shot dead by police was taking part in a deradicalisation program. experts say australia's youth are particularly vulnerable.

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As States Resist Federal Gender Rules, Schools Are Caught in the Middle

Conservative state governments are forbidding school districts from doing what the Department of Education says they must, under new Title IX regulations on students’ gender identity.

By Amy Harmon

New civil rights regulations released last month by the Biden administration presented school districts across the nation with a clear choice: Either adopt policies that allow transgender students to use the bathrooms, wear the uniforms and be called by the pronouns that correspond with their gender identity, or risk losing federal funding.

But several Republican-led states have responded with an equally clear message for their schools: Steer clear of such policies.

The clashing state and federal directives have put school officials in a difficult spot, education officials said. School boards may face federal investigations, litigation from parents, threats of a state takeover or lost funding.

“No matter which way a school district goes, they’re going to possibly draw a lawsuit from someone in disagreement, whether that’s a federal regulator or a private person who doesn’t agree with how the district handled it,” said Sonja Trainor, managing director for school law at the National School Boards Association. “A lot of schools are going to be in no man’s land.”

The dispute centers on Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. The new regulations from the Biden administration interpret “discrimination on the basis of sex” to include discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes and gender identity. The regulations did not address whether transgender students should be able to play on school sports teams corresponding to their gender identity. A second rule on that question is expected later.

“These regulations make it crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,” Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary, told reporters when the new regulations were announced in April.

But in four separate lawsuits, filed in federal courts in Alabama, Louisiana, Texas and Kentucky, attorneys general in more than a dozen states are trying to block the regulations from going to effect in August as planned.

And lawyers for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization, have filed a challenge on behalf of the Rapides Parish School Board in Louisiana.

“We would not want to put ourselves in a position where the federal government would take funding away because we follow the original purpose of Title IX,” Jeff Powell, the district superintendent, said in a statement. “We want students in our district to have privacy and safety when they access sex-specific facilities.”

Most school districts across the country receive federal funds for special education programs, and schools serving high concentrations of low-income families get federal support. But they get much more funding from state governments and, in some cases, local property taxes. Most school boards are directly answerable to their states.

“Schools are trying to ensure that kids are safe and that they have access to educational services,” said Francisco M. Negron Jr., founder of K12 Counsel, a school law advocacy and policy firm. “When there’s inconsistency in the law, it’s unsettling and it’s distracting.”

Several Republican-led states have passed laws that forbid transgender students to use school bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. Gov. Brad Little of Idaho signed a bill last month that bars teachers from referring to a student by a name or pronoun that does not align with the student’s birth sex without parental consent.

Education officials in at least five states — Oklahoma, Florida , Louisiana , Montana and South Carolina — have urged school boards to maintain policies that “recognize the distinction between sex and gender identity,” as Elsie Arntzen, Montana’s superintendent of public instruction, put it in her letter to school leaders in the state.

For now, the new federal regulations supersede any state law or directive from a state official on the issue. But one or more federal judges, legal experts said, could issue an order blocking the regulations from taking effect locally or nationally while the lawsuits make their way through the courts. And the issue may ultimately reach the Supreme Court, which has so far declined to weigh in on how Title IX should be interpreted with regard to gender identity.

The new regulations are premised in part on the Biden administration’s interpretation of Bostock v. Clayton County, the landmark 2020 Supreme Court case in which the court ruled that discrimination based on transgender status necessarily entails treating individuals differently because of their sex.

But in the lawsuits, Republican-led states argue that the Department of Education exceeded its authority by issuing regulations that expand the definition of what constitutes sex discrimination. They point out that the Bostock decision was about workplace discrimination, and that Title IX includes specific exceptions for separating the sexes in certain educational situations, like sports teams. That shows, they argue, that Title IX was intended to recognize biological differences between males and females, not to address gender identity.

And some Republican governors are not waiting for the courts to act.

“I am instructing the Texas Education Agency to ignore your illegal dictate,” Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in a letter to President Biden this week.

And Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas signed an executive order on Thursday stating that schools in her state would continue to enforce restrictions on which bathrooms and pronouns transgender students are allowed to use.

“My message to Joe Biden and the federal government,” Ms. Sanders said at a news conference, “is we will not comply.”

Amy Harmon covers how shifting conceptions of gender affect everyday life in the United States. More about Amy Harmon