Chalkbeat

NYC’s enrollment free fall leaves Mamdani and Samuels with a small schools crisis. What will they do?

2026-10-30T20:25:15+00:00

This is the third story in a three-part series. Read parts one and two here. And keep Chalkbeat’s valuable education coverage at the top of your feeds by clicking here and checking the box next to our name.

Nearly a year into his administration, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has not shared a vision for addressing many of the pressing challenges facing the New York City school system.

One of the most urgent is the small schools crisis, driven by years of declining enrollment.

It’s a crisis that past administrations have allowed to fester — and one that some district leaders and principals say Mamdani and his schools chancellor, Kamar Samuels, could make a defining feature of their education agenda. By closing and merging schools, Samuels and Mamdani could cut costs, expand academic opportunities for vulnerable students, and help integrate students from different backgrounds, proponents argue.

But it remains to be seen whether the Mamdani administration is willing to spend the time and political capital necessary to close and merge schools at scale — and in the face of likely pushback from families and educators.

“The city must choose between managing quiet decline — or leading a bold, community-driven project of renewal,” wrote Marielys Divanne, a longtime education leader and former adviser under Mayor Eric Adams, in a report released last year.

The number of schools with fewer than 250 students — the size under which Education Department leaders say it’s difficult to offer a robust education — has multiplied eightfold over the past 25 years, from 42 to 335, a Chalkbeat analysis found.

Meanwhile, enrollment in public schools is in free fall. The K-12 student population in public schools is down 187,000 over the past 12 years to 790,000 due to birth rates falling and families leaving the city. It’s projected to fall almost as much in the decade to come.

“The challenge now is that there is such a backlog of tough decisions,” said Karin Goldmark, a former deputy chancellor who oversaw school closures and mergers under de Blasio. “The sheer volume of action required means superintendents and principals will have to do heavy lifting.”

Murry Bergtraum High School for Business Careers in lower Manhattan enrolls about 90 students, some of whom have to go to night school to meet graduation requirements. That's despite receiving more than $46,000 per student last year, roughly twice the citywide average.

Samuels indicated earlier this month that he doesn’t want to create a systemwide plan to reduce the number of schools. He said he prefers that future plans to consolidate schools come from communities rather than top-down. He launched working groups in five districts to develop community-driven plans and promised to expand those groups citywide. Officials haven’t yet offered a timeline for that work.

In recent weeks, superintendents have floated proposals to close at least two underenrolled schools, a high school in Harlem and a middle school in the South Bronx, Chalkbeat has learned.

“The data shows that schools with larger enrollment can offer more advanced coursework, more enrichment like arts and sports, and more opportunities our students deserve,” Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said. “At the same time, every school community is unique, and this work must be led locally.”

Easy to open, hard to close: the origins of the small schools crisis

The problem the city faces now is, in some ways, one of its own making.

When Mayor Michael Bloomberg opened hundreds of new schools in the early 2000s, he promised a marketplace that would increase choice for families while weeding out the weakest schools.

Bloomberg’s market-based reforms, however, didn’t work as envisioned because in practice it has been easier for the city to open schools than to close them.

“What’s happened is an embrace of the marketplace on the front end of the process but an unwillingness to pull the thread through on the back end,” said Jennifer Jennings, a sociology professor at Princeton University who recently published a book on the history of New York City’s high school admissions system.

Multiple mayors have failed to meaningfully address the small schools problem.

De Blasio, who believed in shuttering low-performing schools only as a last resort, closed and merged some schools, but those efforts slowed when the COVID pandemic hit in 2020. The Adams administration largely delegated decision-making about consolidating schools to local superintendents and opened new schools to try to recover from the enrollment nosedive that began in the pandemic.

The resulting system has been costly.

Since 2010, the number of principals has grown 11% to 1,610, while the number of assistant principals jumped 31% to 3,518, according to data provided to Chalkbeat by the Independent Budget Office.

In 2020, de Blasio introduced an emergency policy called “hold harmless” to keep school budgets steady even as they lost enrollment. Every mayor since, including Mamdani, has continued that policy, spending a total of almost $2 billion.

From crisis to opportunity: Why some educators say mergers offer a path forward

Some community members say mergers can be less disruptive than closures because students and staff stick together instead of dispersing across many schools.

They can also, in some cases, foster integration if officials deliberately merge schools with different student populations — an approach Samuels embraced as a superintendent of diverse districts in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

He often points to Arts & Letters 305 United, the Brooklyn school where he oversaw a merger of a largely Black, high poverty, and underenrolled elementary school with a more affluent, white, and oversubscribed school, as an example of what’s possible.

Samuels described the school today as “truly integrated.” Arts & Letters 305 United — which is now a little more than one-third Black and one-third white — is outperforming citywide averages in math and reading and is attracting families at a time when the district’s enrollment has declined, he said at a recent town hall.

Some parts of the school system cannot be easily integrated when it comes to race or family income. But there is potential for integrating students with different academic needs.

That was the case when Health, Education, Research Occupations High School, or HERO, in the Bronx merged in 2021 with the School of Hospitality and Tourism, a tiny and struggling school on an adjacent campus, said HERO Principal Kristin Cahill.

Hospitality and Tourism had 173 students, fewer than half of whom graduated on time and only 15% of whom enrolled in college. At HERO, 90% of students graduated on time and often left high school with an associate degree and training for careers in healthcare and education.

HERO benefited too, Cahill said. The merger allowed the school to grow from about 500 students to more than 700.

And while joining the two schools didn’t significantly change their racial and socioeconomic makeup, it ensured a “critical mass” of advanced students in every class. That allowed teachers to make their courses more challenging, which ultimately benefited all students, Cahill said.

Kristin Cahill, the principal of Health, Education, and Research Occupations High School.

Cahill believes mid-sized high schools like hers can be a template for the city by preserving the benefits of small schools while bringing some of the variety that larger high schools offer.

“This is a model that students and families can get excited about, while providing a pathway out of segregation and dwindling school size,” Cahill recently wrote in policy recommendations she hopes will inform Mamdani’s education agenda.

School mergers and closures could face uphill battle

To make a dent in the small schools crisis, Samuels would have to potentially consider dozens of closures or mergers at once. But to win the approval of the Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP, the body that votes on school consolidation plans, the city must approach each proposal with enough care to make community members feel heard, current and former officials said.

It’s a challenge that has vexed past administrations.

“The amount of time and attention required at the leadership and staff levels to do even one school closure or merger makes it unfeasible to do at scale,” said Dan Weisberg, the former first deputy chancellor under Adams who oversaw closures and mergers for four years.

Adriana Alicea, a Queens parent and the chair of the PEP’s committee on school utilization, said the panel wants to see evidence that officials have gotten to know a school community beyond its enrollment numbers, have considered alternatives to closure, and have ensured students who are displaced get access to more opportunities.

“The more you’re in the community, the more you understand the little nuances, and that goes a long way,” she said.

When school communities feel unheard and mobilize fierce opposition, Alicea said, there is an “expectation” that the Education Department will withdraw the proposals before they reach a PEP vote. That happened last spring with plans that Samuels helped draw up as a superintendent to close three small middle schools on the Upper West Side.

Goldmark, the former deputy chancellor under de Blasio, said it’s valuable to seek community buy-in, but the city can’t expect full support for every proposal.

Samuels, she said, is “highly skilled at cultivating consensus whenever possible, and in the past he’s also shown a willingness to press forward without it if needed to serve students better.”

Alicea, for her part, believes it’s possible to address the small schools crisis at scale without sacrificing community collaboration.

“It is possible for us to do both,” she said. “It is possible to make grand sweeping changes and to let the community be the ones holding the broom.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Former MSCS employee sues district, alleges sexual harassment by ex-superintendent

2026-10-30T20:10:06+00:00

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A former Memphis schools employee is suing the district, alleging that ex-Superintendent Marie Feagins exposed herself twice in 2024 and demoted her in retaliation for refusing her advances.

Camalyn S. Turner, who worked as Feagins’ special assistant for four months, is seeking $1.5 million from the Shelby County Board of Education, which operates Memphis-Shelby County Schools, alleging it created an abusive and hostile working environment.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court, Turner alleges she was forced to resign on Oct. 15, 2024, after two incidents of nudity and weeks of retaliation from Feagins. She didn’t report the harassment while an MSCS employee out of fear of further retaliation, the lawsuit says, but reported the incidents to district counsel shortly after resigning.

MSCS officials acknowledged the lawsuit but declined to comment further. Feagins is currently suing MSCS and district leaders in two of her own legal cases after she was suddenly fired from the superintendent role in January 2025. She is not named as a defendant in Turner’s lawsuit.

Feagins did not respond to Chalkbeat’s requests for comment. The Daily Memphian reported that Feagins denied the sexual harassment allegations after they were brought up by MSCS’ legal defense in a July 2025 hearing related to one of her lawsuits against the district.

“They used Ms. Turner’s allegations against Ms. Feagins for their own use,” said Murray Wells, who’s representing Turner in the case. “So it would be hard for them to deny that now.”

According to the lawsuit, Turner also filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging harassment and retaliation. The EEOC dismissed Turner’s complaint in August but notified her of her right to sue.

Wells said that process is just a formality.

“It’s not a finding on the merits at all,” he said.

Turner claims that she moved to Memphis to work as Feagins’ special assistant and stayed at Feagins’ residence as a short-term guest in August 2024.

On Aug. 19, the lawsuit says, Feagins called upstairs for Turner to come down and listen to a conversation she was having with a local school board member. Wells said it’s unclear whether that conversation was on the phone or not.

“When she looked up near the bottom of the staircase, Dr. Feagins was standing at the foot of the stairs completely naked, staring at Plaintiff and waiting for her,” the lawsuit says. Turner immediately turned around and went back upstairs.

The next day, Feagins gave Turner’s position to another employee and told her she would be transferred to a lower-paying role, saying she had “consistently failed to meet expectations.” Later that month, Feagins attempted to blame Turner for a budget overrun of more than $50,000 on an event called Legacy Night, which Turner says she had not helped plan.

The second incident happened in early October, according to the lawsuit, when Feagins “insisted” Turner remain in a room while she undressed. The next day, Feagins allegedly asked Turner to come to her home and dress her for an event. Turner declined.

After denying her advances, Turner alleges that Feagins sent her a “barrage of emails” the following week, trying to blame her for “district-wide failures in emergency parent communications.” She resigned shortly after.

“Having been exposed to the Superintendent’s nudity twice, demoted the day after the first exposure, publicly humiliated, falsely accused of financial misconduct, excluded from her own job, and threatened repeatedly with writeups and transfer, Plaintiff reasonably concluded that further retaliation was imminent,” the lawsuit says.

The day after Turner resigned, Feagins allegedly offered Turner an additional $20,000 to stay in her position. She did not accept the offer, according to the lawsuit.

Wells said MSCS officials conducted a “robust investigation” on Turner’s claims against Feagins after her resignation. Turner was initially hesitant to file a public lawsuit and attempted to resolve her complaints with the district, but the parties couldn’t come to an agreement, Wells said.

“Dr. Feagins is so polarizing,” he said. “There’s a faction of people here who are so loyal to her…there’s going to be public backlash. We didn’t want to be in that fight.”

In April, Turner secured an early win in another anti-retaliation lawsuit filed on her behalf against the Atlanta public school district. That lawsuit claims Turner was fired from a special assistant position after raising concerns about violations of federal disability law and grading discrepancies in the district.

A judge denied immunity to the school system and named leaders, meaning they could be held liable if found to have violated Turner’s rights. The Atlanta lawsuit is ongoing.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated to include information from an interview with Murray Wells.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago school board member Rivas scrutinized over 2018 work suspension

2026-10-30T20:07:33+00:00

Less than a week before Election Day, school board member Carlos Rivas is facing criticism for a 2018 incident in which records show he was disciplined for excessive drinking and unwanted touching of a colleague while working at UIC College Prep, a Noble charter high school on the Near West Side.

Rivas was elected in 2024 to represent District 3, which has now been divided into 3a and 3b. He is running for reelection in District 3b, which covers Humboldt Park and Hermosa, against Jason Dónes, who works at an education nonprofit. This year, voters are electing all 21 members of the school board after a two-year period in which 11 were still appointed by the mayor.

The revelations about Rivas’ past conduct surfaced this week in campaign mailers funded by Our Schools PAC, which is heavily funded by the Chicago Teachers Union and is backing Dónes. The Chicago Sun-Times also reported on the allegations earlier this week. Rivas is backed by SEIU, the union representing school support staff, the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, Urban Center, a pro-school choice political organization, and Common Ground Collective, an anti-CTU political action committee heavily funded by billionaire Michael Sacks.

A campaign mailer about school board member Carlos Rivas, who is running for reelection, highlights the discipline he faced in 2018 while working for a Noble charter school.

Rivas declined an interview request but said in a statement that events in question happened “during an incredibly difficult period while caring for my mother, who was suffering from end-stage renal failure and dementia.” In a statement, he said he “took responsibility” for the incident and received support through Noble’s Employee Assistance Program.

“I believe in accountability, growth, and second chances,” Rivas said, adding that he went on to serve at Noble for another four years. He also said his past motivates him to focus on improving mental health for employees.

On Friday, a few parents who live in or send their kids to school in District 3b spoke during a press conference near Chicago High School for the Arts, or ChiArts, and called for Rivas to step down.

“He shouldn’t be sitting as a board member with this pattern of behavior,” said Rousemary Vega, a mother of a sophomore at ChiArts, who has previously criticized Rivas for what she described as a lack of advocacy to help save ChiArts when it was under threat of closure last year. Rivas voted with the rest of the board to make ChiArts a CPS school.

Ann Baltzer, a former Noble employee and mother of a student in District 3b, spoke at a small press conference Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, to denounce school board member Carlos Rivas, who was disciplined by Noble in 2018 for alleged "unwanted touching" of a colleague during a work event.

In August 2018, when Rivas was alumni counselor at UIC College Prep, he allegedly “engaged in an inappropriate, unwanted touching of another employee without consent” at a work event while intoxicated at the Robey Hotel in Wicker Park, according to a disciplinary notice obtained by Chalkbeat. It was written by Audrey Borling, then principal of UIC College Prep.

The notice also says that Rivas couldn’t deny these allegations “due to an inability to remember events of the evening,” and that he’d been warned before by Noble officials “about getting intoxicated at work-related events.”

“Rivas’ actions have caused employee complaints, have violated Noble’s policies, have put Noble in jeopardy of legal action by his co-workers,” Borling wrote.

Rivas was given a “last opportunity” to continue working at Noble by agreeing to a ten-day suspension without pay, according to the notice.

While Rivas’ signature is not on the disciplinary notice obtained by Chalkbeat, he did not deny its contents.

Rivas left Noble Schools in June 2022 and that same month took a job as director of public affairs of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, according to his LinkedIn.

In a statement issued Friday, Rivas’ opponent Dónes, who is also endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, did not call on Rivas to step down, but described the allegations as “disqualifying.”

“Families deserve better than a Board Member who makes excuses for their bad behavior,” Dones’ statement said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan students miss school at alarming rates, but absenteeism hasn’t been a hot election issue

2026-10-30T19:11:56+00:00

This story is part of a collaboration between Chalkbeat Detroit and the Detroit Free Press to cover key education issues in the race for Michigan’s next governor.

The candidates running to be Michigan’s next governor — Democrat Jocelyn Benson and Republican John James — have both promised an education turnaround. But a big problem that has received little attention during their campaigns lurks behind the state’s dismal test scores.

Too many students miss too much school.

During the previous school year, about 27% of K-12 students were chronically absent (defined as missing 10% of school days or more). In some urban and rural districts, the rate was much higher. For instance, Detroit Public Schools Community District’s (DPSCD) chronic absenteeism rate for the previous school year was 60% while it stood at 44% in Alpena Public Schools.

State Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia, a former teacher who chairs the Michigan Senate’s Education Committee, summed up the problem succinctly: “You can’t teach a kid who’s not in the classroom,” she said.

Michigan’s chronic absenteeism rate is significantly higher than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic when it spiked nationally (it was about 20% during the 2018-19 school year). Michigan’s rate is among the highest nationally, and it has consistently stood out as the worst in the Midwest, according to data compiled by FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University.

Chronic absenteeism is associated with lower achievement and likelihood of graduation, said Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, a professor at Wayne State University’s College of Education and the director of the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research.

But poor attendance doesn’t just hold back the students missing school, it hurts their classmates too, said Lenhoff. When a lot of students don’t attend class, the teacher needs to catch them up when they return, diverting the focus from planned lessons, she said.

Education is a centerpiece of governor’s race

Michigan’s gubernatorial candidates, John James and Jocelyn Benson, say they will work aggressively to reduce student absences.

Benson and James have offered competing education plans. James wants to hold back third graders who fail a reading proficiency test and opt into a federal tax credit that unlocks funds for education expenses such as private school tuition and tutoring. Benson wants to expand free pre-K to all 3-year-olds and increase starting pay for teachers.

But both have named absenteeism as a problem they would tackle if elected.

Benson, the sitting secretary of state from Detroit, promises on her campaign website to create “a Statewide Absenteeism Strategy along with Local Implementation Plans to help local communities address chronic absenteeism.”

“At the core of Jocelyn’s education plan is the Michigan education guarantee: a promise that every kid who graduates from a public school in Michigan is prepared to succeed, whether they’re heading to college, a skilled trade, or the workforce,” said Benson campaign Press Secretary Rajan Srinivasan. “She knows tackling chronic absenteeism is critical to delivering on that promise.”

Benson, if elected, will “work with educators, experts, and community leaders” to improve attendance and “invest in wraparound services for students and families,” Srinivasan said.

James, the Shelby Township Republican who represents Oakland and Macomb County suburbs, vows on his campaign website to “partner with parents and teachers to address absenteeism from class.” He elaborated in a statement, calling for a statewide standard, citing Indiana’s new truancy law as a model. The law, which deals with unexcused absences, triggers an initial parent conference to address attendance problems before escalating to prosecution. James called for “earlier intervention and stronger accountability” in Michigan.

Education experts and leaders say there is no silver bullet or one-size-fits-all solution to chronic absenteeism. Different root causes underlie a problem that merits a variety of approaches, they say. But they agree that Michigan’s attendance problem holds back the state and deserves more attention. Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, said there aren’t clear partisan lines on the issue.

The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) has celebrated a consistent decline in the chronic absenteeism rate since its peak during the 2021-22 school year. But more work is needed, the department writes in recent guidance on attendance and engagement.

MDE declined to make someone available for an interview. In a statement, department spokesperson Ken Coleman said, “The Michigan Department of Education remains committed to collaborating with state government officials to put students first.”

MDE has set a target goal of reaching a chronic absenteeism rate of about 26% for the 2031-32 school year (about one percentage point lower than it was in the 2025-26 school year and about 6.5 points higher than where it stood pre-COVID).

Meanwhile, other states have made a much more aggressive pledge to cut their chronic absenteeism rates by half over five years.

James blasted MDE’s target. “More than one in four Michigan students are chronically absent, yet Lansing’s goal is to barely improve that number by 2032? This is exactly the kind of low expectation that has left our schools ranked 45th in the nation. We should be raising the bar, not settling for the bare minimum,” he said.

Srinivasan said Benson will “set ambitious goals to get more kids back into the classroom.”

Barriers to attendance include housing issues, work schedules

Education experts and leaders listed many barriers to attendance: transportation challenges, mental health, unpredictable work schedules and housing instability.They also talked about what brings students in the door: free meals, engaging lessons and a general feeling that they belong there. And they have floated a variety of ideas to reduce chronic absenteeism.

Polehanki has previously introduced legislation to make kindergarten mandatory, saying it would set the expectation that children attend school regularly at the beginning of the educational journey.

McCann emphasized transportation funding. “We know that kids learn better when they’re in class earlier, and kindergarten is a good thing, but we’re not going to solve this problem without making sure that kids have reliable access to and from school,” he said.

DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti called for Lansing to address education funding inequities that create disparities between the city and wealthier districts in the suburbs, saying “that just gives us more resources to attack the concentration of poverty that you see in the city that holds back our families.”

To address chronic absenteeism, DPSCD has experimented with attendance agents, health hubs, paying students for perfect attendance, and school buses for high schoolers. DPSCD has seen a significant drop in its chronic absenteeism rate: During the 2021-22 school year, it stood at 77% compared with 60% during 2025-26 school year.

While Vitti said problem solving with families whose children are chronically absent should be the first step, he said there needs to be greater accountability measures for parents whose children regularly miss school though some reject penalizing parents.

Lenhoff pointed to Minnesota, where the state Legislature created a study group to identify policy recommendations for addressing chronic absenteeism, and funded a pilot program for school district initiatives to improve attendance such as a teacher-student mentor program and student-led attendance teams.

State Rep. Nancy DeBoer, a Republican from Holland who chairs the Michigan House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Workforce, called for sharing ideas that work to improve attendance across districts.

“Everybody has to come together on this,” she said.

Contact Clara Hendrickson at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743.

Here’s how a controversial ‘public Christian school’ got started in a blue state — and what happened next

2026-10-30T19:01:23+00:00

A Colorado lawyer named Brad Miller sat in the formal courtroom of the U.S. Supreme Court with its marble columns, red velvet curtains, and mahogany furnishings. It was April 30, 2025, and he was a guest of lawyers who worked for a powerful conservative legal group, Alliance Defending Freedom.

That day, he watched oral arguments in a case out of Oklahoma that had the potential to deliver a landmark decision clearing the way for religious charter schools in America. Three weeks later, the high court deadlocked 4-4. The status quo — a ban on religious charter schools — would stand.

But at the behest of Alliance Defending Freedom, Miller soon found a way to relitigate the same core question about public funding for religious schools, emails show. He worked with an education group he represented to quietly launch a public Christian school for 30 kindergarten through fifth grade students in a working-class southern Colorado community that has become more Republican in recent years. It was the foundation for a new test case.

Riverstone Academy opened less than three months after the Supreme Court ruling inside a low-slung white cinderblock building in an industrial area in Pueblo County. It was led by a young pastor named Quin Friberg who once said on a Christian talk show that “we’d be far better off without public education.”

The school received hundreds of thousands in state funding to teach students using religious curriculum and offer them what its website called “a Christian foundation.”

The tiny school generated outsized controversy: three lawsuits, a $20,000 settlement with the family of a student, and the resignation of a local school board member involved in the approval. It also generated heated debate about separation of church and state, school choice, and public transparency.

Riverstone closed after one school year, following the passage of a state law cracking down on its authorizer. The religious liberty lawsuit that Miller helped spark — one Alliance Defending Freedom never joined — fizzled at the same time.

But in an interview, Miller said that in places like Pueblo, Riverstone may have advanced the idea that education aligned with a family’s values “shouldn’t just be left to those who have the money to pay for it.”

Riverstone’s hasty creation reflects the urgency backers felt in their bid to return the question of public funding for religious schools to a sympathetic high court. It also highlighted how a solidly blue state was caught flat-footed by a challenge to church-state separation, stymied by vague laws and fear of being sued.

A school choice experiment meant to trigger a precedent-setting legal decision never reached that goal. Instead, Riverstone galvanized state lawmakers to restrict the unusual start-up route the school’s backers used and led a judge to rule that hiding the school’s religious nature from the public during that process broke the law.

A year later, people in Pueblo County and beyond are still grappling with the school’s rapid rise and fall and what it means for the changing landscape of public funding for religious schools.

Bryan Kelsen, a Pueblo County pastor whose church housed Riverstone for several months, said there’s no simple answer to the questions Riverstone raised.

Bryan Kelsen, the pastor at Christ Church Pueblo West, which housed Riverstone Academy for four months after its original building closed because of safety problems.

Parents seeking a Christian education for their children pay taxes too and should have the option of a tuition-free Christian school — as long as parents who don’t want that have a comparable secular choice, he said.

He also understands the tradeoffs when government funding is involved.

“When you take the money, you give up the ability to make the decisions because he who holds the purse strings is also the one who is deciding how that money gets spent,” Kelsen said.

Ronda Rein, the former superintendent in Pueblo County, believes public schools should be secular and that if families want religious education for their kids, they should pay for it.

“I am a conservative. I am a Christian, but there is a reason for the separation of church and state,” she said. “I feel like if we open up this Pandora’s box, then we are opening it up to fund all religions, and I think that that really gets sticky.”

Low start-up hurdles and shifting politics set the stage for Riverstone

Lax state laws, compliant school boards, and an ascendent local movement to center Christianity in the public square all helped Riverstone find a home in Pueblo County.

The school was authorized by Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ERBOCES, one of Colorado’s 21 public education co-ops. Such groups typically provide services like special education to several school districts but in this case offered an uncommon route to public school start-up.

Ken Witt led ERBOCES when the education co-op quietly authorized Riverstone and later sued the state for religious discrimination.

Known for pushing into the gray areas of state law, ERBOCES was led by a conservative education player named Ken Witt. Miller was its lawyer. The unelected board overseeing the co-op agreed to authorize Riverstone during a five-minute meeting.

Witt didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.

The school board of Pueblo County School District 70, where Riverstone would be located, also signed off on the school with no dissent, never revealing publicly that it would be a Christian academy.

Miller, who represented the school district, too, had broached the idea with the board a few weeks before the June 2025 vote in an email labeled “PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL.”

In an interview, Miller downplayed his involvement in Riverstone, saying he was simply working for his client, ERBOCES.

“I provide answers as to whether something is legal, what the risks are, if it’s questionable, and I’m not the creator of these sorts of … I’m just a lawyer,” he said.

To become a state-recognized public school, Riverstone also needed a school code from the Colorado Department of Education. A Chalkbeat investigation showed nearly two dozen state employees were looped into conversations about what to do. After days of debate and a meeting with an assistant attorney general, the department granted the code, fearing a lawsuit if it refused.

Long a Democratic stronghold, Pueblo County’s changing politics helped set the stage for Riverstone. Amid that shift, a group called Forging Pueblo began helping conservative candidates win local city council, county commission, and school board seats. Co-founded by Friberg in 2018, Forging Pueblo consisted of local churches and individuals who sought to infuse public institutions with a Christian worldview.

“They’ve actually been very smart about it,” said Daneya Esgar, a former Democratic state lawmaker who lives in Pueblo. “They didn’t just start off with going after all the ‘big’ political seats. They’ve been stacking boards and commissions for a few years with their people.”

Plus, a dramatically diminished local media presence meant residents had “no idea what’s happening with their government,” she said.

Friberg didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.

Hannah McDowell and Chris Sutton, a couple with three children in Pueblo District 70 schools, said the school board and Miller pushed boundaries — on small things like whether the public could attend certain committee meetings and big things like accepting a controversial charter school into the district.

Chris Sutton and Hannah McDowell, the parents of three Pueblo District 70 students and one graduate, have repeatedly spoken out about Riverstone and the school board's lack of transparency.

“They incrementally tested those boundaries … and found that even with some pushback, they were successfully getting what they wanted,” McDowell said.

“I think that’s what made it right for Riverstone,” she said of the Pueblo community. “What better place could you think of?”

A district leader tried to warn the state

Rein, the former Pueblo District 70 Superintendent, disagreed with the plan to let Riverstone into the district, but felt like she was between a rock and a hard place.

She worried she could lose her job if she publicly revealed Riverstone’s religious nature because Miller had labeled his email message “confidential.” Even so, she said she decided to warn state officials, hoping they might “take a harder look at it” and withhold the school code.

Rein called the Colorado Department of Education in July 2025. She said she was surprised to learn during the three-minute conversation that department officials already knew Riverstone would be religious and planned to give it a school code anyway.

“I felt like they, too, felt … they were also in a rock and a hard spot, and that there was no stopping” the school, she said.

Rein has since retired to help her husband with health challenges. Looking back, she said her district was complicit in Riverstone’s creation because she and other officials knew the school was religious but didn’t publicly share that information.

But she also believes the district was a victim: “I felt like we were all bamboozled. Brad Miller is a very good puppeteer of his boards.”

Asked to respond, Miller said, “I don’t know what she intended by that characterization, and I’ve heard it recited in other media, but I’ve never voted on a school board action, and I don’t think I’ve got the power to influence the way people suspect I might.”

Did Riverstone change the debate?

With strict limits on co-ops like ERBOCES now enshrined in state law, there’s no clear path for another Riverstone. But with another Oklahoma charter school case swirling through the court system and the Trump administration’s tax credit scholarship program on the horizon, it may be a matter of time.

McDowell said the Riverstone saga strengthened her belief in separation of church and state.

“For my own kids, I’m happy that they should read any of the religious texts that they want .. They should learn and explore their curiosity because it’s all part of our society or the human condition,” she said. “But being taught that one thing is the truth, I don’t think that should be any part of public school.”

Kelsen describes himself as a big supporter of Pueblo District 70 schools, where some of his children have graduated. But he thinks the Riverstone experiment, “got the ball rolling at least to have people considering the options.”

That’s true for his own growing church, which has begun to contemplate building a school on the church grounds.

“I know that as a church, we are much more interested in Christian education today than we were before Riverstone,” he said.

Asked if he’d want public funding for the school, he said, “Probably not.”

Timeline: Riverstone from start to finish

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Newark students show academic growth on new state tests, though most fall short of proficiency

2026-10-30T16:34:12+00:00

Most students in Newark Public Schools fell short of grade-level expectations in math and English language arts on New Jersey’s new state tests this past spring.

Fewer than 30% of Newark students in grades 3-8 were considered proficient on the exams in the 2025-26 school year, with rates ranging from 13.7% among eighth graders to 29.1% among third graders. In English language arts, proficiency rates ranged from 22% among fourth graders to 35% among seventh graders.

The results, presented at Thursday’s school board meeting, offer an early look at student performance under New Jersey’s new adaptive assessments. The tests, administered annually to students in grades 3-9, now adjust the difficulty of questions based on students’ answers. Changes to the tests’ content and scoring mean the results cannot be directly compared with those of previous years, district officials cautioned.

“The review of our achievement data requires a new lens,” said Rochanda Jackson, executive director of the district’s Office of Policy, Planning, Evaluation, and Testing, during a prerecorded presentation.

While the results are preliminary, this is the public’s first view into last year’s student performance metrics. The presentation came after delays in releasing the scores left educators starting the school year without results they typically use to identify students needing extra support and plan teacher training.

Newark’s general education students trailed statewide proficiency rates in math and English language arts, though the gaps were smaller in higher grades, Jackson said. Students across New Jersey also struggled on the new tests, with preliminary state results released in September showing that most third and fourth graders fell short of reading expectations and fewer than a quarter of eighth graders were proficient in math.

The findings offer an incomplete picture as New Jersey has yet to publicly release its full statewide results, including breakdowns by subgroup.

District officials also pointed to signs of academic progress. About two-thirds of Newark students demonstrated typical or high growth in math, while roughly 60% did so in English language arts, Jackson said.

Jackson reported that math proficiency increased across all tested grades and courses compared with last year, bringing overall performance within 0.6% of pre-pandemic levels. Ninth grade English language arts proficiency remained above pre-pandemic levels after surpassing them last year, she said.

Newark has expanded tutoring, summer and Saturday-school programs, and introduced a new English language arts curriculum to support students’ academic recovery. A national report released in May found that Newark students were learning faster than their peers in most U.S. school districts, though they remained more than two grade levels behind the 2019 national average in reading and math.

Superintendent Roger León said the district has begun working with teachers to adjust classroom instruction based on the new results. He said the district would continue providing additional academic support through before- and after-school programs and Saturday classes.

“They created a new test, which then creates a new baseline for us,” León said.

Samantha Olander writes about Newark and New York schools.

The 2026 Illinois State Report Card is out. How is your child’s school performing?

2026-10-30T14:00:00+00:00

After the Illinois State Board of Education changed the parameters for how it measures school-level performance earlier this year, the number of public schools in the state that are considered Exemplary — the state’s highest of five ratings — rose 17%

States are required by federal law to have an accountability system monitoring how schools perform on certain metrics. Under the previous system, only the top 10% of public schools in the state could achieve Exemplary status. Officials said that led to a lopsided distribution of schools stuck in the Commendable category — formerly the second-highest category. Now, 27% are considered Exemplary.

A new trove of data annually released as the Illinois Report Card also shows an uptick in the percentage of students considered proficient in reading and math. Roughly 56% of students are considered proficient in English language arts, while almost 40% are in math. That’s up from 53% and 38.5%, respectively.

Years prior to 2025 cannot be compared because last year, the state lowered the scores needed to be deemed proficient in English language arts and math.

Illinois school leaders and Chicago are touting record-high graduation rates. The state recorded a four-year graduation rate of nearly 89%, a little less than a one percentage point increase from last year. In CPS, graduation rates also saw positive movement after increasing for the second consecutive year from 82.5% in 2025 to more than 83% in 2026.

“The fact that we’re seeing the progress we are on a number of fronts is good news,” said Robin Steans, president of education advocacy group Advance Illinois.

The number of teachers in Illinois also continues to expand, now at nearly 144,000. Class sizes are generally trending downward, and the teacher retention rate is over 90% for the first time in over a decade. But teacher attendance rates are a cause for concern after they took a hit from the pandemic. In 2019, most Illinois teachers had high attendance — with 73% missing fewer than 10 days of school. Now, about 65% of teachers are in that category.

Here are three trends worth diving into from this year’s latest state report card data.

New state rating system opens door to exemplary status

One of the biggest differences families may notice about this year’s data is the new way Illinois categorizes public schools’ performance.

Instead of weighing schools against each other, schools are placed in one of five groups — Exemplary, Approaching Exemplary, Commendable, Developing, and Comprehensive — based on what the state calls core and elevating indicators.

“If you were a school district that had significant improvement from one year to the next, you could still be outperformed by another school and be kicked out of the Exemplary band, because only 10% of schools could be labeled as Exemplary under our old system,” Illinois State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said.

Although the categories aren’t exactly the same, the distribution of schools across the performance spectrum has shifted. Instead of labeling only the top 10% Exemplary, 27% of Illinois schools have earned the label. Last year, almost three-quarters of all Illinois public schools fell in the Commendable category, but with the introduction of a new second-highest ranking — Approaching Exemplary — Commendable schools make up a little more than a quarter of the total.

More Chicago schools are being considered Exemplary, with an increase from 2% of CPS schools in 2025 to 9% in 2026. The portion of schools in the bottom two rungs of the new ranking ladder also swelled compared to last year, when approximately 14% of CPS schools were in the two lowest categories. But CPS serves more students with higher needs, such as English learners and those from low income families.

The designations are helpful for assessing the state of student needs across the district, but they aren’t the end-all be-all, CPS deputy chief education officer Annise Lewis said. Internally, CPS no longer uses its old rating system that assigned schools letter or number grades after the teachers union’s pushback that it disproportionately penalized schools that served more high-needs students. Under the district’s current strategic plan, academic outcomes share importance with other goals such as student growth and well-being, Lewis said.

Proficiency trends up after Illinois cut score change

All public school students in grades 3-8 take the Illinois Assessment of Readiness. Students’ performance on the exam falls into one of four categories: above proficient, proficient, approaching proficient, and below proficient.

The state education board voted unanimously to lower the cut scores for the assessment in 2025, citing the need to match student abilities and reduce one of the highest cut scores in the nation. Several states had already lowered them after pandemic-related academic declines. The change means that state test scores diverge from a national test known as the Nation’s Report Card.

Nationally, 13-year-olds’ average scores in reading and math have taken a nosedive since the pandemic, whereas 9-year-olds are bouncing back with growth in both subjects. Between 2012 and 2025, the average score for 13-year-olds decreased by 7 points in reading and 15 in math.

In Chicago, the percentage of students considered proficient in ELA increased by 3 percentage points to nearly 46% — a jump that paralleled the state’s gains. CPS Director of Literacy Jane Fleming attributes that performance to the district’s “standards aligned and culturally responsive” initiatives. The increased proficiency is especially impressive considering the district’s large English learner population, which also saw small gains, Fleming said.

IAR math proficiency is another story. The portion of students between third and eighth grade statewide who are considered proficient sits more than 15% lower than students who are proficient in ELA.

Illinois high schoolers did better in math than in ELA. All 11th grade students must take the college entrance exam, and this past spring, the cohort posted a higher composite math score at 19.2 than the 17.9 composite for ELA. The percentage of students considered proficient in ELA on the ACT dropped from 2025 to 2026.

Students are missing less school, but still more than before pandemic

Chronic absenteeism dropped again, the fourth consecutive year of declines since it ballooned as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the percentage of students experiencing chronic absenteeism — defined by the U.S. Department of Education as missing 10% of school days — is still higher than it was pre-2020. Numerous studies outline how missing school can impact everything from test scores to a student’s sense of belonging.

This year, 23% of students outside Chicago were chronically absent, according to the new data. Since peaking at almost 45% in 2022, CPS’ chronic absenteeism rate has fallen about 6 percentage points. Vast racial disparities still persist — 44% of Black students were chronically absent this year compared to 23% of white students.

CPS chief of college and career success Megan Hougard said getting students to not miss school is the responsibility of everyone who works for the district, not just “one department in isolation.”

Makiya Seminera is a reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Contact Makiya at mseminera@chalkbeat.org.

Kae Petrin is a data & graphics reporter who covers data related to K-12 education, voting rights, and public health for Civic News Company. Contact them at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

Wealthier, whiter neighborhoods benefit from Tennessee voucher program

2026-10-30T11:00:01+00:00

More than one-third of Tennessee’s 35,000 private school voucher recipients live in just 20 ZIP codes, most of them wealthy and majority white, according to data obtained by Chalkbeat Tennessee.

While most of those recipients live in Tennessee’s largest cities, a Chalkbeat analysis found that ZIP codes with the highest shares of students receiving vouchers through the state’s Education Freedom Scholarship program are largely in affluent suburban and exurban communities.

In the east Memphis area south of Shelby Farms Park, which includes the sought-after Richland Acres neighborhood, nearly 1 in 4 students receive vouchers, the highest share in the state. The area’s median household income is $119,309, nearly twice the median for Shelby County.

More than 80% of residents in that ZIP code, 38120, are white, a stark contrast to Memphis, a majority-Black city.

A few miles northwest, in a Memphis ZIP code where the median household income is about one-third that of the east Memphis area and 78% of residents are Black, just 1 in 500 students receive a school voucher.

The new data illustrates the changed reality of Tennessee’s voucher landscape since Gov. Bill Lee first pushed for an education savings account program in 2019. Then, it was a limited program designed to help low-income students in a handful of lower-performing urban districts attend private school for the first time.

Now, it includes a statewide program increasingly used by families in some of Tennessee’s most affluent communities to subsidize private school tuition.

Republican messaging has changed, too, from emphasizing exit strategies from underperforming public schools for students from low-income families to paying for school choice for all Tennessee students.

“The ZIP code data matters because of the rationale that was used to justify vouchers,” said Alexza Barajas Clark, executive director at EdTrust-Tennessee, which opposes private school vouchers. “This data gives us a more detailed picture of not just where it’s going but the conflict with the messaging around its purpose.”

Voucher recipients live in around two-thirds of ZIP codes across the state, which means almost 200 ZIP codes have none, according to Tennessee Department of Education data. The 20 ZIP codes with the most recipients are home to 12,217 students receiving vouchers, 34.9% of the program’s total.

Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, a Franklin Republican who pushed for the program’s expansion earlier this year, said participation across hundreds of ZIP codes “demonstrates that families throughout Tennessee want school choice.”

“The purpose of Education Freedom Scholarships is straightforward: to give Tennessee families greater freedom to choose the education that best meets their children’s needs. That is exactly what it is doing,” Johnson said.

East Memphis neighborhoods heavily benefit from voucher program

Differences in voucher use are especially stark in the Memphis-Shelby County area. After Knoxville, Memphis has the most voucher recipients in the state. But more than two-thirds of the city’s recipients live in just five ZIP codes clustered in east Memphis, among its wealthiest neighborhoods.

One of those ZIP codes, 38117, spans the Belle Meade area and includes the Memphis Botanic Garden. There, 744 students receive vouchers to pay for private school — around 13% of the ZIP code’s estimated student population. About two-thirds of residents are white, while Memphis and Shelby County are majority Black.

The east Memphis neighborhoods border even wealthier suburbs with high concentrations of voucher recipients. In Germantown, home to some of the state’s most exclusive ZIP codes, more than 1,000 students received vouchers this year. The city has about 40,000 residents.

Similar wealthy suburbs elsewhere in Tennessee have some of the highest concentrations of voucher recipients relative to their student populations.

In Davidson County, nearly 14% of students in the estate-filled 37220 ZIP code receive vouchers, the second-highest share in the state.

The area encircles Radnor Lake State Park and includes the rolling green lawns of Oak Hill and parts of the sought-after Crieve Hall neighborhood. It has a small population compared with Davidson County overall and a median household income of $156,227.

“This new data is consistent with what we have seen of the first year of the program,” Barajas Clark said. “Two-thirds of participating private schools were located in just six counties, and they were also some of Tennessee’s largest and wealthiest counties.”

Jackson stands apart from affluent voucher hubs

There are some outliers to the pattern of high voucher use in wealthier neighborhoods.

One is in Jackson, in west Tennessee’s Madison County, which has about 100,000 residents. The 38305 ZIP code, which covers a large swath of the county just north of central Jackson, has the most voucher recipients of any single ZIP code in the state: 947 students.

The area is racially diverse and has a lower median household income than other communities topping the voucher recipients list. It is also home to multiple private schools established long before the rise of vouchers in Tennessee. Chalkbeat identified at least five Jackson-area private schools that together enroll more than 1,400 EFS recipients.

The University School of Jackson has one of the largest EFS populations in the state: 530 of its 1,139 students receive a voucher. The school’s tuition starts at $11,300 for kindergartners and rises to $14,700 for high school students. USJ also provides daycare for younger kids, who are not eligible for voucher funding.

It is a university preparatory school without a religious affiliation, an anomaly in the EFS program where Christian private schools are the norm.

Don Roe, USJ’s head of school and a former public school teacher, oversees the 130-acre campus and its hundreds of students. He said the school did not advocate for the EFS program and does not want to wade into the political debates around school choice. If the school can maintain its academic independence from state mandates and the program helps its families, Roe said, it will continue participating.

“For us, it’s not trying to use the EFS to bring in massive numbers of families,” Roe said. “We just want to have it here to benefit our families if it is congruent with the mission of the school.”

When USJ opted into the EFS program, Roe said, it informed families about the new option — though it doesn’t act as a facilitator between parents and the state.

USJ’s enrollment has increased, but Roe said it was already growing before the EFS program began. The school does not intend to significantly increase capacity beyond its existing growth plan.

“We’ve not changed our admissions policy,” Roe said. “We’re not trying to use the EFS to dramatically increase enrollment. We’re just trying to serve the families who are here and interested in coming here.”

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

The high school hunt: A guide to NYC’s complex admissions process

2026-10-29T23:30:23+00:00

Applying to high school in New York City is daunting: Eighth graders can choose from 700 programs in 400 schools across the five boroughs.

Last year, of roughly 68,000 eighth graders who submitted applications, 58% of those were offered a seat in their top choice; 82% received one of their top three choices.

There’s still time left to build your list — and you add as many schools as you’d like. Applications are due Dec. 4, with offers expected to be sent after 3 p.m. on March 3, 2027.

Some families have already spent months researching their options. Others might not know where to begin.

Here’s a guide to help with the basics. (And here are tips on how to dive into a school’s data.)

NYC high schools broken down by the numbers

Even though the application process is citywide, there are still roughly 20 large comprehensive high schools that guarantee spots for students who live within a certain geographic zone around their campuses. Another six give priority to students living in their zone. (You can find out if you are zoned for any schools through the city’s MySchools platform.)

That said, New York City schools have a larger share of selective schools than other districts across the nation. Nearly 130 programs screen students based on seventh grade GPAs in core subjects. Another 30 also use essays and interviews.

Screened schools sort students into groups for priority, with those in group 1 earning a GPA in the top 15% of their class or an average of at least 94.67 in their core courses last year.

More than 75 programs require auditions or art portfolios. Nearly 50 programs have a specific language requirement.

About 80 schools are open enrollment, meaning they have no priorities and are just based on your lottery number. (See below about lottery numbers.)

The vast majority of programs — about 400 — use the Education Option, or Ed. Opt., admissions method to create balanced classes, targeting a third of its seats for those in the high category (with a seventh grade average of 89.24 or higher), the middle category (78.67 to 89.24), and the low category (an average below 78.67).

Eight schools base admissions solely on the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT, and the application process for these schools, along with the audition process for LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts, is completely separate from the rest of the application process. And if you get into one of these schools, you will also get an offer to another school through the regular admissions process.

Finding your lottery number

Before you build your application, you should know your Education Department-assigned random number, or lottery number. You can find it by signing into your NYC MySchools account, which is the portal through which you will submit your application.

When you click “edit profile,” you can scroll down to find the 32-character hexadecimal string of numbers and letters. The first two digits or letters are the most helpful, with priority moving from 0-9 and then from A-F.

A random number beginning with 0 means an applicant will have a relatively high priority; an applicant whose random number starts with an F will have the lowest priority.

The random number is essentially used as a tiebreaker when there are more applicants per seat in a given priority group.

If you don’t know how to log in to MySchools, reach out to your child’s guidance counselor.

Some students have higher priority at certain schools

Nearly 60 schools — 35 of which are screened programs — are part of the city’s “Diversity in Admissions” program, setting aside a portion of seats for students from low-income families, English language learners, or other underrepresented groups. When you find your lottery number in MySchools, it should also tell you whether you are eligible for these seats.

Schools also set aside a certain number of seats for students with disabilities. That means that applications from students with individualized education programs, or IEPs, who spend at least 20% of their week receiving special education instruction, are considered in a different pool than general education students.

How to understand your chances of getting into a particular school

MySchools includes last year’s applicant-to-offer ratio for general education students as well as for students with disabilities. For example, Eleanor Roosevelt High School, a coveted school on the Upper East Side that gives priority to families living in Manhattan, had 30 applications per seat for general education students and four applications per seat for students with disabilities.

MySchools also has a helpful tool illustrating your odds: Once your MySchools account is active — and shows your “tiered” groups for screened schools, ED Opt group, random number, and any other priority designations — you will be able to search schools and see a graphic with three bars, showing whether you have a high, medium, or low chance of getting into a particular program.

A parent-created search platform called NYC-SIFT, the Search Information Finder Tool, can also show your chances once you input your information. The SIFT tool includes a trove of other data and school tour information.

(You will not, however, be able to see your chances for schools that require essays, exams, or other additional measures.)

Make sure to create a balanced list

Education Department officials advise students to rank schools in order of preference.

You can list an unlimited number of schools on your application, but make sure your list is balanced with not only “reach” schools, where your odds might be slim, but also with some schools that you have a higher likelihood of getting a seat. In fact, before you submit your application, the Education Department will flag your application if you only include screened schools.

About 3% of last year’s applicants were placed in schools that were not on their list, according to Education Department data.

Also, if you don’t get your top choice through the regular admissions process, you will be on the waiting list for all of the schools you listed above the school where you received an offer.

What else to consider

It helps to decide what it’s important to your eighth grader. Is a short commute or a one-seat subway ride important? Is access to certain academics important, such as advanced math or theater? Do you want a school with a more traditional approach to academics or one that focuses more on project-based learning? What about clubs and sports teams? How important is homework load? Do you want a large school that has an array of courses and extracurricular activities or a smaller one that might have more personalized attention but not have a full array of activities?

Some of these questions can only be answered by touring a school. While it can be challenging to make time for tours — some are during the school day, some are at night or on weekends — it’s important to see at least some of your top choices and get a feel for the building, commute, and neighborhood.

You can find more tips here.

What’s so special about the specialized high schools?

For the city’s eight schools that require the specialized high school admission test, or SHSAT, students must register to take the exam by Oct. 30. The test will be administered in middle schools and K-8 schools during the school day on Nov. 18. Other students can take the exam at central Education Department locations on Nov. 14 or Nov. 15.

Last year, about 26,100 eighth graders took the SHSAT, and about 4,000 test takers received offers.

Because the eight schools — often seen as a ticket to elite universities and a way into the middle class — admit relatively few Black and Latino students, many integration advocates have pushed for changes to the admissions process.

But research reveals some of the effects of attending these schools might be overblown. One study, looking at specialized high school graduates between 1994 and 2013, found no evidence that those students were more likely to enroll in college, complete college, or attend an especially elite institution than comparable students from other high schools. Another study found that students who just made the cutoff for Brooklyn Tech were actually 2 percentage points less likely to graduate from a four-year college.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Older adults are enrolling at Colorado’s two-year colleges at a higher rate

2026-10-29T23:12:23+00:00

For a second year in a row, adults ages 25 and older helped fuel an enrollment increase at Colorado’s community colleges.

Most community college students are still recent high school graduates or current high school students concurrently enrolled in college-level classes. But the share of older adults who are attending two-year colleges is growing.

The 13-school Colorado Community College System, which serves about 97,700 students, enrolled 755 additional older adults this fall, data shows. Enrollment among recent high school graduates was down by about 450 students.

The second year of enrollment gains among older adult students stabilizes declines that have persisted well over a decade. Many students gravitate toward two-year colleges during down economies, and the 2008 recession fueled large enrollment gains.

College officials report that more older adults might be choosing to take classes that would help them get healthcare jobs, especially due to the rise of artificial intelligence and economic uncertainty. School officials have also directed more resources toward keeping older adults enrolled.

Landon Pirius, president of Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood, said healthcare work is seen as a more AI-proof field. And there are job opportunities because of nationwide health workforce shortages. A Red Rocks spokesperson said the school’s older adult population increased by 7.3% this year, up to 2,351 students.

“I’m seeing more people not necessarily not having a job, but anticipating that in a year or two they may need a different job,” Pirius said.

Pikes Peak State College’s Kevin Hudgens, the senior director of admissions, recruitment, and enrollment services at the Colorado Springs school, also sees the same trend.

“They talk about wanting to make sure that they are in a field that is recession-proof and that is a little more hands-on or has some skills that that AI can’t replicate,” Hudgens said.

Ariana Lazo, a 35-year-old mother of five, enrolled at Red Rocks to study nursing because she wanted greater economic opportunities.

“I am struggling to make ends meet because it’s a difficult economy,” she said.

She initially worried about going back full-time as an adult. At Red Rocks, Lazo helped create the Adult Student Advocacy Collective with support from campus officials to help others like herself. The organization advises campus leaders on how to serve adult learners and hosts workshops on topics such as how to thrive in college.

“There’s less of a stigma about going back, you know, at a certain age,” she said. ”You do feel empowered to have more of a voice. Like, this is our campus, too.”

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

IPEC executive director highlights risk of state takeover of IPS if voters reject tax measure

2026-10-29T22:12:46+00:00

There’s not much time left before the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation finds out if voters have approved a $95 million property tax referendum critical to the schools under its umbrella.

At IPEC’s Thursday meeting, its last before Election Day on Nov. 3, Executive Director Karega Rausch reminded the board that “there are serious consequences if the referendum is not successful.”He pointed to IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson’s comments that the potential fallout of the referendum failing includes the insolvency and state takeover of Indianapolis Public Schools.

“Having the state take over our local public education system is not a good idea for our children, our families, or for our communities,” said board member Patricia Castañeda.

Since IPEC formed earlier this year, passing the referendum has been its primary priority. But the board is beginning to look ahead to future meetings, in which more details will be shared about its budget and plans for a unified transportation system, facilities, and accountability.

Rausch also promised a forthcoming reporting tool that will allow voters to follow how referendum dollars are spent at IPS and charter schools.

“These resources are going to teacher retention, development, and academic programs,” Rausch said, adding that “not a dime” of referendum money would go to IPEC.

As at the meeting earlier this month, IPEC members did not discuss recent controversial moves by IPS regarding enrollment and the Innovation Network of schools that have upset the charter school community.

IPEC to consider property tax reform, legislative session next

At Thursday’s meeting, the body approved its first budget and hired a policy analysis firm to prepare for the next legislative session.

The $3.2 million budget includes $1.9 million for consulting plus other outside expertise, $1 million for staff salaries, and $300,000 for physical space. The budget figure is defined in state law and represents a percentage of property tax funds available for school operations — but not referendum funds.

IPEC Chair David Harris noted that the budget was “high level,” with “a lot of planning that needs to be done.”

Rausch told board members that he expects to share more details about expenditures in November. The body may also look to fundraising to support its budget.

One spending priority might be hiring a chief financial officer or controller, Harris said.

The IPEC board also approved a 10-month financial services contract with Policy Analytics, which will provide at least 15 hours of service to the body per month at a cost of around $4,400.

Policy Analytics will help IPEC establish its budget and accounting practices, as well as analyze the potential impact of bills during the next legislative session that could affect public school revenue.

“It’s going to be a very active session as we think about property tax reform and things like that,” said Andrew Strope.

IPEC will next meet on Nov. 12 at 5:30 p.m. That meeting is expected to run longer than previous ones, Harris said.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia City Councilmembers, union leaders call on Mayor Parker to prevent school closures

2026-10-29T21:45:06+00:00

For more than a year, Philadelphia students, teachers, and community members have protested the district’s plan to close 17 schools.

But Mayor Cherelle Parker hasn’t been a particularly loud voice in the closure debate. Now some prominent figures are calling her out.

“We’re asking the mayor: Please get involved. Step off the sideline,” said Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas at a rally against the closures in front of the district’s headquarters Thursday. “Help us fix this problem. Save our schools.”

Parker has positioned herself in support of the closures, which the board of education approved in April. But she’s mostly skirted the discussion and largely dodged blame from families and community members. Members of City Council and labor union leaders are calling on her to step in to keep schools open as the district’s timeline to begin the closures at the end of this school year approaches.

“The mayor has to come to the table … to broker a deal to keep our schools open,” said Councilmember Rue Landau Thursday.

Board President Reginald Streater has said the closures are necessary to ensure students go to class in high-quality buildings. The plan, which includes renovating nearly 170 schools, is also meant to address the hundreds of empty seats at some schools as district enrollment continues to decline. It would also give families more access to desirable programming, such as AP classes and prekindergarten, district leaders have said.

Members of the Board of Education serve at the pleasure of the mayor, giving her a level of influence over their decisions.

“Who appointed the board? The mayor,” said Nicole Hunt, president of Unite Here Local 634, which represents cafeteria workers and other school staff. “If we don’t want this same mayor to close more schools, we vote her ass out of there.”

Parker’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the councilmembers’ and union leaders’ demands.

Debora Carrera, the Parker administration’s chief education officer, said in a statement to Chalkbeat in August that “Mayor Parker supports the plan” and will work with the district, City Council, and state lawmakers to help fund it.

In 2024, when the district had just begun considering school closures, Parker said she would convene a committee to guide the plans. “We are boldly moving ahead with our plans to improve public education in Philadelphia,” she said at the time. But that committee has not materialized.

Earlier this year, Parker co-authored an op-ed with Superintendent Tony Watlington that stated the district’s plan to close schools while modernizing others “is about opportunity.”

She has also said she wants to use empty school buildings to increase housing supply, one of her main priorities.

But she has not addressed concerns from students, teachers, and community members that the plan will fracture school communities and leave neighborhoods without a resource they depend on.

Parker also has also not publicly responded to several members of City Council who have said they want to explore creating an elected school board due to their outrage over the school closure plan.

“Where’s the mayor?” students, teachers, and community members chanted Thursday, holding signs calling for a stop to the closure plan.

District’s school closure plan is already underway

Despite Thursday’s protests, the district’s plans to begin closing schools are well underway.

Some students have already visited schools they’ll move to next year. The district has launched a school transition office meant to help families affected by the change.

The district estimates the facilities plan will cost $3 billion. It expects to pay for it with $2 billion in public and philanthropic grants that it has not yet secured.

That means it’s unclear how the district will pay for some of the school upgrades laid out in the plan. But it’s moving ahead anyway.

On Thursday evening, the Board of Education is expected to vote to spend $200 million to begin some of the plan’s “highest priority projects,” according to the resolution included in the board meeting agenda.

That includes building improvements for Bache Martin School, Joseph W. Catharine School, John M. Patterson School, and Franklin S. Edmonds School, such as increasing school capacity, updating heating and cooling systems, and adding gyms and cafeterias.

Chalkbeat Philadelphia Bureau Chief Carly Sitrin contributed to this story.

Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public schools, early childhood education, and issues that affect students, families, and educators across Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee should increase funding for economically disadvantaged students, key committee says

2026-10-29T19:58:52+00:00

Tennessee lawmakers should reconfigure its public school funding formula to classify more students as economically disadvantaged, according to a new recommendation from a top committee of Tennessee educators.

Education advocates in the state have long warned Tennessee’s funding formula is undercounting economically disadvantaged students, who get additional support in the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement funding formula, known as TISA.

A TISA review committee made up of top education officials and public school leaders from around the state urged state lawmakers in a Wednesday report to classify more students as economically disadvantaged by including Medicaid eligibility data in identifying low-income households.

Tennessee currently only uses data from public benefits programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program, which have faced increasing federal cuts in recent years.

The policy change would lead to significant financial benefits for many Tennessee districts. Specifically, it would generate additional funding for an estimated 120,000 additional students compared with how TISA currently counts economically disadvantaged students.

In Anderson County, for example, 29% of the district’s current students are classified as economically disadvantaged. If Tennessee changed TISA to include Medicaid eligibility, that number would increase to 46% of students. That would amount to a nearly 58% increase in district funding for low-income students, according to estimates from EdTrust Tennessee, an advocacy group.

The policy shift would also cost Tennessee more money, which could present a challenge during next year’s legislative session.

The new TISA Review Committee report estimated it would cost an additional $233 million annually to fund the revised formula, with the state bearing $163 million of the cost and local governments funding the remaining $69 million.

Bob Nardo, the executive director of a Memphis charter school and a TISA Review Committee member, said Wednesday that lawmakers could consider reworking the formula to incrementally increase funding.

“We don’t have to imply that the full cost has to be absorbed,” all at once, Nardo said.

The committee, which convened earlier this year, also said lawmakers should increase funding for school infrastructure and mental health resources within the TISA formula, and increase allocations for the smallest rural districts in the state.

In addition, the review committee has called for lawmakers to increase funding for special education prekindergarten classes, following pleas from school boards and superintendents.

Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat, endorsed the committee’s recommendations on Thursday.

“Tennessee is dead last in the nation in what we invest in public school students — a thousand dollars per child behind Mississippi,” Lamar said. “We do not have a budget problem. We have a priorities problem. It’s time to fund our public school kids.”

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Was American education ever great? What Linda McMahon gets wrong about the past

2026-10-29T14:24:43+00:00

Education Secretary Linda McMahon has long said she wants to “make education great again.”

“American schooling, for generations, was the envy of the world,” she explained in a speech last week at a charter school near Salt Lake City. “Our classrooms were grounded in the fundamentals of reading, math, and science.”

In McMahon’s telling, American education has deteriorated over the last several decades, as federal power has grown. Key decisions, she said, were “pulled farther from families, teachers, and children — and into a labyrinth of districts, departments, and administrative offices.” (We’ll hold aside for the moment the fact that the Trump administration is expanding its own authority over schools in a number of ways.)

McMahon is offering a pointed interpretation of American educational history: one of an inspiring rise and then a long, alarming fall. This is, in short, her case for eliminating the U.S. Department of Education. But the history she tells is incomplete and simplistic.

Asked for comment, Sabin Sidney, an Education Department spokesperson pointed to low proficiency rates on national tests. “Washington’s bloated education bureaucracy has failed American students,” Sidney said in a statement. “By dismantling federal overreach and handing power back to the states, it won’t just be a Mississippi Miracle, but an American education renaissance.”

The U.S. was indeed once the clear global leader in access to public education. Beginning over a century and a half ago, America was much quicker than other countries to create relatively accessible systems of elementary and secondary schools. By the 1960s, a solid majority of U.S. students had completed high school, then the highest rate in the world. “We were pioneers in the provision of mass public education,” says University of Pennsylvania education historian Jonathan Zimmerman. Economists say this educational growth helped turn the U.S. into an economic powerhouse.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that U.S. schools were better than other countries’, Zimmerman notes. They were just more broadly accessible — but not fully so. As McMahon delicately acknowledges in her speech, “no era in our nation’s education has been perfect.”

Even into the mid ‘60s, schools across the American South were segregated by race and often deeply unequal. In the North, more subtle laws and customs also separated the races in housing and in schools. Children with disabilities were often kept out of public schools entirely. Girls and women had much less access to higher education and had little recourse if they were discriminated against. Students in poverty tended to go to poorly funded schools.

“Over time, we have made great strides to expand equal opportunity and access to education to millions of students,” McMahon said in her speech. She didn’t mention that the federal government was a key driver of many of these strides.

Perhaps the most significant federal intrusion into schools came from the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Title I of the law — which is still the country’s largest federal funding stream for schools — was meant to improve the education of children in poverty. This provision also provided critical leverage to pressure Southern schools to desegregate.

In the following decades, federal authority grew further with the 1972 passage of Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in federally funded schools. Next there was a 1975 law, now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA. This protects the right of students with disabilities to a publicly funded education.

There is good evidence students have benefited from these efforts, and the laws have become foundational to American education. Although she wants to eliminate the Education Department, which was created in 1979, McMahon has vowed to protect the underlying laws that have expanded federal power.

Still in McMahon’s telling, around this point in history was when things started to fall apart. “For the past five decades, our education system has been co-opted to place the enrichment and priorities of adults over the flourishing of children,” she said.

Indeed, the growth of federal power coincided with growing angst about the state of American education, starting in the mid-70s. Other countries began to catch up to the U.S. in basic access. New national and international testing regimes showed that American students did not perform especially well. U.S. high school completion rates, which had been marching upward for over half a century, suddenly stalled.

These concerns culminated in the 1983 report “A Nation at Risk,” which offered an apocalyptic indictment of American schooling. Plenty of critics at the time — including President Ronald Reagan — blamed the federal government for these emergent problems. Some suggested then that the feds had sacrificed excellence in the name of equity, although this was based more on conjecture than hard evidence.

In any event, over the following decades, education in the U.S. resumed an upward trajectory by many measures. By the 2010s, math scores in elementary and middle schools had risen substantially, while reading scores trended up albeit more modestly. High school completion and college attendance had also grown. In many cases, gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students, while still large, had shrunk.

Then two historically important things happened. The federal government pulled back from K-12 education, with a 2015 law that eased pressure on low-performing schools. Meanwhile, test scores had started to stagnate, and then, with the pandemic, to fall precipitously. This happened not just in the U.S. but in many other countries. Experts continue to debate the precise causes of these trends. (Some contend that less federal involvement contributed to learning declines, though this remains just a theory.)

So where does this leave McMahon’s gloss on history?

Reasonable people can debate the appropriate federal role in American schools now, but McMahon’s speech “engages in a lot of common mythmaking about schools in the past and the present,” says Zimmerman, the historian.

The broader history of American education is not one of epic rise and agonizing descent coinciding with more federal control. Instead there have been decades of real improvements followed by a sudden and sharp drop. The question now is whether this recent decline will be a temporary blip or a historical turning point.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

1 Detroit school board candidate raised nearly 80% of campaign money, finance statements show

2026-10-29T10:00:01+00:00

The vast majority of publicly reported contributions in the crowded Detroit school board race were raised by one candidate, recently filed campaign finance statements show.

Dr. Jameel Smith, a clinical psychologist running for public office for the first time, received more than 250 individual donations totaling more than $75,500 from August through Oct. 18. Most of the donations raised by Smith’s campaign were under $500 from friends, family, and others whom she said connected to her messaging. The majority of the contributions came from Michigan residents, though some came from across the country.

Smith told Chalkbeat she set out with an aggressive campaign strategy as a relatively unknown name in Detroit.

“Every dollar was raised to make voter contact and make sure everyone got to know my name,” she said.

Though the election is a consequential one for the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s board, as a new board majority will be elected, candidates did not raise much funding compared to previous races.

There will be 34 people on the ballot to join the DPSCD board in the Nov. 3 election. Four of the open seats will be for full four-year terms, with 31 candidates in the running. Another three candidates are running for a partial two-year term.

Fewer contributions and traditional advertising

The $108,360 in contributions and loans reported by 11 candidates for DPSCD’s board by Wednesday falls short of the $230,000 reported by October 2024 in that year’s DPSCD board race, which had 12 fewer names on the ballot.

Terry Whitfield, a candidate and self-employed nonprofit consultant, said he didn’t set out to run a “big money” campaign because he already has community connections and is using social media to reach voters for free.

“I spoke with some people who have run for office, and they said it’s a new day and money is not what will get you elected,” said Whitfield. “It’s the ability to get in front of as many people as possible that will get you elected.”

This election cycle, candidates did not report spending cash on big ticket items – such as billboards, digital ads, and television spots – like in previous races.

Only Smith paid for a campaign manager – giving more than $9,500 in wages and $3,500 in consulting fees to Pamela J. McClain, a board member of the Detroit Crime Commission and board liaison for the City of Detroit and the Detroit Women’s Council.

Smith paid another $3,500 in campaign staff wages and $7,000 in consulting fees to TCA Smart Strategies, a Detroit-based political consulting firm.

“It was important to me to run a professional campaign,” Smith said of the expenditures. “ I am serious about approaching this in a way for me to win, so I needed people who have done this before so I could be successful.”

Smith’s largest contributions came from Linh and Dug Song, Ann Arbor philanthropists and founders of the Song Foundation. Together, they contributed more than $16,600.

Linh Song, also vice chair of The Skillman Foundation’s board of trustees, told Chalkbeat she and her husband chose to support Smith in part due to the candidate’s background working in mental health. (The Skillman Foundation is a financial contributor to Chalkbeat.)

“Hearing her commitment to mental health and the well-being of kids who have been through so much, through pandemic and so on really spoke to us,” Song said.

Here is a breakdown of what 11 candidates reported in public campaign statements filed in Wayne County:

Dr. Jameel Smith reported raising $75,505 and spending $56,959.
Bobby Christian reported $10,500 in loans from himself and did not report any expenditures.
Terry Whitfield reported raising $8,585 and spending $4,722.
Tyshea Pope reported raising $4,050 and spending $2,790.
Steve Bland Jr. reported raising $3,991, including loans, and spending $994.
Shinese Johnson reported raising $1,807 and spending $1,106. She also reported spending around $2,260 of her personal funds as in-kind contributions on “goods or services” at VisionMoore Concepts, a Detroit web development company.
Bessie Harris reported raising $1,750 and did not report any expenditures. She also reported $445 as in-kind contributions on “goods or services.”
Vilma Escamilla-Durán reported raising $1,289.96 and spending $1,263.
David Harris II reported raising $575 and spending $305.
Cidney Calloway reported raising $306.74 and did not report any expenditures.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Some Detroit school board candidates spent campaign contributions on clothing, travel, and meals

2026-10-29T10:00:01+00:00

Some candidates in the Detroit school board race reported spending campaign contributions on out-of-state travel, clothing alterations, and personal meals, recently filed reports show.

One candidate for the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s board — Shinese Johnson — originally filed expenses for a nail appointment, meals in Florida and South Carolina, as well as cash withdrawals over the limit allowed by Michigan campaign finance law. When asked about the expenses by Chalkbeat, Johnson revised her campaign statement to no longer include them.

Mark Brewer, an attorney at Michigan firm Goodman Acker, said several expenditures reported by DPSCD board candidates are “questionable.” Brewer did not personally review the documents. His comments are based on what was read to him by a Chalkbeat reporter.

Brewer, who advises candidate clients on campaign spending, said the purpose of the state’s laws is to safeguard against misuse of dollars entrusted to them by supporters.

“They want the money to be used to run an election, not to finance candidates’ personal lives,” said Brewer.

Michigan candidates are not allowed to spend contributions on personal expenses unrelated to campaigning or office-holding or withdraw money for personal use.

The Michigan Department of State has said in response to previous campaign finance complaints that if an expense would occur regardless of whether the candidate is running for office, it is prohibited.

Consequences for violations of state campaign finance laws are civil fines, said Brewer.

DPSCD board candidates also reported more traditional expenses, including campaign events, canvassers at early voting locations, photography services, mailers, polling, texting, fliers, and yard signs.

There will be 34 names on the ballot for the DPSCD board in the Nov. 3 election. Four of the open seats will be for full four-year terms, with 31 candidates in the running. Another three candidates are running for a partial two-year term.

The election will be consequential for the district, as a new board majority will be elected. Many candidates are calling for changes in leadership, which could shift DPSCD’s strategies significantly.

Candidates were required to report all contributions and expenditures made through Oct. 18 by 5 p.m. Oct. 23. The final statements will be due after Election Day.

Twenty-two of the candidates were granted reporting waivers because their contributions totaled less than $1,000. Eleven candidates reported raising a cumulative $108,360, according to the reports.

One candidate — Christopher “Allen” Hubbard — was not granted a waiver. His statement was not yet publicly available by Wednesday. Hubbard told Chalkbeat he raised nearly $4,000 and is working to file his reports.

Some contributions were spent on meals, clothing

Johnson, the primary substance abuse use prevention services director at The Youth Connection, filed a report on Monday that listed $1,227 in campaign expenditures. After Chalkbeat asked Johnson about some of the expenses, she filed a revised report with several changes and listed $1,106 in spending.

Removed from the report was an expenditure of $40 at a Southfield salon Johnson told Chalkbeat was used to get her nails done. She said on Monday the expense was intended to help her appear professional at a campaign event.

Also removed was $46 reportedly spent on “volunteer meals” on Aug. 13 at a Myrtle Beach, South Carolina restaurant. Another $34 was reported as a candidate meal on July 14 in Kissimmee, Florida.

Johnson told Chalkbeat on Monday she attended work conferences in those locations and paid for meals during off-work hours when she performed campaign tasks.

The reported volunteer meal, Johnson said, was for someone at the conference who helped with her campaign.

In the revised campaign statement, Johnson reported spending more than $54 in other personal meals. She reported using more than $411 on volunteer and meeting meals, the filing shows, at grocery stores, a brewery, restaurants, as well as on Instacart.

Johnson told Chalkbeat she paid for volunteer meals as an incentive for their time.

In Johnson’s original report, there were two ATM cash withdrawals from campaign funds as “administrative expenses.” She said one for $104 on July 30 was used to pay for food at a campaign event and another for $84 on Aug. 3 paid for T-shirts.

According to state law, payments of $50.01 or more can’t be made in cash.

The revised report changed the $104 from a cash withdrawal to a direct purchase from a restaurant as a “constituent expense.” The $84 expense was changed to a direct purchase from Detroit restaurant Shakes Sweets & Things as a miscellaneous printing expense.

Johnson did not answer questions about why the items on the report were removed or changed. She did not clarify whether she withdrew cash for the charges at the restaurants or if she used another form of payment, nor why there was a printing expense reported at a restaurant.

In response to those questions, Johnson said, “The corrected report was reviewed and approved. I will continue working with my treasurer and the Wayne County Finance Office to ensure my campaign filings are accurate and transparent.”

Other candidates — including Dr. Jameel Smith, a clinical psychologist — also expensed candidate meals totaling nearly $846. Smith told Chalkbeat each of those expenses paid for meals in which she met with potential donors.

In that case, Brewer said the meals are likely legitimate campaign expenses.

In Johnson’s revised report, she listed $100 spent at a tailor to alter a suit ahead of a meet-and-greet event.

The candidate told Chalkbeat the money was used to present herself professionally.

“If you’re in a position where people will be taking pictures of you or the media, you know you want to represent yourself in a good light,” she said.

Brewer said he did not think the charge counts as campaign expense unless the clothing was only used for campaigning.

State law, however, does not explicitly define clothing as a personal expense. The Bureau of Elections’ position in response to previous complaints is that it’s allowable in some cases. The department has said in past cases that it’s acceptable if the candidate committee retains possession of the clothing and gets rid of it before the committee dissolves.

One other candidate — David Harris II, a charter school educator — bought clothing with contributions. He spent $110 at a Westland shop that specializes in branding products. Harris did not respond to a request for comment.

Brewer said money spent to buy clothing with campaign logos and messaging is an allowable expense because it is intended to promote the candidate.

Some candidates spent contributions on travel

Vilma Escamilla-Durán, a DPSCD parent and registered nurse, spent a total of $220 on out-of-state travel and another $85 she said was for a hotel stay to attend a conference on special education.

Escamilla-Durán expensed a hotel stay, two meals, and gas in September in Tennessee and Kentucky.

The travel costs were from a trip Escamilla-Durán said she took to help a Detroit family self-deport after one member was detained by immigration officials.

The candidate said the trip was related to her campaign because it helped inform her understanding of the family’s experience in DPSCD schools and with immigration enforcement.

Brewer said he was not convinced the reported travel in this context is an allowable expense unless the trip was solely intended to aid in her campaign.

Other candidates, including Smith, reported travel expenses. She said she paid for an airplane ticket for a consultant to travel to Detroit from Texas to assist with a campaign photo shoot.

Brewer said travel costs in that context would be allowable, as long as they helped further the campaign.

Johnson spent $167 on candidate travel, gas, and parking — including a rental car she told Chalkbeat she needed to conduct campaign business after her personal vehicle was involved in an accident.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Dozens of small NYC high schools share buildings. Why don’t more share resources?

2026-10-28T22:34:34+00:00

This is part two of a three-part series. Here’s the first story. Here’s the third installment. And be sure to sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free email newsletter to be the first to know when our next stories publish.

As a parent leader for more than a decade, Johanna Bjorken has heard plenty of stories about New York City schools struggling with low enrollment.

But Chalkbeat’s investigation last month into the decline of Murry Bergtraum High School for Business Careers — the city’s smallest traditional high school with roughly 90 students — struck a nerve.

Bjorken’s son goes to school just two floors above Murry Bergtraum in a shared building in lower Manhattan where the students play on joint sports teams. Yet the schools feel worlds apart. While Bjorken’s son takes Advanced Placement Calculus, students at Murry Bergtraum last year had only one math teacher and two math courses, Algebra I and II. Despite having a per-student budget nearly twice the city average, Murry Bergtraum’s limited academic offerings force some students to attend night school to graduate.

“I was shocked to hear that students, some of whom may very well play volleyball or soccer with my child, have to go to night school for basic graduation requirements, and moreover, that the school’s situation has been known for many years with no action,” Bjorken wrote in a September letter to city officials.

A list of the four small high schools sharing the Murry Bergtraum Educational Campus in lower Manhattan.

Like school districts across the country, New York City is struggling with a small schools crisis after years of enrollment declines. What makes the city’s situation unique, however, is how many of its small high schools share buildings with each other: 72 of the city’s high schools with fewer than 250 students are on shared campuses, a Chalkbeat analysis found.

Ten months into his tenure, pressure is mounting on New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels to address the increasing number of small schools, which cluster the most vulnerable students in schools with the fewest academic opportunities. School leaders and experts say that long term, the city will need to close and merge underenrolled schools — a process that can be slow and politically unpopular. But many principals feel they can’t afford to wait for that process to play out and feel a sense of urgency to ensure their current students have access to high-quality programs and advanced courses. Now, a growing chorus is urging Samuels to help small schools on shared campuses pool their resources.

“On shared campuses like ours the system accidentally pits us against each other — right when we need to share resources the most,” said Amy Piller, the principal of Urban Assembly Maker Academy, the school Bjorken’s son attends on the Murry Bergtraum campus.

Samuels indicated at a town hall last week that he’s not crafting a citywide plan and instead is asking five working groups to devise blueprints for underenrolled schools in their districts. None of those working groups includes high schools, but Samuels told parent leaders this week that the Education Department is looking at creating “campus working groups” for high schools. City officials have not shared a timeline for this work. An Education Department spokesperson did not respond to questions about how, or whether, the city is helping schools in the same building share resources.

In the meantime, some principals on shared campuses have pooled course offerings, while others have not — but are looking for guidance and support from the Education Department as they’ve seen their rosters shrink.

“They kind of leave principals up to their own devices,” said Mike Sill, the secretary of the United Federation of Teachers.

Inside the push to reimagine NYC’s shared high schools

About two decades ago, the Bloomberg administration made a big bet that small schools would better serve vulnerable students by providing them with more individual attention and ensuring they didn’t slip through the cracks. The city shuttered dozens of troubled large high schools and opened scores of small new ones in their buildings.

Small schools boosted graduation rates and college enrollment, but they couldn’t provide the same variety of extracurricular or academic options as larger schools.

As enrollment declined, some schools banded together in an attempt to provide students with more opportunities. At the Theodore Roosevelt campus in the Bronx, the principals of its six co-located schools decided a decade ago to open advanced courses like calculus and statistics to the entire campus since none of the schools had enough students to fill the courses on their own.

“It’s challenging with scheduling,” said Michael Barakat, the principal of Bronx HIgh School for Law and Community Service. “But what’s the alternative? Kids don’t have calculus? That’s crazy.”

At the Lehman High School campus in the Bronx, the principals of six small high schools in a sprawling building agreed in 2016 to align their bell schedules so they could open courses to everyone on the campus.

“We sat down and figured it out,” recalled John Powers, the former principal of Lehman High School, who retired in 2023. “It was something we all felt compelled to do.”

Some education leaders said the city can be more ambitious in helping small schools pool resources than just sharing courses.

With nearly half the city’s high school buildings sitting “underutilized,” it’s worth trying to figure out how to use the empty space for new programs or academies to benefit all the students in their building, said Kristin Kearns Jordan, the former CEO of Urban Assembly, a nonprofit that helps run roughly two dozen small New York City public high schools.

The city recently built STEAM centers in Brooklyn and the Bronx where nearby high schools can send students to get hands-on experiences in math and science. Those centers offer a model of what the city could build on shared campuses.

“The possibilities are endless,” Kearns Jordan said.

Several of the schools on the Murry Bergtraum campus are already thinking about those possibilities. In a letter to families last month, Piller, the Maker Academy principal, said her school is a finalist for a grant to transform an unused locker room on the campus’s top floor into a shared academic space for all of the schools on the campus.

“As enrollment patterns change across New York City, large shared campuses like ours have an opportunity to rethink what sharing a building can mean,” she wrote. Chalkbeat’s story on Murry Bergtram “names a problem. I want us to be part of designing what comes next.”

Amy Piller, the principal of Urban Assembly Maker Academy, poses with students.

Schedule clashes and fragmented leadership complicate resource-sharing on campuses

Pooling resources, however, is not without complications.

Besides having schools with different bell schedules, they may also have different grading policies. Some, for example, might focus on classwork and prioritize essays and projects, while others assign more homework and exams. Principals have to figure out how to split the costs of teachers covering shared classrooms. Further complicating matters, on many campuses, including Murry Bergtraum, schools in the same building report to different superintendents, meaning there’s no single leader responsible for the whole building.

Some education leaders hope a new position Samuels created — a supervising official overseeing all 11 high school superintendents — will help streamline decision-making for shared campuses.

Shael Polakow-Suransky, the president of Bank Street College of Education and a former deputy chancellor under Bloomberg, said sharing courses can work for advanced classes and electives, but it’s harder for core academic subjects where different schools may have specific — and clashing — approaches to instruction, behavior, or grading.

“The key is how much does that shared instructional work impede on the autonomy of each school on the campus to do its model effectively?” he said.

Sharing resources often only benefits a portion of students, too, such as those who seek out advanced courses. That’s part of why it can feel more like a “Band-Aid” than a systemic solution to the small schools problem, said Vivian Orlen, the former superintendent of Manhattan high schools.

Barakat, the Bronx principal, agreed that merging schools is the “logical next step.” But for now, he said, “I would hope that there are principals all over the place who are taking advantage of the opportunity to work with colleagues.”

Sophie Hayssen and Kae Petrin contributed data analysis.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

To boost teacher pay, many Colorado districts are asking voters to approve property tax measures

2026-10-28T21:02:13+00:00

Rachel Cooper leaves her home in Rifle at 4 a.m. for the 45-minute daily commute to her teaching job in Carbondale. Her goal is to get ahead of the traffic that can clog the mountain canyon during rush hour.

The pre-dawn departure is just one of the ways Cooper, a longtime science teacher at Roaring Fork High School in western Colorado, has adapted to the region’s high cost of living. She also shares her home with a friend and works at Petco on the weekend and during the summer.

Cooper and her colleagues in the 5,600-student Roaring Fork district could soon get a bit of relief if local voters approve a property tax measure on Election Day. It would generate about $5 million a year, most of it for staff salaries and benefits.

The Western Slope district is among 20 Colorado districts with property tax measures this year that would devote new dollars to staff recruitment and retention. They include large districts like Denver, Jeffco, and Douglas County, mountain resort districts like Eagle County, Summit, and Telluride, and small rural districts like Hayden, Hanover, and Prairie.

The number of tax measures reflect the state’s high cost of living and the constant competition for quality teachers, including in areas that frequently have shortages, such as special education and certain STEM subjects. The average Colorado teacher salary was $77,000 last school year, with the average for individual districts ranging from $38,000 to $100,000, according to Colorado Department of Education data.

Justin Silverstein, executive director of the Colorado School Finance Project, said the number of districts with property tax measures — officially called mill levy overrides — fluctuates a bit from year to year, but earmarking money for teacher compensation is a consistent theme.

The number and diversity of districts seeking new dollars for teacher pay shows the need for more money in Colorado’s education system, he said.

Two statewide ballot initiatives — Proposition NN and Amendment 87 — could do just that, but Colorado voters have rejected several ballot measures that would support K-12 education over the last 13 years.

Roaring Fork Superintendent Anna Cole said her district has the fourth-highest cost of living in the state and has lost ground since 2021, when local voters last approved a property tax hike for schools.

“Boy, we’re struggling to keep our salaries competitive and keep our people here,” she said.

Just outside Cole’s office window is a building that houses some of the more than 100 subsidized apartments the district offers to staff members. A nearby soccer field could eventually make way for another staff housing complex.

Cooper, who teaches biology, chemistry, and forensics, used to live just outside Carbondale with a close friend who’d long owned a home on five acres there. When that friend died three years ago, Cooper realized staying close would be impossible.

The cheapest rental Cooper found in Carbondale was $3,000 a month, plus a $500 deposit for each of her three dogs — two inherited from her friend — and a $300 deposit for each of her two cats.

“The cost of living here has become insane,” she said.

Cooper, 54, has worked in the district for 23 years and wasn’t ready to leave her job, so she settled on the shared house in Rifle, 40 miles “downvalley” from Carbondale.

Others can’t make it work.

“Two years ago, we lost an amazing English teacher because she was alone with a dog and just could not afford rent anywhere, and she didn’t want to do the commute,” Cooper said. “We’ve lost so many just because of that.”

Cooper said if the property tax measure passes and she gets a salary boost, she might use it to get a car with better gas mileage than her 2012 Toyota Highlander.

“I’ve gotten used to the commute,” she said. “It’s just the cost involved in it.”

Part of Cooper’s paycheck also goes toward supplies to make her lessons pop.

She spends $200 on the first zoology dissection lab of the semester, fabricating large gummy bears out of ballistics gel and using candy for key parts of the bears’ innards. On a recent trip to Spirit Halloween, she spent $100 on skeletons, blood spatter materials, and black lights for her forensics class.

Cooper hopes the ballot measure passes, but she understands the burden on local taxpayers.

“I’m sad … that we’re in the condition that we have to go to our community and ask even more from them,” she said, “but I think in the long run it’s going to help our community with retention of really good teachers that are passionate about it.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the staff apartments seen from the superintendent’s office are in a former elementary school.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

For Chicago school board candidates, school closures are no longer off-limits

2026-10-28T20:17:33+00:00

Data analysis by Thomas Wilburn

Pastor Michael Neal was leading a church service at Price Elementary in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood in late 2011 when word spread among his congregation that the school would close at the end of that school year.

Neal’s church had just started using the shrinking school’s gym to host services. He remembers the following months as a frantic “funeral march.” Staff scrambled to secure other jobs and clear out, leaving behind piles of desks and chairs in the hallways.

“It created a big shadow — a pall over the whole building,” Neal said of the closure decision.

The following year, another 50 Chicago elementary schools closed, the largest mass closures in the country. The move helped make shuttering schools a politically toxic topic that Chicago officials have avoided.

But in this fall’s historic school board election, candidates are once again debating closures. About a dozen of the 45 candidates said they would support some closures as the district reckons with enrollment that has declined by 76,000 students over the past decade. Some have sought to reframe closures as an issue of student experience and outcomes rather than cost savings, arguing that schools with very low enrollment cannot offer rich academic, extracurricular, and social opportunities.

More than 140 of the district’s roughly 500 schools use less than half of their space, often in massive, aging buildings requiring millions in repairs. That includes 43 that are less than one-third full, according to Chicago Public Schools’ utilization measure, which critics have called imprecise, but the district continues to use. Most of these schools are concentrated in roughly a half dozen of the city’s 20 school board districts, making closures a more pressing issue for candidates in those areas.

Neal is now running in district 6b on the South Side, which stretches from the well-to-do Lakeshore East neighborhood downtown into the heart of the South Side. Of its 25 district-run schools for which CPS has utilization data, 15 operate at less than half capacity, including three at less than one-third.

Both he and his opponent said they would consider some school mergers in a candidate questionnaire from Chalkbeat, WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Block Club Chicago. Earlier in October, Superintendent Macquline King tapped the Greater Bronzeville Community Action Council, which Neal helps lead, and other local groups to spearhead a “reimagining with community” push to address declining enrollment.

Other candidates — particularly those backed by the Chicago Teachers Union — have spoken forcefully against any closures and wielded the issue to attack their opponents.

They argue that another round of closures would destabilize predominantly Black neighborhoods, disrupt student learning, and increase gun violence. Instead, they propose filling vacant space in school buildings with outside facilities, such as health clinics, food pantries, or even grocery stores.

Candidates are speaking out about closures

For Neal, the closure debate comes down to the student experience. He said his grandson started prekindergarten in the district this fall, and Neal wants him to have access to challenging classes, sports teams, school plays, and friendships in the coming years. Students at severely underenrolled schools are often denied these opportunities, he said. Many of these campuses wrestle with high absenteeism.

At a recent candidate forum, he said he challenged anti-closure contenders: “If you’re not sending your kid to a school that’s severely underenrolled, why do you expect other families to do that?”

Still, Neal believes CPS should extend a closure moratorium that expires next summer to allow more time to address declining enrollment. He also supports a recent push to sell or repurpose school buildings left vacant since 2013 or earlier. Crumbling vacant buildings are “a visual to the community that they don’t care about us,” he said.

A nonprofit Neal leads, Timothy Community Corporation, recently moved from the former Price Elementary building to a nearby Catholic school after CPS said it owed about two years’ rent — a claim Neal denies.

Neal’s opponent, attorney Brittany Kimble, said in the candidate questionnaire that she would back closures as a “true last resort” after significant community engagement and thoughtful transition planning.

Some candidates who support closures represent districts with few, if any, schools that could face that possibility. One of the most outspoken, Ellen Rosenfeld, is running unopposed in the North Side’s district 4b, where only one of 15 district-run schools is considered underutilized, and two are overcrowded. She said the 2013 closures are a cautionary tale but cannot dominate the conversation 13 years later.

“We need to move on and do better,” she said. “What we’re doing, it’s not working. It’s insanity and it’s wasteful.”

Anti-closure candidates go on the offensive

Opposition to closures runs deep on the West Side, where 43 of the 67 district-run schools in districts 5a and 5b are less than half full. Those include Douglass High School, which has served fewer than 50 students for years and drawn criticism from right-leaning pundits.

All four candidates running in those districts oppose closures. One, LaPamela Williams, has even said she would consider opening more charter schools if there’s community demand.

District officials and experts have attributed enrollment loss primarily to plummeting birth rates that are reshaping urban districts across the country. But some candidates blame historic disinvestment on the South and West sides and argue that more resources could reverse the declines.

“When we talk about underenrolled schools, we should be clear we are talking about primarily Black and brown students in Black and brown neighborhoods that deserve more investment and not punishment,” Hilario Dominguez, the union’s favored candidate for school board president, said in an interview this summer.

He and other candidates have at times questioned whether the district actually faces an enrollment emergency. Dominguez described “supposed underutilized schools” as “a term thrown around to undermine the district.”

Chicago has tried investing more in high-poverty schools through its Sustainable Community Schools program, which partners 20 schools with nonprofits to expand services. Despite an extra $500,000 annually per school since 2018 and an influx of federal COVID aid, enrollment grew at just three schools. The other 17 lost students at a sharper rate than the district overall, including 13 that lost more than a quarter of their enrollment.

Still, Shannon Bennett, executive director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, which joined a CTU call to extend the district’s closure moratorium, pointed to research on the academic disruption caused by the 2013 closures and an uptick in gun violence near vacant school buildings. He rejects the idea that closures could be handled better or that community engagement would elicit anything but impassioned opposition.

“They want to put lipstick on a pig and call it a beauty queen,” he said. “Closures are a nonstarter in these communities.”

David Stovall, a professor of Black studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, said school board candidates are still not talking enough about underenrollment, an issue central to the experiences and outcomes of the district’s Black students.

Stovall opposes large-scale closures, but he believes some campus mergers are necessary after years of failing to address the issue. He intrigued by bringing additional services into schools based on families’ needs, but said that won’t solve the academic and social limitations of severely underenrolled campuses. The district is not doing right by students by keeping some of these schools limping along, he said.

“Years of inaction on this issue have led us to a crisis point,” Stovall said. “The folks who are saying, ‘Is this really a crisis?’ are missing the point. This is not going to get any better.”

Danny Vesecky, a senior policy and research associate at the Chicago-based nonpartisan think tank Civic Federation, hopes the new, fully elected school board will tackle underenrollment at its first meeting in January 2027. He called the 2013 closures “shockingly rushed” and urged more thoughtful planning.

“I want to see the new board dig in on Day 1,” Vesecky said, “because it’s going to be a really long process.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Unprecedented IPS school board election will help decide how much power the district keeps

2026-10-28T19:36:02+00:00

Voters will elect members of the new Indianapolis Public Schools board on Nov. 3. But this isn’t the kind of school board election the city has seen before.

Fifteen candidates are running for five seats on a board that is losing authority over taxes, referendums, debt, transportation, and facilities to the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation. State lawmakers created IPEC to establish more-unified control over IPS and charter schools in the district’s boundaries.

How new board members navigate this chapter for one of the state’s largest school districts could determine whether IPEC’s authority grows over time. They will also help determine the district’s response to a long-term decline in enrollment, ongoing financial pressures, and its relationship with the charter school sector that has become increasingly combative.

In the last few years, the relationship between IPS and state policymakers has also been defined by conflict. It resisted a push from Republican lawmakers to uproot the district’s funding system in favor of property tax sharing with charter schools.

The district lost that fight in 2025, when the state required IPS to split that money, beginning in 2028. That came on the heels of a 2023 law requiring the district to share money from voter-approved ballot measures with charters.

Lawmakers then created IPEC earlier this year over objections from district leaders, and gave Mayor Joe Hogsett the power to appoint the corporation’s nine members.

The first big test for both the corporation and the district will be a crucial $95 million referendum for city public schools that’s also on the November ballot.

IPS will receive about half of the referendum revenue if it passes, although the district expects to make $20 million in cuts even if voters approve the referendum. Charter schools will get the rest.

But recent decisions by the district governing how families enroll in schools and the IPS Innovation Network could test the working relationship between IPS and IPEC. Newly elected IPS board members will be expected to collaborate with IPEC on reshaping the district, which could include closing schools. But the power imbalance could breed animosity and tension on the new IPS board, experts say.

Terry Spradlin, executive director of the Indiana School Boards Association, said the IPS board is in a difficult position of trying to run the day-to-day operations and manage limited resources.

“It’s an odd model, and it’s almost inherent that it’s begging for conflict because of those competing interests and goals,” Spradlin said. “I don’t know if it’s a model set up for success.”

Among the candidates, there are two emerging schools of thought when it comes to IPEC.

Hope Duke Star is both president of the IPS board and the district’s representative on IPEC. She’s seeking reelection for the board’s District 3 seat, and in the past has been backed by groups that fundraise for charters.

This election cycle, Duke Star sought no endorsements, and reported raising no money. Most candidates reported some type of non-cash support of goods or services, or in-kind donations, from nonprofits Stand for Children or RISE Indy.

Duke Star stressed that while some people are focused on a supposed “beef” between IPS and charter schools that could complicate IPEC’s work, she wants officials to collaborate and prevent recent changes from hurting families.

“If we’re going to destabilize families in the middle of a community, we need to create a safety net,” Duke Star said. “That is what IPEC is supposed to be doing.”

Lindsey Cornett has a different view. She decided to run for the board’s District 4 seat before IPEC got underway. She said the corporation has, if anything, strengthened her interest. Cornett’s campaign has brought in $17,500 in donations, most of it from individual donations but also $1,500 from the teachers union PAC, Chalkbeat partner WFYI reported.

“A big part of my job, if elected, is going to be holding IPEC accountable for what they have been tasked with delivering,” said Cornett, who criticized how IPEC plans to spend money at its Oct. 19 meeting. “I don’t think that all of these lines are necessarily clear cut.”

But ultimately, if other policymakers view IPS as “obstinate” and not compliant with what they want, then “this legislature would be quick to impose further changes and restrictions or reductions in authority,” said Spradlin, the director of the state school boards group. “That’s the risk.”

IPS school board retains control over academics, budget

While IPEC has significant power, the IPS board retains important control over the daily life of schools: It still has the power to hire and fire the superintendent, adopt curriculum, and adopt the annual budget, among other duties.

During an October forum with IPS school board candidates, several candidates said academic success and the budget remain important board responsibilities, despite the board having no control over future referendums to support those measures.

District 4 incumbent Chris Bultman, who was appointed by the board to the seat in June and is running for a full term against Cornett, said students need to be at the center of all decisions because when “there’s a lot of adults in the room bickering, kids lose.”

Bultman works for a nonprofit charter management organization and raised about $21,000, most of which was in-kind support from Stand for Children. He said in an interview he keeps his IPS board role and his charter school work separate.

“I know that kids deserve the best education they can get, and being able to do the best that I know to do with the information I have at the time I have it, to move public education along in Indianapolis is what I’m interested in,” Bultman said.

The district needs to improve academically, Bultman said, and he views accountability as a focus of IPEC and the board.

“We’re not where we need to be,” Bultman said. “Everybody can probably do a little better, and probably it’s going to be hard. We’re probably going to have difficult conversations.”

Duke Star is sitting on the school performance committee for IPEC, which will create an accountability system that could influence which schools close.

She said community messaging around IPEC is lacking, which could make it difficult to explain these new systems to the public.

“We’ve not had the opportunity to create the marketing, the storytelling, the community buy-in for what IPEC can be,” she said.

Recent IPS decisions will test its relationship with IPEC

Most candidates have also indicated they hope IPS and IPEC can work together, while others noted that IPS needs to advocate diligently for its own interests.

IPS district leaders recently opted to leave the universal enrollment system Enroll Indy that previously served charters and district-run schools, a move the board declined to reverse. The district said the move would help parents, although the state law that established IPEC says it has the authority to manage a unified enrollment system for the schools it oversees.

IPS also plans to renegotiate its contracts with Innovation Network charter schools after this school year, and will seek changes to state law allowing the district to charge more for services like transportation and maintenance. Innovation Network schools, not all of which are charters, receive services from the district but are independently operated.

District leaders view those decisions as financially prudent that will help them better serve students. But charter leaders view it as retaliation and have criticized those moves.

So far, IPEC hasn’t weighed in publicly about these moves.

The decisions about Enroll Indy and Innovation Network schools show that IPS is testing IPEC’s will, said Brandon Brown, CEO of The Mind Trust, a nonprofit that has helped incubate charter schools in the area.

He hopes the corporation upholds its “legislative responsibility” immediately by taking over management of a unified enrollment system and providing clarity on the Innovation Network schools.

Brown said his organization plans to ask lawmakers to require IPS to begin sharing property taxes earlier than the current start date of 2028 if the district can’t strike a deal with Innovation Network schools. He said IPS shouldn’t be surprised if legislators agree to do so.

“If the district wants to offload all of the costs and charge more for services funded by property taxes, yet keep all the property taxes, I would be surprised if that is a solution that flies,” Brown said.

To MaryAnn Schlegel Ruegger, a former member of the Indiana Charter School Board, IPEC is already in essence a state takeover of the district. She said current board members are working on behalf of their community, and hopes that won’t change with the new board.

“A key responsibility for the board is to represent IPS because no one else is going to,” Ruegger said.

Duke Star stressed IPS “has to do its work” and make decisions on behalf of the district. At the same time, she said it’s crucial for the IPS board to show that it’s ready to work with others and doesn’t come across as complacent.

“We don’t want to be in a space where our community, the legislature, or anyone else is saying, ‘Well, they had this much time, and they just remain status quo,’” Duke Star said. “We don’t have that luxury. We need to show up as lean, strengthened, and prepared for whatever the next iteration of collaboration is with IPEC.”

Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect that MaryAnn Schlegel Ruegger is a former member of the Indiana Charter School Board, not a former IPS school board member.

Memphis school board rehires custodial company scrutinized in state forensic audit

2026-10-28T11:00:01+00:00

A Memphis schools custodial company identified as the biggest source of potential spending abuse by a state-issued forensic audit this summer will continue to serve more than half of the district’s schools next year.

The MSCS board voted unanimously Tuesday to award ServiceMaster Clean a year-long contract for more than $16.3 million starting in January 2027 to cover schools in the Northeast and Southwest regions. But ServiceMaster Clean has been at the center of complaints and controversy for the district since 2022, when it was awarded a single contract to manage cleaning services across all school buildings.

The 2022 ServiceMaster Clean contract sparked a district and federal investigation after a whistleblower said it included “kickbacks” to a member of MSCS leadership, according to a July audit report from CliftonLarsenAllen. The firm identified $48 million in potential spending abuse related to that contract.

During Tuesday’s meeting, board member Towanna Murphy confirmed that ServiceMaster Clean was the same company identified in the state’s forensic audit, and asked if the contract process was completed fairly.

“We have to make sure that we are following up on these custodial companies cleaning our schools because we say that our schools are clean, but they are not clean,” she said. “So if we say we’re evaluating them, please evaluate them the correct way.”

Superintendent Roderick Richmond said the approval process was “as fair and reasonable as a human being can say it was.” Board member Michelle McKissack pushed back on questions about the contract, saying MSCS leaders acted with the “utmost level of integrity.”

MSCS investigated ServiceMaster Clean in 2023 and cancelled the contract after less than a year due to parent and staff complaints that schools weren’t being properly cleaned. Since then, MSCS has split district custodial services into four different regional contracts.

ServiceMaster Clean took over an emergency contract in early 2025 after MSCS suddenly fired former vendor Fresh Start for delayed worker payments and contract violations. The company also received a contract along with three other providers last December to cover the 2026 calendar year.

Starting in January 2027, ServiceMaster Clean and HES Facilities will split the district in two to save over $3.5 million annually, Chief of Business Operations Tito Langston said Tuesday. That would total $14 million in savings over the next four years if the two contracts are renewed.

Custodial controversy also arose last year, leaving nearly 35 MSCS schools without janitorial services for the entire month of January. The board delayed voting on one proposed company for weeks due to ethical and performance concerns raised by MSCS staff over a decade ago.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Whitmer, four other Democratic governors ask for clarity on the federal tax credit program

2026-10-27T23:07:15+00:00

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is one of five Democratic governors who are asking the treasury secretary for clarity on what they described as significant questions about the federal scholarship tax credit program.

The program will provide a dollar-for-dollar tax credit, up to $1,700, for taxpayers who donate to scholarship-granting organizations. Those organizations can then use those donations to provide money to families for things such as private school tuition, tutoring, and other educational expenses.

“We seek clarity on whether and how the program can provide meaningful opportunities for public school students while avoiding unintended consequences that could divert resources from or otherwise weaken our public education systems,” the letter says.

The letter was sent days after Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel penned an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press in which she said she has “grave concerns” about whether the program violates the Michigan Constitution.

“Michigan law prohibits public money from supporting private schools,” Nessel said. “While this program concerns federal dollars, Michigan officials, including the governor, would be charged each year with identifying the scholarship organizations and verifying each organization’s eligibility.”

That is work, Nessel said, that would “involve substantial time and effort and, therefore, state money. If so, it may run afoul of our state constitution by using public resources to support attendance at private schools.”

Thirty-one states have opted into the program, but Michigan is one of 19 states that have not yet made a decision for the coming year. The letter detailing questions about the program was sent to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant Oct. 22.

Education Week reported on the letter Monday.

Here are the issues the five governors raised about the program:

They asked about oversight and whether states can impose requirements such as student data safeguards that go beyond federal rules.
They asked about the full scope of what expenses would be allowable for students attending public schools.
They raised concerns about whether there would be federal funds available to compensate states for the costs to oversee compliance.
They asked about how waste, fraud, and abuse would be handled.
They wanted to know what steps a state can take to encourage access to scholarship dollars for students from low-income homes.

A federal response could determine decisions that states currently on the fence will make about participating in the program. The governors said they need the “information necessary to make fully informed decisions about participation.”

In addition to Whitmer, the letter was signed by Massachusetts Gov. Maura T. Healey, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

States have until Jan. 1 to opt in to be eligible to receive funding from the program when it begins in 2027.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

$44 million online charter school fraud trial begins in federal court

2026-10-27T23:01:52+00:00

Fall guy.

That’s how attorneys for Phillip Holden, the former director of the Indiana Virtual School, described Holden’s role in a $44 million scheme to inflate enrollment numbers at the online charter school and siphon per-pupil dollars from Indiana.

But U.S. attorneys said Holden knowingly participated in those plans as the right-hand man of school founder Thomas Stoughton, who pleaded guilty to fraud charges on Monday, the day before a joint trial for the men was due to begin.

Instead, Holden was the sole defendant Tuesday at the start of an oft-delayed federal criminal trial centered on the management of IVS, which closed in scandal in 2019.

Holden faces 17 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. In addition to Stoughton’s plea, school superintendent Percy Clark pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in June 2025 and agreed to pay back around $1.3 million.

According to a 2024 grand jury indictment, Holden was responsible for student enrollment, attendance, and teacher compensation in his role at IVS and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy, a related school. The indictment alleged that Holden, along with Stoughton and Clark, inflated enrollment numbers to receive per-pupil funding from the state of Indiana. The schools then funneled that money to for-profit companies owned by Stoughton and paid out to Stoughton, Clark, and others in the case, the indictment says.

The charges followed a 2017 Chalkbeat investigation of IVS that found the school had ballooning enrollment, just one teacher for every 222 students, and financial conflicts of interest. The investigation led Indiana lawmakers to tighten funding and attendance requirements for virtual schools.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has filed a separate $154 million lawsuit against IVS, IVPA, and their officers.

Trial will last several days

At the trial Tuesday, attorneys for Holden said they had lost contact with another person, Merle Bright, who received payments from IVS according to a 2020 state audit of the schools. They asked the court to order Bright’s attorneys to appear in person.

As part of the jury selection process, U.S. attorneys asked potential jurors if they had ever taken an online course, and, if so, how they proved that they were in attendance online. Holden’s attorneys asked potential jurors about their opinions on charter schools.

In opening statements, prosecutors described Holden and Stoughton as financially desperate when they started the school. Holden, they said, was a former police officer collecting unemployment when he was hired.

But the defense characterized Holden as a blue-collar worker who did not financially benefit from the enrollment scheme, earning no more than a $65,000 salary each of his five years with the school. In discussions about emails included as evidence in the trial, they frequently pointed out that Holden was not a sender or a recipient.

Prosecutors said that while Stoughton ordered the inflated enrollment, Holden put it into place by re-enrolling students who had withdrawn prior to count day, which is when Indiana determines how much funding each school receives based on enrollment. A state report found the school enrolled students who had only submitted requests on its website, who had moved out of state, and in one case, a student who had died.

They also said Holden and Stoughton kept a separate spreadsheet of actively enrolled students in order to pay teachers only for students who were actually attending classes, rather than the inflated figure.

The trial is expected to last into next week, according to U.S. District Judge Richard Young, with breaks on Friday and for the afternoon of Election Day.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Election 2026: The education issues we’re watching

2026-10-27T21:29:44+00:00

Education is often a secondary issue for voters, but elected leaders — from governors to school board members — shape the nation’s schools in significant ways.

Voters next Tuesday will decide key governors’ races that could lead to revamped graduation requirements, state superintendent races that might result in more oversight for voucher programs, and ballot measures that could change who gets to play sports.

A blue wave, meanwhile, could usher in a Congress that pushes back more aggressively on President Donald Trump’s education agenda.

Here are the issues we’re watching in the midterms:

Democrats are running on reining in vouchers

After Republican-led legislatures rapidly expanded state voucher programs, red-state Democrats are pointing to “waste, fraud and abuse” and making reining in voucher programs a key part of their campaign message.

In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa has pledged that if she becomes governor she will “save Texas schools” by ending the state’s newly-minted voucher program, a key achievement of her opponent, incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. In Iowa, Democrat Rob Sand, the state auditor who is now running for governor, wants to impose an income cap. And in Arizona, where the state’s supreme court killed a ballot measure to put guardrails on the program, how much to regulate education savings accounts is a major issue in the state superintendent’s race.

The message that voucher programs hurt enrollment and funding at public schools — whether that’s true or not — can be persuasive to voters, said Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank.

“People love their public schools,” he said. “That can be a powerful message.”

Still, it’s unlikely these programs will vanish if a blue wave materializes in November. Sand acknowledges that “there’s no chance” of repealing Iowa’s voucher program, given the state legislature’s Republican supermajority. And in Wisconsin, Democrat David Crowley said that, if elected governor, he would not try to undo that state’s long-standing voucher program because public schools couldn’t absorb all the displaced students.

The midterm results could also influence whether more states currently led by Democrats opt into the federal scholarship tax credit.

School closures, budget woes loom large in school board races

Dozens of school districts have floated plans to close schools, proposals that often fuel fierce community opposition.

Now the issue is showing up in school board races. Candidates are running against school closures in St. Louis, where a school consolidation plan would shutter 14 schools, and in Minneapolis, where the current board just paused a controversial closure plan even as more than half of schools operate at under 70% capacity. Detroit also has a slate of candidates opposed to school closures — who also pledge to oust the superintendent.

But whoever wins these seats will still have to grapple with the challenges of declining enrollment, tight budgets, and underused buildings.

These issues are intersecting with major governance changes in some cities. In Indianapolis, the elected board recently lost important powers to an appointed oversight board created by the Republican legislature. School board candidates are divided on how to manage the district’s relationship with the appointed board — should they try to cooperate or defend the elected board’s authority where possible?

And in Chicago, voters are choosing a fully elected board after 30 years of mayoral control. The new board will inherit a $700 million budget deficit as a self-imposed moratorium on school closures expires. Another key question is how independent the board will be from Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer facing his own difficult reelection campaign in early 2027.

Ballot measures test public support for trans rights

Voters in Washington and Colorado are being asked to bar transgender girls from girls’ sports teams. Voters in Nebraska are being asked to enshrine an existing ban in their state constitution. And in Arizona, voters will decide whether to expand an existing ban that covers school teams to include rec league teams, as well as to ban transgender boys from joining boys’ teams.

These ballot measures are part of a national strategy amid a broader attack on trans rights from the Trump administration. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court said state restrictions on transgender sports participation do not violate the Constitution, but the court did not require states to exclude these athletes, as some conservatives wanted.

The Washington and Colorado ballot measures are notable because these are blue states with laws that support transgender rights, including the ability of young athletes to play on teams that match their gender identity.

Activists on this issue hope they can sidestep state legislatures by asking voters directly. Polling finds that a large majority of Americans, including many Democrats, believe athletes should compete on teams that match their sex at birth.

The Washington measure goes much further than other transgender sports restrictions — it would require that all girls prove they are female in order to play sports. A birth certificate would not be sufficient. Instead, girls would need a health provider’s statement verifying their sex “based on reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.”

Education reform ideas are back on the table — sort of

The bipartisan education reform consensus may be dead in Washington, D.C., but ideas from that playbook are showing up in governors’ races.

The basic question of whether students are learning enough has played a prominent role in Oregon, where the governor is also the state superintendent. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek is in a tight race with Republican challenger Christine Drazan.

Amid public outcry over the state’s slow pandemic recovery, Kotek has backed early literacy investments, a school accountability bill, and more class time for students — the state has a very short school year. Her education policies appear to have cost Kotek the support of the Oregon Education Association, which is sitting out the governor’s race.

Will bipartisan education reform make a comeback? 3 reasons it could — and 3 obstacles

Kotek says voters should give her four more years to see through these reforms. Drazan argues that education needs a more dramatic overhaul. She also wants Oregon to participate in the federal scholarship tax-credit to expand parental choice — something Kotek opposes.

Broadly speaking, Republicans are calling for more accountability measures while Democrats want schools to have more resources. The way those issues interact makes accountability a “tricky beast” for both parties, said Patrick McGuinn, a political science professor at Drew University.

In Michigan, both gubernatorial candidates say literacy is a priority, but Democrat Jocelyn Benson focuses on more resources for teachers and schools, while Republican John James has called for restoring third-grade retention as part of a bid to follow Mississippi’s path toward higher reading scores.

But in Nevada, incumbent Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and Democratic challenger Attorney General Aaron Ford both support holding back third graders who are struggling to read, a policy that the state’s superintendents say is misguided.

Democratic Congress could push back on Trump education changes

Democrats are widely expected to take the House, while the Senate would be a harder pickup. Accountability for the Trump administration and affordability top the Democrats’ larger agenda.

If Democrats do win more power, expect lots of oversight hearings.

Midterm elections show Democrats, Republicans jockeying to capitalize on ed-tech backlashMidterm elections show Democrats, Republicans jockeying to capitalize on ed-tech backlash

Already, Politico reports, two Democratic lawmakers, Reps. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon and Jahana Hayes of Connecticut, are campaigning to chair the House education committee by arguing they would stand more firmly against efforts to dismantle the Education Department than the current ranking Democrat, Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia.

Democrats are likely to “take a hard look at DOGE’s cuts to education contracts and staff, the push to dismantle the Department of Education, the legal settlements with elite universities, and the way the administration has approached civil rights enforcement,” Rick Hess wrote for the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “If the Democrats take both chambers, they’ll have added bandwidth for more such investigations.”

Potential areas of bipartisan agreement include guardrails on AI in the classroom, literacy, and career and technical education.

Democrats have introduced legislation to repeal the federal scholarship tax-credit, Republicans’ signature education accomplishment, but getting contested bills out of the Senate or past the president’s veto will be nearly impossible.

Still, it’s important to try, said American Federation for Teachers President Randi Weingarten. Congress needs to reverse Medicaid and SNAP cuts that hurt low-income families, restore research funding, and make sure money appropriated by Congress reaches schools and students, she said.

“Instead of being a passive lapdog for this president’s excesses and abuse of power, they can do something about it,” Weingarten said.

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org. Lily is on Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

What would help formerly incarcerated youth finish school? More support and accountability, experts say.

2026-10-27T21:02:32+00:00

Students returning to their communities after serving time in juvenile facilities often require extra support to make it to graduation. A panel hosted by Chalkbeat Philadelphia this week focused on how adults in the educational and carceral systems can improve that support.

At the heart of the conversation was Act 1 of 2022, a Pennsylvania law designed to improve “educational stability” for youth impacted by the justice system, foster care, or homelessness. Earlier this month, Chalkbeat Philadelphia published a feature story about how the law is being implemented for justice-involved students five years after its passage. Under the law, eligible students are entitled to a school contact who will help ensure that the coursework they take behind bars gets counted when they return.

But panelists and event attendees said students still face challenges getting their transcripts and other educational documents transferred from multiple facilities. That can make it harder for them to stay motivated to finish high school.

“Education reduces recidivism, education makes Philadelphia safer,” said Michael Welch, education attorney for the Defender Association of Philadelphia. “And it is unacceptable for these young people who see violence, who are victims of violence … to be told that their credit, their schoolwork, is worthless.”

Welch said he’s been pushing the School District of Philadelphia to abide by the mandate and is asking local judges to enforce it. The school district did not make a representative available for the panel.

Thaddeus Parker, with the McClain Foundation and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, agreed that better oversight and awareness of the law could improve outcomes for these students.

He also emphasized that adults who interact with formerly incarcerated youth should take a more person-centered approach.

“A lot of this population of young people, they don’t have the most stable home environments, so then we become dependent on their guardians to navigate them back to the normal way of going to school,” Parker said. “There’s been times where I’ve had to take actual records to the school district, and if I wasn’t doing that, it wouldn’t get done.”

Panelists discussed other solutions including district-wide training, the city’s Office of the Youth Ombudsman, and Act 1 Graduation Plans for every eligible student.

View the full recording here.

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

The Philadelphia Journalism Collaborative provided support for this event.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero earns 88 points out of 100 on latest evaluation

2026-10-27T19:15:24+00:00

After recent tension between the Denver school board and superintendent, the board unanimously approved a performance review Monday night in which Superintendent Alex Marrero earned 88.4 points out of a possible 100, a higher score than last year.

After meeting in a closed-door executive session for three hours, board members struck a positive tone when they emerged. The vote to approve Marrero’s evaluation was unanimous, although board member John Youngquist was absent.

“It’s been a wonderful collaborative experience, and the conversation we’ve had leading up to here has just been really telling how we can move forward together as a board with our superintendent,” said board member Amy Klein Molk.

Vice President Monica Hunter, who recently told an investigator that she “tried to fire” Marrero over the summer, praised him for growing Denver Public Schools’ community hubs, which provide food, clothing, adult English classes, and other services to DPS families. But she also noted the wide test score gaps between white students and students of color.

Denver has the largest test score gaps by race in the state. For example, about 27% of DPS Black students and 24% of Latino students met or exceeded expectations on the state literacy test last spring, compared with 76% of white students — a 50-percentage point gap.

Board member Kimberlee Sia said the district needs to make faster academic progress.

“We know we’ve been making incremental progress,” Sia said to Marrero, “and I appreciate you hearing and being willing to have the conversation about, ‘How do we get there faster?’”

Marrero’s 20-page evaluation is split into two sections: strengths and areas for growth.

Among the strengths, the board noted:

69% of kindergarten through third grade students scored at grade level or above on early literacy tests, surpassing Marrero’s goal of 68%.
35% of third through eighth grade students met or exceeded expectations on state math tests last spring, meeting Marrero’s goal of 35%.
DPS earned a high “green” rating, based partly on state test scores, from the Colorado Department of Education for the second year in a row.
82% of DPS students graduated within four years of starting high school, an all-time high that surpassed Marrero’s goal of 81%.
DPS launched a new education program founded by rapper Andre “Dr. Dre” Young and record executive Jimmy Iovine and focused on entrepreneurship, technology, and design at two high schools: Manual High and Denver School of the Arts.
The number of citations issued to students by school police officers fell from 72 to 55, outperforming Marrero’s goal of 65.
400 students earned a Seal of Climate Literacy, a diploma endorsement showing they gained skills related to the environment, surpassing Marrero’s goal of 196.

Among the areas for growth:

The state literacy test scores of Latino students, Black students, and students from low-income families fell short of Marrero’s goals, demonstrating a need to improve reading and writing instruction and offer “rigorous, evidence-based interventions.” For example, 24% of students who qualify for subsidized meals, a proxy for poverty, met or exceeded expectations on state literacy tests, short of Marrero’s goal of 26%.
Black students, Latino students, and students with disabilities made lower-than-expected academic growth on state math and literacy tests, meaning they made less progress from year to year than Marrero anticipated. For example, Black and Latino students earned median growth percentile scores of 48 in math, short of Marrero’s goal of 55.
554 students graduated in the spring having earned a work-based industry certification, which fell short of Marrero’s goal of 578.
The board said “staff and employee culture” needs improvement, though it didn’t give specifics, and recommended that Marrero collect staff feedback and use survey data “to inform decisions, strengthen workplace practices, and address areas of concern.”
The board also recommended that Marrero ensure “the district’s discipline matrix is applied consistently and equitably across all schools to promote fairness, accountability, and inclusive learning environments.” The discipline matrix dictates the consequences students receive for certain behaviors and infractions.

Marrero’s evaluation comes at a tumultuous time for the board, which has been plagued by infighting, the recent resignation of member DJ Torres, and a vote to censure Hunter following an inconclusive investigation into whether she used antisemitic language. The board is in the midst of appointing Torres’ replacement.

It also comes after Marrero applied for a superintendent position in Florida that he didn’t get. He was also reportedly a finalist for the top schools job in Chicago, though Marrero said at the time that he was committed to Denver. Some board members have questioned that commitment.

Relations between Marrero and the board have been tense. In June, Marrero sent a four-page email outlining his concerns with the board, including that members were overstepping their authority and getting too involved in administrative matters. He wrote that he and his staff were caught in the crosshairs of disputes among board members.

Last year, Marrero earned 73.5 points out of 100 on his evaluation. In 2023 and 2024, he got a bonus based on his performance. But the board got rid of that provision in his contract in 2025.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

What parents at a Newark Public Schools enrollment fair want for their children

2026-10-27T18:57:59+00:00

Families piled into Newark Vocational High School on a recent Saturday, looking for the right school for their children.

Teachers and school staff called out to them in hallways that resembled a raucous street market. It was the first day students could apply to schools for the 2027-28 school year, and educators were making their pitch.

“Got any high schoolers?” one staff member shouted. “Want a place where your child can succeed?” another called out.

The Newark Public School enrollment process opened on Oct. 24, 2026, and the application window closes at midnight on Jan. 15, 2027.

The All Schools Fair was a chance to learn what the school system offers. Some parents had children enrolled in charter schools, but were looking to switch to district schools. Some had already sent their kids to Newark Public Schools and were cautious based on their experience. Others had children already enrolled in the district but wanted to learn more about their options.

Many parents who spoke with Chalkbeat at the event said they appreciated Newark hosting the fair so they could learn more about their choices all in one place. But they also stressed the importance of learning more about the schools on their own — and not letting the schools paint the whole picture.

From now through mid-January, students can tour schools and attend open houses. The application window closes at midnight on Jan. 15, and students will find out their results March 22, according to the district website. Newark used to operate a universal enrollment system for both district-run and charter schools, but many of the city’s charter schools now use a separate application called the Newark Common App.

Guirlande Zetrenne smiled as she watched her seventh grader interact with a high school staff member in a crowded hallway. Zetrenne and her son moved recently to Newark from Queens, New York, and said she was “happier with the academics, the information” available in her new city and school system.

“These events help you to see what you want to highlight. This is the best way to get to know the community,” said Zetrenne. But she urged people to also “go do your own research, have discussions with other families.”

Jules M., the parent of an eighth grader who asked for only her last name’s initial to be shared, stood outside of a classroom filled with information on the Newark School of Global Studies, where she wants her daughter to go for its Arabic language program. Her daughter has always attended Newark Public Schools, which she described as an “on and off journey.”

“It just really depends on the teachers,” she said. “She had some good ones, she had some bad ones, but I think that’s in every school district.”

Danye Bell transitioned her son from a charter to a district high school last year, which she said was a big adjustment.

Despite that, she is still looking to send her fourth grader and eighth grader, who are currently in charter schools, to Newark Public Schools for middle and high school.

Bell highlighted that the enrollment fair was important for deciding a school and that all schools should provide readily available information for students.

“As a parent in the community, that’s our right,” she said. “A school is a business at the end of the day. But we appreciate options.”

Newark used to operate a universal enrollment system for both district-run and charter schools, but now many of the city’s charter schools use a separate application.

Like Bell, Shay D.’s eighth-grade student currently attends a charter school, but she wants to send her daughter to a district school next year. (Shay asked her full last name be omitted due to privacy concerns.)

She hopes her daughter will go to Weequahic High School, the same school she graduated from in 2012, and participate in its Allied Health Academy program, where she can earn college credits and graduate with an associate degree.

She was initially unsure about that idea, because she said it lacked programs that prepared students for success when she was a student there.

But after doing research, she said she discovered things have changed there.

“I don’t want to let my experience scare away my kid from getting her own experience,” she said.

13 people apply to fill a vacancy on the Denver school board, which has been mired in conflict

2026-10-26T22:53:50+00:00

Thirteen people have applied to fill a vacancy on the Denver school board at a tumultuous time for the board, which has long struggled with interpersonal conflicts and public disagreements.

Among the applicants are a former board member, Scott Esserman, and two former candidates for the seat, Caron Blanke and Mike DeGuire.

The vacancy for the District 3 seat representing central-east Denver was created earlier this month when DJ Torres, who was elected last November, resigned less than a year into his term amid what he called “cycles of accusation” and too much time spent on “internal conflict.”

Torres was one of two board members recently accused by President Xóchitl Gaytán of a long list of policy violations, including that he missed some meetings. Both Torres and Vice President Monica Hunter said the allegations were baseless. After Torres resigned, the board censured Hunter following an inconclusive investigation into whether she had used antisemitic language.

The board is set to appoint a new member on Nov. 19. The appointee will serve for just one year, even though Torres had more than three years left of his four-year term. District 3 voters will elect a new representative in the November 2027 election.

The board will appoint a new member by a majority vote. In the world of Denver school board politics, the six remaining board members are ideologically split — although that ideology doesn’t always inform how individual members vote.

Three of the six were endorsed by the Denver teachers union, which has been critical of charter schools and school reform. The other three were endorsed by Denver Families Action, the political arm of a group called Denver Families for Public Schools, which was originally formed to advocate for charter school families but is now focused on more universal issues.

Esserman, a former teacher and the parent of two Denver Public Schools graduates, served on the board from 2021 to 2025 as an at-large member representing the entire city. He was elected in 2021 with backing from the Denver teachers union.

Esserman ran for reelection last year in District 3, where he lives, but without the union’s backing because leaders said they weren’t happy with the way he voted on a few issues. Esserman lost to Torres, who was endorsed by the union.

Blanke, a DPS parent who previously oversaw the Jewish Community Center’s preschool, ran in District 3 last year against Torres and Esserman. She was endorsed by Denver Families Action.

DeGuire, a retired DPS principal and outspoken school reform critic, ran to represent District 3 in 2021. He lost to Carrie Olson, a former teacher who had the teachers union endorsement.

Pat Donovan, who previously worked for Denver Families for Public Schools, also applied to fill the District 3 seat. Donovan still serves on the Denver Families board and on the board of homegrown charter school network Rocky Mountain Prep. He said Monday that if he were appointed, he would resign from the other boards to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

The other applicants for the District 3 seat, as posted on the district’s website, are Emily Bussey, Shannon Carson, Pete Fey, Veronica Figoli Fleischer, James A. Foglio, P. Barclay Jones, Erin Phelan, Sean Precious, and David Scudamore.

The applicants are set to attend a meet-and-greet at the Mosaic Campus, 1900 Olive St. in Denver, on Nov. 4 at 5:30 p.m., which will be followed by a community forum at 6 p.m. The board will select finalists on Nov. 16 and vote to appoint a new member three days later.

The appointee must live in District 3, have been a registered voter for at least 12 consecutive months, and never have been convicted of certain crimes against children.

The last board vacancy, for northwest Denver’s District 5 in 2022, drew just five candidates. After several rounds of voting and a tense discussion, the board appointed family law attorney Charmaine Lindsay to fill that seat. Lindsay ran for reelection in 2023 but lost.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Meet the Brooklyn science teacher reshaping climate education across New York City

2026-10-26T21:31:15+00:00

Brooklyn science teacher Sean McFadden doesn’t just reach his students at the Eagle Academy for Young Men II. His work on climate education shapes schools across New York City.

As co-chair of the Education Department’s Climate Education Leadership Team, he helps lead a group of about 40 educators on creating “equitable, meaningful” climate education lessons as the nation’s largest school system gears up for a new state mandate next school year to phase in climate education.

“Climate change can be meaningfully integrated into science, social studies, economics, literature, and more,” he said. “But requiring climate education is only the first step. Teachers need time, training, confidence, and ready-to-use materials.”

McFadden also helped develop the climate curriculum the city has used the past two years for its K-8 Summer Rising program. And he’s helping lead a civic science pilot with 11 teachers across four boroughs where students will use sensors to collect air quality data at their schools as a way to capture a picture of environmental conditions across the city.

Now, he is now being recognized for his work. He’s among 10 New York City educators who won the 2026 Julian Robertson Award for Excellence in Teaching, which comes with a $20,000 unrestricted cash prize for each winner. (The 3-year-old award is accepting nominations through Oct. 31.)

For the past 13 years, McFadden has been at Eagle Academy, an all-boys public school designed to support young men of color. His path to the school where he currently teaches AP Environmental Science and a climate change elective was somewhat winding. He studied meteorology and began a Ph.D. program in atmospheric science. But he soon realized that he “enjoyed connecting with people more than conducting research.”

Through his work in City Year, an AmeriCorps program that partners with public schools in high-need communities, McFadden found his calling. He’s following in the footsteps of his mother, who taught elementary school in the Bronx for 30 years and developed lasting connections with her students.

“I mentored high school students in Brooklyn and developed a brotherly bond with a group of young Black men,” McFadden said of his City Year experience 15 years ago. “I’m still in touch with many of them today.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What drew you specifically to climate education?

As an Earth science teacher, I sometimes struggled to make abstract concepts feel relevant. Most of my scholars had never seen an igneous rock outcrop or a meandering stream, but they could see and feel climate change’s impacts in New York City.

Climate education also connects science with economics, government, and social justice. As a Black educator teaching predominantly Black boys, I want to amplify perspectives often missing from environmental conversations and help scholars see themselves as people who can shape solutions.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why?

Our urban heat island investigation is a favorite! We take infrared thermometers outside and compare the temperatures of grass, concrete, asphalt, and other surfaces around the school. Scholars develop hypotheses and choose some of their own measurement sites.

We’re doing authentic science without leaving school grounds. I love telling scholars they’ve just done the kind of work scientists do to study urban heat. Seeing their pride is priceless.

What does centering student experiences and inclusiveness look like in your classroom?

I begin lessons with opinion questions connected to scholars’ lives. If a vacant Brooklyn lot were redeveloped, should it become a park, affordable housing, or businesses? There’s no single right answer. Everyone can contribute, and we practice supporting opinions with evidence and listening to different perspectives.

Can you share an example of how you foster student leadership?

One scholar joined my hydroponics club as a quiet freshman looking for extra credit. As he learned to care for plants and manage our systems, his confidence blossomed. At my suggestion, he became club president and joined NYC Public Schools’ Youth Leadership Council.

Now he’s leading sustainability workshops for the city, encouraging classmates to get involved, and helping me develop a proposal for an outdoor greenhouse. Watching that transformation has been incredibly rewarding.

What’s happening in your community that affects your classroom or school?

Fresh, healthy food isn’t always easily accessible around our school. Our hydroponics systems let scholars grow, harvest, and eat produce while learning about food apartheid.

One scholar took home cilantro that his mother used in soup. We also share our harvests at the school’s Thanksgiving feast. It’s wonderful seeing classroom learning become part of family and school life.

You are also your school’s sustainability coordinator. Can you tell us more about that role?

I lead our Green Team of scholars and staff, organize Climate Action Days, and coordinate with custodial staff on recycling and composting.

For Energy Climate Action Day, scholars in grades 6-12 were invited to pledge an everyday action, such as switching off unused lights or fully shutting down gaming consoles. We posted pledge menus on every floor. The next day, Green Team members interviewed scholars from each grade about whether they honored their pledges, what obstacles they encountered, and whether they’d keep going. I love that scholars led both the action and the reflection.

How did your own experiences in school shape the educator you are today?

My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Styles, made me feel welcome when I was the only Black student at a new school. Her warmth made an unfamiliar environment feel less frightening and helped me feel comfortable enough to let my guard down and make friends. She still asks my mother about me! I strive to create that same sense of belonging for my scholars.

Later, my Earth science teacher, Mr. Cosgrove, and chemistry teacher, Ms. George, geeked out with me and fueled my curiosity.

I never had a Black male teacher in K-12. I hope to be the example of an educated Black man that I didn’t have growing up.

What do you plan to do with the award money?

Much of the award money paid for veterinary care for my beloved cat, who underwent several procedures and surgeries. Sadly, he passed away, but I’m grateful I could get him the care he needed. I used the rest to invest in my future and help family members.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

I hope this award shows my scholars that growth doesn’t stop when you become an adult with a career. I’m still challenging myself and setting new goals, and I hope they’ll do the same.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania adopts school cellphone ban

2026-10-26T19:07:11+00:00

The days of school-by-school cellphone policies will soon be over in Philadelphia.

Gov. Josh Shapiro signed legislation Monday requiring all Pennsylvania schools to adopt “bell-to-bell” policies to prohibit student cellphone use during the school day by the start of 2027-28 school year.

Pennsylvania joins New York, New Jersey, Indiana and dozens of other states with similar bans in an effort to improve students’ focus and social connections.

“I’ve heard from parents and teachers who tell me about how our kids are too easily caught up by addictive algorithms,” Shapiro said at the bill signing at Lenape Middle School in Doylestown Monday.

The new policy would be a stricter mandate than what’s in place for many Philly schools now. Some Philly principals adopted their own versions of the ban even without the mandate, but others allowed students to use phones at lunch and for some class assignments. The new state law will end that flexibility.

Superintendent Tony Watlington has previously said he believes school cellphone policies are “best made at the school level.” But the district will now “work with principals, educators, students, and families to inform the development of a districtwide policy,” according to a statement from the Board of Education released last week after lawmakers passed the bill.

Under the new law, students will be prohibited from using cellphones at all public and private schools, with a few exceptions for students with disabilities, medical needs, and English learners. It also allows teachers to give permission for students to use a cellphone for educational purposes “provided that a school-issued device is insufficient or unavailable.”

Aaron Chapin, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association teachers union, said in a statement on Monday that he is “confident that this change to the school day will have a positive impact on student behavior, academic performance, and mental health.”

Pennsylvania prohibits cellphone use during school lunch, recess

The new law will apply during the entirety of the school day, including lunch, recess, homeroom, and passing periods. It covers all internet-connected portable devices students can use to send and receive messages and play videos and games, except for those that are school-issued and approved.

The law requires each school to provide written notification to parents about how to contact students during the school day, and how to sign up for emergency notifications.

Notably, the bill doesn’t provide additional funding to help schools implement the ban. In 2024 the state budget included some money for districts to buy lockable phone pouches but some districts opted not to take it, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Philadelphia principals previously said they spent money from their schools’ budgets to purchase things like lockable phone pouches and cabinets.

The law leaves the specifics of enforcing the new policy up to districts.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

As Michigan students struggle with literacy, teachers head back to school for science of reading training

2026-10-26T18:52:29+00:00

In 2010, Karlee Little attended Central Michigan University to learn how to teach elementary school. Now a veteran teacher, she’s back in the classroom as a student.

Little, like so many Michigan teachers, is seeking as many strategies and fresh ideas as she can to help her students become stronger readers. It’s that extra reading support that she didn’t learn in college, the 34-year-old said.

“I don’t ever remember being taught like this is how kids are best going to read,” Little said. “I remember it being like, if they’re not reading, these are the things you can do, but never really step by step show us what we should be reading.”

Little, who teaches in the Hemlock Public School District near Saginaw, completed her third session of Lexia’s LETRS training last month. She will finish all eight units in three school years. The training provides educators with deep dives into the science of reading, a long-standing body of research about how children learn to read, which focuses on phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

It’s important work right now as Michigan’s reading scores have been falling since 2015, with the biggest decline coming during the pandemic years. Those scores haven’t improved, according to state data released last month.

Only 38% of third graders scored proficient on the state’s reading exam. The Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress also tests mathematics and other subjects in grades 3-8 and 11th grade.

By the start of the 2031-32 school year, Michigan teachers working in grades K-5 must complete professional training that concentrates on the science of reading. All teacher preparation programs in the state are now required to include science of reading too.

LETRS is one of the state’s approved providers for this training. So far, more than 8,000 educators have graduated from LETRS training and another 4,300 are currently enrolled, according to the Michigan Department of Education.

State education officials and lawmakers have called literacy a top priority.

Currently, 28 school districts have adopted or signed on for the state’s LETRS training, MDE officials said.

Improving literacy outcomes has bipartisan support

Both candidates in the state’s gubernatorial race want to build on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s work on literacy, but Republican John James and Democrat Jocelyn Benson differ on what should come next.

James has suggested reinstating the state’s retention law, which required that third graders be held back if they did not perform well enough on the state reading exam. (The retention requirement, which was part of the state’s Read by Three law, was repealed in 2023.)

Benson has called for more literacy resources to ensure every child can read by third grade, though her platform doesn’t go far beyond what the state already has underway.

Sarah Reckhow, a political science professor and public education researcher at Michigan State University, said literacy is becoming a shared focus across party lines, in political campaigns, and among state lawmakers.

“The bipartisanship that we’ve seen in the legislature seems to carry into how they talk about reading and literacy as a priority,” Reckhow said.

Julia B. Lindsey, a national literacy expert and consultant, has observed a commitment to literacy in Michigan, and she assisted school districts moving to a science of reading curriculum even before the state push. In August, she conducted training for dozens of educators statewide that was hosted by the Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators.

“Districts cannot change if they are not being supported by the state, if they don’t have money to support them but also training and programs”, said Lindsey, who received her doctorate in educational studies from the University of Michigan.

What comes after the move to the science of reading will be the next stage of debate in Michigan, especially if test scores don’t improve. Other states have passed retention laws that hold back students who do not read proficiently and banned reading instruction methods that are now disputed.

Teachers say literacy training can be emotional, inspiring

A substitute teacher covered Little’s classroom when she attended the LETRS training.

Saginaw ISD, which includes Hemlock, is making time for every elementary teacher, including Little, to attend literacy training, said Kelly Kujala, instruction and coaching program director for the school district north of Flint.

They have also invited teachers from outside school districts to attend in-person training, she said. The result is open collaboration and problem-solving for different groups of teachers, she said.

“It is hard when you’ve been teaching all day to give up that precious time,” Kujala said. “So now teachers can come to the ISD, get a guest teacher, and spend a full day with us, getting trained in a unit at a time … we’re doing some pretty magical things.”

It’s creating a trickle effect in Saginaw ISD with positive gains in classrooms, Kujala said.

Kujala was part of the state’s first LETRS training cohort and now facilitates sessions. Like Little and other teachers, Kujala had to set aside much of her reading instruction practices, she said.

“Why in my 17 years of teaching, had no one ever taught me this,” Kujala said, calling the training an “emotional experience.”

During the units, teachers learn new activities and strategies to help students decode words by sounding them out, mapping out those sounds, incorporating physical movements, and displaying vowels so they can identify their sounds.

Special education teacher Courtney Wilson tells her Hemlock students to touch their heads – placing their pointer finger where the frontal lobe of their brain is and putting their thumb on the occipital lobe region – to remind them what they are activating when they read, she said.

“Our sounds are here, your letters are here, and I’m working on how we can bridge those gaps,” Wilson said. “They can see kind of why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

Reading is not without frustration, said Sarah Engelhart, a second grade Hemlock teacher.

“When the text becomes lengthier and there’s words that they try to sound out but they don’t know the pattern yet, there’s definitely a drop in confidence,” Engelhart said. “We’ve had tears before on standardized tests or hard texts because they don’t know what it’s saying.”

After her eight-hour training day, Little and her colleagues wrote down a few goals for her return to the classroom. She wrote: Try more activities with sound mapping, physical phonics, and vowel valley – all science of reading practices.

Little said it’s inspiring to return to her students after training and “see what we can apply to help them get better.”

“And they want to read,” Little said. “Kids want to read.”

This story is part of a collaboration between Chalkbeat Detroit and the Detroit Free Press on covering key education issues in the race for Michigan’s next governor.

Midterm elections show Democrats, Republicans jockeying to capitalize on ed-tech backlash

2026-10-26T12:13:00+00:00

Steve Hilton and Gina Hinojosa are both running for governor. They represent different parties and disagree about big issues. But they have a common foe: AI in schools.

Hilton, a Republican, has said he would ban AI in California schools on day one. Hinojosa, a Democratic state representative in Texas, opposes AI use by elementary school students. And both of them might find common ground with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, who supports “responsible AI” in the classroom — and state guardrails.

Technology’s role in the classroom, from artificial intelligence to screen time limits, has become a talking point in races up and down the ballot. But so far, neither Democrats nor Republicans have claimed decisive ownership of the backlash to ed tech as a political issue. Elected state leaders are expressing mixed messages on the subject, even as some parents step up their own campaigns against ed tech.

“It’s a very political issue, but it’s not a partisan issue,” said Emily Cherkin, a screentime consultant who has been a prominent voice in the movement against education technology. “I am talking to people from across the political spectrum.”

While ed tech hasn’t become a partisan issue yet, that doesn’t mean policymakers aren’t addressing it. At least 13 states have passed laws around AI in education, and about three-quarters of states have issued guidance about it to districts, though in many cases it’s up to school districts to develop concrete restrictions and usage guidelines for students. Meanwhile, at least six states this year have enacted screen time legislation, in some instances capping how much digital instruction students can encounter daily

Candidates in local school board elections in particular appear to be making screen time into a bread-and-butter campaign issue. A candidate for a western Michigan district’s board touts “less screen time” as his main platform online. And two candidates in Scottsdale, Arizona include “less screen time” as a commitment in their campaign.

In San Francisco, a stone’s throw away from Silicon Valley where tech heavyweights like Google have spent decades courting schools to use their products, all but one of the eight candidates running for school board spots said in a recent questionnaire that they would support a policy limiting technology and screen time in the classroom, similar to one recently passed by Los Angeles’ board. The remaining candidate, Phil Kim, didn’t definitively support or oppose the idea, but wrote that digital learning tools “should be used intentionally when there is evidence that they improve learning.”

In bigger contests like statewide races, the pervasive nature of technology in schools, and what should count as appropriate use of AI in education, might present as a difficult issue to address with voters, said Pat McGuinn, a political scientist at Drew University.

MORE: Feds target school internet subsidies in ed-tech backlash even as Trump touts AI

For example, while the rapid construction of data centers might represent a concrete threat to some voters, AI in education is “more of an amorphous” issue for voters to grasp because it’s such a new concept, he said. Most voters, too, are not parents of minor children, and may not prioritize ed tech policies as they make their decisions.

Still, ed-tech backlash is coming up on the campaign trail in some of those bigger races.

In his reelection campaign against Hinojosa, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott isn’t ceding the issue to her. Earlier this month at an event hosted by Moms for Liberty, a conservative education group that’s supported screen time limits, Abbott said, “We’re going to be eliminating and reducing screen time in classrooms for students, and getting back to true education.”

Hinojosa’s campaign shot back in a statement to a local news organization that Abbott was responsible for digital creep in Texas schools. Her campaign highlighted a plan in the Houston school district, which the state took over in 2023, to expand an AI-driven school model as an example of how Abbott “has replaced hands-on learning with screen time in elementary school and is now ushering in AI schools in Houston ISD.”

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said the issue has made for some strange bedfellows — but hasn’t prompted action from the federal government. The U.S. Department of Education released guidance related to screen time in August.

Earlier this year, Weingarten called for a screen ban for students in prekindergarten through second grade as well as limits on AI, although AFT did announce a National Academy for AI Instruction in 2025 in partnership with ed-tech companies. The union also reached an agreement with Microsoft creating safety and privacy protections related to AI in schools.

“You have Moms for Liberty and AFT on the same side of screen time, and you have the Department of Education doing nothing about it,” Weingarten said.

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org. Lily is on Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook.

Detroit school district proposes bringing libraries back to 89 schools

2026-10-26T10:00:00+00:00

The Detroit district expects to have around $258.5 million in funding that may be used to fund long-sought school upgrades starting next year.

Bringing libraries back to 89 schools is among the proposals the Detroit Public Schools Community District board is considering. If the board approves the plan in the coming months, the libraries could be partially open by fall 2027, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said.

During a board study session Wednesday, Vitti proposed spending $8.7 million in one-time funding to establish a library system. The money would cover the cost of up to 4,000 books per school, furniture, displays, initial staffing, and a new cataloging system.

If adopted, the plan would reverse years of school library closures in the district tied to budget restraints and declining enrollment. Teachers in the district say many former library spaces are dormant or have been repurposed, leaving most students unable to access libraries during the school day. Vitti said staffing the libraries for three periods a day would cost about $5 million annually after the initial setup.

LaTrice McClendon, chair of the board, said during the meeting that bringing school libraries back would be a significant step for the district.

“I just want … to point out how historic this moment is,” McClendon said.

The board has not yet voted on the district’s proposals for the one-time funding but is expected to do so at its November or December meeting.

Many parents, educators, and community members have called on the district to restore school libraries as part of its efforts to improve students’ literacy proficiency.

The same call has come from Michigan lawmakers, who have introduced bills to put libraries in nearly every Michigan public school in the state. None have passed.

Michigan was below the national average for public schools with library media centers in the 2020-21 school year, according to the most recently available data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Only 74.6% of Michigan public schools had library media centers, compared with 87.6% nationally.

Though many Detroit district schools have classroom libraries, there were only two certified librarians in the district in 2020. The district also lacks a library cataloging system.

On Wednesday, Vitti said if the board approves the proposal, the long-term plan would be to create a pathway for teachers to become certified school librarians. The certification process could be phased in over time, he added.

“But in the short term, at least all the schools have libraries that are open for certain periods of the day, and not only certain periods of the day, but after school as well,” Vitti said.

In the meantime, Vitti said the district would need to negotiate with the teachers union to potentially allow academic interventionists to run the libraries during part of their workday.

Other proposals include air conditioning, building upgrades

The district’s proposal totaled $251 million and includes a range of building improvements and other projects, many of which have been called for by parents, staff, and community members for years.

The proposed projects include:

Adding buildingwide air conditioning to 15 schools for $130.1 million. If approved, the only schools without air conditioning would be Northwestern High School, Sampson-Webber Leadership Academy, Osborn High School, and the Essential Skills Transition Program at Legacy. Currently, around 56% of district schools have air conditioning.
Making accessibility upgrades at 22 schools to comply with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act for $26 million
Addressing building repairs requested by principals, including damaged gym floors and auditorium upgrades, for $6.3 million
An emergency expenditure of $1.9 million to repair heating systems at Brenda Scott Academy for Theatre Arts and Nolan Elementary-Middle School
Updating the district’s warehouse with an inventory system and repairing a freight gate, lighting, and fencing for $572,000
Building concession stands, restrooms, locker rooms, and storage facilities at Communications and Media Arts High School and Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School
Allocating $69.3 million to fill funding gaps for pool and athletic field projects

Where the additional funding would come from

The $258.5 million will become available from several sources, according to district administrators.

Those include:

A projected unassigned general fund balance of $213.9 million
Interest earnings totaling $16 million from the district’s capital projects fund and another $10.4 million in leftover contingency funds
An additional $18.2 million if the board approves eliminating plans to convert a closed school building into an early learning center and renovate Vetal Elementary School

Vitti said Wednesday that the early learning centers are no longer needed because existing district buildings still have available pre-K seats. The original plan was made before Gov. Gretchen Whitmer fully funded pre-K, creating more competition for the district, Vitti added.

The district also no longer recommends renovating Vetal, Vitti said, because the building is in worse condition than officials knew when the facilities plan was adopted and would cost far more to renovate.

Under the proposal, the district would still retain $100 million in rainy day funds, Vitti said.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Getting lots of campaign material for Chicago’s school board election? We fact-checked some of it.

2026-10-23T22:19:29+00:00

Like voters across Chicago, Syd Tomlinson has seen lots of different campaign materials for Chicago’s school board election: mailers, YouTube ads, and text messages.

But Tomlinson is “a pretty skeptical media consumer,” especially of political attack ads.

“I don’t necessarily take any of them at face value for what they’re saying or the content of what they’re saying about a candidate,” Tomlinson said.

Earlier this month, we asked readers to send in campaign material so that we could fact-check the items that super PACs and candidates have bankrolled. We reviewed a handful of items to add clarity, context, and in one case, a correction.

The items represent a small sampling of what’s out there.

Some mailers say Jessica Biggs got money from Republicans and wants to close schools. The claims are more complicated.

Mailers paid for by Our Schools Action, a PAC which is heavily funded by the Chicago Teachers Union and is backing Hilario Dominguez for board president, say his opponent Jessica Biggs wants school closures, is fighting for the interests of “billionaire backers,” and has accepted money from Republican donors. One of the mailers shows a black-and-white photo of President Donald Trump.

Let’s take each claim one by one.

A campaign mailer funded by Our Schools Action features attacks against Jessica Biggs, an elected board member who is running for board president.

First, the Republican donors and Trump. By state law, Chicago’s school board elections are nonpartisan. Biggs describes herself as a progressive Democrat, but it’s true she has accepted campaign contributions from people who have also donated to Republicans in the past. Corli Jay, a spokesperson for Our Schools, identified two people: Paul Finnegan and Meredith Bluhm, both of whom have also donated to many Democrats.

Finnegan’s last donation to a Republican appears to be in 2022 for $2,900 to former Illinois congressional candidate Jesse Reising, according to federal campaign finance records. Bluhm’s last donation to a Republican appears to be for $5,400 in 2015 to former U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois. Chalkbeat could not identify links between Biggs and Trump.

This campaign mailer funded by Our Schools Action, lists various criticisms about Jessica Biggs, a candidate for school board president.

Next, the billionaires. Biggs has gotten more than $700,000 from Democratic donor and billionaire Michael Sacks, who is pictured on one of the mailers and whom the Chicago Teachers Union has heavily criticized.

But she also has big donations from others, including SEIU, the union representing some of the lowest paid CPS support workers.

Finally, school closures. Biggs does not support extending a school board-imposed moratorium on closures beyond this academic year. She has also said that closing schools “is the last thing we should want for a community.”

But Biggs also said CPS needs a plan that addresses facilities and enrollment inadequacies, as well as access to enough courses for students, and gathers feedback from people in those neighborhoods.

A digital ad says Hilario Dominguez didn’t pay taxes on a property his family owns. He’s on a payment plan.

A digital ad that debuted last month said Dominguez and his family, who live on the Near West Side bordering Pilsen, owe more than $35,000 in unpaid taxes for a property they own in Pilsen. The ad criticizes him for supporting increasing taxes to pay for schools when he hasn’t paid his own. Common Ground Collective, a newer anti-CTU group heavily funded by Sacks that says it supports “effective progressive policies,” paid for the ad.

Dominguez said in a statement that “like many struggling families,” his family has been on a payment plan for the delinquent taxes since February. The Cook County Treasurer’s Office confirmed it. Records show about $38,000 is owed.

Dominguez said he and his wife own a condo on the Near West Side where they live currently, and the taxes on that property are paid in full, according to county records. He said before they moved to that condo, they lived for some time at the Pilsen address, which his wife inherited from her grandfather.

Common Ground declined to comment on the ad.

A text about Carlos Rivas suggests he doesn’t support raising taxes. But he has before.

An October text message supporting Rivas, an incumbent running in subdistrict 3b, said he opposed the school board taking out a high-interest loan to cover certain costs and that he voted against raising property taxes last December.

“Twice your money was on the table,” said the text message, which was paid for by Urban Center Action, the super PAC for a centrist, pro-school-choice organization that endorsed Rivas. “Twice Carlos voted for your family, not the politicians.”

A text message funded by Urban Center Action suggests Carlos Rivas Jr., a candidate for subdistrict 3b, has opposed tax increases.

But the text message doesn’t mention that Rivas, like all school board members, voted to raise property taxes to the legal limit last summer and this summer to help fund the district’s $10 billion budget. The December 2025 tax vote that Rivas opposed was scheduled after the district underestimated what it could legally ask for earlier that year.

In a candidate questionnaire for this year’s election, Rivas said he’s opposed to more tax increases without a better accounting of how the money will be spent.

Juan Rangel, chair of Urban Center Action, highlighted Rivas’ current position on taxes and said the Urban Center’s “position is, moving forward, that the board can’t rely on taxpayers footing the bill.”

Rivas said he had nothing to do with the text message. State law bars candidates from coordinating with super PACs.

An ad says Ellen Sherratt is a CPS parent. She’s not.

Two flyers supporting Sherratt, who is running in subdistrict 4a, described her as a CPS parent. Sherratt has said her two children attend a private school. The campaign for Karen Zaccor, Sheratt’s opponent, issued a press release last week blasting the INCS flyer as misleading.

A campaign mailer from the super PAC for Illinois Network of Charter Schools describes subdistrict 4a candidate Ellen Sherratt as a CPS parent, but she's not.

The PAC for Illinois Network of Charter Schools, a charter advocacy organization, paid for one of the ads, which also misspells her last name. Brighter Futures, a super PAC funded by SEIU Illinois State Council, bought the other. INCS spokesperson Jessica Phillips said the error was corrected on the super PAC’s subsequent campaign material. Anthony Driver, who chairs Brighter Futures and is executive director of SEIU state council, said he wasn’t aware of the error and didn’t comment further.

Sherratt did not pay for or help craft the flyer, which is in line with state law that bars super PACs from coordinating with candidates, and said she had nothing to do with the error.

Isaiah White’s flyers say he’s an experienced CPS teacher. There’s more to know.

A flyer for 28-year-old White, a candidate in district 6a, says he’s an “experienced CPS educator” who has held multiple roles, including helping students who are learning English as a new language.

Isaiah White, who is running for subdistrict 6a, bought flyers that say he's an experienced CPS educator. He's worked in CPS for two years.

CPS records obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request show he has been working for the district for just two years. His employee history shows he was hired as a substitute in April 2024 and became a day-to-day Special Education Classroom Assistant, or SECA, this past May. This position puts him into a variety of schools, but does not have him working in one building consistently. The work history records don’t show which specific roles he held.

White said he’s experienced because he’s taught since graduating college, including in Spain before moving to Chicago, and has covered many roles as a CPS substitute, which he argues would help him as a school board member.

A door hanger says Emma Lozano fought against closing Latino schools. That’s true — to an extent.

A door hanger funded by Our Schools PAC says Lozano, an incumbent running in 7a, “helped stop the closure of Latino schools.”

A campaign mailer

Lozano was one of several board members who were against the Acero charter network’s plan to close seven of its majority Latino schools. But she and a majority of the board later voted to save five of the schools and let two others close after CPS raised legal and financial concerns.

Lozano was absent when the board voted unanimously to revoke CPS’ contract with two majority Latino ASPIRA charter high schools after CPS flagged problems with the network, whose leaders said they could close because of financial problems.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

IPS school board candidates raise over $150,000 from political action committees

2026-10-23T17:57:14+00:00

This story was originally published by WFYI.

Political action committees have given over $150,000 to candidates in the race for five seats on the Indianapolis Public Schools board — despite a change in Indiana law that will significantly dilute the board’s powers.

The outcome of the election will determine the makeup of the majority of the seven-member school board as the district cedes control of its buildings, transportation and ability to raise taxes to a newly created agency known as IPEC, or the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation.

The PAC associated with the Stand for Children Indiana nonprofit, which has pushed for replication of high-quality charter schools within the IPS district, has given the most, over $117,000, according to the group’s pre-election filing with the state.

The Indiana Political Action Committee for Education, or I-PACE, the political arm for the state teachers union gave $15,500. The nonprofit RISE Indy, an education advocacy group aligned with education reform efforts, gave $24,200, according to pre-election campaign finance filings for candidates and the PACs.

In total, the candidates raised more than $257,000 with about 22% coming from individual contributions.

The figures reflect the amounts raised before the election, from April 11 to Oct. 9 and include both cash and in-kind donations — non-monetary contributions of goods or services.

The new school board will still oversee academics and the superintendent, but will be required to follow certain directives from IPEC, which will craft an accountability system and take control of facilities. Yet all three groups told WFYI the outcome of the election is still important, with a need to boost academic outcomes for students and a potential to help elect a majority of members who share their view of education in the city.

The election is a high-stakes one for the local teachers union, said Monica Shellhamer, vice president of the Indianapolis Education Association. The union has objected to the district’s loss of power to IPEC and has backed candidates supportive of traditional public schools.

“We’re very hopeful to be able to shift a new majority to our board,” Shellhamer said. “And hopefully that’s what happens come election day.”

RISE Indy gave the most to Hasaan Rashid with $20,500 in in-kind support, according to Rashid’s pre-election filings. It gave smaller amounts to six other candidates who received training on its voter database — a tool that helps candidates reach potential voters.

The group said in a statement that it offered the training to candidates who engaged with the organization through its programs, such as Circle City Leaders and Freedom Readers and who share the group’s commitment “to ensuring every child has access to an excellent public school, regardless of income or ZIP code.”

The campaign to support the $95 million annual property tax referendum for four years for IPS and charter schools, meanwhile, has raised roughly $107,000 — nearly all of which has come from Stand for Children’s national PAC. RISE Indy said it’s supporting the referendum through canvassing, advertising and social media outreach.

Justin Ohlemiller, executive director of Stand for Children Indiana said the new distribution of referendum funds — which under a new state law must be shared proportionally with charter schools— reflects sentiment from the group’s parent advocates to share that funding equitably amongst all public schools.

“There is definitely, definitely a lot this election cycle that’s critically important to all public schools within the IPS district,” he said.

The election is the first for partisan school board candidates, but no candidate received support from a political party or its PAC. All candidates filed to run as Democratic candidates, except independent candidates Heather Houston and Derek Redelman. Lindsey Cornett is an unaffiliated candidate.

At-Large candidates

Incumbent Angelia Moore has raised the most among the four candidates seeking the at-large seat. She reported $52,973 in the pre-election period, nearly all of which came from Stand.

Almost all of that was in-kind support in the form of staffing, advertisements, mailers and texting outreach, according to campaign finance reports. The group also gave her a $3,000 cash donation.

Sacha Sharp, who is endorsed by the IPS teachers union, raised roughly $22,000, more than half of which came from individual donations. She also received a $6,000 direct donation from I-PACE, the PAC for the Indiana State Teachers Association.

Candidates Alexander Nyirendah and Heather Houston, who did not receive any endorsements from the teachers union, Stand or Rise, reported a little over $1,000 each in their campaign finance reports. However, Houston’s report also indicates she received $1,200 in-kind from the RISE Indy PAC for training on its voter database. That contribution appeared not to be included in the total amount raised listed in Houston’s filing.

District 2 candidates

District 2 incumbent Hasaan Rashid raised the most in the race with $44,540, nearly half of which came from RISE Indy. Rashid received $20,500 in in-kind training from the group in the form of a digital advertisement and voter database access, according to Rashid’s pre-election report.

His opponent, Bryan Duarte, raised $10,820, a little over half of which came from individuals. Duarte also received $3,000 in a direct donation from the teachers union PAC and $750 from the Good Fight PAC, which is chaired by former Democratic congressional and attorney general candidate Destiny Wells and has given money to Democratic candidates throughout the state.

District 3 candidates

Candidate Derek Redelman raised the most in the race for District 3, with the majority of his $42,436 reported from Stand. Nearly all of the support is in-kind donations for digital advertising, mailers, texting and staff.

Incumbent Hope Duke Star, who sought no endorsements this year in her re-election campaign, reported raising no money. The fundraising efforts are a stark contrast to her first bid for the seat in 2022, when she outraised her opponent with about $79,000 in support from RISE Indy, Stand and the Indiana Chamber Business Advocacy Committee.

Daqavise Winston reported $4,570, including $2,000 from the state teachers union and $500 in-kind support from RISE Indy for voter database training and access.

Loren Heger reported $2,711, including the same $500 in in-kind support from RISE Indy. The majority of Heger’s funds came from individuals.

District 4 candidates

District 4 incumbent Chris Bultman reported nearly $21,000, most of which was in-kind support from Stand for get-out-the-vote efforts. He also received RISE Indy’s $500 in-kind donation for voter database training.

Bultman’s opponent, Lindsey Cornett, reported about $17,550. Most of that came from individual donations, although she also received $1,500 from the teachers union PAC and $300 in an in-kind donation for event space from the Good Fight PAC.

District 5 candidates

District 5 candidate Yuri Smith Sr. raised roughly $19,600, most of which came from Stand in the form of in-kind support. He also received $500 in-kind support from RISE Indy.

Incumbent Nicole Carey reported collecting $15,825, including $3,000 from the teachers’ union PAC.

Pearl Taylor did not file a campaign finance report, although RISE Indy’s pre-election report states she received $500 in an in-kind donation for its voter database training.

School board candidates are required to file campaign finance reports if they raise or spend over $500.

Candidates must file finance reports within 48 hours of receiving contributions of $1,000 or more after Oct. 10.A finance report that covers donations and spending for candidates and PACs through the end of 2026 is required to be filed by Jan. 20, 2027.

The election is on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Early voting is underway.

NYC’s AI ban confusion: what’s allowed and what’s banned in city schools

2026-10-23T17:35:07+00:00

Days before the school year started, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced new restrictions on student-facing artificial intelligence tools used in hundreds of New York City public schools.

“We will fully discontinue or disable the AI components of more than 38 previously allowed programs that do not meet our new safety and oversight standards,” the mayor said, though he did not share their names.

After more than a month of requests, Chalkbeat obtained the list of products flagged by the Education Department. It includes widely used reading and math curriculums, student assessment tools, and even a chatbot the Education Department itself developed.

Chalkbeat reached out to the companies behind all 38 products on the list. Several insisted their products don’t use the kind of artificial intelligence prohibited under the city’s policy and said they were unsure why they were flagged.

The Education Department said its restrictions apply to student-facing generative AI features, not necessarily the entire products, and that it is working with companies to determine whether those features can be disabled. A handful of companies said they have already turned off the AI elements of their tools and have been given the green light to operate in city schools.

The companies’ confusion raises questions about how the Education Department vetted the products and implemented sweeping new restrictions just as the school year was getting underway. (The full list of flagged products, along with company responses, appears below.)

Companies question why their products were flagged

Some products were banned outright, including Amira, the controversial AI-powered reading tutor used in more than 200 city schools. Education Department officials said it could not function without AI. The city also discontinued student access to the Education Department’s own chatbot “teaching assistant” that it built in partnership with Microsoft and was deployed in six schools last year.

But other companies were baffled that their products appeared on the list at all.

Wordly, a translation tool that helps educators communicate with students who are learning English, was flagged even though the company says it does not use generative AI, and the city’s policy has a carveout for tools that help English language learners.

“Wordly is working on getting our product off the banned protocol,” a company spokesperson wrote.

Multiple products from HMH — a major player in the city’s new reading curriculum mandate and which employs former New York City schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos — were also on the list of products that violate city policy. One of them is Read180, a program designed to help struggling readers. Another HMH product, Arriba la Lectura, is allowed for students learning English but not other students, according to the Education Department. HMH contends that none of its products on the city’s list use student-facing AI.

An Education Department spokesperson said they flagged products with student-facing generative AI but did not explain how they determined which tools met that definition, including in cases where companies disputed that their tools use AI. Officials said they are working with companies on a case-by-case basis to determine if their products can be used without AI and be reinstated.

“We will continue to evaluate the evolving AI landscape and take the steps necessary to ensure implementation aligns with our student protections, individual needs, and educational priorities,” Education Department spokesperson Onika Richards said in a statement. She said parents can contact their schools or local community education councils if they want more information about what tech tools their schools are using.

The list is not exhaustive. Officials confirmed that other products, including the AI-powered tutoring platform Coursemojo and Google’s Gemini chatbot, are also banned. (Education Department officials said Gemini was left out because it was already being deactivated for students, though it is unclear why that excluded it from the list.)

Some critics cautioned against taking the companies’ claims about their AI features at face value and called for a more thorough and transparent vetting process.

“You cannot trust the companies that they’re not using student-facing AI,” said Leonie Haimson, an education technology critic who has raised concerns about whether approved technology tools are adequately protecting student data. “You cannot trust the DOE to independently evaluate and assess these products.”

Other companies acknowledged that their products included AI features prohibited under the city’s new policy and moved quickly to disable them.

All In Learning, a Texas-based company that provides student assessment tools to more than 100 New York City schools, said it scrambled to disable the AI elements of their product as soon as they saw Mamdani’s announcement. The product includes a feature that allows teachers to use AI to help them grade student responses, which is not allowed under the city’s policy.

“We turned on a dime,” said Darren Ward, the company’s chief sales and marketing officer, adding that the AI elements of the tool were not widely used. By the time Education Department officials reached out to the company, Ward said they were already in compliance. Schools were able to keep using the assessment platform without interruption, he noted.

Magma Math, a digital math instruction platform, includes a feature that gives students AI-generated hints when solving problems and wound up on the city’s list of products that violate its AI policy. Company officials said they turned off the AI component on Sept. 4, two days after Mamdani’s announcement. They got the green light from the Education Department to continue operating in city schools on Oct. 5.

“We continue to value student and teacher interactions above all else,” Henrik Appert, the company’s CEO, wrote in a statement.

In addition to turning off AI features, Magma Math reps emphasized that they recently launched another product for districts that are under pressure to reduce screen time: paper versions of its math problems.

Has your school been affected by new restrictions on AI tools? Let us know at ny.tips@chalkbeat.org

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

This consulting firm is advising Memphis state takeover leaders. Here’s what we know so far.

2026-10-23T10:00:00+00:00

The consulting group advising Memphis schools’ state takeover board has done behind-the-scenes work on similar efforts nationwide — including a Colorado takeover that ended in a lawsuit — and has been the subject of federal and state investigations in Florida.

This summer, private donors paid for Tampa-based firm MGT to provide early guidance on the takeover of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, according to oversight board Chair Billy Orgel. MGT works in government and technology advising worldwide and has cited successful involvement in other state school interventions in Texas and Indiana.

Before an early October meeting of the Memphis takeover board, MGT drafted job descriptions for the takeover board’s executive director, established its rules of governance, and outlined the approval process for MSCS contracts that exceed $50,000.

The full scope of MGT’s work is still unclear, as is the total cost. A six-month contract for $1 million was circulated among the company and individual oversight board members, but it has not been officially approved. MGT did not respond to Chalkbeat’s requests for comment.

That adds another layer of confusion to an already tumultuous battle over district leadership in Memphis. In just the past few months, the state takeover board has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge, restored to its power, and then blocked again in local court.

In a preliminary 90-day plan for Memphis, MGT also said it would advise the oversight board to appoint a new superintendent by December. That was one of the first moves in the Houston schools takeover. But firing MSCS Superintendent Roderick Richmond would put the local board on the hook for paying out nearly $500,000 of his three-year contract.

MGT’s role sparked a tense debate between board members at the Oct. 8 meeting after one member questioned if it was legal and ethical to accept the group’s work without a formal contract. After rounds of questions about the funders’ identities, Orgel said that MGT was funded privately, including by pro-takeover Memphis nonprofit Seeding Success, making MGT’s initial work a donation instead of an official partnership.

Seeding Success CEO Mark Sturgis declined to comment for this story. But Britney Thornton, a former Shelby County commissioner and state takeover supporter, said the lack of transparency around MGT’s work raises significant concerns.

“We’re basically locking ourselves into a consulting firm that has not been vetted and has been handpicked from a force that we’re not naming,” she told Chalkbeat. “This was not a selection that had any community input.”

MGT provided similar consulting services during the state takeover of Houston public schools in 2023. Tennessee Republicans have often cited Houston’s takeover as a model for Memphis. There, a consulting firm that was soon after acquired by MGT was also hired by a local nonprofit to help in the early stages of takeover, according to Houston’s state-appointed superintendent at the time. He did not provide further details on MGT’s work.

MGT has previously been at the center of bid-rigging allegations. In 2022, the Florida inspector general began investigating a claim that the state Department of Education had violated contract approval processes by hand-picking MGT for a multimillion-dollar job in Jefferson County.

The Miami Herald reported that MGT was the only company to submit a $2.5 million bid to help transition Jefferson County schools back to local control after years of being privately run. State education officials had been in talks with the firm for a week before opening applications, the Herald reported.

And Trey Traviesa, a former Republican Florida state representative who now serves as MGT’s CEO, had personal connections to the state education commissioner.

MGT didn’t receive the Jefferson County contract. A federal grand jury began investigating the bid-rigging case in 2023, and no results have been publicly released.

Colorado school district found MGT partnership ‘totally ineffective’

One of MGT’s particularly contentious jobs took place in a Colorado school district just outside of Denver, as Chalkbeat reported.

In 2018, Colorado’s state education department ordered Adams 14 to become the first district run by an outside company after years of low student performance. The local school board signed a four-year contract with MGT to the tune of $8.3 million.

Graduation rates and career and technical education opportunities in Adams 14 initially improved, MGT said. But in 2021, the local school district hired a new superintendent who questioned the cost of MGT’s services and ordered an outside evaluation of the company.

That superintendent blocked MGT employees from entering schools for two weeks after outside evaluators said the partnership between MGT and Adams 14 was “totally ineffective” and should end.

Adams 14 lost its accreditation after failing to fix its relationship with MGT. The district sued MGT three months later for allegedly violating open meetings laws and using Adams 14 money to hire subcontractors for work the firm was obligated to do.

MGT decided to end its contract with Adams 14 weeks before the district released results from an external audit that showed the firm spent nearly $500,000 on duplicative subcontractor work. MGT also settled the lawsuit from Adams 14 in May 2023 by paying the district $1.5 million.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Board of Education adopts new union contract for lunchroom workers

2026-10-22T22:55:13+00:00

The Chicago Board of Education on Thursday celebrated a new contract with one union while being accused by another of not doing enough to secure additional state funding.

After more than a year of negotiations, the board voted unanimously to approve a new four-year, $64.8 million contract with Unite Here Local 1, the union that represents more than 1,800 Chicago Public Schools lunchroom workers.

But before the board adopted the new contract, the Chicago Teachers Union accused CPS of a lack of advocacy for more funding as the district potentially faces mid-year budget cuts. Those cuts could come after the school board passed a $10 billion budget in July that relies on getting $150 million more from the state — an assumption made at the urging of CTU to help reverse layoffs and against the advice of CPS leaders.

Both issues highlight the costs ahead for CPS and its new, fully elected school board that will take office in January. Thursday’s meeting was the board’s last one scheduled before Election Day; 17 of 21 members are running.

Unite Here’s contract will raise minimum hourly pay from about $17 to $21 an hour for lunchroom workers and include more raises based on years of service, according to CPS and union officials.

The new contract, which is retroactive to June 2025, will also provide Unite Here members with a 4% cost-of-living raise next July, followed by a 2.5% increase in 2028, a district spokesperson said in a statement. The district’s current budget, which runs through June 30, 2027, accounts for the cost of the contract this year, a district spokesperson said.

CPS and Unite Here reached a tentative deal on Oct. 1, two months after the union asked to start the fact-finding process, which is one of the last steps before a possible strike. The union held rallies and once blocked part of Madison Avenue outside of board headquarters to raise public pressure over its contract fight.

Letia Downing Lowe, who was on the union’s bargaining team, said the wage increases are a significant win and a sign of respect for her colleagues, even if the union’s original goal for minimum hourly pay was $24.

Irma Garcia, a cook who has worked in CPS lunch rooms for 24 years, said her current pay is so low that she volunteers at food pantries in order to take home donations and has struggled to pay her bills. She’ll now see her pay rise from $22 to $29 an hour.

“When I saw that we won this contract, I cried,” Garcia said while fighting back tears.

King applauded the agreement in her remarks to the board, saying that these “employees arrive early, prepare and serve nutritious meals, keep our kitchens running, and make sure our students have the very much needed fuel to learn.”

CTU accuses CPS of no movement on more state funding

Earlier in the meeting and at a rally before the meeting started, the Chicago Teachers Union blasted CPS for not doing enough to push for more state funding ahead of the legislature’s veto session, which begins in November.

Union officials said CPS denied their request to let members attend lobby days in Springfield to advocate for more state funding. The union had requested representatives from 50 to 70 school communities “most impacted by layoffs” to be allowed to lobby in Springfield, according to a CTU letter to the district that described “an imperative to band together” to push for more funding.

CPS did not respond to questions about its denial of the union’s request.

Gov. JB Pritzker has not signaled support for boosting state education funding for CPS or other districts beyond the $350 million increase state lawmakers already approved in May for this school year. Despite that increase, CPS is funded at 70% of what the state considers as adequately funded. The union has also pointed to state surplus funding and a major settlement with tech company Meta as possible sources of revenue, though Pritzker has said one-time revenue sources can’t fund districts annually.

In a statement, CPS spokesperson Mary Fergus said King will testify at an upcoming state budget hearing to push for more funding for all Illinois schools, including CPS. CPS is “planning to develop advocacy efforts” for the upcoming veto session on Nov. 17 and Dec. 1, Fergus said.

The district has not outlined where it might make cuts if they’re necessary. As of mid-September CPS had rehired about 350 of the roughly 1,000 employees it said were eligible to return as a result of the board’s budget mandate.

Earlier in the meeting, King also announced she’s creating a financial working group that she hopes will “break the cycle of recurring budget crises and establish a sustainable financial future.” The group will include representatives from local and state government, as well as civic and labor groups, she said.

“CPS Superintendent/CEO Dr. Macquline King and her team consistently engages with state legislators in Springfield, emphasizing the need for adequate funding to support District schools,” Fergus said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Community College of Aurora president gets his steps in to raise money for students

2026-10-22T22:45:10+00:00

Community College of Aurora President Mordecai Brownlee walked roughly a marathon a day over three days this week, all for his students.

He trekked the High Line Canal’s 71 miles from Monday to Wednesday to raise at least $40,000. The donations he secured, which the school’s foundation is still tallying, will help provide emergency aid for his students to pay for rent, food, or transportation.

Brownlee’s hike is part of the college’s ongoing efforts to fill a gap left by the end of federal pandemic relief funds, which allowed the college to expand emergency aid from a couple thousand dollars in 2019-20 to about $1 million during the pandemic. Afterward, those funds were no longer available.

Brownlee figured a long walk might help raise awareness about campus needs and garner donations to sustain the pandemic-era support benefitting his many low-income students. He’s not the only campus leader to use his own feet for the cause — others have made similar treks, including Oregon community college president Tim Cook, who ran across the state to raise money for students experiencing financial hardship.

Brownlee first walked High Line Canal to fundraise last year and plans to continue the hike for at least a couple more years, despite taking a new job at Colorado State University next semester.

“We want to make sure that bills, various crises that are financially driven, don’t get in the way of somebody trying to fight to realize their dreams,” said Brownlee, who began his tenure CCA president in 2021.

Of the about 13,900 students enrolled at CCA, 75.7% qualify for free federal need-based Pell grants according to state data. About half are the first in their family to attend college.

Recent school surveys also show 64% of student respondents face food insecurity and about 20% missed class because they didn’t have transportation, Vice President of Student Success Reyna Anaya said.

Like many two-year institutions, the school has a food pantry and free food in campus cabinets. But Anaya and Brownlee said they hear more and more of their students are struggling with higher costs in housing, food, and gas. And federal budget cuts have left some students with less overall government assistance.

School numbers show referrals to the Office of Student Advocacy, which connects students to government, community, and college assistance programs, jumped from 155 in 2020-21 to 559 in 2025-26. Officials said increases represent a combination of more student need and awareness about the help.

CCA has been building its chest of emergency funds to support those needs. In 2022-23, the school’s foundation had $8,000 for the student emergency fund. In 2025-26, the school reported $55,000. The college has also found other sources of money, including a one-year $10,000 grant from a national organization for student affairs administrators, to support students.

Last year, 141 students received $50 to $500 in emergency grants to help pay for housing, transportation, childcare, utilities, and other expenses, according to the college. Anaya said every student who receives the aid also gets coaching from her team that’s meant to increase the effectiveness of providing them money.

All of the students that CCA has funded have continued with their studies, Brownlee said.

“That’s why we’re doing this,” he added.

But current funding isn’t enough, Brownlee said. Anaya would like the college to give out closer to $200,000 in emergency grants each year, she said.

That’s why Brownlee, with a slight limp and knees and ankles wrapped in braces, said he’s motivated to keep walking, even when his legs go numb.

Correction, Oct. 23, 2026: This story has been updated to accurately reflect the number of students who qualify for need-based Pell grants. Due to incorrect information provided by the Community College of Aurora, an earlier version misstated the percentage of Pell-eligible students.

¿Cómo está Chalkbeat Chicago informando a los estudiantes de CPS sobre su junta escolar? Zines para jóvenes.

2026-10-22T21:30:33+00:00

Aprendiendo de la Junta de Educación de Chicago, se ha vuelto de moda — y más fácil — entre los jóvenes de CPS.

Los estudiantes se verán directamente afectados por los resultados de las elecciones de la junta escolar en noviembre. También tienden a estar fuera de la conversación, y Chalkbeat Chicago se anima a cambiar eso.

Nuestra meta es informar a los estudiantes y inspirar accion — es aglo que amos hecho creando un zine para los jovenes de la cuidad. Ahora necesitamos tu ayuda para transmitir ese mensaje.

Creado junto con la artista local Kelly Wang, este zine enseña a los estudiantes de CPS qué es la junta escolar y cómo pueden abogar por los temas escolares que les interesan. Este zine es para estudiantes de secundaria y de high school, pero también lo recomendamos a estudiantes aún más jóvenes!

¿Y la mejor parte? Cualquiera puede obtener una copia física para imprimir — ya sea en casa, en la escuela o en tu biblioteca local. Si eres un maestro de CPS, esto sería una gran actividad para que tus estudiantes se involucren cívicamente.

A continuación, el PDF de nuestro zine, disponible en español e inglés.

Para ensamblar tu zine, la artista misma, Kelly Wang, tiene tips.

Instrucciones:

Nota: Esta zine fue diseñada para imprimirse en hojas de papel de 8.5”x 11” y en color o en blanco y negro. Está destinada a ser doblada horizontalmente y grapada.

Cada impresora es diferente, y tienes la opción de imprimir a doble cara; checa qué dice “girar por el borde corto.” Si tienes que girar el papel manualmente, asegúrate de que gire por el borde corto para obtener el resultado correcto! La primera hoja impresa debe tener la página 8 y la página 1 en una misma hoja, y la página 2 y la página 7 en el reverso. ¡Imprima una copia primero para verificar la orientación!

Si tu impresora tiene una opción para cotejar, puede facilitar el proceso y reducir el tiempo para ensamblar los zines, pero también es una actividad divertida para los estudiantes.

¡Fija que la escala esté al 100% o en el tamaño actual!

Comparte tus pensamientos sobre la elección de la junta escolar.

Una parte importante del zine es la llamada a los estudiantes al final. Queremos escuchar a los estudiantes de CPS sobre qué temas escolares quieren que la junta priorice. Ningún tema es demasiado grande ni demasiado pequeño. Escanea este codigo QR, (o haz un click a este liga) y mandanos tus pensamientos! Planeamos compilar las respuestas de los estudiantes para publicarlas cuando los nuevos miembros de la junta se inauguren.

Chalkbeat Chicago, en asociación con otros medios, está trabajando para distribuir copias físicas a las high schools de CPS. También estamos contactando a organizaciones locales que trabajan con jóvenes para imprimir y distribuir copias del zine. Si tú conoces una high school, organización sin fines de lucro local, o negocio pequeño que estaría interesado en distribuir los zines, contacta a Makiya Seminera por mseminera@chalkbeat.org.

New Jersey school segregation case back in court as judges weigh potential constitutional violation

2026-10-22T21:05:35+00:00

Several years after civil rights groups sued New Jersey over racial segregation in public schools, attorneys returned to court Thursday to debate whether the state’s own enrollment data is enough to establish a constitutional violation.

During oral arguments before a three-judge appeals court panel in Trenton, attorneys representing the plaintiffs urged the judges to overturn a 2023 ruling that acknowledged persistent racial segregation in New Jersey’s schools, but stopped short of declaring it unconstitutional.

The state countered that enrollment numbers alone cannot establish a constitutional violation, and called for a more detailed look at individual districts.

The hearing was the latest development in a landmark lawsuit that could eventually change how New Jersey students attend public school. The case could have far-reaching implications for Newark and neighboring Essex County municipalities, where predominantly Black and Latino school districts sit near wealthier, majority-white suburban districts. Children who were in kindergarten when the lawsuit began are now in ninth grade.

The lawsuit was filed in May 2018 by the Latino Action Network, NAACP New Jersey State Conference, other civil rights organizations, and families. It argues that the state’s requirement that most children attend schools in the districts where they already live perpetuates racial segregation in violation of New Jersey’s Constitution, the only state constitution that explicitly bans segregation in public schools.

According to state enrollment data cited in the lawsuit, an average of more than 270,000 Black and Latino students, or roughly 46% of those students statewide, attended schools where more than 90% of students were nonwhite each year from 2015-16 through 2019-20.

In addition, Lawrence Lustberg, an attorney for the plaintiffs, pointed to decades of “pervasive” segregation in New Jersey’s public schools during Thursday’s hearing.

In 2023, both sides asked the court to decide whether the state was legally responsible without a trial. Superior Court Judge Robert Lougy denied both requests. After more than a year of unsuccessful mediation, a state appeals court agreed in July 2025 to review the ruling.

On Thursday, the plaintiffs argued that the trial court had improperly required them to demonstrate unconstitutional segregation throughout the state’s entire public school system, even though their lawsuit only focused on 23 “severely segregated” districts.

Those districts enroll roughly 15% of New Jersey’s public school students, Lustberg said. He highlighted Essex County, where predominantly Black and Latino districts such as Newark, East Orange, Irvington, and Orange border wealthier, majority-white communities, as evidence of why the state must address segregation across district lines.

“If Newark decides that they want to send their children to some other districts in order to desegregate their schools, they can’t,” Lustberg told the judges. “They don’t have that power.”

That authority, he argued, rests with the state education commissioner.

Judge Hany Mawla questioned whether the evidence was sufficient to rule in the plaintiffs’ favor without a trial, noting that the 23 districts represented less than 4% of New Jersey’s school districts and that experts had offered differing definitions of segregation.

Deputy Attorney General Francesco Ferrantelli Jr., representing the state, argued that the plaintiffs had failed to account for individual districts’ circumstances, including geography, educational opportunities, and parental preferences.

Pointing to Newark, he questioned whether students might prefer their current schools and what benefits they would gain from attending neighboring suburban districts.

Ferrantelli also disputed the plaintiffs’ claims of state inaction, citing existing school choice programs, charter schools, and state oversight. In addition, he argued that the plaintiffs had failed to prove intentional discrimination.

“They plead this case under the theory that they can prove it just by looking at enrollment data,” Ferrantelli told the judges. “That’s the entire case.”

Following the hearing, Lustberg criticized the state’s argument about a lack of sufficient evidence for unconstitutional segregation.

“Today, for the first time, they crystallize this argument that somehow numbers cannot be enough,” he told Chalkbeat. “But that is not consistent with the law.”

Several civil rights organizations not a party to the lawsuit also presented arguments supporting the plaintiffs.

Micauri Vargas, litigation counsel for the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, told the court that segregation deprives students of opportunities to learn alongside classmates from different backgrounds, and leaves them to grow up as “strangers to one another.”

After the hearing, Vargas and Lustberg expressed frustration about the prolonged legal battle over the case. Vargas also said existing school choice programs remained too limited to provide meaningful options for many families.

“Every day that goes by where there’s no remedy for this is tragic,” Lustberg said. “Students in Newark are going to have to suffer with how long this is taking.”

Retired New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Gary Stein, who helped launch the lawsuit in 2018, called it one of the most significant civil rights cases in the state’s history, and that its outcome could have implications far beyond New Jersey.

Asking the state “to desegregate its schools is not just to wave a flag,” Stein said in an interview with Chalkbeat on Wednesday. “It’s for the purpose of giving those children a better opportunity to succeed in life.”

The appellate judges did not issue a ruling Thursday. They could uphold the lower court’s decision, reverse it, or return the case for additional proceedings.

A ruling in the plaintiffs’ favor could eventually lead to a separate phase of litigation over what steps New Jersey must take to address unconstitutional segregation.

Either side could also seek review by the state Supreme Court, which declined to take up the case in May 2026 before the appeals court had ruled.

Samantha Olander writes about Newark and New York schools.

A proposal to close a Harlem high school could signal wider wave of enrollment-related closures

2026-10-22T20:58:18+00:00

New York City is considering closing a small Harlem high school, the first in what could be a growing number of school merger and closure proposals this school year as the nation’s largest school system grapples with enrollment declines.

Superintendent Fred Walsh, who oversees high schools supported by the nonprofit Urban Assembly, shared the proposal in a letter this week to families and staff at the Urban Assembly School for Global Commerce.

“As of today, there are only 112 students enrolled at Global Commerce, a 39% decrease in enrollment over the last five years,” Walsh wrote, according to a copy of the Tuesday letter obtained by Chalkbeat. “This presents significant programmatic and budgetary challenges that directly impact students.“

The proposal is not yet final, officials said. If the Education Department decides to move forward, they will post official closure documents online, hold public hearings, and then bring the proposal to the city’s Panel for Educational Policy for a final vote. Plans must be posted online by Oct. 30 for the panel to consider the proposal at its December meeting, a spokesperson said.

Global Commerce opened just 13 years ago as part of a boom in small, themed public high schools under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Now, the plan to close it comes as the city confronts a growing number of tiny schools.

K-12 enrollment in the city’s public schools has fallen by roughly 170,000 over the past decade to about 790,000 students.

The city now has 224 schools with 200 or fewer students, up from 165 in 2016, according to enrollment data. Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels has said that addressing severely underenrolled schools — which tend to disproportionately enroll the most vulnerable students and struggle to offer a variety of courses and activities — is a top priority.

But he has not laid out a citywide plan to close or merge schools, saying those plans must be developed by local district superintendents with the help of families and educators.

City officials did not say whether other proposals to close or merge schools are being prepared for the December Panel for Educational Policy meeting.

“Like school districts across the country facing enrollment declines, we have a responsibility to respond in ways that support the long-term sustainability of our schools,” said Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein.

“In some cases, that means making difficult but necessary decisions that place student success at the forefront, including mergers, that allow us to maximize programmatic opportunities, strengthen school communities, and better serve students now and in the future.”

Global Commerce has been shrinking for years. Principal Roony Vizcaino told the New York Daily News in 2022 he was concerned the school might eventually need to be shut down. He compared the effects of enrollment loss to “having a car that is used to functioning a certain way … and then giving it extra stress.”

More than 90% of the students at the school are Black and Latino, and more than 90% live in poverty. Last year, a third of students had a learning disability, and a third were homeless during the school year.

In 2025, 74% of students graduated within four years, compared to 81% citywide.

Vizcaino declined to comment on the proposed closure.

An Education Department spokesperson said officials were still meeting with the school community to decide whether the closure will be officially proposed.

Gilbert Schuerch, a physical education teacher at the school who runs a Substack about his after-school weightlifting program, wrote that students and staff were distraught by the news.

“The amount of students I’ve held in my arms today,” he wrote Wednesday, “and the number of tears shed — from me and the kids — has only reaffirmed how special this place has become to me and the kids.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago School Board Election 2026: The citywide race for president

2026-10-22T19:50:06+00:00

Read in Spanish. Read in Chinese.

This story was reported and published in collaboration with WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Block Club Chicago, a nonprofit newsroom covering Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods. Stay informed with Chalkbeat Chicago’s newsletter, WBEZ and the Sun-Times’ education newsletter, and Block Club Chicago’s newsletters.

Chicago’s first-ever citywide race for school board president has all the makings of a political drama: millions in campaign contributions, special-interest group endorsements, and two candidates bowing out midstream.

Voters across the city will finalize their pick among three candidates to lead the Chicago Board of Education on Nov. 3. Chicago’s school board president will be directly elected for the first time as more than 30 years of mayoral control ends. The person in this powerful, but unpaid position represents the board publicly, runs board meetings, and helps set the agenda. They will work with 20 other members to set a vision and goals for CPS for the next four years.

Former Chicago Teachers Union deputy political director Hilario Dominguez, who is on leave from the union and his job as a Chicago Public Schools special education teacher, is a graduate of CPS. He is running on a progressive platform that includes expanding preschool to all 3-year-olds and demanding more education money from the state, rather than cutting. The CTU is fueling Dominguez’s candidacy financially as it tries to hold on to control of the school board, which it seized after former union organizer Brandon Johnson became Chicago mayor in 2023.

Jessica Biggs, a former CPS principal and current school board member, wants to prioritize financial stability and high-quality education for every student. She’s backed by the progressive Service Employees International Union Local 73, which represents mostly low-wage Black and Latino CPS workers and is in a bitter dispute with the CTU. She’s also solidified support from the business community and former government officials who worked under former mayor Rahm Emanuel, including former CPS CEO Janice Jackson and former deputy mayor for education Beth Swanson.

Attorney Victor Henderson, who serves on the board of Urban Prep Charter Academy, is centering his campaign on advancing student achievement and fiscal responsibility. He broke open contribution caps when he lent his campaign $500,000 and has secured support from two Black congress people, prominent lawyers and pastors of large Black South and West Side churches, including Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina and Byron Brazier of Apostolic Church of God.

Leadership consultant Sendhil Revuluri, who served on the school board under former mayor Lori Lightfoot, dropped out of the race on Sept. 30. His platform promised a focus on student learning and community engagement and advocated for a board that’s independent of the CTU, the powerful union that represents roughly 30,000 teachers and CPS staff and is known for its strong focus on social justice issues.

A fifth candidate, Jennifer Custer, a former educator now serving on the board, dropped out in late August.

All the candidates say they are running because they want CPS to better serve students and families. But they differ broadly in their approaches — Biggs wants to focus on a better-functioning board, Henderson on offering an outsider perspective to issues like the budget crisis and charter fundings, and Dominguez is proposing big initiatives, such as increasing access to youth jobs.

Only Dominguez is ruling out closing schools amid the district’s steady enrollment losses, though the others say they would work with communities and move with deliberate care in weighing campus mergers. Henderson would consider opening more privately run charter schools and wants to see them better supported, while the others would further scrutinize existing charters.

The hall leading into Henderson’s downtown office is covered in framed newspaper articles about clients he has represented as a well-known defense attorney: actor Jussie Smollett, who was accused of allegedly faking a racist attack; Ald. William Beavers, who was convicted of tax evasion; the Jackie Robinson West Little League, which was stripped of its U.S. World Series championship title; and a CPS principal who sued after being ousted by her Local School Council.

Henderson is the only candidate in the race who doesn’t have experience as an educator. But the 65-year-old’s four grown children all attended CPS elementary schools in Beverly and selective enrollment high schools.

Henderson is not only a lawyer, but also a former certified public accountant. He says he can read contracts, understand budgets, and take on powerful interests.

“On that board, you need the right combination of people,” he said. “You have to have parents. You have to have principals. You have to have community members, but you also need to have lawyers and maybe doctors.”

Henderson became motivated to run for school board president after he got pulled onto what he calls the recovery board of Urban Prep Academies. At the time, in 2023, the school board was trying to close the charter school network after CPS’ inspector general found “dismal” financial practices, including unaccounted-for spending, taking high-interest loans, and needing cash advances. The founder and former CEO of Urban Prep was recently charged with embezzling more than $100,000 from the organization.

Henderson chalks up Urban Prep’s problems to a bad administration, but says the attempt to shut down the charter network, which serves almost exclusively Black male students, was wrongheaded. Urban Prep officials say they produce better academic outcomes than district-run schools for Black male students, who historically have lagged behind other student groups. “You don’t have those students and their families suffer.”

Henderson was part of a group of Black men who rallied on behalf of Urban Prep. The charter organization sued CPS and was allowed to keep two schools open.

Henderson says CPS needs to better support charter schools. He is sympathetic to the argument that charter school operators should receive a funding boost from CPS.

Henderson said he would commission a forensic audit. If it turns out that CPS needs additional revenue, he said he has the skill set to go to Springfield and make the case.

He said he wants to serve because he cares deeply about education.

“Men who are educated are more likely to get married, have families. You feel better about yourself,” he said. “The data shows that the more education you have, as a general rule, the more you make. Education is just transformational.”

Read Henderson’s full questionnaire.

School board member Jessica Biggs says her experience leading last year’s search for the district’s leader motivated her to run for president.

Biggs says she successfully secured buy-in from all board members on the job description for the superintendent after what she calls an “authentic” process of gathering community feedback.

“So that just showed me what was possible if there was leadership,” she said.

But the process fell apart after the candidates’ names became public and one dropped out. Biggs said she believes what happened was driven by political divisions on the board, leaving her demoralized to such an extent that she decided she didn’t want to run again as a board member.

“There were times when I very much wanted things to move forward, or be brought for a public vote, and was not able to do that,” Biggs said.

To have the impact she was seeking, Biggs realized, she needed to take a lead in setting the board agenda. The way to do that was to run for board president, Biggs said.

“If I was going to continue to spend my time on this board,” Biggs said. “it was important to me to be able to have that authority.”

Biggs grew up in Wheaton, now lives in Douglas, and has one daughter, who attends a fine arts magnet school.

Biggs was one of three members elected in 2024 without the backing of powerful interest groups, including the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Network of Charter Schools. She won her race with about 45% of the vote despite being massively outspent. On election night, she said she felt like people wanted independent board members. “I feel really loved,” she said.

She works for the Southwest Organizing Project, a community organization on the Southwest Side on an initiative that connects school communities with a range of services.

Biggs was fired as principal of a South Side elementary school in 2018 after an inspector general report found that she instructed staff to mark students as tardy even if they missed much of the school day and had them pick children up in their cars without getting written permission from their parents.

She was put on CPS’ “Do Not Hire” list. But she was removed last year, after previous attempts to get off the list were denied. Biggs has contended that her firing was political.

In her two years on the board, she opposed some of the biggest measures pushed by mayor-appointed and CTU-aligned members. She held firm last year against the push to take a loan to avoid cuts. This summer, she voted against an amendment that reversed layoffs by assuming the state would provide more money for CPS.

Since she ran two years ago, she’s gone from a “no” on school closings to leaving the question blank on our CPS School Board questionnaire. She says she doesn’t think there is a yes-or-no answer.

“I think this is a false dichotomy,” Biggs said. “There are spaces in this district where kids’ needs are being met by small schools, and there are spaces in this district where kids’ needs are not being met by what we are offering in a school.”

Read Biggs’ full questionnaire.

After months of speculation about the candidate the CTU might champion for the board’s top job, the union settled on one of its own when it endorsed Dominguez, who left his job at the union before launching his campaign. Dominguez says he’s unapologetic about his yearslong role as a union stalwart. The only presidential contender who worked as a full-time CPS teacher, he is also the husband of an assistant principal in the district.

Dominguez says his education advocacy goes back to his time as a student at Whitney Young Magnet High School, when he organized a walkout to protest budget cuts in 2010.

A native of the Pilsen neighborhood, he worked as a special education teacher on the Southwest Side. He took two years off to focus on political campaigns, including his own failed City Council bid. He later helped organize an 11-day teacher strike in 2019, when he was arrested with other union members holding a sit-in protest at the offices of the failed Lincoln Yards megaproject. Trespassing charges against him and the others were later dropped.

After going to work for the CTU full-time in 2022, Dominguez also worked on Johnson’s breakout campaign and on the candidacies of CTU-backed school board members in 2024. The union handily outspent well-resourced pro-school-choice groups in those races. It helped secure wins in three of nine contested races.

Dominguez said he has made more than 100 lobbying trips to Springfield over the years, “more than all my opponents put together.” So far, though, the push to secure an influx of additional state revenue for schools has fallen flat. Dominguez says that as president, he would work to engage more families in lobbying and rally districts statewide.

He is proposing offering free, full-day preschool to all city 3-year-olds through a partnership with private childcare centers and home-based daycares. He says the shift would drive economic development, boost the district’s enrollment, and “do right by families” by easing childcare costs.

Dominguez’s other priorities are also closely aligned with the union’s. He said he will push for better cafeteria food and the continued expansion of the Sustainable Community Schools program.

He staunchly opposes any school closures, arguing that the district and city should instead use vacant space in “supposed underutilized schools” to expand services such as healthcare clinics and library branches.

“When we talk about underenrolled schools, we should be clear that we’re talking primarily about Black and brown students in Black and brown neighborhoods that deserve more investment and not punishment,” he said.

In 2021, Dominguez faced a complaint from a fellow teacher who claimed Dominguez made a Nazi salute, called him Hitler in front of students, and questioned that teacher’s sexual orientation. The complaint was later withdrawn. Dominguez called the complaint “baseless” and said he was standing up to a racist colleague who had disrespected a student.

Read Dominguez’s full questionnaire.

Editor’s note: This story was updated after school board president candidate Sendhil Revuluri dropped out on Sept. 30. You can still read his full questionnaire.

Update 10/22/26: This story was updated to note that Hilario Dominguez is on leave from both CTU and CPS.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ. Contact Sarah at skarp@wbez.org.

Philadelphia to revamp social studies curriculum amid congressional antisemitism probe

2026-10-22T18:14:21+00:00

Philadelphia plans to overhaul its social studies curriculum developed by district staff that has come under fire from congressional Republicans.

The district will standardize its curriculum “in partnership with national experts,” according to transcripts of a U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee interview last month with Superintendent Tony Watlington released Wednesday.

The committee’s investigation into alleged antisemitism in Philadelphia and two other districts began last year, putting schools under scrutiny in a charged political climate. Watlington did not say whether the curriculum review was a result of the investigation. But the resulting plan will have ramifications across district schools.

Philly’s current social studies curriculum was written by district teachers and administrators. Experts have previously commended it for mandating an African American history course.

But the House committee’s report alleges the curriculum promotes an “ideology justifying violent resistance,” legitimizes “radical groups that incite antisemitism,” and “train(s) students to be far-left activists as … early as second grade.”

It points to world history lessons on resistance movements, imperialism, settler colonialism, and the philosopher Frantz Fanon as evidence.

District spokesperson Monique Braxton said in a statement Thursday that the committee’s report “distorts and mischaracterizes our record.” The district “objects to the blatantly partisan framing,” she added.

District officials say they intend to have new social studies curriculum materials in use during the 2027-28 school year.

In the House committee’s transcripts, Watlington said the district’s review of its social studies curriculum began shortly after he appointed a new chief academic officer on July 1.

Watlington said his plan for social studies is similar to how the district replaced its math, reading, and science curriculum in recent years with nationally vetted materials.

“We want to sunset individuals in the district writing curricula,” Watlington told the committee. “We don’t think it’s appropriate, and we think that national experts, quite frankly, are better trained to do this.”

The current curriculum was updated beginning in 2022 under the leadership of Ismael Jimenez, the district’s former director of social studies.

In the interview, House lawmakers pressed Watlington about Jimenez, whom some conservative groups have previously targeted for his political opinions. Jewish groups have also criticized Jimenez for how he described the Israel-Hamas war.

Watlington told the committee Jimenez is currently “in a termination proceeding.”

In a statement Thursday, Jimenez said he stands behind the curriculum he and other educators developed, and has “serious concerns that I am being made a scapegoat.” He added that his termination from the district is “pending.”

“We spent years doing serious intellectual work, developing curriculum grounded in historical inquiry, evidence, and civic reasoning,” Jimenez said. “Teaching students about colonialism, resistance, economic inequality, or injustice is not indoctrination. These are essential parts of understanding history and the world we live in.”

This story has been updated with additional information from the School District of Philadelphia about when it plans to introduce the new social studies curriculum.

Supreme Court to decide if religious schools can take public money and still discriminate

2026-10-22T17:54:11+00:00

The families of 4-year-olds in Colorado’s state-funded preschool program can choose from dozens of religious preschools, alongside hundreds of other public and private options.

But participating preschools have to agree not to discriminate, including on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

That was a problem for two Catholic preschools in the Denver suburbs. They said admitting gay or transgender children, or children with gay or transgender parents, would conflict with their Catholic beliefs on sex and gender. The parishes that ran the preschools sued, rather than agree to Colorado’s non-discrimination rules.

The dispute will soon be heard by the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court, the latest in a series of cases challenging traditional understandings of church-state separation. Oral arguments in St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy are set for Nov. 3. The court’s decision could have implications well beyond Colorado.

Between publicly funded preschool programs and state voucher programs, more public money than ever before is flowing to private religious schools. This case asks whether states can put conditions on that public money to ensure all students have access or whether doing so infringes on the First Amendment rights of religious schools.

Some advocates worry a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the preschools could harm children from LGBTQ families and open the door to the legal exclusion of other vulnerable groups in the name of religious liberty.

“If the preschools prevail, the state is going to be forced to fund that type of discrimination,” said Patrick Cremin, a lawyer with the Education Law Center who co-signed an amicus brief in support of Colorado’s position.

Preston Green, a professor of educational leadership and law at the University of Connecticut who also signed the amicus brief, said he can imagine eventual challenges by religious schools that don’t believe in miscegenation or racial integration.

He believes the ultimate goal of what he describes as a decades-long project by think tanks and lawyers is not just public funding for religious institutions, “but to have funding without strings attached.”

Nick Reaves, an attorney from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the Catholic preschools and other plaintiffs in the case, said harm to LGBTQ children or families is speculative.

“Colorado hasn’t pointed to actual families who oppose the teachings of the Catholic Church but want to send their kids to a Catholic preschool,” he said.

In contrast, he said Colorado’s policy has already put actual Catholic families in a bind: Pay tuition for a Catholic preschool that matches their values or save money by sending their kids to a state-funded preschool they don’t like as much.

Lisa Sheley, one of the parent plaintiffs in the case, testified during the lower court trial that her family would have saved about $4,700 a year if the preschool her then 4-year-old attended was part of Colorado’s state-funded program.

“Obviously with inflation, everything is extremely expensive, but even more so for a family of eight,” she said. “So, anything we could save would be extremely helpful.”

Case highlights tension between religious freedom, LGBTQ rights

Over the last decade, a trio of school-related Supreme Court decisions have paved the way for religious schools to gain greater access to public funding.

The most recent, Carson v. Makin, concerned a Maine program that for years paid for students to attend a secular private school if there wasn’t a nearby public school available. Then two families that wanted to send their children to religious schools sued and won.

In its landmark 2022 Carson decision, the high court ruled that religious schools can’t be excluded from publicly funded programs if secular private schools can participate. But the court didn’t clearly address a question central to the Colorado preschool lawsuit and another case involving K-12 schools in Maine: Can states require religious schools to agree to non-discrimination rules in order to participate?

As Colorado prepared to launch its universal preschool program four years ago, it invited religious preschools to join. Dozens did so and agreed to state rules barring discrimination based on eight characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Catholic preschools at the center of the case — St. Mary Catholic Virtue School in Littleton and Wellspring Catholic Academy in Lakewood — wanted to join but asked for an exemption from the sexual orientation and gender identity rules. The state refused and the Catholic parishes sued.

Two lower courts ruled against the preschools.

School choice advocates are closely watching the case. In an amicus brief in support of the preschools, EdChoice Legal Advocates said that Colorado showed “denominational favoritism” by letting in preschools whose beliefs align with their rules, but not the Catholic preschools. But more broadly, the group argued, school choice programs should counter the conformity imposed by government regulations.

“Education freedom requires education pluralism,” the attorneys wrote. “It does parents little good to have a choice among multiple versions of the same educational content for their children.” 

Reaves said the Carson ruling doesn’t just apply when states explicitly bar religious groups, but also when it makes rules that religious groups can’t reasonably follow.

“I think what we’re seeing is that states are trying to find ways to keep the religious schools out without saying the word religion,” he said. “It’s not about the words you use. It’s whether you’re excluding religious schools on account of their religious exercise.”

But Brian Dittmeier, director of LGBTQI+ Equality at the National Women’s Law Center, noted that Colorado’s rules don’t limit what religious preschools can teach.

“This whole case is simply about admissions,” he said.

Dittmeier said parents often select religious preschools not to match their faith but because the schools are close to their home or job or meet other needs.

In some communities, LGBTQ families might not have many choices. The National Women’s Law Center’s amicus brief points to rural Wiggins on Colorado’s Eastern Plains that only has a few preschools. The director of a Baptist preschool there said “almost all of our enrolled families are not actually members of our church.”

Supreme Court precedent allows some regulation

In a 1990 ruling in an Oregon case called Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court said laws may incidentally hinder religious practice as long as they apply to everyone and don’t target a specific religion or religious practice.

Colorado and its supporters say the Smith precedent should apply in the preschool case, because the state’s non-discrimination rules applied to all participating preschools and don’t single out faith-based schools.

But lawyers for the Catholic preschools argue Colorado’s non-discrimination rule does not meet the bar established in Smith — and that the 1990 decision needs another look.

The plaintiffs say that other preschools in the program are allowed to give preferences to certain students and exclude others. They point to Head Start preschools, which have strict income limits, and programs that specifically serve students with disabilities,

Preschools also are allowed to prioritize other categories of students, including siblings of current students or children of preschool employees.

Colorado leaders have responded in court briefs by saying the state’s non-discrimination rules mean preschools can’t deny admission to children because they’re disabled or from low-income families, but don’t “protect children without disabilities or children from high-income families.”

Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who also signed an amicus brief filed in support of Colorado, said it’s routine to provide special services to students with special needs. The practice shouldn’t be viewed as discriminating against students who don’t fall into those groups,” he said.

“Our understanding for at least the last half century is that some kids, based upon low income status in particular, need help that no other kids need,” he said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania’s Act 1 guarantees help for formerly incarcerated students. Some say it’s falling short.

2026-10-22T14:14:22+00:00

Chalkbeat will host a virtual panel discussion about this topic on Oct. 26 at 4 p.m. Register for free here.

Nobody was looking out for Aqilah David when she came home from incarceration.

At least that’s how it felt when she returned to her Philadelphia high school in 2018, after several months in a juvenile facility. The school’s administrators had marked her absent for much of the time she’d been away. Even though she’d taken classes while incarcerated, she had to fight to prove she had. She ended up graduating late.

“It just feels like a whole waste of your time, and it’s not a good feeling,” she said of her experience.

David then joined an effort to push for help for students like her — and won. Pennsylvania lawmakers moved to ensure more students get the credits they’ve earned in classes behind bars with a 2022 law called Act 1.

But nearly five years later, David and others say students are still facing the same problems.

Philadelphia principals and counselors say they’re still hunting down lost transcripts after juvenile facilities fail to communicate student progress. Meanwhile, other Philadelphia school staffers responsible under the law for helping students told Chalkbeat they didn’t know what it was or had gotten little or no training for it. Caught in the middle are students attempting to get back on track.

In Philadelphia, where youth gun arrests rose dramatically after the pandemic, the stakes are particularly high.

“When we deny you your educational rights, we sentence you to a life of crime or poverty, or both,” said Estelle Richman, former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare who also chaired a 2019 Philadelphia committee on incarcerated youth.

Aqilah David said her experience returning to her Philadelphia high school after spending time in a juvenile facility led her to advocate for Act. 1.

The School District of Philadelphia, which received no additional funding through the law, has made some effort to meet Act 1’s requirements. Officials have distributed guidance and designated liaisons for nearly all of its schools in the past.

Multiple juvenile justice facilities declined or did not respond to Chalkbeat’s interview requests. Republican Sen. Wayne Langerholc Jr., the author of Act 1, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Several students who spoke with Chalkbeat described encountering delays and other problems when they tried to ensure the academic progress they made in juvenile facilities carried over into traditional public schools and charters.

Dylan, 17, served 15 months in juvenile placement facilities for auto theft and weapons possession charges. He said he returned home earlier this year without a comprehensive record of his coursework. (Chalkbeat agreed to use only his first name due to his criminal record.)

When he sought to reenroll in the Philadelphia district, Dylan, his mom, and his caseworker at a youth reentry nonprofit said they tried to hunt down Dylan’s juvenile transcripts and fought to get him placed in the correct grade. Instead, he ultimately enrolled in a cyber charter, where they said it was easier for him to join as an 11th grader.

“It wasn’t very professional,” Dylan said of the adults who were supposed to help him. “They just was slacking on certain things that they were supposed to do.”

Aqilah David poses for a portrait at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, where she works as a community engagement and research intern.

Pennsylvania law aimed to keep students on track academically

The juvenile justice system is complicated, and students often move between school districts in different detention centers and residential facilities.

Pennsylvania youth in juvenile facilities have a right to free and appropriate public education under federal and state law, just like their peers in the regular K-12 system. But gaps in communication between juvenile facilities and school districts, incomplete or inaccurate transcripts, or mismatching course titles or credit values, can make it hard for young people returning home to prove what they’ve learned, according to multiple reports.

“Everybody can point the finger at somebody else,” said Margot Isman, policy director at the Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project in Philadelphia. “There’s always another agency that’s involved.”

The Philadelphia district said it works to consider partial credits students earn in juvenile facilities, though there are cases where they may need to retake courses.

In Philadelphia in 2024, there were over 1,900 admissions to the juvenile justice system, according to state data, although a single student might account for more than one admission if they go to more than one facility, or to the same facility twice in one year.

Act 1 was supposed to make it easier to identify students, support them, and ensure their academic work in juvenile facilities counts. Under the law, schools are supposed to designate a staff member to help these students transfer credits from other places and to develop graduation plans.

Shortly after the law passed, former Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Browne wrote that Act 1 — which he cosponsored — would “help to remove these barriers, allowing for more young men and women to succeed and realize their potential.”

But gaps in awareness and enforcement have left students scrambling.

A security camera overlooks a classroom at the Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Services Center School Program in 2021. Philadelphia's incarcerated youth may take courses there and in longer-term juvenile placement.

District officials said they have disseminated guidance and provided training to school leaders multiple times since 2023. But the law doesn’t require schools to track students covered by Act 1, or to report which school staffers are the mandatory points of contact.

Richardson Sylvain, a counselor at the Edward Gideon School in North Philadelphia, was his school’s Act 1 contact person for the 2024-25 school year, according to a list provided to Chalkbeat by the Center for Schools and Communities, an organization that partners with the Pennsylvania Department of Education to help schools implement Act 1.

Yet he said he wasn’t aware he held the position until Chalkbeat contacted him for comment.

Sylvain said he knew little about Act 1 and had never received any training on it. Sylvain said he doesn’t know how many students in his building are entitled to services under Act 1.But he said if more parents were aware that Act 1 could help their children, and knew he was their Act 1 point of contact, they might reach out for help.

“A lot of people are too proud sometimes to let us know what’s going on, but if they see signage or posts on Instagram or whatever, instead of me asking them what’s up, they can maybe seek out Counselor Sylvain,” he said.

Ultimately, the law lacks “the necessary oversight and accountability at the state level” that some advocates sought four years ago, said Maura McInerney, an attorney at the Education Law Center, a nonprofit that pushed for Act 1.

Act 1 does require districts to track when students experiencing educational instability receive special Keystone Diplomas. The Pennsylvania Department of Education said it’s not aware of any students covered by Act 1 graduating that way. But advocates say it’s hard to tell whether any of them have been dropping out instead of earning regular diplomas on time.

McInerney would like to see an audit of Act 1 five years after it passed.

Educators have mixed experiences with Act 1

Lester Lowery, operations director at the Career & Academic Development Institute, an accelerated alternative high school in Philadelphia, said he can track down transcripts from the juvenile justice system about 75% of the time.

He hasn’t noticed a higher success rate, or less hassle, since Act 1 took effect. However, like Sylvain, Lowery said he hasn’t gotten training about the law.

“The time that I’m spending to get these credits, it’s problematic for me sometimes,” Lowery said.

While some school officials worry about the law’s shortcomings, others say its presence is helpful.

Michael DeAntonio runs a private Bucks County alternative school called Buxmont Academy that serves some Philadelphia students. He said when he mentions Act 1 when he’s tracking down students’ credits, he often gets a speedier response.

“If you use that language, which we’re all supposed to be using and we’re all supposed to be working towards, I think it sometimes holds a little bit more weight,” he said.

Aqilah David worries students and families aren't getting what they're entitled to under Act 1.

Still, measuring Act 1’s impact is difficult. The Philadelphia district said it does not track whether students who become involved in the juvenile justice system earn a high school diploma.

And the state hasn’t been tracking whether the law has helped keep students in school or improve their academic success, advocates say.

David, who fought for Act 1, now works as a youth facilitator at Youth Art and Self Empowerment Project, where she supports young people returning from detention and advocates to end juvenile incarceration. She worries that children and adults simply lack the information they need for Act 1 to serve students better: “They don’t have the tools to make sure it gets done.”

David said she now wonders if “we need to do Act 2.”

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

The Trump official who compared ed-tech to the tobacco industry

2026-10-22T09:27:59+00:00

When a small group of nonprofit and ed-tech leaders arrived at a meeting with Trump administration official Arielle Roth earlier this year, they were not expecting a warm welcome. But some were stunned at just how combative the meeting ended up being.

Roth, who leads an agency that advises the president on telecommunications issues, had already been on the record sharply criticizing the proliferation of screens in American classrooms.

At this meeting she went one significant step beyond her public comments: Roth compared ed-tech to tobacco and those in the meeting to the tobacco industry, according to two people who were there.

The meeting included individuals who support ed-tech, as well as those who back federally subsidized internet access in schools generally. Roth suggested that, like the tobacco industry, they were pushing products that cause serious harm.

“People were pretty shook up about it,” a meeting attendee said. Some were startled and offended by the comparison to tobacco, which has been linked to millions of deaths. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid the ire of the Trump administration and to share the details of a private meeting.

Roth’s comments — which she made months ago but have not been previously reported — reveal the depth of feeling within parts of the administration about technology in schools. “I don’t remember the specific analogies used in this meeting,” Roth said in an interview last week, when asked about her comments. “We had a frank discussion.”

“Just like any industry, the ed-tech industry and the E-Rate consultancy industry [have] a financial interest in their line of business,” she said. “It’s important to ensure that their interests are aligned with the interests of children.”

Roth’s perspective matters because she has already helped prompt a review of the $3 billion federal school internet fund, known as E-Rate. Education officials and their advocates say that internet access is essential to the functioning of modern schools. Many are fearful of potential cuts to the long-running federal program. Roth contends that these subsidies may have fueled excessive and ineffective ed-tech use.

Roth, a mom of six, says concerns about school screen time are “deeply personal” to her. As the head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, she launched listening sessions about “excessive screen use in schools” and helped craft the E-Rate review.

At one of those sessions, Erin Amini, a Pennsylvania pediatrician and a mom of four, said that school devices issued in kindergarten made it difficult to limit her children’s screen use. “Suddenly the decision that we had carefully made for our children was no longer ours to make,” she said. The gamified nature of certain ed-tech products could activate the same response as an addictive drug, said Amini. More parents are pressuring schools to cut back screen use, and some districts are already doing so.

In comments issued last week about E-Rate, Roth’s agency raised the possibility of allowing parents to opt out of ed-tech. “A key priority of this administration is ensuring that parents have control over their children’s technology use,” Roth said in the interview.

Many submitted comments, though, emphasized the value of federal internet funding.

Supporters of ed-tech have also argued that broad screen-time restrictions are blunt measures that could limit effective uses that are helping students. “It’s really disingenuous” to compare ed-tech to something like tobacco, said Richard Culatta, head of an educators’ group that backs tech in schools. “It’s sort of become this talking point du jour — oh, ban ed-tech because it’s dangerous. And there just isn’t evidence for that.”

The efficacy of ed-tech remains up for debate among researchers. Advocates have struggled to prove that it has led to the learning gains many hoped for, but assertions that it has caused large declines in test scores are also unproven.

Culatta has allies in other parts of the Trump administration. In fact, his group recently hosted a convening at the Education Department building titled “From Screentime to Screen Value.” Education Secretary Linda McMahon has repeatedly touted Alpha School, a tech-powered private school. Her department has issued relatively favorable guidance on ed-tech, and the White House has promoted the value of AI in education.

“The same tools that can distract during recreational use can also expand access to advanced courses, support students with disabilities, and help close learning gaps, when used wisely,” Assistant Secretary of Elementary and Secondary Education Kirsten Baesler said in a statement in August.

The Trump administration, in other words, appears deeply divided on tech in the classroom. One arm of the federal government is promoting it, while another arm is trying to limit it — with intense feelings on both sides.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

WATCH: Nikole Hannah-Jones interrogates Chancellor Kamar Samuels on NYC school integration

2026-10-21T22:14:55+00:00

New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones cross-examined New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels this week at a town hall focused on integration.

Hannah-Jones repeatedly pressed the chancellor on whether he had a plan to integrate the nation’s largest system, which is also among the most segregated. Samuels argued that any desegregation efforts must start with community-level buy-in rather than top-down mandates.

His lack of specifics earned him jeers from the roughly 800 attendees at Manhattan’s Washington Irving campus for the event convened by pro-integration advocacy group New York Appleseed and The Bell, a student journalism organization.

Samuels pointed to integration efforts he led as superintendent in District 3, covering the Upper West Side, and in District 13, spanning from Brooklyn Heights to Bedford-Stuyvesant.

But Hannah-Jones didn’t let him rest on his laurels.

“There is no buck to be passed now. You head the system,” she said. “So while I appreciate the work you have done, today we want to talk about the work you will do.”

Watch the full interview below, and check out Chalkbeat’s five takeaways from their conversation.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Mississippi turned a literacy crisis into success. Can Michigan do the same?

2026-10-21T21:55:53+00:00

More than a decade ago, Mississippi was where Michigan is now: Near the bottom of the country in literacy outcomes and aggressively seeking solutions to fix the crisis.

In 2013, Mississippi’s fourth graders ranked 49th in the country on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, with just 21% of those students testing at or above proficient on the exam.

What unfolded over the next decade has been described by many as the “Mississippi miracle,” but state education officials point to intentional steps – teacher training, hiring literacy coaches, and strengthening accountability standards – that helped propel the Magnolia State to 21st in fourth grade reading by 2022.

“Our model was built over time,” said Kymyona Burk, former state literacy director for the Mississippi Department of Education. “We continued to implement our plan and monitored progress on the ground through data. If the plan wasn’t working as effectively as we believed it could, we course-corrected.”

To execute its own miracle, Michigan lawmakers have invested in training for teachers and proven curriculum, while also looking to other states with successful outcomes, like Mississippi and Maryland, for inspiration. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer singled out literacy as a top funding priority in her last year in office, with more than $123 million committed to train teachers in the science of reading, which focuses on phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Mary Craite, 64, a public school teacher, poses for a portrait at Riverside Elementary School in Waterford Township on October 9, 2026. She said training in the science of reading has been critical for teaching struggling readers.

“We’ve made a lot of progress these last eight years, and the budgets we reached with bipartisan support will mean these education priorities will continue long after this administration ends,” said Michelle Richard, senior literacy advisor for the Whitmer administration.

Still, Michigan’s efforts, which began in 2016 with the Read by Grade Three law, have not moved the needle on test scores. The state’s fourth-grade reading scores have continued to trend downward, ranking 44th nationally on the most recent NAEP exam.

Michigan gubernatorial candidates — Democrat Jocelyn Benson and Republican John James — both point to improving literacy as a key mission. Some educators and advocates say success will require consistent funding for teacher training and aligning the reading curriculum to make Michigan’s education system less “fragmented.”

“I think one of the things that’s really happening in our state right now that has not happened before is the state is saying we need to be speaking a common language around literacy,” Education Policy Innovation Collaborative Director Madeline Mavrogordato said.

Mississippi’s blueprint includes A-F grades, third grade retention law

The seeds for Mississippi’s turnaround were planted in 2013, with laws enacted that committed funding to literacy and early childhood education. The funding was used to hire literacy coaches and require professional learning for all prekindergarten through third grade teachers, former State Superintendent Carey Wright said.

A teaching sign is seen inside the classroom of Mary Craite in Riverside Elementary School in Waterford Township, MI on October 9, 2026. Rosem Morton for Chalkbeat

The state also implemented a strict A-F school grading system that aligned accountability standards and rewarded schools for progress and growth of their lowest-performing students. It also overhauled its state test to line up more closely with the NAEP.

“Too many people think, ‘Oh, well, if I just pass a law that says we’ve got to implement the science of reading, that’s it, and that’s not it,” said Wright, who has implemented similar measures since being named Maryland’s state superintendent in 2024. “Everything was sequenced. It was structured. We focused big time on implementation and monitoring the daylights out of our results.”

Mississippi also passed a “third grade gate law,” which required students to pass a state reading test to advance to fourth grade. (Michigan’s Read by Three law included a similar provision, which was controversial and later rescinded.)

Skeptics of the Mississippi miracle have said the retention law inflated test scores by removing students who were held back from taking the test as fourth graders. But Wright pointed to a Boston University study that found students who were retained under the policy in 2014-15 achieved “substantially higher” English language arts scores by sixth grade.

Burk, now a senior policy fellow at ExcelinEd, echoed Wright’s sentiments, noting that when Mississippi’s fourth graders reached the national average in reading on NAEP for the first time in 2019, less than 5% of the class had been retained in third grade.

Michigan’s literacy curriculum is fragmented, report finds

For Michigan to have success boosting literacy, it should align its curriculum to be less fragmented, Mavrogordato said.

A 2024 report examining English curriculum used by schools across the state found elementary teachers used 444 different resources, the majority of which were not evidence-based, she said.

In 2024, lawmakers passed a literacy and dyslexia law that gave more than $150 million in grants to schools to pay for intervention literacy materials, professional learning for teachers, and assessments approved by the Michigan Department of Education. It also approved curriculum and screening assessments that use the science of reading to improve instruction.

But the state stopped short of requiring districts to use curriculum aligned to the science of reading. Instead, the state budget last year required schools to notify parents if they’re not using an evidence-based curriculum. If schools fail to notify parents, they risk losing up to 5% of their state aid.

Michigan also has looked at practices used in other states like Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey that include statewide coaching models, structured literacy requirements, and early screening systems to inform its approach, MDE spokesperson Ken Coleman said.

Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia who chairs the state Senate Education Committee, opposes certain aspects of Mississippi’s approach, including its third grade retention law, which she described as a “gimmick” to hold back students ahead of the fourth grade NAEP. Polehanki sponsored the 2023 legislation that eliminated retention of third graders, describing the measure as being “catastrophic” to a child’s psyche in the long term.

Polehanki said that while Mississippi has done some good things to turn around its literacy outcomes, she believes the funding commitment to education made in Massachusetts is one Michigan should follow, noting its per student funding far outpaces Michigan. She also wants to make kindergarten mandatory.

“You want to see a marathon and a miracle?” Polehanki said. ”Look at (Massachusetts’) NAEP scores — look who’s at the top. You’re going to see Massachusetts every time because they spend double what we do on education. It’s very important to fund these initiatives.”

Rep. Nancy DeBoer, a Republican from Holland who sponsored legislation requiring training for K-5 teachers, said it’s important for teachers to help children understand the right way to learn how to read through phonics-based instruction. DeBoer also introduced a bill that would require teacher preparation programs to include science of reading training.

“Every teacher that I’ve talked to who’s taken this course is so excited to approach each student about how to read, and they feel so empowered with how to diagnose where the student is getting off track, and how to prescribe what they need to do in order to conquer it, and to understand how to read,” she said.

In several ways, the Waterford School District’s commitment to improving its literacy outcomes mirrors the path education leaders took in Mississippi.

The Waterford School District used COVID relief funds and state literacy grants to align its curriculum and train all of its K-5 teachers in the science of reading in 2024-25.

Waterford used COVID relief funds and state literacy grants to align its curriculum and train all of its K-5 teachers in the science of reading in 2024-25. The complete overhaul, which included two years of intensive Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling, or LETRS, training, was critical in teaching children who struggled to learn to read, said Mary Craite, a veteran elementary school teacher at Waterford.

The training revealed “missing pieces” that had eluded the 41-year elementary teacher throughout her career.

“You start digging deeper for kids, and you realize where the holes are,” said Craite, who is also president of the district’s teachers union. “For a long time, we didn’t know.”

Waterford Superintendent Adam Martin said he is encouraged to see state funding for LETRS training in this year’s budget, but it doesn’t cover all K-5 teachers. He hopes the state will continue to pay for teacher training even if there are “rainy days” ahead.

“We need a commitment from everyone to be able to continue to do it,” he said. “If we want to guarantee literacy, we have to continue to fund it. We have to continue to innovate. We have to continue to work collaboratively from the teacher’s desk to the governor’s desk.”

This story is part of a collaboration between Chalkbeat Detroit and the Detroit Free Press on covering key education issues in the race for Michigan’s next governor.

Chicago Public Schools’ graduation rate increases to 83.4% for class of 2026

2026-10-21T21:50:52+00:00

More than 83% of Chicago Public Schools students graduated on time last school year, an increase of almost 1 percentage point from the class of 2025, officials announced Wednesday.

The new graduation rate of 83.4% represents the second consecutive year in which CPS’ four-year graduation rate has increased after a decrease for the class of 2024. Last year’s rate was 82.5%.

CPS CEO Macquline King, flanked by members of her top leadership team, touted the new figures to an audience of cheering students and educators at Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center, a high school in North Park on the Northwest Side.

King also touted college enrollment figures — about seven out of 10 CPS graduates enrolled — for the class of 2025, the most recent available data. That enrollment rate bucks a nationwide average of about five in 10 students for high poverty schools and is a few percentage points lower than the rate for low-poverty schools, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

“In our district, the question used to be, ‘Are you going to college?’” King said. “These days, the question tends to have another word attached. More and more people are asking, ‘Where are you going to college?’”

Upon hearing that, a student in the audience nodded her head and smiled at her friends.

CPS officials also highlighted sharp increases in recent years among students who graduate from high school with college credit. That push from CPS, which began before King’s tenure, hasn’t always gone smoothly. At some schools, more participation in dual credit hasn’t led to more college enrollment or persistence among students, Chalkbeat found last year.

The district highlighted several CPS alums, including Laila Mendez, a 2020 Von Steuben graduate who earned an associate’s degree before getting a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in engineering management from the Illinois Institute of Technology. She now works for a Los Angeles-based firm where she’s working on a project for the CTA’s Red Line. When she mentioned her six-figure salary, a student in the audience gasped.

Another alumnus, Gedeon Mawutodji, who graduated from Kenwood Academy in 2025, credited a helpful counselor and the school’s principal for getting him through a tough senior year and on to the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he’s studying to become a therapist. Kathy Saldana, who graduated this spring from Steinmetz College Prep, said she’s now studying psychology at Dominican University in hopes of creating a job that combines psychology with theater and creative writing. She credited her teachers with pushing her to earn a seal of biliteracy and explore classes such as AP art and English.

CPS had not released school-by-school graduation rates by the time of publication.

CPS’s latest graduation rate has increased by almost 10 percentage points since 2018, with some dips in between, particularly after the pandemic. The district’s chronic absenteeism rate — when students miss more than 10% of school days — increased after the pandemic and has hovered around 40%. A Chalkbeat and WBEZ investigation last year found that in recent years, district officials are giving students more chances to make up missed work or classes.

At Von Steuben, while the chronic absenteeism rate has matched the district’s rate in recent years, the graduation rate is much higher than schools citywide. In 2025, more than 96% of Von Steuben students graduated on time, which CPS said dipped to 93.7% for the class of 2026.

Von Steuben staff focuses on using good attendance as an incentive for students to participate in activities or courses, said the school’s principal, Jennifer Sutton. For example, in order to take a dual credit course, students must have a 90% attendance rate, she said. They must also have good attendance if they want to attend homecoming or prom.

Sutton also said the staff work closely with students to make post-graduation plans, including ensuring seniors meet with college counselors at least three times a year.

“We’re constantly working with students on their next steps,” she said.

Sutton could not be reached for a follow-up interview about why she thinks the graduation rate dropped from last year, and CPS did not make her available after Wednesday’s event.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Beyond High School: Students share their thoughts about online education

2026-10-21T21:33:58+00:00

Last week, I spent some time on the University of Colorado Denver campus talking to students about whether they were taking online college courses, and why or why not.

Even after the pandemic, online college courses remain popular. National Center for Education Statistics data shows more than half of college students take at least one online class during the school year, up from just over a third in 2019. Colorado’s numbers mirror the national average.

In my story, I quote students who prefer the flexibility of online classes. Some are juggling childcare, jobs, or activities in addition to schoolwork, and they appreciate being able to Zoom in. Others simply don’t want to fight Denver traffic.

But students are also aware when virtual learning options don’t work for them.

Read the rest of this month’s edition.

From sci-fi to high school: Staten Island school to use holograms in $500k student mental health studio

2026-10-21T21:30:59+00:00

This story was initially published in Healthbeat, public health, explained. Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

Holograms are no longer just the stuff of Star Wars and Star Trek. One Staten Island high school plans to use the technology to beam in therapists, hoping to make mental health services more accessible to students.

After three years of planning and construction, Ralph R. McKee Career and Technical Education High School is set to open a nearly $500,000 studio focused on student wellness. The space, which also aims to encourage students to explore creative uses for technology, is expected to be ready in the coming weeks, Principal Gregory Bowen said.

About two dozen students got a sneak preview of the space earlier this month, which was created in partnership with the S.I.C. Film School, an education platform and production company based in Hillside, New Jersey.

Among its features is a private room where students will be able to speak with therapists miles away through a “holographic device” that projects life-sized, 3-D images of them.

The hologram device, created by Proto Hologram Inc., is already being used at more than 40 universities around the world. McKee will be the company’s first K-12 school to use the technology, company representatives said.

David Nussbaum, the Los Angeles-based inventor of a holographic device unveiled at Ralph R. McKee Career and Technical Education High School in Staten Island, gives students a demonstration of the technology. (Trenton Daniel / Healthbeat)

The studio’s launch, and the school’s bet on using technology to address student mental health challenges, comes as parents and experts increasingly scrutinize technology’s role in adolescents’ struggles. New York City’s Education Department recently introduced limits on artificial intelligence and screen time, though high schools have more flexibility than schools serving younger students.

Youth mental health in New York City has been declining for more than a decade, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In 2021, 38% of the city’s high school students reported feeling sad or depressed in the past year, up from 27% a decade prior. A 2024 Health Department report found that teens who use social media experience anxiety and depression at higher rates than those who do not.

Against that backdrop, McKee hopes technology can also play a role in improving students’ mental health.

The studio has four sections, including the private room where students can meet with beamed-in therapists. Another area features a beanbag chair surrounded by a U-shaped screen displaying images of beaches or forests. Nearby, students can record podcasts about mental health issues affecting teens. A stage rounds out the studio, allowing students to create their own holograms, with the aim of sharing positive messages, S.I.C. Film School representatives said.

Bowen told students the technology could help them “deescalate a little bit” and refocus during the school day, especially amid the pressures of AP courses and Regents exams.

Beanbag chairs offer a chance for students to relax at microphones in the podcast section of a new studio focusing on student mental health at Ralph R. McKee Career and Technical Education High School in Staten Island. (Trenton Daniel / Healthbeat)

Funding and privacy of holographic therapy

The idea for the studio dates back several years to a chance encounter between Bowen and Hezues Scott, a media entrepreneur who goes by Hezues R and founded the S.I.C. Film School.

Bowen said the school received “big support” from Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella to help cover the cost. Fossella’s office didn’t respond to inquiries about its contribution to the project.

“It’s worth the price because look at the experience that they’re getting,” Bowen said.

Questions remain about how the school’s virtual therapy services will operate, including who will provide the sessions and how students’ privacy will be protected. Bowen said it was too early to say which agencies would provide therapists, though he said they will be vetted by the Education Department.

David Nussbaum, the Los Angeles-based inventor of Proto’s technology, said the company’s engineers worked to ensure the device and its operating system received cybersecurity and patient privacy approval.

“If you’re talking to a doctor, or your therapist, or a family member, you want to know your communications are private and safe,” he said.

Nicholas Lanzieri, a clinical professor at the NYU Silver School of Social Work who has extensively researched education technology but wasn’t familiar with this particular program, said such tools can be attractive but cautioned that schools must carefully consider how they will be implemented.

“This is not a science fair,” Lanzieri said. “You want to really be intentional with what you’re trying to create.”

During the tour, students crowded into the private room as Nussbaum appeared in a holographic device to greet them. In the tabletop device — a miniature version of the one the school plans to use — he appeared to be standing in the room, with his shadow faintly visible behind him.

Media entrepreneur Hezues Scott and Principal Gregory Bowen show students at Ralph R. McKee Career and Technical Education High School in Staten Island a new studio that aims to help them with mental health issues. (Trenton Daniel / Healthbeat)

“The best therapist can be in any school for any reason at any time,” Nussbaum said. “It’s really incredible.”

Remote therapy is common, including through video calls and text messaging. Thousands of teenagers signed up for New York City’s Teenspace program after the city launched the free online therapy service in November 2023.

With those options already available, some McKee students questioned holographic therapy’s benefits.

“How does this technology differ from, like, a regular phone?” Jade Saavedra, a 16-year-old junior, asked.

Nussbaum said the device creates a “feeling of presence” that a phone or video call cannot replicate. “We make it feel like the person is in the room.”

Expanding mental health technology to other schools

Bowen said McKee’s mental health studio could serve as a model for other city schools, provided they can secure additional funding.

“There’s not a school out there that can do this straight from their budget,” Bowen said. “You’d have to have a monster budget to do that, and so it’s counting on the electeds, the elected officials to provide that funding.”

McKee enrolled nearly 570 students last year, more than 82% of whom were from low-income families. Roughly 36% had disabilities, compared to 22% citywide, according to Education Department data.

The school currently employs four full-time guidance counselors, including one who is bilingual, and a social worker, according to budget documents. That amounts to roughly one counselor or social worker for every 114 students, compared with one for every 125 students across New York City high schools.

For Josias Alarcon, a 16-year-old junior, the studio offered an example of how technology that can contribute to teenagers’ mental health struggles might also help address them.

“That we’re using something that could cause us damage if not used appropriately to actually help us out really shows the importance of how we should use technology,” he said.

Trenton Daniel is a reporter covering public health in New York for Healthbeat. Contact Trenton at tdaniel@healthbeat.org or on the messaging app Signal at trentondaniel.88.

List: See which Colorado colleges offer guaranteed admission to some high school graduates

2026-10-21T19:22:25+00:00

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A growing number of Colorado colleges and universities are making pacts with school districts to offer their high school graduates automatic admission.

At more selective colleges, eligibility is based on high schoolers’ grades. Less selective colleges may send all seniors a letter that says, “Congratulations! You’ve been accepted!”

Direct admissions agreements, as they’re sometimes called, are meant to reduce the stress of applying to college, encourage students to stay in state, and help those who come from low-income families see higher education as an option, national experts say.

Getting into college automatically doesn’t mean tuition is free. But Colorado has lots of programs and scholarships that can reduce the cost of college, sometimes to zero.

The following school districts and colleges have direct admissions agreements. This is a running list and will be updated. Know of a program that’s not on our list? Email co.tips@chalkbeat.org.

All Colorado students

Colorado Mesa University

Any Colorado student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.2 is guaranteed admission and a scholarship at Colorado Mesa University.

Any concurrently enrolled student — meaning the student took college classes at CMU during high school — is also guaranteed admission and does not have to reapply.

Colorado State University

Any Colorado student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0 is guaranteed admission to Colorado State University in Fort Collins for fall 2027 as part of a pilot program.

Colorado State University Pueblo

Any Colorado student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 2.3 is guaranteed admission to CSU Pueblo.

University of Northern Colorado

Any Colorado student who meets UNC’s criteria is guaranteed admission. The criteria include that students must have a weighted grade point average of at least 3.0. Students must have taken four years of English and math classes in high school, or three years of math and earned at least a B in Algebra 2. Students must have taken three years of social studies and science classes. And students must apply to UNC by March 1 of the year they will graduate.

Colorado School of Mines

Any Colorado student who meets Colorado School of Mines’ criteria is guaranteed admission and a $2,000 per year scholarship. The criteria include that students must have an unweighted grade point average of at least 3.8, or an unweighted GPA of at least 3.6 plus at least a 1420 SAT score or a 32 ACT composite score. Students must also have completed pre-calculus or trigonometry and three years of lab-based science courses, including chemistry or physics. Students must not have earned any grades lower than a B- in any math or science course.

Denver Public Schools

University of Colorado Denver

Any DPS student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0 in their junior or senior year is guaranteed admission to the University of Colorado Denver.

Colorado State University

Any DPS student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0 in their senior year is guaranteed admission at Colorado State University in Fort Collins

Colorado State University Global

Any DPS student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 2.3 by the end of their junior year is guaranteed admission to CSU Global’s online bachelor’s degree programs.

Colorado State University Pueblo

Any DPS student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 2.3 by the end of their junior year is guaranteed admission at CSU Pueblo.

Metropolitan State University of Denver

Any DPS student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 2.0 is guaranteed admission at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Jeffco Public Schools

University of Colorado Denver

Any Jeffco student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0 in their junior or senior year is guaranteed admission to the University of Colorado Denver.

Colorado School of Mines

Any Jeffco student with an unweighted grade point average of at least 3.8 and a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) endorsement on their high school diploma is guaranteed admission to the Colorado School of Mines.

Aurora Public Schools

University of Colorado Denver

Any APS student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0 in their junior or senior year is guaranteed admission to the University of Colorado Denver.

Colorado Mesa University

Any APS student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.2 in their junior year is guaranteed admission and a scholarship to CMU. Any APS student with a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 in their senior year is guaranteed admission to CMU.

Littleton Public Schools

University of Colorado Denver

Any Littleton student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0 in their junior or senior year is guaranteed admission to the University of Colorado Denver.

Colorado Mesa University

Any Littleton student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.2 is guaranteed admission and a scholarship to CMU. Any Littleton student with a GPA of at least 3.0 is guaranteed admission to CMU.

St. Vrain Valley Schools

University of Colorado Denver

Any St. Vrain student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0 in their junior or senior year is guaranteed admission to the University of Colorado Denver.

DSST Public Schools (charter school network)

Colorado School of Mines

Any DSST student with an unweighted grade point average of at least 3.8 and a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) endorsement on their high school diploma is guaranteed admission to the Colorado School of Mines.

University of Colorado Denver

Any DSST student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0 in their junior or senior year is guaranteed admission to the University of Colorado Denver.

Rocky Mountain Prep (charter school network)

University of Colorado Denver

Any RMP student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0 in their junior or senior year is guaranteed admission to the University of Colorado Denver.

Harrison School District 2

Colorado State University Pueblo

Any Harrison student with a cumulative grade point average of at least 2.3 by the end of their junior year is guaranteed admission at CSU Pueblo.

Greeley-Evans School District 6

Aims Community College

Any Greeley-Evans student can be automatically admitted to Aims Community College.

San Luis Valley + Adams 14

Adams State University

Any senior in 19 schools and districts, most of them located in the San Luis Valley, can be automatically admitted to Adams State University.

The districts and schools are: Adams 14, Alamosa, Centennial, Center Consolidated, Creede, Crestone Charter School, Huerfano, La Veta, Moffat Consolidated, Monte Vista, Mountain Valley, North Conejos, Rye High School, Sanford, Sangre de Cristo, Sargent, Sierra Grande, South Conejos, and Upper Rio Grande.

Central High School in Grand Junction

Colorado Mesa University

Any student at Central High School in Grand Junction with a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5 and a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) endorsement on their high school diploma is guaranteed admission and a scholarship to CMU.

Reporter Jason Gonzales contributed to this report.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Spending in Chicago school board election tops $9 million as election nears

2026-10-21T18:45:11+00:00

This story was reported and published in collaboration with the Illinois Answers Project. Sign up for the Illinois Answers’ newsletter here.

Spending on Chicago’s historic school board races skyrocketed past $9 million in the campaigns’ decisive final stretch, with anti-Chicago Teachers Union groups handily outspending the powerful union.

While the citywide race for Chicago’s first elected school board president has racked up the most eye-popping spending, many of the 20 local district elections have also drawn significant campaign cash. In some districts, super PACs seeking to wrest control of the board from the CTU have spent 10 times as much as the union or more.

Even some candidates whose names are the only ones on the ballot in their districts have amassed sizable war chests.

Overall, special interest groups have spent more than $2.6 million on advertising since the start of October alone. That brings the total for independent expenditures on school board races to more than $6.7 million, according to an Illinois Answers and Chalkbeat analysis conducted after last week’s quarterly campaign finance reporting deadline. The spending includes millions of dollars on attack advertising to blast opponents. Campaigns reported spending $1.6 million themselves through Sept. 30, with groups and businesses spending another $589,000 on “in-kind” donations through Oct. 15.

At stake is influence over the first fully elected school board, which hires the CPS superintendent, approves the system’s roughly $10 billion budget, and has final say over CPS union contracts.

As special interest groups continue to dominate campaign spending, the CTU, while still a formidable force, is lagging behind the collective spending of several groups aiming to curb its influence on the school board. That includes the city’s other major school union, SEIU Local 73, and its affiliated political committees. SEIU represents support workers in CPS and was once a strong CTU ally but has become a political foe after a dispute over employee representation.

Also opposing the teachers union is Chicago billionaire Michael Sacks, a longtime donor to Democratic causes who in recent weeks has made several six- and seven-figure donations to the super PAC Common Ground Collective — the single biggest contributor in the election — and directly to school board president candidate Jessica Biggs. Sacks and other wealthy donors have been a target of CTU-backed attack ads.

Another dominant spender is the Illinois Network of Charter Schools. The advocacy group is a longtime adversary of the teacher union, which is a vocal critic of charter schools and has pushed for more financial oversight and shorter contracts for charter operators.

Two years ago, when nearly half the school board was up for election for the first time, the teachers union went on a spending spree in the final weeks before the election, outpacing pro-charter groups. It’s too soon to count the union out, said Hal Woods, chief of policy at the parent advocacy group Kids First Chicago. Those last weeks will be decisive in races where few candidates enjoy much name recognition, and the CTU can galvanize its roughly 25,000 members with an adept ground game.

“The CTU has the bodies in a way no other group does, other than maybe SEIU,” Woods said. “A lot of it will come down to turnout and what will swing people at the last minute.”

Campaign cash gives candidates a significant edge, but it’s no guarantee of success. In the 2024 school board election, some who got a major financial boost from the CTU or the charter network floundered while others with modest war chests won decisively.

The battle over the school board presidency draws millions

The highest-profile school board race is for the board president, who sets the agenda and represents the board in high-stakes outreach to the city and the state. After current school board member Jennifer Custer and former board vice president Sendhil Revuluri dropped out, three candidates remain:

Hilario Dominguez, a former CTU organizer backed financially almost entirely by the union and a group aligned with it
Biggs, a former CPS principal who has drawn support from the SEIU, anti-CTU super PACs, and some former CPS leaders
Victor Henderson, a lawyer who is running a largely self-funded campaign

Dominguez in particular has been a lightning rod for attack ads largely paid for by the Common Ground Collective, a political organization heavily funded by Sacks, a longtime fixture of Chicago politics. The group has spent at least $1.8 million on ads attacking Dominguez. That’s about two-thirds of its attack ad spending so far and almost half of the total the group has spent on school board ads this election cycle.

Sacks also recently became the largest donor to Biggs’ campaign after previously steering the bulk of his donations to Common Ground, which has not endorsed a candidate for board president. Approximately 37% of Biggs’ total fundraising has come from Sacks, with another 17% coming from SEIU.

Sacks did not respond to a request for comment through a spokesperson.

Dominguez’s campaign, meanwhile, has received 62% of its funding from CTU, with another 36% from Our Schools, a CTU-funded political organization. Less than 2% of his funding comes from individual donations.

Our Schools has had issues properly reporting the source of its funding. The group, run by longtime community organizer Rod Wilson, reported $300,000 in “non-itemized receipts” last quarter, meaning it did not disclose who gave it the money. After the Illinois State Board of Elections flagged the issue, the group amended its report to show that all of the money came from CTU membership dues.

Still, at the end of the most recent quarter, the PAC again reported only a lump sum of $700,000 in donations without specifying the source. Our Schools, rather than the CTU, appears as the sponsor on flyers and other messaging supporting CTU-endorsed candidates.

Matt Dietrich, a spokesperson for the state election board, said the board still considers the lack of itemized reporting by Our Schools an issue: “It’s really unusual that you would have this amount of unitemized receipts because they are required to itemize anything more than $150.”

Our Schools did not respond to a request for comment.

Andrew Broy, the charter network’s president, noted that the CTU has concentrated much of its firepower on the race for board president. His group, by contrast, has focused on securing a board majority.

But he said the charter network plans to step up spending in the presidential race in the final weeks before Nov. 3, possibly supporting either Biggs or Henderson in addition to the attack ads against Dominguez it has funded so far.

In internal polling by INCS and other groups, he said, “A large majority of voters are still saying they don’t know who the candidates are or haven’t made up their minds.”

Henderson reported $35,000 in contributions this quarter, with just over $300,000 in his campaign war chest as of Sept. 30. Henderson missed the deadline to file his quarterly finance disclosure and could face fines from the state. But Dietrich said the state usually waives late fees for a first-time filing delay.

Spending on district races ramps up as well

Even as the president’s race has commanded the most attention and spending, many district-level elections are also drawing significant cash. State contribution limits have been lifted in most of the races, which happens after a super PAC spends $100,000 or more in a single race or a self-funded candidate contributes that much into the race.

Across Chicago’s 20 school board districts, a few major battlegrounds have emerged.

In the Far South Side district 10B, outside groups have spent almost $200,000 to support Patrick Watson’s campaign and $50,000 on ads attacking his CTU-backed opponent, Connie Anderson. Anderson reported only $46,000 in support from CTU.

The North Side’s 4A district has seen more than $500,000 in spending from special interests this cycle. Karen Zaccor, who received $63,000 from CTU, is facing off against Ellen Sherratt. Common Ground, SEIU, the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, and Urban Center have together spent at least $454,000 either supporting Sherratt or attacking Zaccor. Angel Alvarez is also running for that seat but has raised and spent comparatively little — reporting just $1,500 in cash on hand at the end of September.

The race between Zaccor, an incumbent and retired CPS educator, and Sherratt, a consultant who has worked with school districts to improve teacher hiring and retention, has become increasingly intense as money has flowed in. In a news release last week, Zaccor decried the large sums spent on attacking her, echoing the CTU’s argument that wealthy Illinoisans are trying to buy influence on the board.

She said a flyer funded by the Illinois Network of Charter Schools in support of Sherratt inaccurately described her as a CPS parent. Sherratt’s children attend a private school — what she has described as a personal decision her family made during the pandemic’s remote learning stretch. The charter network said it is correcting the error.

“I fought alongside fellow CPS parents to give Chicagoans a voice in their schools with the elected representative school board,” Zaccor said in a statement, “and we cannot allow billionaires to manipulate free and fair elections.”

Sherratt noted that legally her campaign cannot coordinate with super PACs spending in support of her candidacy, so she could not have corrected the error about where her children attend school. She argued that significant CTU spending in 2024 set the tone for this year’s expenditures.

“As a first-time candidate, I have been really humbled and proud of the support from a broad coalition,” she said, noting that she’s received donations from more than 330 individuals and groups.

This pattern repeats across the city. At least a dozen districts have a CTU-backed candidate facing a candidate who has received support from Common Ground or a charter school advocacy group, which often support the same candidates.

In those races, CTU is being outspent by charter school groups, Common Ground, and SEIU, sometimes by an order of magnitude. In the district with the starkest divide, the West Side’s 7A, special interests have spent about $25 attacking CTU-backed candidate Emma Lozano or supporting her opponent, Jesus Ayala Jr., for every $1 the CTU has spent supporting Lozano.

Five major special interest groups account for three-quarters of all spending in the district races: CTU, Our Schools, Common Ground, INCS, SEIU, and Urban Center. Together, they have spent more than $4.6 million on district races through advertising and donations, compared with $705,000 spent by district candidates from all other sources combined.

Che “Rhymefest” Smith, with no challengers on the ballot, raised $12,600 and spent $36,800 last quarter. He had about $25,000 left in the bank at the end of September.

But Smith faces a write-in challenge from Tameka Walton, who has CTU backing. He said he is taking the challenge seriously, fundraising and campaigning as though his name were not the only one on the ballot.

“I don’t believe the ‘unopposed’ moniker fits my race,” he said.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Andrew Adams is a data and interactives reporter for the Better Government Association’s Illinois Answers Project. Contact Andrew at aadams@illinoisanswers.org.

Nikole Hannah-Jones grills NYC schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels on integration at combative town hall

2026-10-21T04:15:17+00:00

New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones grilled schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels at a town hall Tuesday evening, pressing him for more than 30 minutes to articulate his plans for integrating New York City’s public schools.

The highly anticipated event represented a rare public cross-examination of the leader of the nation’s largest school system. Hannah-Jones recently published a widely debated essay about the decision to send her daughter to segregated schools, which turned out to inadequately educate her child.

“While they said it’s a conversation, it’s really about to be an interrogation,” Hannah-Jones said during the event at the Washington Irving campus in Manhattan hosted by the pro-integration advocacy group New York Appleseed and The Bell, a student journalism incubator.

After Hannah-Jones repeatedly asked the chancellor about a systemwide plan, Samuels did not commit to any specific integration policies, nor did he offer a timeline for offering a more detailed plan, repeatedly drawing jeers from an auditorium packed with several hundred attendees.

Here are five takeaways from the event.

Don’t expect top-down integration plans.

Samuels repeatedly identified one obstacle to developing more aggressive integration efforts: community opposition. It was a striking acknowledgement that anticipated pushback is influencing the administration’s thinking.

“If you don’t have the conversation well, you will see a level of pushback that will essentially start to end the conversation,” Samuels said. Any efforts to integrate schools would have to first win support from local communities, he said. (Prior chancellors have made similar arguments.)

Samuels noted that the Education Department has convened working groups in five of the city’s 32 local districts to address a wide range of issues, including school integration. City officials have not said who is serving on them or even if they will produce formal recommendations.

It’s unclear whether the administration is actually working on integration.

Samuels’ comments that integration efforts must first win support of local communities is in tension with recent remarks from Mayor Zohran Mamdani who said that developing a desegregation plan is “one of our urgent priorities.”

Yet the schools chief repeatedly deferred to the working groups. “I am not saying that we will not address segregation in our schools,” Samuels said. “We are disagreeing in some ways on how that will be addressed.”

Hannah-Jones shot back that the lack of specifics and deference to working groups are a stalling tactic.

“Ten months in, when a timeline can’t be offered, you can understand why people feel like that means you are just delaying,” she said.

Samuels praised the reduction of middle school screens. But he wavered on going further.

New York City is unusual in the number of schools that admit students based on their prior academic performance, a process known as screening. Many integration advocates, including Hannah-Jones, have blamed the admissions method for exacerbating segregation.

Hannah-Jones repeatedly asked Samuels whether he would consider reducing screens, a policy measure proposed by a School Diversity Advisory Group convened under former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The chancellor noted that fewer middle schools screen students than before the pandemic — a move he supported as a local superintendent — but he also seemed to be skeptical that ending selective admissions across the board would make a big dent.

“It’s not as though you’re going to remove screens and it’s going to suddenly have everybody going everywhere and it’s going to be great,” he said.

New York City is planning to first tackle small schools and integrate students with disabilities.

When asked about his integration plans, Samuels pointed to the need to first tackle the growing problem of schools with shrinking enrollment — which tend to disproportionately serve Black and Latino students and the most vulnerable students.

He said he wanted to “make sure that we are really looking directly at how we can make structural shifts to those schools.” About 30,000 students attend these “highly segregated” underenrolled schools with fewer than 200 students, he said.

They offer “fewer advanced courses, fewer extracurriculars, fewer opportunities,” Samuels said. “These are also often the same schools that have students in temporary housing, students living in poverty, students learning English for the first time, and students with disabilities.”

As a Chalkbeat analysis found, 33 high schools now have fewer than 150 students, and 113 have fewer than 250, an eightfold increase from 25 years ago.

Samuels said that the city also needed to expand efforts to integrate students with disabilities, citing the city’s recent expansion of high-demand programs serving students with autism and other disabilities into prekindergarten classrooms for the first time.

The reviews of Samuels from some quarters were harsh.

Some observers expressed disappointment that Samuels failed to outline a clearer vision for the city’s schools — which neither he nor Mamdani has yet articulated.

“Despite the truly heartbreaking reality that the kids themselves know exactly how they are being shortchanged, there doesn’t seem to be any plan for them,” said Johanna Bjorken, the parent of a senior at Urban Assembly Maker Academy.

Another observer was more blunt on X: “Nikole Hannah-Jones absolutely kicking Kamar Samuels’ ass right now.”

Chalkbeat New York reporter Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

More students are mixing online and in-person classes. At CU Denver, their motivations vary.

2026-10-21T00:22:39+00:00

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University of Colorado Denver instructor Kristin Whitmore started a recent Mathematics for Elementary Teachers class with a prompt for her students: Have you ever performed on a stage?

Some of her students responded to the question online, dropping stories in the virtual chat about band performances. A student in Whitmore’s classroom shared a brief story about a school play. Whitmore nodded. She looked into a camera, then at students in front of her, and likened teaching to a performance.

True to her lecture, Whitmore approaches instruction in her hybrid online and in-person classroom, called HyFlex, like an entertainer.

Before each class, she checks her lighting, cameras, and microphone volume so students online can see and hear her. In class, she lays out props, including, on this recent Monday, a box with colored blocks that will demonstrate how to teach division.

Hybrid classes like Whitmore’s, once the primary mode of learning for many college students during the pandemic, have remained popular among students nationally and in Colorado. College administrators see flexible online learning as a way to attract and keep students who have complicated schedules.

CU Denver students say they like the option for a variety of reasons, including that it allows them more time for campus activities, spares them from battling Denver’s downtown traffic or helps them balance family obligations.

Online options have allowed CU Denver English major Levi Roberts, 21, flexibility at work. During her first two years at the campus, Roberts worked at least 32 hours a week, she said, leaving little time to drive to campus or even fit in an in-person class. As a junior, she works less, but she still gravitates toward the online options.

“I ended up just really liking the model,” she said.

Just over a third of college students took an online class in the years before the 2020 pandemic, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That peaked during COVID, but online learning remained popular even as college campuses reopened for in-person classes. As of 2024, more than half of college students enrolled in at least one class online. Online enrollment trends in Colorado have mirrored that trajectory.

“The spike came from a crisis, but the plateau has come from a choice,” said Bruce Etter, research director for online education association UPCEA.

UPCEA surveyed dozens of colleges of various sizes in 2026 and found that 80% have developed online learning as part of their strategy. It’s a business decision at a time when enrollment projections show declines in high school graduates, Etter said.

“Institutions are leaning on online to make up for what has been the historical bread and butter of so many institutions — that on-campus individual,” Etter said.

Colorado schools capitalize on students’ demand for online

The percentage of Colorado college students taking online classes varies by school, but the numbers are up. At CU Denver, 43% of undergraduates took at least one online class in 2024. At Colorado State University Fort Collins, the number was 35% in 2025. And 38% of students at Colorado’s 13 community colleges take online or hybrid courses.

Fully virtual options have also become more popular. Colorado State University Global, a state online school, enrolled 15% more new students in the first three months of this year compared to last. And CU Boulder offers online Coursera classes, which now have over 1,000 students participating, up from just 42 in 2020, the first year it was available.

This isn’t a phenomenon confined to just colleges, as many workers are now used to remote or hybrid jobs and K-12 student participation in virtual schools doubled between 2024 and the pandemic.

Karen Marrongelle, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at CU Denver, said online courses allow the school to be both responsive to student needs and competitive in recruiting. The pandemic showed school leaders that online options can help students, she said.

“It’s just been great to be able to support students in that flexibility so that they can continue to live their whole lives while they’re pursuing their education,” Marrongelle said.

Student Adrian Saavedra, 19, said he has more commitments with his fraternity, so he chose mostly online courses where he can tune in on his own schedule.

“It gives me the opportunity to take responsibility into my own hands,” he said. “And if I am struggling, if I need help, I’ll ask.”

Hybrid classrooms teach ‘roomers’ and ‘zoomers’

In Whitmore’s hybrid classroom, students, who she calls “roomers” and “zoomers,” can choose to learn in whichever way suits them best. It takes her far more work to adapt lessons, Whitmore said, but she’s learned how to put on a show in both mediums, toggling her attention back and forth between online and in-person students. She even greets each student who signs in online by name, the same way she does when a student walks in the door.

“Hi Victoria. Hi Elena. Hi Alyssa,” she says as students sign into Zoom.

Senior Instructor Kristin Whitmore holds up a piece of a paper to a video camera to demonstrate an assignment in her CU Denver Mathematics for Elementary Teachers classroom on Monday, Oct. 12, 2026 in Denver. Whitmore teachers a hybrid in-person and remote class that meets once a week.

Whitmore wants students to feel empowered, especially when so many have much more going on in their lives than just class. She’s heard all manner of reasons why a student can’t show up or is late: their dog has caused chaos, they’re on bed rest, or they cut their hand.

Korinne Ruhnke, 33, who is one of Whitmore’s students, said that sometimes she can’t find childcare. Hybrid classes allow her to stay home on days she has her son with her during class time. If she’s running late from work, she can also tune into class virtually on the drive to school.

“Then I didn’t have to catch up once I was in the actual classroom,” she said.

Graduate student Sarah Lauzon said she didn’t always understand the popularity of online options until the first time she was late. Now, she doesn’t hesitate to do what works best for her schedule, especially when she must balance work or family responsibilities.

Instructors like Whitmore, Lauzon said, give students permission to do what’s best for them.

“I’ll be flat the next couple of weeks,” Lauzon told Whitmore, signaling she’d be attending the next few classes online. Whitmore smiled and told Lauzon she would miss seeing her face in class.

Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy, a tiny HBCU-style high school in Denver, could close after 6 years

2026-10-20T23:02:35+00:00

The vision for Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy was to provide as many as 500 Denver students with an education modeled after historically Black colleges. But five years after opening, the school has just 24 students and could close at the end of this school year.

Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero is recommending an operational closure, according to letters sent to families and staff. Denver schools are funded per student, and an operational closure is when a school’s enrollment is so low that it’s financially unsustainable.

A district spokesperson said Friday that operational closures do not require approval from the elected school board, but on Tuesday said that was incorrect. The board must vote on Marrero’s recommendation, the spokesperson said, but it’s unclear when that will happen.

Chelsey Moore’s son is a senior at Robert F. Smith. He enrolled there after the school board voted to close his previous school, the Denver School of Innovation and Sustainable Design, because of low enrollment. Moore said her son, who is not a student of color, found a “magical … standalone safe space” at Robert F. Smith.

Even though her son will graduate this year, Moore is mourning the loss.

“They’re not just closing schools. They’re not just making economic choices,” Moore said. “They’re changing the trajectory and futures for students.”

In some ways, what happened at Robert F. Smith is emblematic of a bigger pattern. The number of small Denver schools is increasing as enrollment decreases. In line with a statewide trend, DPS’ student count dropped by 1,780 this fall, which was more than the district was expecting. Marrero has warned that more school closures are likely coming.

But Robert F. Smith also faced unique challenges.

The idea for the school came from a group of Black parents and sports coaches in far northeast Denver who were advocating for better schools in that region. Their advocacy followed a damning district-commissioned report that detailed the ways in which DPS was underserving Black students and led the school board to pass a resolution pledging to do better.

In 2019, the board took the rare step of ordering the district to help the parent group strengthen an application it submitted to start a school modeled after historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. A few months later, the board greenlit the school to open, despite some members’ worries that district enrollment could soon decline.

Named for a DPS alumnus, Robert F. Smith struggled to enroll students. The school doesn’t have a boundary, so all of its students must proactively choose it. Before Robert F. Smith opened in the fall of 2021, DPS incorrectly listed its address on the district’s school choice website. Despite aiming to enroll 125 students that year, the school’s final count was 78, according to district data.

Enrollment increased to 135 students in 2022 but fell to just 44 in 2023 after the school moved to a new building 10 miles away. The school’s first location was a former office building that it shared with another school. That building didn’t have a kitchen, an auditorium, or sports fields — all of which students and the school’s founders said they’d been promised.

“The ninth grade biology classes have to come into the 10th grade chemistry room to do experiments because the biology class is the size of a prison cell,” former student Jessie Matthews told the school board in 2022.

But Robert F. Smith’s new location, a former elementary school, wasn’t ideal either, in part because it relocated the school out of far northeast Denver. The move was meant to give Robert F. Smith room to grow, but enrollment never got higher than about 90 students.

This year, the district cut ninth grade from Robert F. Smith after fewer than 20 freshmen applied, a district spokesperson said.

The school also endured a leadership change and friction between its founders and DPS. In 2022, the district banned founder Brandon Pryor, a parent and vocal district critic, from the grounds of Robert F. Smith and nearly all other DPS schools, citing Pryor’s treatment of district staff. Pryor sued DPS, and a judge ordered the district to lift the ban.

Pryor did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

In letters to Robert F. Smith families and staff, district officials promised to help students find new schools and teachers find new jobs. But Moore said she’s disappointed in how families found out about the proposed closure. After receiving a vague message last Tuesday about a meeting two days later to “discuss the future of the school” at which only a few parents showed up, families got another message about the operational closure.

“Most parents didn’t know until last night that the school was closing,” Moore said. “Our question was, ‘Why weren’t we informed?’ Why didn’t the district give us the opportunity to speak out for the school and help recruit? It’s a tight community and we would have stepped in to help.”

Correction, Oct. 20, 2026: This story has been updated to reflect that the Denver school board must vote on the superintendent’s recommendation to close Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy. Due to incorrect information provided by Denver Public Schools, an earlier version of this story said the superintendent could close the school without board approval.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

The Philadelphia school district’s enrollment fell by 2,500 students. Where did the kids go?

2026-10-20T20:55:10+00:00

Philadelphia’s school district enrollment has dropped by nearly 2,500 students from last school year — the largest year-over-year enrollment decline in five years.

But it’s unclear which schools or demographic factors are driving that slump the most.

The decline, which Chalkbeat analyzed from the district’s daily enrollment snapshot for Oct. 13, represents a drop of more than 2% from last year. That’s raising concerns the district is losing out in an education environment where district, brick-and-mortar and cyber charters, and private schools all compete for the same kids.

“There’s changes happening in consumer behavior,” said Stacy Holland, executive director of the education nonprofit Elevate 215. The enrollment drop, she said, indicates schools are not responding “rapidly enough to actually meet the quality needs that parents are looking for.”

This school year as of Oct. 13, about 114,420 students are enrolled in district and district-run alternative schools, the preliminary data shows. Last year, the district’s Oct. 1 enrollment was roughly 116,900, according to district data. That decline is much greater than what the state projected last year.

Roughly six years ago, the district’s enrollment topped 122,400.

The factors driving the particularly sharp decline this year remain unclear. The city’s birth rate has long been declining, and the number of kids has dropped. That creates more competition between schools to enroll kids, Holland said, and makes it unavoidable for enrollment somewhere to drop.

Over the past five years, enrollment in Philadelphia’s brick-and-mortar charter schools has grown slightly, but cyber charter enrollment has skyrocketed.

This year’s district enrollment decline follows the district’s decision to close 17 schools beginning next year. The Yass Prize, an organization funded by Republican megadonor Jeffrey Yass, offered scholarships to 500 students attending closing schools to enroll in private schools starting this school year instead. The group did not respond to requests for how many students have taken it up on the offer.

Some educators and advocates worry increased immigration enforcement could be driving families out of the city or towards online options, as recent research into other districts’ enrollment has found.

But whatever the reasons, “State officials that don’t want to fund schools will say, ‘Well, they’re shrinking. We don’t need to fund them,’” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney at the Public Interest Law Center.

It’s also possible that this year isn’t a particularly dire warning sign: Two years ago, district enrollment grew by 1,800 students.

A one-year drop has little impact on district funding due to how the state formula works, Urevick-Ackelsberg said. But if more district kids enroll in brick-and-mortar and cyber charters, he added, the district will have to make larger payments to those schools, which will squeeze its finances.

All Pennsylvania schools, including private and charter schools, are required to report enrollment counts to the state as of Oct. 1. But the Pennsylvania Department of Education said it does not plan to publish the data until the spring.

District spokesperson Monique Braxton said in a statement that staff are “aggressively canvassing neighborhoods to locate children who are not attending school.” That includes partnering with faith leaders, block captains, elected officials, ward leaders, and community organizations to try to connect with families, she said.

“We want to bring enrollment in District-operated schools as close as possible to last year’s … and then build from there,” Braxton said.

The district also reviewed enrollment rolls in September, ultimately adding back 720 students before the Oct. 1 count, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The district said those students were “improperly dropped” from the rolls.

Cyber charter enrollment from Philly has grown rapidly

So where are Philly’s students going, if not to the district’s schools?

Tracking kids after they leave public schools is notoriously difficult, as states track students differently and require different reporting from public and private schools.

But to get a sense of where enrollment has increased, Chalkbeat examined historical citywide enrollment data, and analyzed the current year’s enrollment counts from a few nondistrict schools that provided it.

Brick-and-mortar charters are one decent candidate. Between school year 2021-22 and school year 2025-26, the most recent year available, enrollment in Philadelphia brick-and-mortar charter schools increased nearly every year, with the sector logging enrollment growth of more than 2% over the five-year period.

Early College Charter School, the first new charter in the city in nearly a decade, also opened this school year, enrolling 225 students, according to a school spokesperson. But it’s not clear how many of those students relocated from district schools.

Philly students’ enrollment in cyber charter has skyrocketed, increasing by 20% over the past five years despite their generally low academic performance.

At the same time, data from the state’s largest cyber charter schools is a mixed bag. Enrollment from Philly at the Commonwealth Charter Academy, the state’s largest cyber charter, increased by around 85 students this school year, with more than 5,100 enrolled. But at Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, the second-largest, enrollment from Philly this year declined more than 100 students, data from the school shows.

Preliminary enrollment data from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which operates several parochial schools, shows 450 fewer students enrolled in its Philly schools this year. A spokesperson said that count is still being confirmed and will likely grow slightly.

That leaves factors like the declining birth rate in the area and students moving out of the city to other districts. But isolating their precise impact on district schools is difficult.

“People like to say … families are voting with their feet,” said Priyanka Reyes-Kaura, K-12 education policy director at the Pennsylvania-based advocacy group Children First. “But we actually don’t know yet where the students went.”

IPS board candidates discuss school closures, AI, and legislative funding at forum

2026-10-20T16:01:05+00:00

This story was originally published by WFYI.

Most candidates for the Indianapolis Public Schools board support the district’s break from the city’s unified student enrollment system, they said at an Oct. 19 forum hosted by WFYI and Chalkbeat Indiana.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson’s administration decided in September to leave Enroll Indy and run its own enrollment system. Both district and charter schools have used for nine years. The move has drawn criticism from charter school backers and praise from those who want IPS to control how students are enrolled.

Fifteen candidates are running for five seats — one each in Districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 and one at-large seat. Fourteen took part in the forum at Central Library. District 4 candidate Chris Bultman said he had a prior engagement. Early voting is underway ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

At-large incumbent Angelia Moore and District 3 candidate Derek Redelman said they opposed the change. District 5 candidate Yuri Smith Sr. said he somewhat supported it.

District 3 candidate Loren Heger said he is ambivalent on the decision but believes there are cheaper solutions to manage enrollment. IPS has said Enroll Indy costs the district more than $300,000 annually. Heger said he used the artificial intelligence chatbot Claude to create a program in minutes that would cover enrollment for district and charter schools.

“That’s the type of thing that we need to do as a district to try to find solutions that don’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for software service — that can be done on a phone in 15 minutes,” he said. “When we see everything as proxy battles between charters and unions, we don’t see those solutions.”

When a moderator asked candidates to answer in one word whether they supported or opposed the change, the other 10 candidates said they supported it.

Divide clear between charter, IPS supporters

Candidates varied in their responses to how they would bridge the yearslong animosity between district and charter school supporters.

Lindsey Cornett, a candidate for District 4, said she never criticizes a family for choosing a charter school or teachers who work in one. Rather, her concern is with the sustainability of the city’s school system.

“A lot of that vitriol is driven by particular individuals who get on the internet and troll those who disagree with them or who have made different education choices,” Cornett said. “That’s never how I’ve chosen to operate, and it certainly isn’t how I would operate as a board member.”

Smith said many families don’t know the difference between a traditional, Innovation Network or charter school. He stressed the importance of involving the community in conversations.

District 2 candidate Bryan Duarte, backed by groups supportive of traditional IPS schools, argued the city’s educational system is divisive by design. He questioned why school board members have received campaign donations from groups like Stand for Children Indiana and Rise Indy, which have supported changes to IPS.

“If people are sitting on our board that got elected because those groups have paid tens of thousands — maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars — for their campaigns, do they really represent the interests of IPS?,” he said.

Duarte’s opponent, incumbent board member Hasaan Rashid, said the core focus should be children, regardless of the school type they attend.

“It’s about the education of the kids, making sure that they’re getting the education that they need,” he said. “Doesn’t matter what the school is. We’ve got to get off that discussion.”

Read Chalkbeat's guide to the 2026 IPS school board election

At-large candidate Alexander Nyirendah and Heger, a District 3 candidate, argued that the real funding challenge lies between public and private schools. Last school year, the state’s private school voucher program cost $548 million. This school year, a voucher that will help pay for tuition at a religious or private school is available to all families regardless of income.

“We’re over here fighting for peanuts amongst ourselves while the wealthier are getting vouchers for their summer vacations,” Nyirendah said.

Candidate share thoughts on framework for school closures

The nine-member, mayor-appointed board — Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, created by state law earlier this year — will control buildings and transportation for IPS and charter schools in 2028. It must also create a school rating system for both district and charter schools that could inform potential school closures.

Rashid said the district should ensure that students at schools that close will still be able to get the same services at their new school. His opponent, Duarte, argued that the district should look at alternatives to school closures.

“My question would be, what does the community want and need?” said Nicole Carey, District 5 incumbent. “There are many examples of different industries like nursing homes. You can’t just open a new nursing home if there’s not a community need.”

District 3 candidate Daqavise Winston said the district needs to look at who is enrolled at a school facing closure and understand who will be affected.

“What is the next closest location for those families?” he said.

Incumbents Moore, at large, and Hope Duke Star, District 5, noted the need to assess building condition and usage.

“We have to think about building usage. All of those things do matter,” Star said, adding that the district must be fiscally responsible. “People say that they don’t, but when you walk into an empty building, it does matter.”

Candidates split on AI in schools

Smith said there are more dire situations in the district than the use of artificial intelligence, such as ensuring that students can read.

But Carey argued that the district should focus on the quickly evolving technology.

“The world is evolving. We’re not going to be able to ignore it,” Carey said. “It is important for us to have really strong policies.”

Watch a video of the Oct. 19 IPS school board candidate forum

In the District 3 race, Heger said he does not think there’s a role for AI in education.

“I’m sure students are using it, but we shouldn’t be advocating the use of it in any capacity as an educational organization,” he said.

Redelman, a District 3 candidate, said the district should make sure that students are understanding it and using it responsibly while still learning content knowledge.

Candidates want more support from legislature

Most candidates said they want the Indiana General Assembly to provide more funding for schools, particularly for special education. IPS estimates a gap of $24 million between the state and federal funds it receives for special education and the cost of those services.

But Redelman, who has worked with lawmakers on education legislation, said district leaders need to be less hostile toward the legislature.

“If all we’re doing is going to the legislature and saying ‘We need more money,’ it’s going to fall flat,” he said. “I think what they’d like to hear instead is, ‘Okay, how can we help you do better with the money that you have?’”

Independent candidates reject partisan politics in race

The election is the first for partisan school board candidates in Indiana. Twelve candidates are running as Democrats, and Cornett, a write-in candidate, does not have a party.

At-large candidate Heather Houston and Redelman are both running as independents. Voting records show that Houston has voted in Democratic primaries and Redelman in Republican primaries.

But both said they ran as independents because they don’t believe the race should be partisan.

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Correction: This story has been corrected to accurately reflect Lindsey Cornett’s status as a candidate.

Students can get $2,200 for job training. But Colorado only approved 5 programs to take the grants.

2026-10-19T23:18:49+00:00

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A first-of-its-kind federal program promises to connect low-income students with free money to pay for short-term job training. Called Workforce Pell, the grants represent the largest expansion of federal financial aid in 50 years.

But the Trump administration’s revamp of Pell grants, which traditionally paid for college tuition, has so far required a tempering of expectations in Colorado.

The state has hundreds of workforce training programs, but as community college administrators began parsing the strict rules to see which programs might qualify for the free aid, they realized it was fewer than they’d hoped. Only seven institutions submitted a combined 20 applications. The state earlier this month greenlit just five programs — three for emergency medical technicians and two for phlebotomists, who draw and prepare blood samples.

Colorado community college officials say they struggled to match or produce data required by the state and federal government. Some programs are also too long or short to participate.

These hurdles, which mirror what’s happening in other states, have slowed Colorado’s rollout of Workforce Pell, officials say, and for at least the near future limit the number of programs that can participate. That leaves students who want to use these grants with only a few options.

Only programs that take between eight to 14 weeks for students to complete, have a 70% completion rate, place at least 70% of graduates in jobs within six months, and help graduates earn higher wages are eligible to accept the free aid, according to the federal rules.

Officials at the three colleges where programs were approved called the Workforce Pell reporting requirements some of the most difficult they’ve encountered, but agreed the information helps connect students to strong programs in high-demand fields.

“It’s hard work,” said Dustin Eicke, president of Trinidad State College, which earned Workforce Pell grant approval for two emergency medical technician certificate programs. “It is, but it allows us to ensure that we have the same standards across the board.”

The launch of Workforce Pell comes as an increasing number of Americans are skeptical of the time and money it takes to get a traditional degree. Lawmakers across the political spectrum fought for years to build support for subsidizing job training, and the Trump administration included it in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The Workforce Pell grants could help students cover about $2,200 a year in educational costs.

Programs receive approval through a two-tiered process. State agencies intake and vet applications before approval from the governor’s office. Programs then need final approval from the U.S. Department of Education before they can connect students with federal aid.

Since Workforce Pell launched in July, the Education Department has approved 21 programs in six states that train students for jobs in machining, electrical line work, welding, and healthcare. Colorado’s five programs have not yet received federal approval.

Colorado Mountain College has more than a dozen programs that could potentially qualify for Workforce Pell, including in real estate, baking arts and welding, said Dean of Academic Support Karla Hardesty. But the Western Slope college only submitted four programs that don’t offer financial aid so it could gain familiarity with the process.

Two, for emergency medical technicians and phlebotomists, were approved. Two others, for emergency medical technician and wilderness emergency medicine certificates, were denied. The state said the rejected programs didn’t meet completion and job rate data standards, a common reason for the Workforce Pell denials.

Arapahoe Community College’s Julie Beggs, vice president of economic mobility and workforce innovation, said campus officials hoped Workforce Pell might help students pay for a longer list of non-credit workforce programs like boot camps in cybersecurity and apprenticeships. As rules became finalized, college officials realized those programs might not qualify.

The Arapahoe college submitted Workforce Pell applications for certificates in early childhood education, nurse aide, emergency medical technician, and phlebotomy. Its phlebotomy program was the only one approved by the state.

A Colorado Department of Labor and Employment spokesperson said programs that were not approved will get state support to meet the rigorous eligibility requirements in future application cycles. The state has not said when it will open another cycle.

Michael Itzkowitz, founder of college research organization the HEA Group, said federal data requirements were designed to be tough to ensure students and taxpayer dollars aren’t going to shoddy programs.

He said it’s too early to tell whether Workforce Pell is a success in helping more students connect to affordable job training.

“With only a few approvals across the country as of yet, the story has yet to be written,” he said.

School officials in charge of Colorado’s approved programs are unsure when they will be able to allow students to apply for federal aid.

Beggs hopes ACC students could use the program as early as the summer, and she’s excited about what the Pell money will mean to lower-income students who sometimes struggle to pay for these courses.

“It kind of expedites their trajectory,” Beggs said. ”And then it just creates on-ramps to a longer-term education.”

Arapahoe phlebotomy student Kendall Bingenheimer, 35, won’t benefit from those grants. But she knows firsthand how imperative federal Pell grants can be for lower-income students after using them at Metropolitan State University of Denver to earn a biology degree.

Bingenheimer got some state aid to pay for the phlebotomy program, but Workforce Pell grants could cover most of that cost for future students.

“Not everybody is born into money,” Bingenheimer said. “If you can really allow people access to school, make it more accessible, more people will do it, and then you have more people joining the workforce. That’s never a bad thing.”

Memphis schools state takeover paused again

2026-10-19T22:04:12+00:00

The state takeover of Memphis-Shelby County Schools has once again been temporarily blocked, this time by a local judge on Monday.

That decision came minutes before the state-appointed oversight board was set to meet for the second time this month, oversight board Chair Billy Orgel said. The ruling throws control of the district back into uncertainty, returning full authority to the local school board only days after a federal judge reinstated the oversight board’s authority.

The federal case over whether the takeover is constitutional remains ongoing. But MSCS and Shelby County leaders filed a separate lawsuit against the takeover law in chancery court on Oct. 7.

As of Monday afternoon, the court order was not available on the Shelby County Chancery Court website. But in a request for a temporary block filed Sunday, district leaders amended their complaint to remove allegations that the state takeover law violates the Tennessee Constitution, a key argument in their federal case.

Instead, the plaintiffs argue that the takeover was ordered without evidence that the district qualified for it and that the takeover will irreparably harm district operations.

Orgel said Monday’s meeting had been canceled around 12:50 p.m., 10 minutes before it was scheduled to begin virtually.

“Hopefully this will be resolved soon so all of us can get together and improve our school system,” Orgel said in a statement to Chalkbeat.

At its first meeting in months earlier this month, the nine-member oversight board fast-tracked approval of key policies and processes to prove it was ready to begin its work. That included a draft approval process for contracts over $50,000.

The draft plan, along with job descriptions for an executive director and oversight board procedures, came from Florida-based consulting group MGT. The firm, which had also advised the state takeover of Houston schools in 2023, was hired by local philanthropists including longtime state takeover supporter Seeding Success.

Editor’s note: This is an ongoing story and will be updated as it develops.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Public Education Corporation stays mum on recent IPS moves about enrollment, charters

2026-10-19T21:53:06+00:00

The new governing authority for Indianapolis schools moved closer to solidifying an operating structure and reviewed its proposed annual budget Monday, but didn’t discuss the school district’s recent moves to claim more autonomy.

Of the $3.2 million proposed budget for IPEC, more than $1.9 million would go to consulting fees plus other outside expertise, and $1 million would pay for staff salaries. The remaining $300,000 would fund a commercial space for IPEC’s day-to-day operations, although IPEC’s staff is in talks about keeping offices in the City-County building.

IPEC was established by state lawmakers to manage transportation and buildings for Indianapolis Public Schools and charter schools, with the purpose of unifying school services in district boundaries. The nine-member board has slowly pursued those plans since it began work earlier this year; in July, it voted to appoint national charter school advocate Karega Rausch as its executive director.

But at Monday’s meeting, no IPEC board or staff members challenged recent controversial moves by the district to leave the universal enrollment system Enroll Indy and revisit its contracts with Innovation Network charter schools after this school year. Charter leaders expressed outrage about both changes, and the tension could make the corporation’s work harder in the months ahead. State law says IPEC has the power to manage a unified enrollment system for the schools it oversees.

Along with reviewing its budget proposal, IPEC on Monday discussed the operating referendum for the city’s schools on the ballot next month. Rausch said his team is focused on helping the proposed tax measure pass and is stressing its importance to students. IPEC Chairman David Harris also called the referendum a top priority.

Rausch, who presented the proposed 2027 budget for IPEC, said he will discuss it again by the end of the year. But he didn’t promise that he would share more details before the board’s next meeting on Oct. 29, when it is expected to vote on the budget. The board does expect to share a more detailed budget and staffing plan at some point soon, he said.

“I want to be careful not to overpromise, but certainly strategic conversations with the board will happen,” Rausch said. “I know we have talked about engaging in that process before the end of this calendar year, for certain.”

The board expects to focus on communications and community engagement as part of next year’s priorities, he said.

“I can’t think of any work that this body is going to do that won’t require us to deeply and thoughtfully engage the community in thoughtful and intentional ways,” Rausch said.

During the public comment period at Monday’s meeting, two candidates for IPS school board expressed concerns about the board’s transparency and fiscal responsibility concerns with the board.

Lindsey Cornett, who is running for the District 4 seat, said she was concerned about IPEC’s budget for consulting amid financial troubles for the school district.

“That’s a significant amount of money when our public schools are in a financial crisis,” she said. “Where are the transportation and building experts on this body who could be saving $1.9 million dollars in taxpayer funding.”

The money for consultants will help the board craft plans for school performance, transportation, and enrollment, Rausch said.

District 2 candidate Bryan Duarte echoed Cornett’s worries and added that the board is not erring on the side of transparency. He referenced the noon meeting time and the difficulty in finding IPEC’s budget online.

“This does not show an actual intentional approach to engaging the community, and you should be really embarrassed by that,” Duarte said.

Meanwhile, Harris asked how philanthropic dollars might help the organization’s work. Rausch said he does not want IPEC to be reliant on those outside dollars.

“The intent is for the operations of IPEC to not be dependent on anything other than the resources that we know we will have,” Rausch said. “I want to make sure that’s really important and really clear. We may look for some resources with some of the building and thinking support areas.”

IPEC is exempt from the City-County Code of Ethics, so staff proposed the corporation’s own code derived in part from that language. The board is responsible for enforcing those rules while allowing members to represent their designated education interests.

Mike O’Connor of the Bose Public Affairs Group, who previously served as IPEC’s interim executive director, now has a contract to help IPEC during its initial year. The board voted to reduce O’Connor’s monthly support from $40,000 to $25,000 through the end of the year.

“That will allow us to continue to use some of the important consultation and other support services that they have provided for us, while giving us a space to consider our staffing work that we need beyond this period of time,” Rausch said.

Beginning in January, IPEC will put attorney Jon Mayes of Bose, McKinney & Evans on a retainer agreement rather than continuing his current hourly pay rate. Rausch said legal work is expected to streamline, not ramp up.

Supreme Court takes up case that could change how schools select students for magnet programs

2026-10-19T21:53:06+00:00

The U.S. Supreme Court is taking up a magnet school admissions case that could change how school districts decide which students get access to advanced academic programs.

The case involves magnet school policies in Montgomery County, Maryland, a diverse, progressive school district serving the affluent suburbs of Washington, D.C., but it could affect selective admissions policies in many large, urban districts that have changed their criteria to expand access. It comes as the Trump administration and conservative legal groups have pressured states and school districts to abandon policies associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Montgomery County Public Schools changed how it admitted students to its magnet middle schools in 2017, amid concerns that enrollment did not reflect the district’s student population, and again during the pandemic, when it adopted its current system combining test scores, grades, and a lottery.

A group of mostly Asian American parents, the Association for Education Fairness, sued. They argued that school board and district leaders were motivated by concerns that Asian American students made up nearly half the enrollment in the four magnet middle school programs.

Under the new criteria, Asian American representation decreased at two magnet schools and increased at two others, according to court filings.

The parents are represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative public interest law firm that frequently challenges the use of racial considerations in education.

The Supreme Court had already restricted the use of race in assigning students to K-12 schools under a 2007 decision, Parents Involved v. Seattle. But in a series of lawsuits, the Pacific Legal Foundation has argued that school districts are using proxies for race, such as neighborhoods or family income, to pursue racial balancing that would otherwise be illegal.

Even after the Supreme Court restricted the use of race in college admissions in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the justices twice declined to take up new K-12 cases, letting admissions policies stand in Fairfax County, Virginia, and in Boston. In each case, Justice Samuel Alito, one of the court’s staunchest conservatives, warned that the Supreme Court was allowing unconstitutional and discriminatory practices to proliferate. Erin Wilcox, a senior attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, said the court’s decision to take the Montgomery County case suggests the other justices may now be ready to consider the issue.

“Proxy discrimination is a growing issue, and a problem that is not going away,” Wilcox said. “It won’t be resolved until the court takes a look at it.”

What’s at stake, she said, is access to highly regarded schools and the educational opportunities they offer. “This could have a massive impact on the trajectory of students’ lives.”

But law professor Cara McClellan said the case could deter school districts from changing admissions policies designed to remove barriers for talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Parents Involved already provides clear guidance on what school districts can and cannot do, she said, and it’s concerning that the Supreme Court wants to revisit the question.

“We’re effectively talking about whether you can take any consideration of barriers that are disproportionately impacting underrepresented groups and try to eliminate those barriers,” said McClellan, director of advocacy for the racial and civil justice clinic at the University of Pennsylvania’s law school. “To suggest that is discriminatory is a really radical position.”

Before 2017, parents had to request that their children be considered for magnet school admissions, and decisions were made based on grades, scores on a cognitive ability test, and teacher recommendations. The district then tested a policy that screened all fifth graders for potential inclusion and compared scores of students at high-poverty schools with those of other students from low-income households rather than national averages.

During the pandemic, the district replaced its in-person cognitive ability test with scores from standardized tests that students had already taken. Students with good grades who scored at or above the 85th percentile at their school were entered into a lottery for spots in the magnet programs.

In their legal filing asking the Supreme Court not to take up the case, attorneys for the school district argued that the lawsuit challenged an admissions policy the district no longer uses and wrongly applied those objections to its current system.

Pacific Legal argued that the pandemic-era policy built on previous changes and disadvantaged Asian American students, who were more likely to attend low-poverty schools. Those students, the group argued, now need to score much higher than students at high-poverty schools to earn a lottery spot.

Legally, the case turns on whether parents suing a school district need to show that a policy change disproportionately affected one racial group — Asian Americans in this case — or whether evidence of racial considerations is enough to prove discrimination. Federal appeals courts have applied different standards to these cases, a split that may have motivated the Supreme Court to take the case.

Pacific Legal argues that people have individual rights to equal treatment under the law and that families should not have to show a disproportionate effect on a racial group for their lawsuits to proceed.

In an emailed statement, Montgomery County Public Schools said it would continue its commitment to “providing equitable access to rigorous opportunities for all students” while the case played out.

“At this stage, the Supreme Court is not evaluating the specific details of MCPS’s magnet programs,” spokesperson Liliana López said. “Rather, the Court will address a purely legal question and decide what plaintiffs who challenge race-neutral admissions criteria on their face must establish to demonstrate discrimination.”

Legal experts on both sides said the case could have significant implications for when and how school districts use race-neutral criteria to change who has access to advanced or selective programs.

McClellan said the split among appeals courts resulted from conservative groups pursuing a legal strategy of filing similar lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions and stretching the reasonable interpretation of the Supreme Court’s college affirmative action ruling.

The Students for Fair Admissions decision did not change the legal precedent governing K-12 schools, she said. Nonetheless, the Trump administration has frequently cited the ruling as it changes civil rights enforcement priorities and pressures states to abandon diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

The case has not yet been scheduled for oral arguments but could be heard next spring.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

New Jersey picks Rutgers to lead social media research center

2026-10-19T21:51:04+00:00

This story was originally published by the New Jersey Monitor.

New Jersey officials have tapped Rutgers University to lead a new publicly funded social media research center dedicated to protecting children from its addictive features and other risks online.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill said Monday that Rutgers was selected through a competitive grant process that will provide the state university $500,000 to assess the impact of social media on New Jersey teens, identify specific measures that can be used to mitigate the damage it causes, and promote healthy and responsible use of social media apps.

Findings will be released on a rolling basis, Sherrill said, with more detailed recommendations to follow within a year. The goal is to help policymakers find better ways to keep young people safer but also to give parents, teachers, and others free tools to guard against the addictive nature of social media, she said.

“We’re trying to generate insights that everyone can trust, not just PR spin, and I want those insights to reach everyone in our state,” Sherrill said Monday.

Studies show nearly half of teens — and 55% of parents — agree social media is harmful to youth mental health.

The announcement is the latest step in Sherrill’s effort to curb the negative effects of social media on young people.

In her first days in office, Sherrill signed an executive order that created an office of online youth safety within the state Department of Health, and in August she signed a package of bills that prompted additional research and outlined sweeping restrictions designed to limit kids’ access to certain apps, changes that take effect in September 2027.

“If Washington won’t lead on keeping our kids safe from big tech, then New Jersey will,” Sherrill said Monday.

New Jersey Secretary of Higher Education Margo Chaly said Rutgers was selected because it offered a “detailed, clearly defined” proposal.

The social media research team will be led by Rutgers associate psychology professor Jessica Hamilton; Jeffrey Lane, an associate professor of communication; and Vivien Wen Li Anthony, an associate professor at the school of social work and an expert in addiction.

Hamilton said work is already underway with more than two dozen teams of high school students in 10 counties responding to questions about their social media use, how it affects their mental health, and when it makes them feel worse about themselves.

“We want to better understand what specifically are the aspects of social media that are most harmful, when, and what we can do right now to make that better,” Hamilton said.

The center’s work is funded through New Jersey’s $60.7 billion budget for the current year, but the state is also anticipating at least $575 million from a legal settlement announced in August between a group of states and the tech giant Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Meta agreed to new limits on daily platform use by teens, among other things, but did not admit to claims that it had intentionally designed addictive systems.

4 Detroit school board candidates have felony convictions, analysis finds

2026-10-19T18:45:50+00:00

Four candidates running for seats on the Detroit school board have criminal felony convictions, a Chalkbeat and BridgeDetroit analysis found.

A review of records for all 34 names that will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot for five seats on the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s board found convictions including assault with intent to murder, domestic violence, assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, and forgery.

The analysis does not include felony charges that were dismissed or related to marijuana possession or distribution. (Possession of recreational marijuana has been legal in Michigan since 2018.)

Chalkbeat and BridgeDetroit routinely investigate the backgrounds of school board candidates. Board members have the power to vote on curriculum, district spending, the hiring and firing of superintendents, and serve as representatives for parents and the community.

In Michigan, candidates with felony convictions are not necessarily prohibited from taking public office. They are only ineligible for election if convictions within the last 20 years involve “dishonesty, deceit, fraud, or a breach of the public trust” related to their official capacity while holding a position in government, according to state law.

None of the DPSCD board candidates identified in the analysis — Bobby Christian, Duane Grigsby Jr., Darious Morris, and Danetta Simpson — have convictions that preclude them from holding office under that law. People with felony convictions are also allowed to vote in Michigan elections if they are not currently serving out a sentence for one.

Here is a breakdown of what the analysis found.

Bobby Christian

Christian, an after-school program coordinator and youth football coach, pleaded guilty to attempting uttering and publishing — or trying to pass off a forged, altered, or counterfeit document as genuine in an attempt to defraud — in 2011 in Wayne County, records show.

He was sentenced to two years of probation, according to the filings.

Christian told Chalkbeat he was charged because he was the sole owner of a company involved in an incident in which a client’s check was stolen.

Publicly available court documents did not include details about the circumstances leading up to the charge.

“I was a young business owner, not knowing the process,” said Christian.

Christian said he uses the experience to inform his work in community violence intervention.

“One mistake can’t define a person’s life,” he said.

Duane Grigsby Jr.

Court records show Grigsby, a business owner and property manager, has been convicted of multiple felonies, including receiving stolen property, assaulting a police officer, and domestic violence.

In 1996 in Clark County, Ohio, Grigsby was found guilty of forgery, according to court records, and was ordered to pay more than $1,300 in restitution.

Grigsby was convicted of receiving stolen property and possessing criminal tools in 1997 in Franklin County, Ohio, records show. According to an indictment, Grigsby received, retained, or disposed of five stolen credit cards. The documents also allege Grigsby was in possession of a driver’s license with the intent to use it with the stolen property to commit a crime.

Publicly available records do not show the sentences for the convictions.

In 1998, Grigsby was convicted of assault on a police officer and failure to comply with an order of a police officer in Butler County, Ohio, records show. He was sentenced to one year in prison and up to three years of probation, according to court filings.

“Yeah, I did. That’s me,” Grigsby told Chalkbeat of the incident that led to the convictions.

Grigsby added, “I’m not saying I’m violent right now, but I could become violent if someone pushed me. And if they … doing something to these kids, yes, I’m gonna show out — I ain’t saying I’m gonna put my hands on somebody, but I’m gonna show out and I’m gonna step up.”

Grigsby was convicted of domestic violence in 2005 in Clark County, and sentenced to 14 months in prison with credit for time served, according to court documents.

Grigsby said the allegations were false.

Grigsby pointed out that the convictions happened more than 20 years ago. He said his criminal history does not define him and that he overcame many difficulties in childhood.

He also said his experience navigating the criminal justice system informs his volunteer work with youth.

Darious Morris

Morris, the District 3 representative of the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners, was convicted of forgery and falsely impersonating a public officer in 2009 in Wayne County. Records show he was sentenced to one year in prison for the convictions, with credit for time served.

Morris previously told WXYZ Detroit the charges stemmed from real estate fraud and impersonating a notary public. Morris said earlier this year the scheme involved taking foreclosed homes and “fraudulently taking the deeds.”

In 2011, he was convicted of conducting criminal enterprises, according to court documents. He was sentenced to two to 20 years, with credit for 329 days served, records show.

Morris was convicted of assaulting, resisting or obstructing a police officer in Macomb County in 2023, court records show. He was ordered to complete therapy and maintain employment as a result of the conviction, documents show.

Morris told WXYZ he took responsibility for the incident and later apologized to the officer.

“I fell into the preschool to prison pipeline,” Morris said of his convictions. “I got involved in what was happening, what was around me. I didn’t have no mentor.”

Morris, who is no longer actively running though his name will still appear on the ballot, said kids in Detroit need “people with real-life experience” to help them avoid the criminal justice system.

Danetta Simpson

Simpson, who was a cosmetologist and owned her own salon in the city for more than 30 years, was convicted of assault with intent to murder in 1996 in Oakland County, according to court documents. She was sentenced to 14 days in jail and one year of probation, records show.

The Detroit News previously reported a woman alleged Simpson made threatening phone calls and later fired a gun near her during an altercation. No one was injured.

Simpson pleaded no contest to the charge in 1998, though she later attempted to withdraw it, the Detroit News reported.

Simpson told Chalkbeat she was wrongfully convicted and denies all of the allegations. The experience motivated her to run for office and advocate for a reentry program in Michigan’s parole system.

“I took the plea because I had children and I wasn’t educated enough to be able to fight through the system,” said Simpson.

In running to be on the board, Simpson said she hopes to help young people avoid the same fate.

“We have to educate the young people,” she said. “That’s the only way we can get our future to change.”

Simpson has previously run unsuccessfully for mayor and to be a Michigan House representative.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Bryce Huffman contributed to this report. You can reach him at bhuffman@bridgedetroit.com.

NYC’s 2-K program is growing to 12,000 kids next year. Here are the neighborhoods getting seats.

2026-10-19T15:00:26+00:00

As New York City’s free childcare program is on track to reach 12,000 2-year-olds next year, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul revealed Monday which new neighborhoods will get the program.

The expansion will bring the program to 22 of the city’s 32 school districts, including all of the Bronx and Staten Island, after that borough had been left out of this year’s inaugural 2,000 seats. Mamdani has pledged to expand the program citywide for all 2-year-olds who need it by the end of his first term, though Hochul has only committed funding for the first two years.

Hochul committed $73 million to the program this year and plans to spend $425 million next year.

“From Co-op City in the Bronx to Staten Island’s South Shore, we’re bringing 2-K to every borough and making New York City more affordable for working people,” Mamdani said in a statement.

Toddlers who turn 2 in 2027 will be eligible to participate in next year’s program. Officials didn’t immediately provide a breakdown of how many seats will be available in each of the new districts. Officials did not promise that every eligible student in the covered districts would get a seat, but a Mamdani spokesperson said the goal is to reach as many families as possible.

More than 5,000 families applied for the 2,000 seats that opened this year, a sign of unmet demand for the program, officials said.

Unlike the city’s free programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, the city funds most 2-K programs from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., year-round. For participating families, that can mean savings of more than $20,000 a year.

“This is how we deliver real relief for working families, and make sure our kids get the best possible start in life,” Hochul said in a statement.

(Some families, however, need care outside of traditional weekday hours and rely on state-funded childcare vouchers. Earlier this month, Mamdani announced plans to enroll about 10,000 kids from a waitlist that had grown to 30,000.)

To expand 2-K next year, city officials said they will begin reaching out this week to childcare providers in the covered districts who already receive funding from the city to operate 3-K and prekindergarten programs to gauge their interest in opening 2-K seats.

Some, however, may be wary. Many private childcare operators who contract with the city to run 2-K, 3-K and prekindergarten programs said they faced crippling delays in getting their city reimbursements this year — a longstanding problem some providers said grew worse this year.

Mamdani pledged an all-government effort to expedite the approval of new contracts and promised to fill hundreds of staffing vacancies in the Education Department’s early childhood education division.

The 2-K program in its first year relied mostly on family providers who run small childcare programs from their homes, though some larger childcare centers also participated.

Here’s the list of new districts where the program is set to expand. The districts included in this year’s 2-K program — Manhattan’s District 6, the Bronx’s District 10, Brooklyn’s Districts 18 and 23, and Queens’ District 27 — will continue to have the program next year.

You can find out what school district you’re in using the Education Department’s searchable school district map.

Bronx: All districts covered (includes Districts 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)

Staten Island: All of District 31 covered (the only district in Staten Island)

Manhattan:

School District 4: East Harlem
School District 5: Central Harlem, Manhattanville / West Harlem, Morningside Heights, Hamilton Heights / Sugar Hill

Brooklyn

School District 16: Bedford-Stuyvesant, including Stuyvesant Heights; as well as parts of northern Crown Heights and Ocean Hill
School District 17: Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Wingate, Prospect Heights, Flatbush, East Flatbush, as well as parts of Erasmus, Farragut, Rugby, Remsen Village, Ocean Hill and Brownsville
School District 19: East New York, New Lots, Cypress Hills, City Line, Spring Creek, Starrett City, as well as parts of Ocean Hill, Brownsville and Canarsie
School District 20: Bay Ridge, Fort Hamilton, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach, as well as parts of Bensonhurst, Borough Park, Sunset Park, Kensington, Gravesend, Mapleton / western Midwood and western Flatbush
School District 21: Coney Island, Sea Gate, Brighton Beach, Gravesend, Homecrest, Mapleton / Ocean Parkway, Midwood, as well as parts of Bensonhurst, Borough Park, Madison and western Flatbush
School District 32: Bushwick, as well as parts of East Williamsburg and northern Bedford-Stuyvesant

Queens

School District 24: Corona, including North Corona; Elmhurst, Maspeth, Middle Village, Ridgewood, Glendale, Sunnyside, Woodside, as well as parts of Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst, Rego Park, Woodhaven, Forest Hills, and Long Island City
School District 28: Rego Park, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, Briarwood, Jamaica Hills, Jamaica, South Jamaica, Richmond Hill, South Richmond Hill, South Ozone Park, Baisley Park, Rochdale Village, Springfield Gardens, as well as parts of Kew Gardens Hills, Hillcrest, St. Albans, Glendale, Corona, and Elmhurst
School District 29: Queens Village, Cambria Heights, Hollis, St. Albans, Laurelton, Rosedale, Springfield Gardens, Brookville, portions of Bellerose, Jamaica Estates, Holliswood, Hillcrest, Jamaica Hills, Jamaica, and South Jamaica

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

For undocumented students, the path from high school to college is shrinking

2026-10-19T12:00:00+00:00

In the thick of college application season, some undocumented students are discovering they’ve lost eligibility for in-state tuition.

Other students’ eligibility for lower tuition at state colleges and universities may be up in the air as litigation winds through federal court. And in Florida, state authorities have banned them from enrolling in a public college or university at all.

“It has been a little bit bleak and disappointing,” said Martinez, a college counselor in north Texas, one of the states that has backtracked on in-state tuition for undocumented students. (Chalkbeat is only using her last name because she is in the process of gaining citizenship and concerned about immigration enforcement.)

While children have a right to a public K-12 education in the U.S. regardless of their immigration status, undocumented students’ access to higher education is shrinking due to actions by states and the federal government. The consequences extend beyond college campuses. The changes not only create confusion for high schoolers, but some worry they might discourage more undocumented students from even finishing high school due to pessimism about their long-term prospects.

Over two decades, states created policies that allowed graduates of their high schools who were undocumented to pay the same lower college tuition as their classmates who were U.S. citizens. The federal government also gave young people who arrived as children a pathway to work authorization and protection from deportation through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, commonly known as DACA.

Now, the Trump administration is trying to close those doors. It has sued two dozen states to end in-state tuition policies and pressured states to end access to career and technical education for undocumented students. Students, meanwhile, cannot currently get DACA status amid ongoing legal challenges.

Immigration hardliners argue that granting benefits like in-state tuition to undocumented students unfairly displaces students who are citizens from attending state universities.

“It’s easy to put a human face on that illegal alien student … but for most middle class families, a seat at a state university is the only real option,” said Ira Mehlman, media director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has filed briefs in support of the federal government’s lawsuits.

But supporters of immigrant students — including an estimated 525,000 undocumented students enrolled in U.S. colleges — say they are as deserving as citizens, and many have received much of their education in the states where they would receive the in-state benefit.

“I don’t think anybody was expecting the federal government to sue every single state in such a short period of time,” said Diego Sánchez, vice president of policy and strategy for the President’s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. “We’re seeing the pathway from high school into college and the workforce is narrowing in different ways.”

New political pressure limits access to higher education

Policies giving undocumented students access to in-state tuition started under Republican state leadership.

In 2001 under Gov. Rick Perry, Texas granted the benefit to undocumented students who had lived in Texas for at least three years. Other states passed similar legislation. Perry defended that policy a decade later when he was a presidential candidate, calling the ethos behind the law the “American way.”

But the second Trump administration has targeted almost every state with a tuition-equity law, at the same time that it’s ramped up immigration enforcement activity.

Challenges to those policies in other states have yielded mixed results this year. But when the Department of Justice sued Texas in June 2025 to overturn its in-state tuition policy, state Attorney General Ken Paxton agreed to end it instead of going to court. Kansas, Kentucky, and Nebraska officials also agreed to ending their policies.

The impact on tens of thousands of Texas students and institutions serving them was swift and confusing, said Will Davies, director of policy and research at Breakthrough Central Texas, a college access nonprofit that works directly with students.

“Most of these kids grew up here,” he said. “They went to high school under the impression that if they, like their peers, got good grades and had a high rank in their high school, they were going to have affordable and high quality post-secondary options to pursue, and for a lot of those people, that promise was broken pretty much immediately.”

In addition, universities didn’t have clear direction for how to enforce the change, he said.

Conservatives have targeted other postsecondary education opportunities. Florida prohibited undocumented students from certain career-technical education programs in September. A Chalkbeat review found that Iowa, Virginia, and Georgia have taken steps to restrict undocumented students’ access to dual enrollment courses and career-technical education programs. Virginia later abandoned the policy.

While undocumented students have a right to a public education under the U.S. Supreme Court’s Plyler v. Doe ruling, seeing postsecondary doors close may send them a discouraging message about their prospects, said Julie Sugarman, associate director for K-12 research with the Migration Policy Institute.

“When students don’t feel like they see a future, they don’t end up staying in high school,” she said.

Counselor tells students to seek an education ‘sidequest’

In states where in-state tuition policies for undocumented students have recently ended, counselors have a delicate balance to strike when talking to students about their options.

Martinez said she often presents students with the idea of a “sidequest” if the degree they want might be too difficult or expensive to obtain due to their immigration status.

For example, a student who wants to go into nursing might think about pursuing a business degree first to help run a family business, because being a nurse might require a work permit in the future.

She said she tells students, “Life is happening. What are ways that you can grow as a person and develop yourself as a professional, so you can still make that one step forward for the career that you want?”

Their reactions are mixed, Martinez said. Some begin to brainstorm immediately. Others struggle to process the idea when she first raises it.

Davies of Breakthrough Central Texas said his organization has seen a number of students delay enrolling due to Texas’ policy change. He directs students to seek out aid and scholarships, some of which are tailored to help immigrant students. While some organizations have stepped in to try to narrow funding gaps, “it’s not enough to really address the broader problem.”

While financial barriers are significant for students, the current political climate is ultimately “a moment in time” — and a higher education is still worth pursuing, said Hyein Lee, chief operating officer of thedream.us, one of the largest scholarship funds for undocumented students.

“We also want to help our students understand and think more long term about how investing in their education now will pay dividends in the long term, even if it may not seem like this,” she said.

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org. Lily is on Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook.

Special taxing districts’ uncertain future looms over historic school board races

2026-10-19T11:00:00+00:00

This story is published in partnership with the Illinois Answers Project.

As candidates compete to serve on the Chicago Board of Education, the newly elected group will soon face a $1 billion question: how to deal with a controversial city of Chicago financing program that is both a cash cow for the district and a curse.

In the short term, Chicago’s controversial tax-increment district financing program is increasingly lucrative and serves as a much needed lifeline for the school system’s financial crisis.

But in the long term, it muddies Chicago Public Schools’ budgeting process and hardens its financial dependence on the city. Many of those taxing districts are set to expire by law over the next decade — along with the extra cash they provide.

Chicago has for decades used tax-increment financing, or TIF, to create geographic districts that divert property tax growth away from local governments — especially Chicago Public Schools — and channel the money into special funds that can be tapped to help pay for construction and public works.

But in recent years, the money raised by TIF districts has eclipsed spending on local projects. Chicago mayors have declared larger and larger “surpluses,” one-time measures reaching into TIF reserves and spreading the money back over local governments. The biggest beneficiary has been the school system, which is by far the largest local collector of property taxes.

TIF districts expire each year, automatically sending millions back to the school district and other taxing bodies. But as some of the highest-earning districts near downtown Chicago remain in place, CPS has had to rely on surpluses to reap their share of property taxes. The surpluses also float cash to the district without triggering the state law that limits how much the district can raise its property tax levy.

As recently as 2019, the amount CPS raised by the TIF surplus barely accounted for 1% of the district’s total budget. But this year, when the school district received more than half of the record $1 billion surplus declared by Mayor Brandon Johnson, its share represented more than 6% of its spending plan.

That’s a problem when the school district is legally required to pass its budget months before its leaders know how much they’ll get from the mayoral-declared surplus, said Justin Marlowe, director of the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.

“It’s bad on multiple levels,” Marlowe said. “It would be one thing if it was a relatively small share of … CPS’s overall budget, but it’s not. It makes a material difference how much TIF surplus there is, and we’ve seen that play out in some very direct ways.”

The timing of the cash infusion is one major unknown in the school district’s budget process. Another unknown is the amount of money coming in. During the past five years, TIF surplus has buffed the schools’ approximately $10 billion spending plan by as little as $141 million and as much as $523 million.

The stakes have been raised on the district’s annual TIF guessing game as CPS and city leaders argue over who’s responsible for a $175 million annual pension payment. Last year, Johnson was able to resolve the issue by declaring a much larger surplus than the school district budgeted for, floating CPS a cash infusion big enough to cover the cost.

“The whole point of having a calendar is that you make certain decisions — sometimes tough decisions — at certain moments in time, and you make compromises and you make trade-offs,” Marlowe said. “If the process just stretches on endlessly, waiting for new information from the city or from Springfield or whatever, that violates some really core principles at a very high level.”

This year, the school board — for now split between elected members and mayoral appointees — passed a controversial plan to assume $285 million in TIF surplus plus an additional $150 million in money from the state, aiming to prevent painful cuts.

State leaders have insisted Springfield does not have the money. District leaders will get an indication of how much surplus to expect when Johnson releases his budget proposal later this month, but they won’t know for sure until the City Council approves a final spending plan later in the year.

How do TIFs work?

Chicago’s TIF districts have steadily declined in number from their 2011 peak as the bonanza of districts created under Mayor Richard M. Daley reached the end of their 23-year life cycle. The 160 districts when Daley left office shrank to 101 active districts this year. Another 13 are scheduled to expire this year with an additional 15 due for expiration by 2030, including the juggernaut LaSalle Central district, which on its own raised more than $200 million last year.

When a TIF district expires, the money in its account is distributed back to taxing bodies, and local governments can raise their levies to absorb its annual collections moving forward.

However, even as the number of TIF districts has dwindled, their combined collections have skyrocketed, taking in more than $1 billion last year, according to city data. That’s because a half-dozen fast-growing districts near downtown claim an outsize share of the TIF revenues.

The TIF program has come under criticism for siphoning money to wealthy neighborhoods that could otherwise have gone to school districts. The Chicago Teachers Union has long called for the city to wind down its TIF programs.

“The overwhelming history around TIF has been that it has not been used for areas that are ‘blighted,’” as they are intended under state law, said Pavlyn Jankov, research director for the Chicago Teachers Union. “The way it is structured takes money that would go to schools and otherwise diverts it because of the way it disallows new property from being taxed by school districts, parks, libraries, et cetera.”

But since longtime CTU organizer Brandon Johnson was elected mayor in 2023, the union has not objected to his administration’s decision to extend the lives of some districts while declaring growing surpluses.

How do school board candidates want to use TIF money?

Hilario Dominguez, who is running for school board president with the backing of the teachers union, expressed a similar sentiment, calling TIF a “stopgap for the funding our state owes.”

“Past mayors may have used TIFs as a slush fund for downtown developers,” Dominguez wrote in an emailed statement. “But we have an administration now who sees we can resource our schools, create jobs, and invest in neighborhoods with projects for the public good at the same time.”

Dominguez’s statement did not propose changes to the TIF system, instead pointing to money owed to districts around the state through the evidence-based funding formula approved by Illinois lawmakers in 2017.

“Ultimately, TIF is a stopgap for the funding our state owes,” the statement said. “Uncommitted funds in a TIF surplus help our students on a rainy day but the two billion dollars being denied to our district has it raining so hard that our schools started the year literally molding.”

Union leaders have stopped short of calling for an accelerated wind-down of Chicago’s TIFs, even though that would mean a steadier stream of revenue to the district without having to raise taxes or rely on fickle annual surpluses.

A 2024 report from the research and advocacy group Kids First Chicago estimated that the wholesale elimination of TIFs could mean hundreds of millions of additional dollars coming to the district each year — even after accounting for surpluses from the city.

“TIF surplus is the opposite … of sustainable, predictable revenue,” said Hal Woods, director of policy for Kids First Chicago. “It is a very unreliable source for a school district, particularly the size of CPS.”

It also creates a “huge sequencing problem” for the school district to pass its annual budget before leaders know how big a surplus to expect, he said. Chicago Public Schools’ fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30 while Chicago plans its spending in calendar years, so budgets are finalized at different times.

“CPS, they’ve got to tell schools how much they can spend, how many people they’re allowed to hire, [negotiate] contracts with vendors, and they’ve got to pass a balanced budget before one of its most significant local revenue sources is actually known,” Woods said.

Jessica Biggs, another candidate for board president, said having to predict the size of TIF surpluses “makes a challenging process all that much more challenging” when trying to craft a budget for the school district.

Biggs advocated for more transparency in the way TIF is used and closer communication between city, school district, and state leaders. She added that modeling more TIF districts off the two special transit TIFs, which reimburse CPS for their share of tax dollars collected, could be one possible reform path.

Victor Henderson, who is also running for CPS board president, declined to take a definitive stance on whether TIF should be reformed or wound down, saying he would take a “civic-minded” approach that considers the needs of the city budget and ward-level development.

In the meantime, Henderson said, the district should budget conservatively, possibly by approving multiple spending options that anticipate different sizes of TIF surplus.

“You do have to make some assumptions, but they should be either A, be reasonable, or B, trend towards conservative,” Henderson said.

An independent school board could exercise its newfound power to pressure city leaders for more consistent treatment of programs like TIF that have profound fiscal consequences for the school district, Marlowe said. Or, it could break down into yet another political turf war.

“The optimist in me wants to look at this and say that this is a really good opportunity to disentangle the city and CPS’s finances, to create some very clear rules of the game of the way that the TIF surplus is going to work,” Marlowe said. “I think it’s entirely possible to have a different kind of working relationship that’s much more transparent and much better for not just the financial health of both the city and CPS, but for creating more stability and more predictability.”

“But … politically, I don’t know how much appetite there is for that,” Marlowe said.

Why this ex-county commissioner supports the state takeover of Memphis schools

2026-10-19T11:00:00+00:00

Former Shelby County Commissioner Britney Thornton says she’s part of a generation of students failed by Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Thornton went to a public elementary school in Orange Mound, but her mom sent her to private middle and high school after determining that many students at local schools weren’t succeeding.

“I still, to this day, have deep resentment, because why wasn’t my neighborhood K-12 school pattern an option?” Thornton told Chalkbeat.

Thornton served on the county commission for four years. She was the sole Democrat to vote in favor of accountability measures for the MSCS school board. It started with her January 2025 vote of no confidence after the sudden ousting of former superintendent Marie Feagins. And in May, Thornton once again crossed party lines to vote against a proposal to fund MSCS’ ongoing lawsuit challenging the state takeover.

“I feel like voting my conscience was pissing off the status quo,” she said.

So, Thornton didn’t run for reelection for her District 10 commission seat, and instead recently joined Memphis Lift, a parent group that supports the state takeover, as its chief of staff.

Memphis Lift has long advocated for a state-appointed oversight board to take control of MSCS. After being stalled for months, a judge ordered last Thursday that the board could begin its work as the lawsuit continues.

Thornton prides herself on “siding with the people” in all of her commission votes.

“Staying under current control is a guarantee that nothing is going to change,” she said.

For more from Thornton on the changes she wants for MSCS students, see Chalkbeat’s Q&A below.

In her comments, she criticized the lack of a strategy to address deferred school maintenance costs; in February, the MSCS board approved closing up to 10 schools in the next two years due to underenrollment and facility issues. Thornton also said most prekindergarten students enter kindergarten unprepared; the pre-K provider for Memphis reported this year that around 40% of students weren’t meeting kindergarten readiness standards.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

This is Chalkbeat Tennessee’s latest Q&A with MSCS leaders and education advocates. Read previous installments from the new school board leaders here and from a former school board member turned county commissioner here.

How, specifically, has the local MSCS school board failed in your opinion?

Let’s just put on my hat as a commissioner, where we babysit deferred maintenance. I watched that figure go from $700 million to a billion-plus in my time. It’s not going downward, and there is no plan to remediate it.

Teacher vacancies are also a huge thing. I visited all 33 K-12 schools in District 10, and what I noted, particularly at the high schools, was the over reliance on substitute teachers. The kids just had these computers that they’re expected to do their coursework on. And one student that I was talking to, he was also two months behind on his lessons and a couple months from graduating. Guess what? He graduated.

Student performance — that’s the biggest one. What always revs my engine is the matriculation data for pre-K to kindergarten. The majority of our matriculating pre-K students are underperforming going into kindergarten. They’re off track when they set out to start their journey. That does not autocorrect.

What could the state actually do differently?

The school board is drowning in the fact that the state can’t stand Shelby County. So that means that any possible pathway for additional funding has been blocked.

But now you’re seeing that because the state has been in a position to appoint, they’re opening up resources. They’re putting a million dollars behind the newly appointed board. Now we are in a position to actually unlock state resources. So that gets me excited.

One of the critiques of the appointed board is that it won’t be held accountable to the people. But you’ve said that the elected board isn’t really being accountable to the people either. What do you mean?

I’m saying at this point, who are we defending? It is very clear to me that Shelby County is being targeted compared to other underperforming counties.

But what concerns me more is seeing people who look like me settling for the same outcomes of the past under oppressors. The current school board, the lack of professionalism that has run rampant — that’s not lost to the public.

But when I think about the state board, I see that we have a full-time philanthropist, Shanea McKinney. I see that we have the former president of the [Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce]. I’m thinking about Tyrone Burroughs, with decades of successful entrepreneurial experience. So I’m seeing the capacity of this body to activate.

Do you think MSCS should drop its lawsuits against the state takeover?

I understand that we have to fight for democracy, to show that there was always resistance and that we’re not just bending over and letting people treat us how they want to treat us.

I’m just practically saying, don’t waste my money. We’re one of the most conservative states, so our judicial system here at the state level is conservative.

I know whoever got that (lawyer) contract, they’re happy. There is no expectation for you to win. All you gotta do is keep putting us in court and you’re wracking up billable hours out the wazoo. So, my fight becomes the process. Transparency, accountability, that is what I want to fight more for.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago School Board Election 2026: The race in District 2b, North Lakefront

2026-10-18T19:22:04+00:00

Read in Spanish. Read in Chinese.

Editor’s note: Daniel Basco suspended his campaign on Oct. 11, but his name is printed on the ballot. Chalkbeat, Block Club, WBEZ, and the Sun-Times are preserving the reporting about his candidacy and his questionnaire responses.

A retired Chicago Public Schools teacher appointed by the mayor is facing off against a former special education teacher worried about the school district’s debt burden.

Incumbent Debby Pope is endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, Kyna Lenhof has the endorsement of the anti-CTU Common Ground Collective. A third candidate, Daniel Basco, positioned himself as “a fiercely independent voice,” but on Oct. 11, the data scientist suspended his campaign and endorsed Lenhof. (Basco’s name remains printed on the ballot.)

District 2b is one of Chicago’s most culturally diverse areas and is home to 18 public schools. The candidates running to represent the district all listed adequate classroom funding and resources among their main priorities, but their thoughts on how to secure that funding vary.

Pope said she supports increasing funding for schools by taxing the rich, while Lenhof said she wants to reduce the district’s reliance on high-interest loans.

Pope was appointed to the board by Mayor Brandon Johnson in 2024 after the mass resignation of his first group of school board appointees amid tensions with former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez.

She got the nod from the powerful teachers union, while Lenhof was endorsed by The Urban Center , a centrist political organization that supports charters and advocates for school choice across public and private schools. Lenhof was also endorsed by the Common Ground Collective, which is heavily funded by billionaire Michael Sacks and says it aims to engage voters around “effective progressive policies.”

Earlier this summer, Common Ground released an ad attacking Pope for voting in favor of a CPS budget plan that assumes the district will receive $150 million more in state funding than projected.

The day before the vote, Lenhof also released a statement criticizing Pope.

“Our current board member, appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, has continually supported high-interest loans that burden taxpayers and weaken CPS’s financial future,” Lenhof wrote.

Both Pope and Lenhof have touted their experience working in classrooms.

Raised in New York, Pope has lived in Chicago for more than 50 years and in Andersonville for nearly 30.

She taught high school for close to 20 of those years, primarily working as a bilingual social studies teacher. After retiring from teaching, Pope worked for the CTU for just over a decade, serving in various roles.

Pope was a strong advocate for bilingual and dual-language education during her first term on the school board, informed by her experiences in the classroom. When she started her career at Benito Juárez Community Academy High School, many of her students were newly arrived immigrants from Mexico. Pope wasn’t fluent in Spanish at the time but said she would read a Spanish dictionary every night after work to develop her skills.

“I saw school as an opportunity to help kids who had come as immigrants to find their footing in the United States,” she said.

Pope’s two daughters also attended CPS schools, graduating from Whitney Young Magnet High School while she was teaching at Gage Park High School. Her granddaughter currently attends Inter-American Magnet School, a dual-language school in Lakeview.

“The contrast in what was available to my daughters versus what was available to my students was painful to see every day,” Pope said. “My one daughter, she took four different art classes, and my other daughter was in concert choir, and they were both on the swim team. Gage Park didn’t have those things and I wanted all kids to have those opportunities.”

Pope said it’s important to ensure funding is equitably distributed. She’d like to see a graduated income tax and the closure of corporate tax loopholes so that the wealthy contribute more to public education.

Pope’s top donor as of mid-September was the political arm of the CTU.

Read Pope’s full questionnaire.

Lenhof moved to Chicago 25 years ago to take improv classes at The Second City. While there, she started working at Easterseals Academy, a therapeutic day school for students with autism, and later worked as a special education teacher at Scammon Elementary School in Kilbourn Park.

“I was inspired to run because I really do believe that every child should have access to a safe, equitable, and joyful education,” said Lenhof, a Bowmanville resident of 13 years.

She now works for KMM Consulting, a political fundraising and strategy firm that helps local candidates and nonprofits organize events and fundraise, and serves as treasurer for the 40th Ward Democrats. She also continues to perform and hosts a variety show in Andersonville.

If elected, Lenhof said she’d like to see CPS get more funding for special education, ensure that individualized education programs, or IEPs, are followed by all educators, and provide adequate support to special education teachers.

“My priorities really boil down to: How do you do the right thing for your most vulnerable populations?” Lenhof said.

She also said she would push for a budget that reduces the district’s borrowing as much as possible and avoids “more high-interest loan rates versus money that can go directly into the classroom.” Any money should be distributed equitably throughout the district, she said.

Lenhof’s two biggest donors among political action committees as of mid-September were the Common Ground Collective PAC and INCS Action PAC, a statewide group focused on promoting publicly funded, independently run charter schools.

Read Lenhof’s full questionnaire.

Daniel Basco suspended his campaign on Oct. 11, but his name is printed on the ballot.

A Texas native, Basco studied policy analysis at Northwestern University. He worked in data science and got his Ph.D in policy analysis from the RAND School of Public Policy in California before moving to Andersonville five years ago.

Under the Obama administration, Basco advised the U.S. Department of Education on policies related to funding science education and worked with community colleges in Texas to evaluate the effectiveness of their courses.

In his current role at Kindsight, which provides fundraising tools to the education, nonprofit, and healthcare sectors, he builds technology to help nonprofits find donors.

“My approach is always, ‘How do you collect as much data as possible? How do you look at the problem from every angle?’” Basco said.

If elected, Basco said he would advocate for more state funding and push for multiyear CPS budgets to give students and families more consistency.

“What I’ve heard from parents is the uncertainty around the budget means uncertainty about programs, about after-school, about English language programs,” Basco said.

Basco, who works with artificial intelligence for a living, also said CPS needs stronger guardrails around AI. While AI can be a tool to help learning, Basco said the district needs to ensure students’ data and privacy are protected.

“The space is evolving so quickly so we need folks who are up-to-date about what’s going on to help shape policy,” Basco said.

Basco has emphasized his independence; on his website, he says that he is “beholden to no political machine.”

Basco said being an independent candidate means having “empathy for every audience.”

“I’m going to look at issues from every level and I will hear from everybody to try and find potential solutions,” Basco said.

As of mid-September, Basco had donated $7,000 to his own campaign and had reported no additional donations.

Read Basco’s full questionnaire.

Molly DeVore covers Chicago’s Far Northwest Side neighborhoods, including Portage Park, Jefferson Park, Norwood Park, Forest Glen, and Sauganash, for Block Club Chicago. Contact Molly at molly@blockclubchi.org.

15 West: Chicago voters will weigh in on taxing millionaires for schools. How the money is divided matters, too.

2026-10-18T18:47:56+00:00

15 West: Brown or Williams? What to Know About the District 5A School Board Race

2026-10-18T18:43:07+00:00

Denver superintendent says he is not recommending any school boundary changes this year

2026-10-16T21:00:18+00:00

After hundreds of people attended regional meetings and more than 3,000 filled out a survey about the factors Denver Public Schools should consider when redrawing school boundaries, district officials have decided not to do it.

The Denver school board passed a policy last year that requires the district to analyze and adjust school boundaries every five years, starting this school year. But Superintendent Alex Marrero said in an email to families Thursday that he’s recommending the board “make no changes to school boundaries and enrollment zones this fall.”

At a board meeting last week, Marrero said it’s not because the boundaries are perfect as is. Rather, he cited declining district enrollment and the likelihood of more school closures.

“The data is incredibly clear,” Marrero said. “There is (an) opportunity for boundary shifts.”

But given steep enrollment declines, he said the district should not ask students “to navigate multiple rounds of enduring this type of pain,” referring to switching schools.

DPS’ enrollment is down 1,780 students this fall, which is about 300 more than the district was expecting. Given that, Marrero said he anticipates having to act on a clause in an ongoing four-year school closure moratorium enacted by the board that allows exceptions if there is a “substantial shift” in enrollment, funding, or another emergency.

“If there are school closures in the future, then school boundary or enrollment zone changes would likely be required as part of a closure,” Marrero wrote in his letter to families. “However, those changes would take place after the 2027-28 school year.”

Enrollment zones are big boundaries that contain several schools. Students who live in an enrollment zone are guaranteed a spot at one of the schools in the zone.

DPS hasn’t systematically examined its school boundaries since a court-ordered cross-city busing system put in place to racially integrate Denver’s schools ended in 1995.

The school board passed the new boundary policy last year in an attempt to help balance enrollment among schools. It requires the district to make adjustments “that account for shifting demographics and housing trends” and avoid creating boundaries that “further socioeconomically segregate schools.”

DPS held two community meetings about the policy last spring and six this fall. Feedback was mixed. At some schools where enrollment is declining, families and staff said they would welcome changes that could boost their student counts.

“Manual (High School) was disadvantaged when they drew the boundaries following the end of busing,” a parent in the Five Points neighborhood wrote in response to a district survey, according to an anonymous summary of the results. “It is time to right that wrong.”

But many families advocated fiercely against any boundary shifts.

“I bought a house for the schools in my area,” a parent in the North Park Hill neighborhood wrote. “So it could change the value of my home if you change the boundary. I like that my kids have gone to school with their peers since kindergarten.”

The school board is now considering consolidating the boundary policy, called Executive Limitation 19, with its policy on school closures, called Executive Limitation 18. The proposed consolidated policy would still call for the district to analyze school boundaries every five years, but would only require adjustments “when reasonably warranted.”

At last week’s meeting, board member Marlene De La Rosa suggested changing the timeline from five years to 10 years to line up with the U.S. Census, and so any boundary changes would “only potentially have one impact on a family during the course of their time in DPS.” The board could vote on the consolidated policy as early as the end of this month.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

WATCH: A video walkthrough of our guide on how to vet NYC schools like an education reporter

2026-10-16T20:33:01+00:00

There are mountains of data available online about New York City public schools if you know where to look. But for many parents, finding that data, deciding which parts are important, and figuring out what they tell you is overwhelming — especially when there are so many schools to choose from.

That’s why Chalkbeat teamed up with The City Reporter earlier this month to publish a guide for parents about how to vet New York City schools like an education reporter. We laid out which pieces of data we find most useful in assessing the quality of a school and talked about their limitations.

But we know that even with those suggestions, navigating the city’s sometimes-clunky online databases can be tricky. So Chalkbeat and The City Reporter invited New Yorkers to an event Thursday, in person at the Brooklyn Public Library and online, where reporters walked through how to use some of the key data we mentioned in the guide — including what teachers think of their schools, how principals spend their money, and how much schools help their students grow. We also took your questions about things that didn’t make it into the school guide.

We’re publishing a recording of the event here in the hopes it will be a helpful tool for parents and others who want to better understand New York City schools.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Voter guide 2026: Michigan education board candidates on literacy, funding, and accountability

2026-10-16T19:51:16+00:00

The four major-party candidates for Michigan’s State Board of Education have varied political views, but they’re on the same page when it comes to one of the biggest priorities for education in the state: The need to improve literacy and curriculum.

The candidates — Democrats Judith Pritchett and Tiffany Tilley, both incumbents, and Republicans Terence Collins and Bree Moeggenberg — are vying for two eight-year terms on the eight-member board. The board now includes six Democrats and two Republicans.

There are also six minor-party candidates.

The State Board of Education is a statewide, elected body that serves to hire, fire, and oversee the state superintendent who in turn oversees the Michigan Department of Education. The board also establishes policies for public schools, approves academic standards, and provides guidance to the Michigan Legislature on education issues. Among the board and department’s current priorities is Michigan’s Top 10 Strategic Education Plan, which outlines the state’s priorities for improving education.

Literacy has been a top education priority in the Michigan Legislature, the state education department, and for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, as state and national exams show significant challenges for students in reading. On the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress taken this spring, just 44% of students in grades 3-8 were proficient in English language arts. More troubling, for third graders, 38.2% were proficient, the lowest level in the 12-year history of the exam.

On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, just 24% of Michigan fourth graders who took the exam were considered proficient in reading, compared to 30% nationally.

State lawmakers have responded to the poor performance by focusing on training teachers and encouraging stronger curriculum.

Chalkbeat, in a questionnaire sent to the four candidates, asked about their top three priorities. Each of them cited literacy or curriculum as an important issue.

Candidates said identifying students early when they’re struggling with literacy and providing additional support to them is key. They also cited the need for schools to use evidence-based interventions and curriculum. Early literacy is important, as is successfully implementing the state’s literacy law and restoring instructional focus.

You can read their full comments on their priorities, as well as their answers to questions such as the biggest challenges facing Michigan schools, how the state should address shortages in special education, and the role poverty plays in affecting student performance, in the voter guide below.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is ‘very open’ to Trump’s education tax credit program

2026-10-15T20:58:24+00:00

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has said he’s “very open” to opting his state into the Trump-backed federal scholarship tax credit program. But he may wait until after the midterm elections to make his official decision.

In an October gubernatorial debate appearance, Shapiro said while other governors have “shut the door on it,” he’s not one of them. He said his administration is “continuing to digest” the recently released rules governing the program.

“I think prudence here makes the most sense,” Shapiro said. “We’re looking at it carefully, and in the next few weeks, we’ll make our announcement.”

Advocates in support of the program are optimistic his debate answer signals he’ll follow New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s lead. Governors have until January 1, 2027 to opt in to the program. Currently 31 states, most led by Republicans, have done so. Among Shapiro’s fellow Democratic governors, only Hochul and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis have voluntarily signed on. Democratic governors who have not yet announced their decisions are under increasing pressure from both sides. During a webinar put on earlier this month by tax-credit advocates, former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said school choice supporters should use Hochul as an “example” to push Shapiro and others to opt in.

“I do think the governor will opt in,” Keisha Jordan, president and CEO of the Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia, told Chalkbeat at an Invest in Education advocacy event on Thursday. “We just need it to happen soon because scholarship organizations have to prepare.”

Democratic State Sen. Anthony Wiliams, who represents Philadelphia, is among those in Shapiro’s own party pressuring the governor to sign on. Program supporters say it could raise billions in new money for schools — definitely for private schools and potentially for public schools too.

Advocates for the program also argue that the state should opt in because otherwise Pennsylvania residents could still claim the credit, but that money would then instead flow to other states.

“If we do not do this, the program will still exist,” Williams said Thursday. “Folks who can write a check will write a check, and those resources will leave Pennsylvania.”

The program’s critics warn that opting in could have devastating consequences for Pennsylvania students and could clash with the income eligibility limits imposed by the state’s existing tax credit programs.

A coalition of 17 civic and education advocacy organizations sent a letter to Shapiro this month urging him to reject the program. The letter argued the program would “fuel discrimination against students,” direct tax dollars towards private intermediary scholarship organizations, and allow the commonwealth little authority to prevent groups from misusing the funds.

“The regulations confirm what we already knew: Trump’s school vouchers will benefit wealthy families, support private school discrimination, and leave Pennsylvania’s public schools behind,” said Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters of PA, in a statement. “These regulations remove any doubt that Governor Shapiro must reject Trump’s federal voucher program.”

A spokesperson for Shapiro directed Chalkbeat to the governor’s debate answer in response to a request for comment on Thursday. Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, who is running against Shapiro, said during the debate that if elected, she would opt Pennsylvania in “on day one.”

Shapiro’s record on similar programs offers little clarity on where he’ll land. He has vocally supported state-backed voucher programs in the past but has also vetoed them. He has boosted funding for Pennsylvania’s existing tax credit scholarship programs but has also allocated millions more to public schools.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Judge lifts block on Memphis schools state takeover as lawsuit continues

2026-10-15T20:37:07+00:00

A politically appointed oversight board can now take control of Memphis-Shelby County Schools after more than three months of legal delays.

On Thursday, Judge Waverly Crenshaw dissolved the temporary block he placed on the state takeover in late June, clearing the way for the appointed board to start leading major district decisions and operations. The ruling came only days after state board Chair Billy Orgel said in a federal court filing that the body was ready to resume its work, after meeting for the first time in months last week.

With the temporary block removed, the oversight board will now have the power to override and direct most major decisions, including adopting the annual budget and closing schools. Its members can also appoint a new superintendent and overhaul teaching and curriculum decisions.

“The Education Oversight Board is ready to begin our work to improve the educational outcomes for all the students of Shelby County,” Orgel said in a statement Thursday. “It will take a team effort from educators, parents, students and the community to raise the bar for MSCS.”

The oversight board fast-tracked approval of key policies and procedures in its meeting last Thursday. But the meeting kicked off with a tense argument over whether it was legal and ethical for the board to adopt materials created by outside consulting firm MGT during the summer pause.

Orgel said local philanthropists, including pro-takeover group Seeding Success, paid for the consulting work, which he argued made it legal. Oversight board members did not agree on when or where to hold their next meeting. The group has met only virtually or in Nashville so far.

The district’s lawsuit challenging the state takeover is still ongoing, despite the Thursday order. Both Memphis and state leaders will need to present evidence to back their claims as the case proceeds.

At an earlier federal hearing on Oct. 2, Crenshaw said that he never meant for the oversight board’s summer pause to be long term. He also said that MSCS didn’t present sufficient evidence that the state takeover would harm students.

MSCS leaders submitted an amended complaint Tuesday arguing the state is “singling out” the district’s predominantly Black student body because of race. The takeover will divert crucial money from school resources to pay for oversight board salaries, the district contends in the filing, and will remove the community’s ability to hold board leadership accountable.

The district also filed a separate lawsuit against the takeover in local chancery court, making similar arguments of unconstitutionality. That case also remains pending.

“While I disagree with the judge’s decision, the legal process continues,” MSCS Board Chair Tamarques Porter said in a statement Thursday. “My focus remains on our students, supporting educators, and ensuring families have a meaningful voice.”

Tennessee Republicans have long said they want to use Houston’s state takeover as a model for MSCS. As soon as the takeover began there, Texas leaders appointed a new Houston superintendent who quickly created a new curriculum and forced teachers to reapply for their positions.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Teachers Pay Teachers to ban AI-generated classroom resources as changes to platform spark backlash

2026-10-15T19:59:21+00:00

Teachers Pay Teachers, a popular online marketplace among teachers for classroom resources that critics say are sometimes of dubious value, plans to ban AI-generated resources from its site.

The platform’s announcement of the changes in a town hall last week comes after Chalkbeat reporting uncovered examples of what appear to be AI slop, or low-quality AI-generated content, listed for sale. Among the resources available on the platform, also known as TPT: an alphabet coloring worksheet missing the letter F, a poster about the Black inventor of the potato chip with a baffling image of a firefighter and a stoplight, and typos aplenty.

What appears to be low-quality, AI-generated content is cropping up on Teachers Pay Teachers, which was rebranded to TPT. The content Chalkbeat reviewed included obvious errors and strange images.

YouTube creators who advertise themselves as coaches for TPT creators have encouraged the use of AI to streamline what has become a side business for many teachers and non-teachers alike.

While TPT’s role in the creation of teaching content and resources has long been controversial, the growth of AI-generated resources added another layer not just to debates about the quality of resources on the site, but the place those resources have in schools. Some teachers say it can help facilitate lesson planning, but skeptics argue using it sacrifices instructional value for efficiency.

The platform’s move to ban AI follows new requirements TPT announced for certain sellers to offer their content exclusively on TPT.

Sarah Lehman, a spokeswoman for TPT, said the forthcoming AI policy will support educators “in keeping teachers’ expertise at the heart of the marketplace.”

Material from sellers “should be unique, expertly crafted, and AI-free,” she wrote in a statement. “Additionally, we’re building tools that will speed up our ability to identify and remove AI-generated resources from TPT.”

But TPT’s move to ban AI-generated resources has drawn protests, including an online petition. Posts on Facebook groups for TPT sellers in recent months have lamented a crackdown on stores that appear to use AI in creating content to sell on the site.

The new AI policy was announced not long after another earthquake in the world of TPT sellers.

TPT has also come under fire for changing its structure for paying sellers by creating a new membership tier where sellers can receive a higher cut of sales than basic sellers, but have to pay a $60 annual fee and agree to other requirements.

Some sellers have singled out a new requirement as part of the tier that they sell their resources exclusively on TPT.

Nicholas Ferroni, a high school teacher in New Jersey with a large online following who has used TPT as a buyer and seller, said the change is a slap in the face for teachers. Some former educators he knows have transitioned to selling materials on TPT for their livelihood. Ferroni said the move feels like it’s geared towards helping the company, not sellers.

“I definitely think it just comes down to TPT just wanting to make more profit and wanting to obviously increase their company’s value and not take into consideration that they would not exist or be in the position they are without the work,” Ferroni said.

Lehman confirmed the site has “adjusted its Seller programs.” On TPT’s website, a Q&A says the changes are in response to “a growing dynamic impeding the expansion of the marketplace: TPT resources are being increasingly sold on sites outside of TPT.”

A previous version of this story misstated the cost of TPT’s new exclusive seller tier; it is $60 per year.

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org. Lily is on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

4 takeaways from Chicago’s school board president candidate forum

2026-10-15T17:02:57+00:00

This story was reported and published in collaboration with WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times.

With just three weeks until Election Day, the three candidates vying to become the first elected Chicago School Board president sharpened the choices for voters by offering up distinct views on a range of topics, from school ratings to potential school closings to dealing with the school district’s struggling finances, at a forum Wednesday sponsored by WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Chalkbeat Chicago.

And in a surprising show of unity, two of the candidates, Hilario Dominguez and Victor Henderson, accused their opponent Jessica Biggs of resurfacing controversies to harm both their campaigns. She denies the charge.

Here are four takeaways from the forum, which included questions from an audience of students from Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep High School, a Chicago public school in Roseland.

Blame game on campaign controversies

Each candidate has baggage their opponents have called disqualifying, but on Wednesday, Henderson and Dominguez blamed Biggs for controversies that have followed their campaigns.

Dominguez, former deputy political director for the Chicago Teachers Union, has been in the spotlight after the CPS inspector general reopened an investigation into whether he behaved inappropriately with a 17-year-old in 2017 while working as a community organizer before becoming a teacher. Dominguez denies the allegations and has called them politically motivated.

After the forum taping, Dominguez’ campaign said the CPS’ inspector general closed the investigation. In a letter to Dominguez, the district’s Office of Student Protections said the inspector general determined that there is “no actionable finding of sexual misconduct.”

Victor Henderson (right), Hilario Dominguez (middle) and Jessica Biggs (left) answered questions at a Chicago school board president candidate forum hosted by WBEZ, Chicago Sun-Times and Chalkbeat Chicago on Wed., Oct. 14, 2026.

Meanwhile, Henderson, a defense attorney, has faced questions about corporal punishment after divorce papers came to light in which his ex-wife accused him of hitting his son. Henderson denies ever abusing his children.

Henderson accused Biggs’ campaign of surfacing the controversies.

“Information has come to me that Jessica Biggs is the person who’s trying to drag both me and Hilario through the mud,” Henderson said.

Biggs, a former CPS principal, denied the charge and said her opponents were trying to deflect difficult questions.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that men who have allegations around sexual harassment, around spousal abuse, domestic violence would choose to blame me for their infractions,” Biggs said. “It’s really disappointing that people can’t just take accountability for their actions.”

Biggs, who was fired from her position as a principal, has faced her own questions about being taken off the district’s “Do Not Hire” list. That came after she won a school board seat two years ago. Biggs has said her firing was unjust.

Different approaches on school closures

A moratorium on school closures expires at the end of this school year, and candidates diverge on how the district should handle schools with few students. Enrollment this year has dropped by 11,500 students to its lowest number in more than two decades.

Students from Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy listen to Chicago school board president candidates at a forum hosted by WBEZ, Chicago Sun-Times and Chalkbeat Chicago on Wed., Oct. 14, 2026.

Dominguez, a former special education teacher, is the only candidate who has committed not to close any schools and wants to extend the moratorium. He contends that closures disproportionately harm Black and brown students, and pointed to research showing that violence increased in areas around shuttered schools.

He favors repurposing space in underutilized schools for mental health clinics, food pantries, and other services. “I understand that there may be red tape and difficulties and obstacles in figuring out how to build these partnerships,” Dominguez said. “But those are the things that we work on as a school board president.”

In the candidate questionnaire, Henderson said he supports school closings as an “extraordinary last resort.” And on Wednesday, he said it doesn’t “necessarily make sense” to keep “all” the buildings open. He said the district can’t be afraid to discuss the matter when the moratorium expires. “That’s why CPS is in such dire shape, because they’ve avoided hard conversations,” he said. “You have to sit with the community, you have to figure it out.”

Biggs was a principal when there were mass closures in 2013 and said the impact was “exceptionally harmful” and long-lasting. She did not rule out closing schools but said the community needs to be involved in the decision-making process.

She said previous closures were made top-down and that if the district considers shutting down or consolidating schools, it needs to first develop a plan alongside the community on what to do with empty buildings.

“Anything that we’re building has to come from an express interest from people who are going to be using those spaces,” said Biggs, who now runs a program that brings healthcare and social services to Chicago public schools.

What’s the plan to fill CPS’ budget gaps?

On the campaign trail and in their platforms, Biggs and Henderson respectively stress financial stability and financial responsibility, whereas Dominguez is tightly focused on boosting CPS’ budget by bringing home more revenue from the state.

On Wednesday, all three were asked how they would handle a potentially looming budget crisis.

The current board approved a budget in July that counts on hundreds of millions from the state and city that aren’t guaranteed. If that money doesn’t come through this fall, that could mean a midyear budget freeze or potential layoffs. That would be at the top of the new president’s agenda when they take office in January.

Biggs voted against the measure that assumed CPS would get more state money, a decision she said she was “really proud of” during Wednesday’s forum. She cited her past experience as a CPS principal who faced layoffs and furloughs from the district as the reason why she wanted to take “a clear stance against assuming revenue that is not available to us.”

Henderson largely aligned with Biggs’ stance, saying CPS can’t “create a budget based on money that hasn’t arrived.” He also railed against raising property taxes each year to maximum, which CPS consistently does and Biggs has approved as a current board member. Dominguez said he supports the annual increase, and Biggs said she does not. Henderson said voters shouldn’t “pay another dime” without auditing CPS’ expenditures.

Dominguez differentiated himself from his opponents the most by praising the board’s choice to halt staff layoffs. He also mentioned his ongoing conversations with Springfield lawmakers about pledging additional money to CPS. He insisted that there are a variety of ways to generate more state revenue for schools, including millions from Meta’s recent multistate settlement on youth social media addiction and increasing taxes on the wealthiest Illinoisans.

Biggs and Dominguez both emphasized the need to continue fighting for more resources, with the latter referencing the city as another avenue to get extra funds. Henderson was the only candidate to mention funding cuts, which he specified he would “rather cut contracts than teachers.”

Money from special interests raises questions about influence over candidates

One major issue kept resurfacing throughout the forum: the role of outside money in the school board presidential race, specifically how it might influence a candidate once elected.

Henderson frequently referenced his largely self-funded campaign to establish himself as a candidate above the fray of special interest groups. He cast his opponents in a much different light: He accused them of being beholden to a “secret agenda.”

In Biggs’ case, Henderson referenced sizable campaign donations from Michael Sacks, a Democratic billionaire who previously advised former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. And for Dominguez, his financial backing by the Chicago Teachers Union, which is almost exclusively financing his campaign, came under fire from Henderson as a potential conflict of interest in deciding future collective bargaining contracts — another responsibility of the board.

“I don’t want anybody pulling my strings like a puppet and telling me what to do,” Henderson said during the forum. “I don’t want any billionaires pulling my strings. I don’t want any powerful unions like the CTU or SEIU pulling my strings.”

Dominguez didn’t shy away from CTU’s support, saying “folks should be proud of having the support of those educators.” Dominguez also took a jab at Henderson, alleging that he had “wore that suit” when he asked for the union’s support earlier in the election cycle.

Taking a less combative approach, Biggs said the various donors to her campaign, which include Service Employees International Union Illinois State Council — a union for CPS support staff — prove her ability to organize a “diverse coalition.”

Makiya Seminera is a reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Contact Makiya at mseminera@chalkbeat.org. Emmanuel Camarillo is an education reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times. Contact Emmanuel at ecamarillo@suntimes.com.

Their Brooklyn school became a national symbol of failure. Here’s what parents have to say.

2026-10-15T14:35:48+00:00

On a bright Wednesday morning in Brooklyn, students walked into P.S. 307 holding their parents’ hands or tumbled out of a yellow school bus. A crossing guard, a security officer, the principal, and others greeted them warmly.

An observer would never know that the school has been the subject of nationwide furor following Nikole Hannah-Jones’ New York Times essay about her daughter’s negative experience there years earlier. Overnight, P.S. 307 had to some become a national exemplar of a failing school.

Since Hannah-Jones’ daughter left, the school has gotten a new principal, and I was curious what parents think of it now.

What they told me was striking and perhaps surprising. Among the dozen parents I spoke to, nearly all of them praised the school’s staff, programs, and communication. Most parents hadn’t heard that the school was in the national news.

It’s “wonderful, very good. I love the way they interact with the children,” said Sheila Langley, after dropping off her first grader. Jessica Ramos, the parent of a fourth grader, agreed: “I don’t have anything negative. Everything has met the standards of what I want for my kids.” When she’s sought out extra help, the school has provided it, she added.

This sample of parent perspectives doesn’t mean P.S. 307 is thriving now or that the serious problems described by Hannah-Jones have been resolved. The school still has low overall test scores, and some families might not have easy access to objective information about how their children are doing academically.

But the generally positive takes show that many parents are happy with schools that are widely assumed to be low-performing, perhaps because they see and value things that are not easily measured.

P.S. 307 parents praise teachers’ dedication and communication

I arrived outside of P.S. 307 on a recent Wednesday at 7:30 a.m., half an hour before the school day started. The school sits across from a public-housing complex, where it draws many of its students. It’s also blocks away from high-rises on the Brooklyn waterfront where one-bedroom condos are listed at over $1 million. The school is small, under 300 students as of last year, and includes a prekindergarten program. The vast majority of students come from lower-income families, and nearly half have a disability.

The school’s principal was outside greeting students and families when I visited. He declined to speak with me.

But most parents, aside from a few who were racing to work, were happy to talk. Parents’ comments centered on the care and the dedication of the staff. “It is a community and a family, and they treat every kid very well,” Brandon Mata, father of a second grader, told me after dropping his son off. “I can see that even down to the security guard — there is a familiarity.”

Mata had been concerned about how his 7-year-old son, a “pandemic baby,” would do in school. Indeed, his son struggled with the strict rules at a charter school he’d previously attended. Mata likes that his son has more independence at P.S. 307 and says teachers have worked with him on behavioral issues.

He appreciates that the school doesn’t only call home when problems arise. A while back someone called to say that his son’s painting would be hung up in the school lobby, where it remains today. The one time Mata raised a concern — he didn’t like that a staff member showed his son a video on their personal phone — the school swiftly addressed it.

Mata’s only complaint, surprisingly, was about resources. He wants the teachers to be better paid and the gym to be better stocked with equipment. After Hannah-Jones’ article was released, many commentators noted that P.S. 307 has a high level of per-pupil funding.

Mata is pleased with his son’s academic progress, and the school says he’s testing well above average.

Overall, though, only about 1 in 4 third through fifth graders at P.S. 307 scored proficient on state exams in 2025. These scores are estimates of whether children are learning the basic math and reading skills they will need to succeed throughout school and eventually adulthood. National surveys show that parents often believe, based on information provided by the school, that their child is on grade level, even when tests show otherwise.

In a follow-up call, I asked Mata if he knew about P.S. 307’s poor test scores. He didn’t, so I shared them. “That kind of concerns me and surprises me because I don’t think that’s being communicated to the parents properly,” he replied. Yet Mata is not convinced those numbers are a reflection of the school, as opposed to external or family factors. “You gotta work with what you got,” he said.

In a recent piece, I described why it’s difficult to objectively evaluate the performance of elementary schools like P.S. 307. Students come in at different levels with different needs, so looking at raw scores can be misleading. In 2025, fourth and fifth graders at P.S. 307 made slightly above average growth on state tests.

The group of parents I talked to does not seem to have been an unusually positive bunch. In surveys administered by the city, P.S. 307 families also gave the school high marks. For instance, 96% of those who responded to the survey in 2025 said teachers worked closely with parents to meet students’ needs. (The school also had decent parent ratings when Hannah-Jones’ daughter was there.)

This high level of parent satisfaction is not as surprising as it may seem. Polls have long shown that while the public rates American schools as poor, most families give their own children’s school strong reviews. In New York City, there are widespread and relatively accessible school choice options.

The only P.S. 307 parent I spoke with who didn’t praise the school had just enrolled her daughter the day before, so she couldn’t judge yet. She picked the school because she had heard good things about it on Facebook.

Parents react to Times piece

Nadirah Reynolds was one of just a handful of parents I spoke with who was familiar with the Times article. “It made me feel kind of sad because I know how hard they work within the school,” she said, noting that she wasn’t questioning Hannah-Jones’ experience as a parent.

Reynolds’ experience, though, has been “amazing” since she enrolled her daughter in preschool here a few years ago. The teachers are communicative, and her daughter seemed to be learning and growing. Reynolds has heard mostly positive things from other parents. Her daughter is in kindergarten, so she’ll be watching to see if any issues crop up as she moves on to later grades.

Carmen Tirado, mother of a fifth grader and preschool student, had also heard about the Times essay. Her three older sons, now all in high school, had previously graduated from the school, so she has seen it evolve. Tirado says the new principal has been a “very big upgrade” over the prior one, whom Hannah-Jones described as ineffective.

Tirado recommends the school to everyone, she says, and has an 8-month-old she plans to enroll in preschool here. “When she turns 3, they already have her folder and everything ready,” Tirado said.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Facing an enrollment drop, Denver superintendent says school closures could be coming

2026-10-15T00:41:19+00:00

Denver Public Schools’ enrollment fell by 1,780 students this fall, new data shows. The decline was steeper than district officials were expecting, and Superintendent Alex Marrero implied that more school closures could be coming soon.

Marrero said at a school board meeting Thursday that he anticipates he’ll have to act on a clause in the board’s four-year moratorium on school closures that allows exceptions if there is a “substantial shift” in enrollment, funding, or another emergency.

Marrero didn’t make clear when he might recommend more school closures. The board’s policy calls for closure recommendations to happen no later than November of the preceding school year. Given the tight timeline, a district spokesperson said it’s not possible for the board to vote to close a school this year, though Marrero could enact what he calls “operational shifts.”

This year, DPS cut ninth grade from Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy after fewer than 20 students enrolled in that grade, a district spokesperson said. The high school, which was modeled after historically Black colleges and opened in 2021, was expecting 100 students this year but has only 24 enrolled in grades 10 through 12.

School districts across Colorado are struggling with declining enrollment and the controversial school closures that often follow. DPS, the state’s largest district, has closed or partially closed 13 schools for low enrollment in the past three years. Fifteen Denver charter schools have closed in recent years for the same reason.

The school board enacted a four-year moratorium on school closures last year, which barred any closure votes before 2029. Board members said they wanted to give families, teachers, and communities a chance to heal after the last round of closures.

DPS’ enrollment peaked in 2019 and has been falling since. Last fall, enrollment was down by about 1,200 students. This fall, district officials said they were expecting that number to be 1,400 to 1,500 fewer students. The drop was about 300 students more severe than they anticipated.

Lower birth rates, high housing prices that push families out of the city, and a decline in immigrant students are among the factors driving this year’s decrease, officials said.

The district enrolled just 233 new immigrant students in the first five weeks of this school year, according to district data. That’s compared to more than 1,470 in the fall of 2023, which was the high point of the last five years. DPS is also seeing more departures; data shows that more than 570 immigrant students left in the first month of the school year, resulting in a net loss.

“This net loss of students we’ve experienced two years in a row now, and we’ve seen accelerate over the course of the last 12 to 18 months, is certainly a very plausible reason for why we could be declining faster than we were expecting,” Andrew Huber, the district’s executive director of enrollment and campus planning, told the school board’s finance committee earlier this month.

Elementary and high school enrollment declined the most this fall, district data shows, each dropping by more than 800 students. Middle school enrollment was more steady.

While the drop in elementary school enrollment can be attributed to lower birth rates, Huber said the reason for the high school decline was less clear.

Three comprehensive high schools — Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, and Abraham Lincoln — missed their enrollment projections by more than 100 students, district data shows.

Other high schools fell short of their projections, too: George Washington High by 72 students, South High by 55 students, Northeast Early College by 47 students, Manual High by 39 students, and West High by 32 students, the data shows.

Schools are funded per student, and schools that miss their enrollment projections must pay the district back for the students that didn’t show up. But Huber said many schools were able to cover the difference using leftover funding from the year before.

Preschool enrollment is also down this fall, driven partly by less demand for half-day classes and for classes taught primarily in Spanish, Huber said.

Like in past years, schools in the southwest part of the city experienced the steepest enrollment declines, with about 820 fewer students, the data shows. Enrollment in the northwest, southeast, and near northeast parts of the city fell by more than 250 students each.

Enrollment also dipped in the far northeast part of the city, which for many years was the only region where student counts were increasing as developers built new single-family housing. A slowdown in that development likely led to this year’s decline, Huber said.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools watchdog closes Hilario Dominguez investigation with ‘no actionable finding’ of misconduct

2026-10-14T22:52:24+00:00

The Chicago Public Schools watchdog made “no actionable finding of sexual misconduct” in its inquiry into almost decade-old allegations that Hilario Dominguez, a candidate for school board president, acted inappropriately toward a former student involved with a nonprofit where he worked.

The Dominguez campaign announced the outcome in a news release and included a copy of a letter summarizing the findings, marked confidential, from the district’s Office of Student Protections. The former student provided Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago a copy of a letter addressed to her that confirmed the finding. The inspector general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The office had closed a years-old investigation into the claims earlier this year but reopened it last month after the former CPS student came forward. On Wednesday, the watchdog informed Dominguez it did not find he violated CPS policy or guidelines.

In a Wednesday press release, Dominguez, a former CPS teacher and the Chicago Teachers Union-backed candidate to serve as the city’s first elected school board president, said the finding would put to rest what he described as “a decade-old smear” intended to hobble his failed 2019 bid for alderman.

The allegations of inappropriate conduct first emerged in a 2018 internal complaint at Pilsen nonprofit The Resurrection Project. A staffer at the time alleged that Dominguez, who worked as a community organizer at the nonprofit, asked a minor participant in a summer program the previous year about her dating life, commented on her appearance and offered her rides home.

Earlier this fall, that former participant told Chalkbeat and Block Club that Dominguez also once swept her off the floor in a tight embrace and, on another occasion, asked what kind of men she liked.

On Wednesday, she voiced disappointment in the investigation’s outcome and called for an outside probe into how the CPS watchdog had handled it. She has asked to remain anonymous to protect her privacy.

Dominguez said that an internal Resurrection Project investigation and a “community process” had previously cleared him of the allegations. The teachers union and Mayor Brandon Johnson — like Dominguez, a former union official and a close CTU ally — had said they would stand by the candidate and urged the CPS watchdog to wrap up the reopened inquiry quickly.

“From the beginning, I have made it clear that any allegation should be taken with the utmost sincerity, care, due process and accountability,” Dominguez said in his statement. “And with this process completed, I will continue this campaign for the schools our students deserve.”

The former student said she was disappointed in the backlash from Dominguez’ campaign. Still, she said sharing her experience had been empowering.

“Young people, your voice still has power, and you may not get justice right away, but always documenting it is important,” she said.

At a Wednesday press conference, Johnson applauded the CPS watchdog for closing the investigation quickly. He also said it is important to acknowledge people’s experiences of sexual harassment and make sure they feel empowered to come forward.

Chicago residents will elect all 21 members of the school board for the first time this fall. Dominguez is in a high-stakes threeway race for the role of president, a position that comes with the power to set the board’s agenda and direction.

Block Club’s Quinn Myers contributed.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org. Francia Garcia Hernandez covers Pilsen, Little Village and Back of the Yards for Block Club Chicago. Contact Francia at francia@blockclubchi.org.

New Jersey Local Finance Board approves Newark’s nearly $500M elementary school lease

2026-10-14T22:05:24+00:00

New Jersey finance officials voted Wednesday to approve Newark Public Schools’ nearly $500 million lease agreement for a new elementary school, advancing a controversial proposal despite concerns about its cost.

The state’s Local Finance Board approved the $498.4 million agreement 4-2 after a contentious meeting in which Republican lawmakers urged members to reject it and some board members questioned whether the school could be built more cheaply.

The decision moves Newark closer to opening a school for 667 elementary students in the city’s overcrowded East Ward, where aging facilities and limited space have made it difficult to accommodate students. But the agreement would commit New Jersey’s largest school district to three decades of payments to a private developer, raising questions about the project’s cost and the potential trade-offs for the district’s budget.

The proposed Riverfront Elementary School would be built at 56 Freeman St. and is expected to open in spring 2029, said School Business Administrator José Fuentes. The Newark Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution to pursue the lease in March.

Under the agreement, Newark would pay about $11.3 million in base rent during the first year, with payments increasing 2.25% annually. Payments would begin after the school is substantially completed and other required conditions are met. The district would also have the option to purchase the building for $1,000 at the end of the 30-year lease, Fuentes said.

The cost gave some Local Finance Board members pause. One member, Robert Jackson, said he voted “reluctantly” in favor despite believing the project could be financed more affordably, hoping the approval would push state officials to offer Newark a cheaper alternative.

Republican Assembly members Dawn Fantasia, Paul Kanitra, and Brian Bergen joined Wednesday’s public comment period to oppose the lease, criticizing its cost and the district’s financial management. Fantasia and Kanitra also raised concerns about reported political contributions connected to developer Scott Fields, including donations to Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s gubernatorial campaign. Baraka has denied any involvement in arranging the deal.

Kanitra called the proposal “one of the most outrageous uses of taxpayer money” he had seen since taking office.

State Sen. Declan O’Scanlon, a Republican who serves on the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, also urged the board to reject or delay the agreement in a letter Tuesday, calling for the state to release its financial reviews of the project before taking a vote.

The opposition comes less than two weeks after a state audit identified millions of dollars in excess state aid, questionable spending, and weaknesses in Newark’s financial management. Auditors also referred unspecified matters to New Jersey’s Division of Criminal Justice.

Superintendent Roger León disputed accusations of financial mismanagement and defended the lease as necessary to address overcrowding. He said Newark would cover the payments by reallocating existing funds rather than requesting additional state money.

“There are going to be major sacrifices,” León said, referring to the district’s budget decisions. He said rejecting the lease would leave hundreds of students traveling to schools outside their neighborhoods.

Wednesday’s vote clears one of the state approvals needed for the lease. A state Department of Education spokesperson told Chalkbeat Wednesday that the Commissioner of Education is still reviewing the lease agreement. The State Comptroller’s office has not announced whether it has completed its review. Newark school board President Hasani Council said in March that the district would finalize the lease terms and hold another vote after receiving state approval.

Samantha Olander writes about Newark and New York schools.

Scholarship delays hit recently expanded CUNY community college program

2026-10-14T22:02:22+00:00

This story was originally published on Oct. 14 by The City Reporter. Sign up here to get the latest stories from The City Reporter delivered to you each morning.

A couple hundred CUNY community college students who were due to receive critical state financial aid got an email last week saying their funds would be delayed until further notice, just as officials expanded the affected scholarship program.

The scholarship funding is the state component of the CUNY Reconnect Program, which offers opportunities for adult learners to get free degrees from the City University of New York. The state allocated $18.8 million for the re-enrollment initiative, including tuition, fees and books for returning students pursuing specific degrees at community colleges.

In a statement, the university said the delayed funds from the New York State Opportunity Promise Scholarship have now been delivered to campuses, and that student accounts should be updated in the next two weeks. “Delays will not affect registration, nor will students owe any money as a result,” the statement said.

Spokespersons for several community colleges directed questions to the university’s press office.

“Anyone else just get the email saying that due to budgetary constraints it’s been delayed until further notice?” one student wrote in a post on Reddit last week. “I don’t have the money for this!”

Despite assurances that the funding was on its way, the delay “jump starts panic mode,” another student posted.

To maintain eligibility for NYSOP funding, students at community colleges must take at least six credits per semester, and earn their degree within 20 semesters. The funding is a “last dollar” scholarship, meaning it is calculated and distributed after all other financial aid awards.

Students at CUNY senior colleges are eligible for other Reconnect funding opportunities, including forgiveness grants and retention grants, but not full tuition awards like the Opportunity Promise Scholarship.

Just last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced expanded eligibility for NYSOP, adding a number of new associates degrees and allowing for students with previous degrees in healthcare to pursue associates degrees in nursing. The program will now also support associates degree students at City Tech, Medgar Evers College and the College of Staten Island.

CUNY launched its Reconnect program in 2023, with funding from the city government, with the focus on re-enrolling and supporting returning adult learners. The state legislature introduced tuition benefits for community college students in 2025, making it a city and state program that now serves nearly 10,000 students.

Aisha Baiocchi covers the CUNY system and higher education for The City Reporter.

Construction is underway for Newark’s new $173 million University High School

2026-10-14T21:02:11+00:00

For more than two decades, students at Newark’s University High School have been promised a new building. On Wednesday, officials said they’re closer to delivering.

“I was principal of this high school in 2006, when this new school was supposed to be built,” district Superintendent Roger León said Wednesday at a press conference on the construction site. “So to see it being realized 20 years later — as the superintendent of schools — it’s been a long time coming.”

New Jersey Schools Development Authority and Newark district officials broke ground on the project in August, with site preparations for University High School slated to continue through the first quarter of 2027. An ongoing $3.3 million early site demolition phase will ensure that the SDA-owned site is “shovel ready” by the anticipated construction start date.

“This initial project phase marks the first step of the journey to opening a new high school building that will have educational spaces and resources to help students become college and career ready for the years ahead,” said SDA CEO Manuel Da Silva.

The high school, which is expected to open in 2029, will serve a maximum of 1,080 students in the building’s 198,000-square-foot facility. The project’s total estimated cost is $173 million.

Plans also include the demolition of the adjacent Hawthorne Avenue Elementary, one of the oldest active public schools in New Jersey. Those students would eventually move to the old University High School, located less than half a mile away.

While there is no firm date for students switching schools, school board officials said they will not move until both construction of the new high school and renovations to the old one are complete.

In New Jersey, the SDA is the state agency tasked with funding the construction and renovations in Newark Public Schools and 30 other historically high-poverty districts.

The new University High School is part of an ongoing effort by the SDA to replace 13 of Newark’s educational buildings. Since 2006, the SDA has completed eight school projects.

The city has grappled with aging infrastructure and overcrowding across the district, with new construction aiming to address these issues. Students in Newark have dealt with outdated infrastructure, with more than half of district buildings over a century old.

State Sen. Theresa Ruiz said the new University High School is cause for celebration, but significant work needs to be done to adequately serve all of Newark’s students.

“When we talk about meeting the 21st century agenda of curriculum, and you don’t have the buildings that can outfit that purpose, we have a problem,” she said.

Too young to vote, but DPSCD students have lots to say about the district’s next chapter

2026-10-14T19:41:03+00:00

Being a student at the Detroit School of Arts is helping 17-year-old Justin Ward grow and prepare for life after high school.

But the instrumental music major said he’d like to see the district allocate more funding for equipment and instruments at the audition-based high school. He also wants to see the next Detroit Public Schools Community District board work more closely with the administration to better support students in DSA’s visual and literary arts.

“There aren’t a lot of opportunities for those majors,” Ward told BridgeDetroit. “You can show it through a poetry slam or with visual artists, we have our art (shows), but there are few and far between.”

Arts funding, transportation needs, and building conditions are on the priority list of DPSCD students as Detroit voters prepare to elect five new school board members.

There are 31 candidates running in the Nov. 3 general election for four seats with four-year terms and another three candidates are vying for one partial term that will end in 2028. It’s a pivotal election for the district that could change the power dynamic and direction of the largest public school district in Michigan.

Current DPSCD Board President LaTrice McClendon and Vice President Corletta Vaughn are not running for reelection. Only two DPSCD board incumbents — Steve Bland and Bessie Harris — are seeking reelection. Both were appointed last year to finish out the terms of members who resigned. The fifth open seat belonged to Iris Taylor, who died in July.

Most of Detroit’s young people aren’t yet of voting age, but they still have lots to say about their education and the barriers in education that they experience.

BridgeDetroit talked to six DPSCD students about what they want to see from the new board members. Here’s what they had to say.

Charity McQueen, 17, Detroit School of Arts and Gwendolyn Wong, 15, The School at Marygrove

On a recent evening, the teens took a break from rehearsal at University Prep Science & Math Elementary School, where they were going over scenes for Mosaic Youth Theatre’s upcoming production, “Ordinary Fire,” to discuss what they want to see from the district board and leadership.

McQueen wants a new board with a focus on providing more extracurricular activities for DPSCD students. While the School of Arts has activities like band, theater, and after-school tutoring, the high school senior said she wants to see more variety for schools districtwide.

“I feel like a lot of that (extracurriculars) have disappeared over the years,” she said.

Last month, Mayor Mary Sheffield announced seven new after-school sites will open across Detroit this school year using $2.2 million in city funding. The funding will allow the existing after-school program Get On And Learn, or GOAL Line Detroit, to expand to parts of the city lacking access to affordable out-of-school opportunities. The free program also will provide transportation for K-8 students from city schools to the new sites. GOAL Line also offers after-school programming at 17 DPSCD elementary-middle schools.

McQueen also hopes to see the board prioritize processes that cultivate more respectful relationships between students and staff. For example, she said she wants board members to help with the vetting process for new hires, ensuring that teachers and staff members are evaluated not just on their education and experience but their teaching styles.

DPSCD’s existing hiring process includes a phone, video, or in-person interview, a conditional offer and a pre-hire orientation and electronic onboarding.

“I feel like if they (the district) are hiring a teacher, they should see how they teach and not just if they’ve ever taught before,” McQueen said. “A lot of students learn differently, and some teachers choose to only teach one certain way, and that causes other students to fall behind or feel less than because they simply can’t understand what the teacher is teaching. Same with counselors, deans, principals. It’s not a background check, but it’s seeing who you are as a person and how you are going to show up for the children.”

McQueen and Wong both want additional learning materials in schools. In some of Wong’s classes at Marygrove, there’s not enough textbooks for each student, she said. And both teens have had to share laptops with other students.

“There could be a bit more funding for textbooks or even digital versions that could be supplied to the teachers easily so that they could print out pages,” Wong said.

The sophomore also wants more classroom support for students with disabilities.

“For people with dyslexia or dyscalculia (math dyslexia), the student teachers or teachers assistants could help them on a more personal level,” Wong said.

Sibma Olea-Cruz, 16, Cass Technical High School

The high school junior said her experience at Cass Tech has been mostly positive the last two years, but one area that needs improvement is transportation.

While students in the city can ride Detroit Department of Transportation, or DDOT, buses free of charge, there is no yellow bus service for Cass. DPSCD does not provide yellow bus service to most high school students. Exceptions are made in some cases, including for students with disabilities and those experiencing homelessness.

The teen wants the new board to make transportation a priority, Olea-Cruz recently told BridgeDetroit while she worked on homework in Cass Park.

“We are a big school and we’re a big district. It’s a problem for us to not have transportation,” she said.

As of October, there were 49,480 students in the district, with more than 2,400 students at Cass, according to the high school’s website

School conditions at Cass are also a concern for Olea-Cruz. There’s brown spots on the walls, tiles missing, and leaky classrooms, she said.

As part of DPSCD’s facility master plan, the high school is receiving a $7.3 million investment this fall in upgrades like heating, Americans with Disabilities Act access, and LED lighting. The projects are expected to be completed by the fall of 2029.

Overcrowding in classrooms is also an issue, Olea-Cruz said.

“In my French class, we didn’t have enough chairs for everybody to sit down,” Olea-Cruz said. “There were 40-plus students in the classroom, which is outrageous.”

DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told BridgeDetroit the target class size for the district’s high schools is 35 students, with the maximum being 41. Currently, the average class size at Cass Tech is 32 students per class, with core classrooms (English, math, science classes) containing about 40 students.

“We will work with the principal to offer teachers another class period with additional pay to lower the class sizes in core classrooms,” Vitti said of schools districtwide. “This is our standard process across the district to ensure smaller class sizes, or we add or shift teacher positions when class sizes are higher in certain grade levels or subject areas.

Olea-Cruz would also like the board to pass a policy that requires the district to observe religious holidays like Eid-al-Fitr. Last school year, students, teachers, and community members spoke out at board meetings, urging the district not to hold class on the holiday. Although the holiday counts as an excused absence, Muslim students said they sometimes have to make up tests and assignments after missing the day. They also miss out on receiving a weekly perfect attendance incentive the district offers from January through March.

“I know that our school is not the only one having these problems,” Olea-Cruz said.

Patrick Jean, 17, Cody High School

One thing the high school senior wants to see the board prioritize is letting students have more of a say in the type of classes they take.

“We need to set aside a time where students can come in and it’s like, ‘Hey, choose what you want. This is your life. These are the classes you should be able to learn,’” Jean said. “If I teach a culinary student about culinary arts, he’s going to be invested in that class and want to do more work because that’s what he’s interested in.”

Patrick Jean is a senior at Cody High School and member of the Umoja Debate League.

The district in August rolled out a high school redesign plan for ninth graders. Freshmen at the district’s 11 neighborhood high schools will explore career pathways during a seminar class, which will help them choose the dual enrollment, career and technical education, or advanced placement courses they want to take through graduation.

However, there’s little flexibility with students’ core courses because of Michigan Merit Curriculum requirements. Students must complete at least 18 course credits to graduate with a diploma, which includes courses in math, English language arts, science, social studies, physical education, world language and a visual, applied or performing art.

Jean also wants the board to allow schools more leeway for the district’s cellphone policy. Michigan has a new law banning smartphones from school classrooms during instructional time, but school districts are required to adopt their own policies that restrict the use of cellphones and other electronic devices.

DPSCD’s policy states that cellphones are not to be used from the entry bell to the dismissal bell. Individual schools will communicate to families if their school policy is to collect and return devices daily, or if devices can stay in students’ possession but remain off and put away.

Jean said students have to lock their phones using Yondr pouches at the beginning of the school day. The fabric pouches are unlocked at the end of the day. While he doesn’t mind putting his phone away during class, Jean believes students should be allowed to use their phones at lunch and other free periods during the school day.

“Last time I checked, you don’t learn at lunch,” he said. “The hallway is not learning time. That should be a time where students can at least check up on their family or have their chill time on their own devices.”

Samuel Williams, 17, Cody High School

Williams also wants to see more Detroit school buildings receive upgrades and renovations. At Cody, the building is often too hot or too cold, he said.

“When it gets hot, we usually just use fans,” Williams said. “The air conditioning is a little finicky.”

In 2022, DPSCD launched its $700 million facility master plan to rebuild, reopen, or demolish certain schools. The district is constructing a new building for Cody, which is expected to be completed by the fall of 2027.

The high school senior also wants more consistency with the teaching staff at DPSCD. When he was a student at Ann Arbor Trail Magnet School, Williams said he fell behind in math because he didn’t have a consistent teacher during his fourth, fifth, and sixth grade years. At Cody, Williams’ English teacher retired a few weeks ago and the class has had a rotation of subs ever since.

“Pretty much every day there’s a different sub,” he said. “I don’t do anything in that class anymore.”

Conversely, a 2025 report by Wayne State University researchers discovered that DPSCD has a much higher than average rate of teacher retention compared to its peers in suburban school districts and city charter schools.

This is an improvement from the years when the district was under state oversight and typically began the school year with hundreds of teacher vacancies. As of September, DPSCD has 38 teacher vacancies and 42 support staff vacancies.

Justin Ward, 17, Detroit School of Arts

Ward, the DSA student, said his view on the current board is positive, citing its focus on improving literacy rates and gift card incentive for attendance to curb chronic absenteeism.

The junior said he’s received $1,000 in Visa gift cards since the attendance initiative began last year. Ward said he wants the new board to continue the work to reduce chronic absenteeism, including having attendance agents and staff conduct home visits.

“They could go to kids’ houses and ask their parents or ask them why they aren’t going to school,” Ward said. “Is there a reason? Do you not feel motivated?”

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, DPSCD used $11 million in federal stimulus funds on canvassing efforts for students who were not reporting to school. In addition, the district has hired more attendance agents and concentrated them in neighborhood schools with the highest rates of absenteeism. The agents have a number of duties, including home visits, data collection, dropping off resources to families, making connections to wraparound services, and more. DPSCD spends around $14 million a year on improving attendance, with most of the funding going toward attendance agents.

For the 2025-26 school year, the number of students chronically absent was 60%, down from 76.7% in the 2021-22 school year.

Ward believes he is receiving a good education at DSA overall.

“The arts will definitely prepare you for a workplace environment,” he said. “DSA prepares you academically and artistically for the real world.”

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Pressure builds on Pritzker over whether to opt Illinois into federal education tax credits

2026-10-13T21:46:43+00:00

Just a few years after Illinois lawmakers ended tax credits for private school scholarships, the state is now debating another education rebate program — but this time, it’s backed by the Trump administration.

Gov. JB Pritzker has yet to decide whether to opt Illinois into the federal government’s tax-credit scholarship program, which allows taxpayers to donate to organizations supporting private or public schools. That’s in large part because the political landscape for Pritzker is complicated, as influential education groups disagree over which students will reap the benefits of the program.

Launching Jan. 1, the program allows individual taxpayers to donate up to $1,700 toward scholarship-granting programs that pay for tuition and other education services, and receive dollar-for-dollar tax credits. Anyone can donate, but students in states that haven’t opted in cannot benefit.

Since the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act established the tax credits last year, some governors had been waiting for the federal government to issue regulations for it before deciding whether to opt in. The U.S. Treasury Department released those rules in early October, but they lack guardrails Democratic governors had hoped for, including provisions that might allow them to steer money toward students from low-income backgrounds or require certain standards for scholarship-granting organizations.

As a result, while 31 states have opted into the program so far, most Democratic governors either haven’t decided yet, like Pritzker, or have opted out, according to SGOlist, a site for scholarship-granting organizations. Only two, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, have chosen to opt their states in.

Unlike some of the undecided states, Illinois has a history with education tax credits for school choice.

Launched in 2017, Invest in Kids allowed taxpayers to receive a rebate of 75 cents for every dollar donated to scholarship-granting organizations for private schools, with a maximum of $1 million in credits per taxpayer annually. Nearly three-quarters of tax credits went to donors located in Cook County or northern Illinois in 2023, the program’s last year before lawmakers discontinued it, according to a 2024 report for the state.

Shortly after the federal government released rules for the tax credits earlier this month, Pritzker’s office said he would “carefully evaluate the proposed regulations and make a decision grounded in what best supports working families, students, and our public schools.”

As Pritzker weighs his decision, advocates are becoming increasingly vocal. Here’s where some of the most prominent groups stand on whether Illinois should opt into the federal tax-credit program.

Teachers unions worry about impact on public schools

The Illinois Education Association and Illinois Federation of Teachers staunchly oppose joining the program. Union leaders say it could further strain public schools that already lack adequate state funding.

In Illinois, enrollment plays a critical role in determining how much money schools receive from the state’s evidence-based funding formula. If the federal tax credit prompts a “mass exodus” of students to private schools, underfunded public schools could lose even more money, said IFT executive vice president Cyndi Oberle-Dahm.

“The teachers still have to teach. The students are still attending,” Oberle-Dahm said. “Yet they’re doing so with even fewer resources.”

Students with disabilities face significant barriers to private school admission, and in rural districts, there might not even be viable private school options, said Karl Goeke, IEA’s president. He said many of those students ultimately wouldn’t benefit from the federal tax credits.

“I really would like the governor to say no, so we can stop talking about vouchers. I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he said.

Private schools hope to provide more to students

Many low-income families served by the Big Shoulders Fund, a scholarship-granting group that supports Chicago Catholic schools and received money from the Illinois tax credits, faced financial instability after Invest in Kids shuttered, said Josh Hale, the fund’s CEO. His organization lost a major source of funding, having received 25% of all donations in the state program’s final year.

“We really had to work hard to help those families,” Hale said. “Some of those families had to, you know, try to pay more, or some families had to change schools.”

In the 2022-23 school year, six scholarship-granting organizations received nearly $76 million in contributions. The average donation ranged from a little over $12,000 to nearly $24,000, depending on the organization.

At St. Francis de Sales High School on Chicago’s Southeast Side, families who live at or below the poverty line would be the primary beneficiaries from the new program, Principal Roni Facen said. Many of her students come from low-income families and experience food insecurity.

If Pritzker opts in, St. Francis de Sales could receive a bump in donations that would provide financial aid for students.

Beyond scholarships, Facen would use the additional money to help the surrounding community. She wants to establish a center at the school where teens could participate in weekend STEM activities. She also wants to expand test prep for college admissions exams to get her students accepted at high-quality universities.

Facen said the key question for her is: “How do we support our community as a whole and be a real resource and agent of change on the Southeast Side?”

Public school advocacy groups still mulling tax credits

Meanwhile, major public school advocacy groups are focused on deciphering whether Illinois can ensure that public schools receive meaningful benefits. Not all of them have reached the same conclusion.

Stand for Children, which supports policies benefiting public education, believes Illinois can maximize gains if school districts build up their nonprofit infrastructure.

To take advantage of the program, scholarship-granting organizations would need to partner with school districts to provide scholarships for eligible academic services. Districts could also incorporate the federal tax-credit scholarship program into payroll deductions for school staff or other local employers, in order to support programs such as summer learning or career and technical education, said Jessica Handy, the group’s executive director.

“I don’t mean to say that it will be easy, because every one of these steps will take a lot of work.” she said. “And the schools need to start now to wrap their mind around this and engage all of those local stakeholders to do it.”

Another advocacy group, Illinois Families for Public Schools, sees a different outcome. In a study with policy research center Institute for the Public Good, the organization concluded the program would heighten inequities in public schooling. Wealthier school districts have more taxpayers who could claim the credit and they might prefer to donate to local organizations, leaving poorer districts with less financial support, the study said.

Makiya Seminera is a reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Contact Makiya at mseminera@chalkbeat.org.

Federal scholarship tax credit sparks debate over funding for Michigan’s public and private schools

2026-10-13T21:30:23+00:00

Over the years, Joshua Raymond has paid for a variety of “extras” for his three daughters in public schools, from tutoring to band instruments to SAT prep. If Michigan opts into the federal scholarship tax credit program, he believes the state could offset some of those costs for parents.

The new federal tax credit reimburses taxpayers for donations to scholarship-granting organizations, which then distribute money to families for a range of educational expenses, including private school tuition. Public schools could create their own organizations to help families pay some out-of-pocket expenses, such as after-school enrichment programs, summer school, and field trips.

“There were so many things we had to pay for that were not covered by the school,” said Raymond, who has had two daughters attend Rochester Community School District, while a third is a senior. “There were educational and academic opportunities we turned down (due) to cost.

“This is (one of) the largest federal investments in education ever. If Michigan spurns it, we risk falling further behind other states in education.”

The federal scholarship tax credit, which was primarily designed to benefit private school families by offering a public subsidy for tuition, has drawn comparisons to universal voucher programs enacted in states like Arizona and Texas. But some supporters point to an important difference and potential opportunity: The federal scholarship tax credit could be used by public school families.

But as Michigan weighs whether to participate, there are still a lot of unknowns, including what expenses scholarships can actually cover and whether private schools are better positioned to take advantage of the program.

Families earning up to 300% of area median income are eligible to receive scholarships for their children. The federal scholarship tax credit allows individual taxpayers to get reimbursed up to $1,700, or up to $3,400 for married couples filing jointly. The donations are reimbursed as a credit when donors file their federal taxes.

While 31 states have opted in to the program, Michigan is one of 19 states that have not yet made a decision for the coming year. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration said it is reviewing the new rules the Treasury Department issued on Oct. 1. States have until Jan. 1 to opt in to be eligible to receive funding from the program when it begins in 2027.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Friday she would opt that state into the program, despite opposition from teacher unions, after saying earlier this year that she was waiting for the rules to be released before taking that step.

Michigan gubernatorial candidates, Democrat Jocelyn Benson and Republican John James, have opposing views on the tax credit program. James’ campaign pledges to opt in on “day one,” while Benson opposes it.

“Nearly 1.5 million Michigan kids could be eligible to benefit from this program, giving families access to additional resources for tutoring, after-school programs, special-needs services, educational materials, scholarships and other opportunities that help students succeed,” James’ campaign spokesperson Alyvia Bailey said.

Benson said committing to the Trump administration’s tax program would be “reckless and irresponsible” as there is still a lack of clear guidance for how it will be implemented.

“I’m open to any policy that gets more resources into our schools,” Benson said. “But let’s be clear: Donald Trump is not being transparent about where the money from this program will go or how it will improve educational outcomes. As governor, I can’t commit taxpayer dollars to a program under Trump’s control with zero transparency or assurance it will deliver for Michigan students.”

The case for Michigan to opt into the federal scholarship tax credit

Josh Cowen, a voucher critic and Michigan State University education researcher, said the federal scholarship tax credit differs from state voucher systems.

Typical state voucher systems do not allow public schools to be providers, he said, and students must exit public schools to be eligible. With the federal credit, the opposite is true.

If public schools create nonprofit scholarship-granting organizations, Cowen anticipates they will be able to pay for things like after-school enrichment, tutoring, summer school, and to a smaller extent arts and music.

“The opportunity in the credit is real for public schools, but they’ve got to start moving,” he said. “Money is not just going to come to them automatically.”

Georgetown University school finance expert Marguerite Roza previously suggested that public schools could create a fixed package of services for what she calls the K12 Plus Plan, charging a fee – that would be covered by scholarships – to give students access to things like field trips, devices, Advanced Placement classes, after-school care, electives, and in-school tutoring.

But after the Treasury Department’s latest release of proposed regulations, Roza said what will ultimately be allowed for public schools “could get messy.” Roza, who noted that the department’s guidance isn’t binding, believes any expense covered by tuition for private schools should be allowed for public schools.

“Public school districts don’t love ambiguity,” she said. “I know that the government moves slowly, but these delays are actually contributing, in my opinion, to what will be a slower start than would be if we had better information sooner.”

Roza also worries that income verification requirements could make it much harder for public schools to realize the benefits.

She suggested that state leaders who have reservations could opt in for the first year of the program and then opt out the following year if the difference between what is allowed for public and private schools is a “disaster.”

Critics question who would benefit from federal tax credit

Michigan doesn’t have a school voucher or tax credit program, and its Constitution bans public money or tax benefits from going to any private, denominational, or other non-public school.

On two occasions, 1970 and 2000, Michigan voters rejected public funds going to non-public schools. In 2023, a federal lawsuit unsuccessfully challenged the state’s Constitution.

Cowen believes Michigan could participate in the scholarship program because it involves federal dollars, adding he sees “no problem with the state Constitution.”

Some critics of the new tax credit, however, have concerns about who will benefit from the program.

In May, Michigan’s State Board of Education passed a resolution opposing the state’s participation in the tax credit program, saying federal education policy should focus on strengthening public schools.

Pamela Pugh, president of the state board, said that instead of providing a tax credit, the federal government should fully fund its 40% share of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, something states have been “waiting decades” for.

Pugh also argued that private schools already have infrastructure to work with scholarship-granting organizations, while many public schools don’t have existing local foundations to award scholarships.

“We also are not expecting to have control over how those donations are geared and who they’re geared toward,” Pugh said. “What we do know is that there is a lot of ambiguity. There’s a lot of unknowns.”

Beyond the potential administrative hurdles public schools face, Michigan Education Justice Coalition Co-Director Rachelle Crow-Hercher also said vouchers have an ugly history, dating back to the 1950s with state-created tuition grants, which allowed white students in the South to pay for private school after Brown v. Board of Education ended legally mandated racial segregation.

“There are other things we could be spending the money on, and that we should be spending the money on, rather than a system that was created for segregating schools,” she said.

Michigan Association of Non-public Schools Executive Director Brian Broderick said the federal scholarship tax credit is “maybe a bigger deal” in Michigan than in other states that already have universal voucher programs. The organization has been pushing the governor’s office to opt in for several months, with private school advocates speaking out in favor during the state board’s May 12 meeting.

Blocking Michigan’s public and private schools from having access to these donations, Broderick said, could divert funding to other states.

“I think we’ll be at a real loss here in the state if we do not participate in the program because there’s so much potential new funding that can come to serve students in Michigan,” he said.

Raymond, the father of three in Rochester, said he would like to make a donation to a scholarship-granting organization in Michigan. But if he can’t, he plans to make one to benefit his nieces and nephews – in Utah, a state that opted into the program.

This story is part of a collaboration between Chalkbeat Detroit and the Detroit Free Press on covering key education issues in the race for Michigan’s next governor.

Memphis state takeover board says it’s ready to take control of district

2026-10-13T20:53:40+00:00

Memphis state takeover board Chair Billy Orgel said in a court filing Tuesday that the politically appointed body is “ready, willing, and able” to assume control of Tennessee’s largest school district.

That comes days after the oversight board met for the first time in months. In Thursday’s virtual meeting, the nine board members fast-tracked approval of key policies and procedures developed largely by Tampa-based consulting firm MGT during the court-ordered pause this summer.

Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw temporarily blocked the oversight board in a late June ruling, an early win for Memphis-Shelby County Schools in its case against the state takeover. But Crenshaw said in the lawsuit’s first hearing early this month that he never intended for the pause to be long term.

After more than three months of legal delays, Crenshaw signaled that the state takeover could officially begin once oversight board members declared they were ready. Orgel made that the focus of last week’s meeting, asking a senior deputy with the attorney general’s office after each agenda item whether the move would signal readiness to the court.

In Tuesday’s court filing, Orgel said the Oct. 8 meeting proved the board was ready to seize control of MSCS. He cited several “organizational actions” taken at the meeting, including adopting a preliminary process to approve any MSCS contract over $50,000 and accepting MGT’s work on early research and development.

Dedrick Brittenum, a former Memphis city councilman and one of the oversight board appointees, questioned whether it was legal and ethical for the board to approve policies outlined by MGT outside of the public eye. He said the board should follow a formal procurement process before committing to a proposed $1 million agreement with the group moving forward.

But Orgel said local philanthropists, including longtime takeover advocate Seeding Success, paid for the services, which he said made the arrangement legal.

MSCS leaders also filed an amended complaint Monday after Crenshaw said their original complaint did not demonstrate harm to students. The new complaint contends that MSCS children have a constitutional right “not to be singled out by the State, because of their race.”

The complaint argues that only Memphis schools, where around 94% of students are racial minorities, are being subjected to the “uniquely burdensome legal regime” of a state takeover. The plaintiffs say this deprives the majority-Black student body of its right to a district governed by locally elected leaders accountable to the community.

Tennessee Republicans have branded MSCS and the broader community as “failing and unfit for self-governance,” the court document says.

Memphis leaders also argue that the state takeover creates instability in district operations that disrupts learning and forces MSCS to divert dollars to cover the oversight board’s salaries.

“Every dollar diverted to a duplicative, state appointed governance layer is a dollar that is not spent on the Student Plaintiffs’ teachers, classrooms, instructional materials, transportation, and support services,” the new complaint says.

It’s unclear how quickly Crenshaw will move to dissolve the temporary block now that both documents have been filed. No future hearing date has been set.

Last week, MSCS and Shelby County leaders filed a separate lawsuit challenging the state takeover in local chancery court, raising similar constitutional arguments. That case has yet to begin hearings.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

What could help formerly incarcerated students return to school? Join Chalkbeat’s virtual event.

2026-10-13T16:19:00+00:00

Philadelphia youth who enter the juvenile justice system often attend school at multiple facilities while incarcerated. When they return home, they need to reenroll in school and get back on track to graduate.

A Pennsylvania state law passed in 2022 was designed to support returning students through this process. But Chalkbeat Philadelphia found that getting credit for coursework completed behind bars remains a challenge for students and the adults and educators who help them.

On Monday, Oct. 26, Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s gun violence reporter Sammy Caiola will host a virtual conversation with youth advocates and others involved in the reentry process.

RSVP to join our Oct. 26 virtual event, where we’ll discuss roadblocks in the transition from incarceration to graduation and what can be done to improve the process.

Whether you have a child who’s been incarcerated, teach justice-involved students, or are just curious about solutions, please join us.

Looking for more information about Act 1? Find guides, webinars, and other resources here.

Attendance is free, but you must register to participate. You can also submit questions for our panel ahead of time. We’ll announce panelists closer to the event.

RSVP to join the conversation and submit your questions for our panelists.

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

Hear directly from IPS school board candidates at a forum cohosted by Chalkbeat

2026-10-13T11:00:00+00:00

Fifteen candidates, including all five incumbents, are vying for five open seats on the Indianapolis Public Schools Board of School Commissioners.

Voters have the opportunity to get to know the candidates and their views at a school board candidates forum hosted by Chalkbeat Indiana and WFYI. The forum will begin at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 19 at the Indianapolis Public Library, Central Library.

The winning candidates will make up the majority of the board, which will be the first to be elected since the creation of the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation or IPEC. This year, the corporation took over key responsibilities for IPS and charter schools in the city, including managing school buildings and transportation and the ability to put a tax measure on the ballot.

School board members continue to be in charge of the district’s policies, goals, and budget. They also hire and oversee the superintendent.

New in this year’s election is the option for school board candidates to be partisan. A vast majority of IPS school board candidates are running as Democrats, a stark contrast to the rest of central Indiana and the state.

In addition to questions from moderators, candidates will also answer audience questions submitted both before and during the event.

Reserve your seat here, and go here see which candidates will attend.

Who’s on the 2026 ballot for IPS school board?

See the map of school board districts here. Incumbents are noted with an asterisk.

District 2

Bryan Duarte, Democrat
Hasaan Rashid, Democrat*

District 3

Loren Eugene Heger, Democrat
Hope Duke Star, Democrat*
Derek Redelman, Independent
Daqavise D. Winston, Democrat

District 4

Chris Bultman, Democrat*
Lindsey Cornett

District 5

Nicole Carey, Democrat*
Yuri Smith Sr., Democrat
Pearl Taylor, Democrat

At-large

Heather Houston, Independent
Angelia Lois Moore, Democrat*
Alexander S. Nyirendah, Democrat
Sacha Nicole Sharp, Democrat

How can I vote in school board elections?

School board elections are not included in straight-ticket voting. Although school board candidates now have the option to include a party affiliation, candidates of the same party can run against each other.

Voter registration ended on Oct. 5. Marion County residents can check their voter status and register to vote here.

Early voting began on Oct. 6 at the Indianapolis City-County Building at 200 E. Washington St. Additional early voting sites open on Oct. 24 and can be found online.

On Election Day Nov. 3, Marion County residents can vote at any of the county’s voting centers, which can be found online. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

As teacher turnover climbs in Memphis, lower-performing schools face a deepening staffing crisis

2026-10-13T11:00:00+00:00

Every time Hunter Sandlin ran the air conditioner in his fourth grade classroom at Willow Oaks Elementary School, water would pour out onto the floor.

“Turning off the air conditioner wasn’t really an option because the room would get to be like 100 degrees,” Sandlin said. “So, I went out and bought a squeegee and a bunch of cleanup stuff, and I was constantly, like six times a day, slopping this water back up.”

He moved students and desks away from the flood zone. When a fine black film appeared on the floor and class materials, he worried it could be mold.

Sandlin filed maintenance requests, but the fixes were only temporary. The recurring leak was just one more challenge in his classroom, along with broken desks and not enough textbooks.

Frustrated, Sandlin left his job at the end of last school year.

He joined an exodus of other Memphis teachers leaving the district. According to state data, in 2024, nearly 20% of educators resigned from Tennessee’s largest school district compared with around 12% statewide.

Teachers are fleeing Memphis schools just as the district is fighting for its independence against an impending state takeover. Research has linked high teacher turnover to declines in test scores and lower math and reading achievement, particularly in low-performing and predominantly Black schools.

The stakes are especially high in Memphis, where schools facing the most persistent learning gaps often also have the most teachers leaving each year. Mt. Pisgah Middle and High School, one of 14 MSCS schools facing increased intervention for repeatedly failing the state rating system, lost around two-thirds of its teachers in the 2024-25 school year, according to state data.

Middle College High, which received the top state rating that year, didn’t lose a single teacher.

Chalkbeat talked to 10 former and current MSCS educators about their reasons for leaving their positions or why they’ve seen colleagues leave. All but Sandlin declined to be named in fear of retaliation.

A decade-long MSCS social studies teacher left because of constantly changing district policies. One early-career elementary teacher quit because there wasn’t enough student behavior support. A handful of others said they left after disagreements with school leaders over how to run their classrooms.

While retention data for the 2025-26 school year is not yet available, teacher vacancies worsened in MSCS this year. In an August survey, only 35% of school leaders said that every teaching position was “filled and in place” by the first day of class, down from 41% last year.

Superintendent Roderick Richmond said the district has hosted seven job fairs to fill empty teaching positions, 230 of which had no pending offers earlier this year. He also said MSCS raised teacher salaries by 2% and is offering $1,000 bonuses for teachers to stay in their schools year after year.

“I want everybody to have a competitive wage,” Richmond said in an August board meeting. “I want us to be able to retain every single teacher. I’m committed to that, but we just have a lot of different factors that we have to consider.”

Why are teachers leaving MSCS?

There’s no single reason why teachers nationwide leave the profession. Unlike some other districts, MSCS doesn’t conduct exit interviews with resigning teachers, making local trends harder to identify.

Sandlin became a teacher after working as a respiratory therapist and TV programmer for most of his career. He had a rocky first year, he said, and his students struggled on state standardized tests. But by his second year, Sandlin was seeing progress.

“And I was like, ‘All right, something’s clicking. I’m figuring this out,’” he said. “So leaving, it wasn’t even on my mind.”

But Sandlin said a lack of classroom resources impeded student learning. He noticed “night and day” disparities between his classroom — full of neighborhood-assigned students — and classrooms for children who opted into Willow Oaks’ advanced art and science programs.

The desks in Sandlin’s classroom were “ancient,” he said, requiring multiple repairs, and he never received enough textbooks for each student.

“I want to say I had 42 kids, and I had about 23 books,” he said.

Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said educators also often leave because of issues with school leaders.

“Principals set the direction for the culture of a school,” she said. “They support working conditions in which teachers thrive or in which they feel like they can just barely survive.”

Nearly one-quarter of MSCS teachers said in last year’s state-run survey that they don’t like how their school is run. The district was not included in the 2026 survey because not enough educators responded.

JC Bowman, director of the statewide advocacy group Professional Educators of Tennessee, said low response rates are common because some educators fear facing consequences for speaking out.

That’s especially true when it comes to issues with administrators, Bowman said. He said districts should hire outside organizations to run teacher surveys each year and focus more on training principals, especially those early in their career.

“They often haven’t learned how to manage people effectively yet,” he said. “We put all the emphasis on teachers as the weak area … but I think to really improve public schools, we have to focus on administrators.”

Sandlin said there aren’t effective channels to hold Memphis school leaders accountable. At Willow Oaks, he said, teachers can submit a complaint to the principal advisory board, but there’s no requirement for the principal to respond or act on those reports.

MSCS Director of Strategic Communications Terrica Cleaborn-Thornton said in an email that teachers can report issues through an online form on the district’s HR website. The district’s Office of Employee and Labor Relations investigates those complaints.

What can MSCS do to keep more teachers around?

Sandlin said he didn’t want to leave his job. In fact, he’s still looking for a teaching role at a different MSCS school or in another district.

“I loved the kids and the community and the families,” he said. “But I just didn’t like the way the admin talked to me, and the facilities that I had compared to other sections in my grade.”

Cleaborn-Thornton said the district could not find any record of daily flooding at Willow Oaks, but did identify classrooms with upwards of eight leak-related work orders over the past two years. That represents a “relatively limited number of occurrences,” she said, given that HVAC systems run year-round.

She added that the district “continues to implement targeted strategies to support educators and strengthen retention, particularly in hard-to-staff schools and critical shortage areas.”

But Peske said MSCS is missing a strategy that has helped boost teacher retention elsewhere: differential teacher pay. That could mean offering higher salaries to teachers in high-need subjects or schools, she said, or tying pay to performance.

That teacher pay model was one of the biggest reforms ushered in by new state-appointed leadership in Houston public schools, where salaries now range from $64,000 to $101,000 based on test scores and school need. Memphis teachers earn just over $65,000 per year on average, with a starting salary of just over $51,000.

Tennessee Republicans want to use Houston as a model to assert control over Memphis schools and improve district performance. But Houston’s takeover sparked a massive teacher exodus still being felt three years later — and it remains unclear whether the new pay scale will keep more teachers from leaving.

Memphis’ superintendent also warned in August that raising teacher pay too much would hurt the district’s annual budget and further limit staffing.

“If we continue to increase our expenses, we only have one place to cut, and then that’s going to be employees,” Richmond said.

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Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

New Jersey is rethinking how it funds schools. What could change for Newark?

2026-10-13T10:00:00+00:00

There’s a consensus among New Jersey lawmakers, Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill, school leaders, and advocates: New Jersey’s progressive school funding formula is outdated.

That doesn’t mean change is imminent. But behind the scenes, school funding experts are working to influence a process that could radically remake how New Jersey funds its schools.

Funding changes for Newark Public Schools, the state’s largest school district, could be on the table. But before officials make any significant changes, they must answer a question that seems basic but which has huge consequences attached: How much should it cost to educate a child in New Jersey?

To help answer that, the state education department is holding community forums and convening a steering committee as part of what Department of Education Commissioner Lily Laux has called “a year of honest, statewide engagement to strengthen New Jersey’s school funding system.”

That won’t change the fact that New Jersey’s funding formula is a political lightning rod. Republican lawmakers that represent districts that have lost state aid in recent years are targeting Newark schools as the poster child for reform and even additional state oversight.

Calls to reexamine Newark’s funding reached a fever pitch recently after state auditors found millions of dollars in excess state aid and questionable spending by district officials.

“Newark deserves better, and taxpayers across this state deserve a refund for this nonsense,” GOP Assemblymember Dawn Fantasia posted on social media in response to the audit.

Despite the audit’s findings, and the fact that auditors flagged the state’s Criminal Justice division due to “certain matters” uncovered in the audit, Newark school officials maintain that they are spending “wisely and strategically.”

“We agree that New Jersey’s school funding formula needs reform,” Paul Brubaker, a spokesperson for Newark Public Schools, said in an email this week. But he added “the state audit has no bearing on New Jersey’s school funding formula. Any suggestion that it will solve the financial challenges facing other communities sells those constituents short.”

Danielle Farrie, the research director at the Newark-based Education Law Center, said Newark’s audit results say something about state policy. It’s “the state’s responsibility to make sure that public education dollars are used effectively and efficiently” she said. Farrie said New Jersey should follow the lead of states like California and Maryland, which have incorporated accountability plans to their school funding systems that hold districts responsible for outlining how they will use funding to improve student outcomes.

According to Farrie, the state did a “good job of costing out education” a quarter-century ago, when it adopted the School Funding Reform Act of 2008 that established the current formula. But she said it’s time to revisit that math.

Farrie said the state needs to look closely at the formula to “figure out what schools need.” And as health care, construction, and transportation costs rise, the state should also reevaluate how much districts should be spending.

Then comes an especially difficult question, Farrie said: “How are we going to pay for it?”

Experts eye special education, local aid for funding changes

New Jersey funds schools by calculating how much it should cost to educate a district’s students to state standards — known as its “adequacy budget.” That budget factors in weights for students who typically require more resources, including students from low-income families and English learners.

Then, the formula estimates how much a local community should be able to contribute based on its property wealth and income, or its “local fair share.” The state is supposed to fill in any gap between the adequacy budget and the local fair share to pay for things like special education, transportation, and other costs.

In the 2026-27 school year, Newark schools received about $1.4 billion in state aid. But its enrollment is falling, and the value of taxable property in the city has grown to a record $35 billion for fiscal 2027, well above the $26 billion just a year before.

Under the current formula, that could mean less state aid to the district under the assumption that it could bring in more from Newark taxpayers. Last year’s school budget included a $39.94 tax increase for the average city homeowner.

Jeffrey Bennett, a school funding expert who writes a blog about the subject, said state decisionmakers should stop using taxpayers’ aggregate income to calculate a town’s local fair share. Bennett is a South Orange Maplewood school board member, but he spoke in his personal capacity as an education funding analyst and not on behalf of the board.

Bennett said that approach ultimately means just a handful of high-income tax filers can distort how wealthy a community actually is, and that two people earning the same income but living in two different places can pay very different tax rates, creating “inherent inequality.”

“It’s nuts,” he said. He suggested the formula should instead rely entirely on a district’s taxable property, much like how county taxes work. Other experts have suggested replacing aggregate income with a measure of median income, or having the state Treasury Department exclude those high-income outliers.

Another area experts say is ripe for reform: special education funding. New Jersey’s formula bases special education aid off of a census-derived estimate rather than the actual number of students with disabilities in a district. A short-term fix in state budget language switched the calculation to instead rely on actual district enrollment data, but that change is temporary.

Senate Education Committee Chair Vin Gopal, a Democrat, recently introduced a bill to make the change permanent. But people like Bennett say he should go deeper. Special education aid should be tiered, sending more aid to schools that enroll students with higher-cost needs.

Gopal said he’s already considering taking that advice. “I think you have to,” he told Chalkbeat.

Gopal is also looking beyond the formula for cost savings. He said merging some of New Jersey’s smallest districts so they would share sports programs, extracurriculars, and staffing should reduce administrative costs, he said.

Whatever the final product of funding reform looks like, Gopal and others say New Jersey is overdue to start creating it.

He added that he and others tried but failed to get Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration to take up the cause. The fact that the Sherrill administration is “being aggressive, knowing that this could be really rough at the end, I’m really happy to see that,” Gopal said.

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated how New Jersey currently calculates special education funding. Budget language adopted by the state temporarily adjusted the calculation to rely on actual district enrollment data.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado rejected 38 homeschool enrichment programs. Now officials will weigh stricter permanent rules.

2026-10-09T21:28:56+00:00

Over the summer, state officials said yes to only 14 of 54 homeschool enrichment programs that applied for approval. It was the first step in a broader effort to increase oversight of a controversial slice of the public education system that has seen massive growth in recent years.

On Thursday, the nine-member State Board of Education will take another step in the process, discussing permanent rules that will govern publicly funded programs for homeschoolers going forward. Two proposals under consideration, though filled with technical definitions and legalese, highlight some of the gaping loopholes that private enrichment providers used in recent years to offer unusual or pricey activities to homeschoolers, or money to their parents, using taxpayer dollars.

The proposed rules ban funding for things like ski lessons, private piano lessons, and lacrosse club fees, and bar homeschool programs from giving parents loaded debit cards for purchases. The rules also limit the number of fee-based field trips each semester — a reaction to enrichment programs that consisted mostly of field trips, including to escape rooms, bowling alleys, and Topgolf.

For years, Colorado regulated certain programs for homeschoolers so lightly that trips to ski resorts, trampoline parks, skydiving centers, and climbing gyms were paid for on the public dime. That changed in May when lawmakers cracked down, angry that it had spun out of control. Last year, homeschool enrichment cost the state nearly $100 million.

The State Board will vote on a final version of homeschool enrichment rules later this fall.

Homeschool enrichment programs have been around for many years, but their numbers grew dramatically after the pandemic, fueled by a now-defunct public education co-op in Monument. Such programs typically offer one day of tuition-free classes a week and are meant to give homeschooled students socialization opportunities or access to courses that are hard to provide at home.

Final tallies aren’t in, but it’s likely Colorado now has fewer publicly funded homeschool enrichment programs and lower enrollment in those programs than in years past. That’s partly because this summer’s temporary rules created an elaborate application process for the kind of programs that were multiplying the fastest: the ones operating outside the boundaries of the district where they’re authorized.

In the past few years, the now-closed Monument co-op approved dozens of these programs, which provided many of the most questionable activities and operated with little public transparency.

Many out-of-boundary programs sought state approval through the new application process, but some sought approval from local school districts or charter schools, which is permitted. The state is still tallying the number of programs that did that, a department spokesperson said.

The State Board will consider two versions of homeschool enrichment rules on Thursday morning. They are similar to proposals first presented in September, with some changes.

Option A would:

Allow only public entities, such as school districts or charter schools, to operate homeschool enrichment programs — a major change from what’s allowed now.
Allow the district or charter school to contract with a private group for a specific class, but the public entity would maintain control of enrollment, finances, and websites. Classes offered by the private group would also have to be available to full-time public school students.
Bar public funding for concurrent enrollment courses, independent study, off-site work-based learning, or supplemental online enrollment offered through the part-time homeschool programs. This is a change from the September version.

Option B would:

Allow both public entities and private groups — but only nonprofit groups — to operate homeschool enrichment programs.
Allow private groups to offer homeschool enrichment classes in most subjects, including dance, visual arts, and theater. The September version barred art, music, and physical education offerings. Only physical education is still barred. This restriction would not apply to public schools that operate homeschool enrichment programming.
Bar private groups from subcontracting out the homeschool program to other private groups.

Both options have a new provision that would prohibit more than two field trips or field experiences per semester if they cost money to provide. Both would also bar part-time programs for homeschoolers from offering more than 16 hours a week of classes. Currently, most publicly funded enrichment programs offer about six hours of class a week, but some operate with the same schedules as full-time schools.

Also on Thursday, State Board members will discuss a separate set of rules that could cut the per-hour homeschool enrichment rate.

Currently, programs get $6,000 per student per year on average for providing 90 hours of class a semester — that’s twice the hourly rate for public schools. Under the proposed rules, homeschool enrichment programs would get about $3,000 a year for 90 hours of class a semester and $6,000 for 180 hours of class.

The state has collected dozens of written comments about the proposed rules so far, and will continue to do so until the State Board’s final vote. A number of homeschool parents have urged the State Board to adopt Option B, which would allow private groups to continue offering homeschool enrichment.

One Jefferson County mother, Melissa Hosie, said, “My child is learning airplane, motorcycle, and bicycle mechanics, and blacksmithing. There is no WAY I could provide the education myself!”

She gave a nod to state officials’ concerns that some questionable programs got public funding in the past — she mentioned martial arts — saying, “If someone is abusing, you don’t stop everyone, you just stop the abuser.”

Jill Duvall, a retired teacher from the Elizabeth district, argued for tight guardrails, noting that public schools are laying off teachers and making cuts even as millions have been spent on specialized homeschool enrichment programs that public school students couldn’t access.

“The amount of taxpayers’ dollars expended on these (homeschool enrichment programs) needs to stop,” she said. “Enough is enough!”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Hochul opts New York into federal school choice tax credit despite teachers union opposition

2026-10-09T21:14:10+00:00

New York will participate in the new federal scholarship tax credit in hopes of generating millions in new dollars for public school students, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday.

Hochul becomes the second Democrat — following Colorado Gov. Jared Polis — to voluntarily opt their state into the program, which passed last year as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act backed by President Donald Trump. The program, designed primarily to expand private school choice in states without vouchers, also provides avenues to raise money for public school students.

Hochul had already indicated she intended to opt in, but previously said she was waiting for Treasury Department rules to ensure there was no “poison pill” in the program. Those rules, released last week, leave many questions unanswered, but they do lay out ways public school students can benefit, in particular for tutoring.

“After a careful review of the federal regulations, we believe this program has the potential to bring millions of additional dollars to New York students and families without taking a single dollar from public schools or our state or local budgets,” Hochul said in a statement. “I’m not going to leave money on the table when it could help our kids.”

People from across the political spectrum were closely watching for Hochul’s decision. School choice advocates have hoped that Hochul, more so than Polis, can provide both political cover for and political pressure on other Democratic governors who are on the fence.

According to an IRS tracker, 30 other states have opted in. In Kentucky, North Carolina, and Kansas, Republican legislatures overrode the vetoes of Democratic governors to opt in, while other Democratic governors have said they won’t participate or that they’re still reviewing the rules.

The program fulfills a longtime goal of school choice supporters who wanted to use federal taxpayer dollars to help expand families’ options, even in states that are hostile to vouchers. Conservative backers of the policy have been joined by some Democrats, particularly those who supported previous iterations of education reform and public school choice. They say the policy will help families, particularly lower-income Black and Latino families, whose children attend schools that don’t produce strong academic outcomes.

Starting Jan. 1, individual taxpayers can donate up to $1,700 to a scholarship-granting organization and get a dollar-for-dollar tax rebate from the federal government. Those organizations will then give the money to qualifying families for tuition or other education expenses. Anyone in any state can donate, but for students to benefit, governors of their states have to opt in on an annual basis and allow scholarship groups to operate.

Hochul will not be able to pick which groups can or can’t receive the funding, or prevent scholarship groups from discriminating on the basis of religion or LGBTQ status. Nor can she require that the scholarships can only benefit students from low-income backgrounds. Families earning up to 300% of area median income qualify to participate.

Groups on both sides of the issue had ramped up pressure on the governor in recent weeks. A coalition of civil rights groups and union officials urged her to opt out, while leaders of school choice groups and religious schools encouraged Hochul to make her earlier embrace of the program official.

The reactions to her decision were correspondingly pointed.

“Giving up local control of public education to the federal government through the Trump administration’s private school voucher scheme is a failure of leadership,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said in a statement. “Gov. Hochul will bear the responsibility, but our students, educators, and families will bear the price.”

Union officials previously indicated that they would not drop their support of Hochul’s November reelection bid if she opted in.

Some supporters of the governor’s decision emphasized that the program could benefit public school students, though the logistics and how much money could be raised remain unclear.

“A student in the Bronx can get the speech therapy or counseling her school can’t afford to provide,” said Nicole Pollock, president of Democrats for Education Reform. “Now the work starts to get these dollars to the families who need them.”

Groups representing families whose children attend religious schools have been especially eager for New York to opt in.

In a letter to Hochul posted Friday by the New York State Catholic Conference, several bishops thanked Hochul for opting in.

“Rather than sending this money out of state, she has chosen to keep it in New York to help New York’s kids,” they wrote. “While such a decision is common sense from a policy perspective, it nevertheless required political courage and will.”

National reporter Lily Altavena contributed to this story.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

After yearslong transition to digital tests, state officials weigh return to paper exams for NYC

2026-10-09T20:34:52+00:00

Will state officials soon allow New York City to return to paper-and-pencil standardized tests in grades 3-8?

The state Education Department isn’t ruling it out after more than half of New York City Council members signed a letter this week urging state officials to grant an analog option for state testing — just months after the state fully transitioned to online exams.

The request to waive the state’s computer-based testing requirement comes amid a broader push to limit technology in the classroom. City officials banned individual digital devices this school year for students in pre-K through second grade, with recommended screen time limits of 30 to 45 minutes in grades 3-8.

“A computer-based testing mandate creates pressures for additional screen exposure and technology practice even when teachers and school systems are trying to move instruction in the opposite direction,” City Council member Eric Dinowitz wrote in the letter to state Education Commissioner Betty Rosa. The letter was first reported by Gothamist.

The state Education Department appears to be taking the request seriously.

“The Department is reviewing Council Member Dinowitz’s request and will have additional information in the coming weeks,” spokesperson J.P. O’Hare wrote in an email.

The broader backlash to artificial intelligence and other ed tech tools has intensified debates about digital testing and whether it pressures schools to expose young students to more technology.

City Education Department officials have denied that state testing requirements played a role in the city’s device policy. But education leaders across the country have expressed concerns that students who don’t regularly use computers for schoolwork may be unprepared for digital state exams.

A city Education Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about whether the department supports returning to paper-and-pencil assessments or would request a waiver if one were available.

Allowing exemptions to New York’s digital assessment policy would represent a significant reversal for state officials who have spent years transitioning school districts to online exams. The state began experimenting with digital assessments a decade ago and fully phased in the requirement this past spring, with some exceptions for students with special accommodations.

The transition has been punctuated by technical glitches that have repeatedly disrupted the exams.

Some observers have questioned whether the shift to digital testing is affecting student performance, particularly after reading scores plunged last school year, though there is little evidence the transition was to blame.

State officials have argued that digital tests are more convenient, allow for faster scoring, and enable them to more precisely measure what students know through tests that adapt to students’ skill levels.

Dinowitz said he is encouraged that state officials are considering the council’s request. Parents and educators feel “inundated with screens and big tech in schools,” he told Chalkbeat on Friday.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

How to talk to students when the president talks about your city getting bombed

2026-10-09T20:24:46+00:00

A student in Whitney Chase’s class told the high school Spanish teacher this week that every time they see an airplane flying over their San Diego community, they fear the sound of a bomb will follow.

To some, San Diego is a tourist destination known for beaches and burritos. A southern California oasis where the sun is always shining. A border city with a landmark zoo. But on Oct. 5, San Diego and its residents became the subject of contentious remarks made by President Donald Trump. At a rally in Nebraska, while speaking about how the war with Iran is keeping the world safe, he said: “Let them take out Los Angeles; let them take out San Diego. That’s — this is a very small price to pay, and it’s going to be over with very soon.”

The line was instantly polarizing. Scores of Californians and progressives nationwide said it was another hostile affront to a state Republicans have long labeled a liberal inferno, and blasted Trump for suggesting San Diego or Los Angeles could be attacked and that the government would “let them.” The Trump administration said the comments were widely misinterpreted — an assertion some news organizations said was supported by the context of the speech — and that the president was saying cities would have been in danger if Trump hadn’t acted.

As for kids in San Diego? They took it as though the threat of a bomb from Iran aimed at their community could be imminent, said Chase. But more broadly, the remark felt like another dig on a community already feeling wrung out by the current presidential administration’s policies. It also highlighted the difficulties for educators when they consider whether and how to discuss current events, especially when they can’t assume every student’s political background.

The surge in immigration enforcement arrests in Trump’s second term has taken a toll on local students and educators. So has the war with Iran. With more than 115,000 active-duty service members, San Diego is also a military town, and just welcomed back the U.S.S. Lincoln after a perilous and lengthy month deployment. Reports of supply shortages and mental health issues among crew members also added to families’ stress.

The fears created by the Iran remark and the broader alarm coursing through San Diego schools prompted the school district this week to publish a resource for its educators about how to talk to students about Trump’s “let them” comments. The nine-page, slickly formatted document includes screenshots of tweets from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and suggestions for facilitating conversations with students — conversations that officials say students want to have.

For younger students, teachers should emphasize that they’re safe, and ask students what makes them feel safe, the guide says. For older students, conversations might tackle media literacy and civics concepts. The guidance tries to spark conversations about leadership, and how to respond thoughtfully when a public figure makes a hurtful comment.

Education leaders, including district Superintendent Fabi Bagula, also held a press conference where they denounced Trump’s words. “No child should ever be asked to answer for a government or be treated as responsible for its actions,” she said. “Our words and our willingness to listen matter.”

Richard Barrera, president of San Diego Unified’s school board and a contender in November’s state superintendent race, said in an interview with Chalkbeat that while Trump “might not appreciate or care about the impact of his words, but when he says something like Iran should take out Los Angeles or San Diego, that scares young people.”

Students’ desire to talk about Trump’s Iran comments runs parallel to their stories of how the president’s immigration policies have fractured their families, with federal agents detaining parents or surrounding students on their way to school.

Chase, who teaches at a school with a high population of economically disadvantaged students and Latino students, said the kind of fear expressed by the student about airplanes overhead has spread.

Managing student emotions and answering questions in the wake of comments like Trump’s Iran remark entail delicate conversations.

At the same time, the district’s guidance advises educators to stress safety to students, “and talk about how news can feel scary even when we are safe.” Chase has also tried to steer conversations from fear to more optimistic topics, like what students hope for in the world, stressing that humans have rights to dignity. One student wrote her a letter, she said, stating that their generation won’t “accept hate” from Donald Trump.

Still, bringing up politics in school can be treacherous, particularly when some Americans believe schools should behave in ways that are politically neutral. San Diego’s resource includes the Trump administration’s defense of the comments.

While many San Diegans are Democrats— 57% voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 — Republicans do represent portions of the San Diego region in Congress and the California Legislature. Barrera said teachers should talk to students in a way that doesn’t show a political preference.

But he said that doesn’t mean people should just accept the “rationalization” from the Trump administration about the president’s comments: “It doesn’t matter whether he was joking. It matters what he said.”

Chase said she tries to be as objective as she can in conversations with students. But that doesn’t mean she’ll stay silent.

“What we’re trying to get the kids to understand is, this is not normal,” she said of Trump’s remarks. “This is not normal behavior for a politician.”

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org. Lily is on Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook.

Chicago Public Schools wants to standardize school fees

2026-10-09T17:08:56+00:00

This article was updated with more information about state law and how CPS defines school fees.

Chicago Public Schools wants to standardize the fees that schools charge families for things ranging from sports uniforms and field trips to graduation.

The district also wants to tweak its student fee waiver policy by adding homeless students to the list, as required by state law, and creating a clearer appeals process for families whose requests for fee waivers are denied by their school’s principal.

District leaders proposed the changes Thursday to a new Board of Education finance and audit committee, one of a handful of new board committees that will review agenda items and decide whether to recommend them for the full board to approve. The full board’s next meeting is Oct. 22.

The committee voted 7-0 to recommend that the full 21-member board approve the proposed changes.

The policy change is meant to create a more equitable fee structure for all schools, said Crystal Dorsey, executive director of school support in the district’s Office of Network Support.

Currently, schools must establish fees at the start of each year, and principals must consult Local School Councils — as well as high school students — when creating them. They also must provide the fee schedule to families in their native languages and to staff. As part of the changes, a district-level student fee committee, led by the head of the Office of Network Support, would establish the standardized fees, which schools could request to alter.

CPS is still gathering data and working on the fees, and it will collect feedback from parent leaders, Dorsey said.

The district defines school fees as any payment tied to “a requirement for the student’s participation in any curricular or extracurricular program of the school.” School fees don’t pay for what CPS describes as “ordinary supplies” to complete school work, such as pencils, paper, and notebooks, but other items do count, such as textbooks or supplies for a specific class, such as art.

The district’s other proposed changes around fee waivers maintain the current definition of a school fee but removes examples of items that could qualify as a student fee that are in the current policy, such as textbooks or graduation caps and gowns.

Currently, fees can be waived for students who qualify for free or reduced priced meals and children of veterans or active duty military whose income is at or below 200% of the federal poverty line, or $66,000 for a family of four.

Waivers also apply to students facing extenuating circumstances such as severe illness or the impacts of a natural disaster. These appeals are granted by principals, whom the district says must base their decisions on documentation provided by the students’ families.

The district is adding students living in temporary housing to the list, whom Dorsey noted are protected by the federal McKinney-Vento Act, which enshrines certain rights for unhoused students or those living doubled up with others.

State law requires school districts to explicitly include homeless youth in its policies over whose fees can be waived.

The proposed changes include a clearer process for how families can appeal if their request to have fees waived is denied: They would have 30 days to appeal via a form submitted to the district’s Office of Network Support, which will make the final decision. Parents would not be required to pay fees during this process.

Angel Velez, board vice president who chairs the finance committee, asked Dorsey what share of CPS students are currently waived from paying fees. Dorsey said she didn’t immediately know.

About 69% of CPS students come from low-income households, defined as income within 185% of the federal poverty line, or about $61,000 for a family of four. Velez acknowledged the fees might help schools offset certain costs, but some families find it “super difficult” to pay.

“Why have it if, you know, 70-80% of our students, for example, can waive the fee?” Velez said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani’s school device ban has its first exception: virtual tutoring

2026-10-09T14:46:12+00:00

New York City has granted its first exemption to a sweeping ban on digital devices in classrooms serving young students, allowing a major tutoring program to provide one-on-one virtual instruction.

Just days before the school year started, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that students in second grade and below would be barred from using laptops and other individual devices as part of a broader set of restrictions on tech and AI in classrooms.

That policy threatened to disrupt the CUNY Reading Fellows program, which trains tutors to provide literacy support to public school children in grades K-2. It reaches struggling readers in dozens of high-need neighborhoods and relies on videoconferencing when tutors can’t travel to a student’s school.

About 30% of the 1,600 students who received tutoring last school year participated virtually because it isn’t always practical for tutors to travel to their schools. Roughly 900 additional students received in-person tutoring over the summer.

Last month, an Education Department spokesperson said the program would not be allowed to offer virtual instruction, alarming some literacy experts who feared vulnerable students would lose access to scarce tutoring opportunities. But officials publicly reversed course this week after Chalkbeat asked about potential disruptions to the program, which typically begins in October.

“NYCPS wisely made an exemption for the remote tutoring option,” said Katie Pace Miles, a Brooklyn College professor who created the CUNY Reading Fellows program. The program “has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to improve outcomes for vulnerable populations of emergent readers.”

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein did not directly address why the city changed its position on the tutoring program. But officials said programs that use human teachers for real-time instruction, as opposed to platforms where instruction is delivered by software, could qualify for exemptions. Decisions about exemptions will be made on a case-by-case basis, Brownstein said.

Some observers expressed frustration that the city had apparently not more carefully considered the implications of its 1-to-1 device ban on the tutoring initiative, one of the largest programs of its kind in the country.

“Making these quick responses based on legitimate concerns from the public often forces them to eat their words a little bit,” said Susan Neuman, a literacy expert at New York University and former federal education official who is familiar with the CUNY program. She added that there are legitimate uses of education technology.

One study of the Reading Fellows program randomly assigned students to virtual and in-person tutoring found no statistically significant difference in student outcomes, though students who participated virtually attended fewer sessions.

The city’s decision to sharply limit technology in public schools came after many families and educators protested the growing presence of digital products in classrooms.

Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a parent leader who is part of a coalition pushing for stronger limits on technology, said she was disappointed with the city’s decision to issue an exemption. In cases where tutoring can’t be provided in person, she said schools should have resources to provide face-to-face support to students.

“We’re trying to replace that with a screen of some sort instead of investing in the people,” she said.

High-dosage tutoring is widely considered to be an effective strategy for catching up students, even if it doesn’t always live up to the hype.

CUNY Reading Fellows work with students on a range of foundational literacy skills, including phonics lessons that help students understand the relationships between sounds and letters. Students typically meet with their tutors at least three times a week, mostly one on one, for 20-45 minutes depending on the intervention.

The CUNY Reading Fellows program, previously known as the CUNY Reading Corps, launched in fall 2020 as the school system was grappling with remote learning amid the coronavirus pandemic and scrambling to stanch learning loss.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board censures Monica Hunter after investigation into alleged antisemitic language

2026-10-09T03:12:29+00:00

The Denver school board censured Vice President Monica Hunter Thursday after an inconclusive investigation into whether she used antisemitic language.

The board voted 4-2 to censure Hunter, who denies the allegations. Hunter and board member John Youngquist voted no. President Xóchitl Gaytán, Amy Klein Molk, Marlene De La Rosa, and Kimberlee Sia voted yes, emphasizing the need to hold the board accountable, set a good example for the district’s 89,000 students, and move on from the controversy.

“It is absolutely okay to hold your own beliefs,” said Klein Molk, who is Jewish. “It is not okay to question other people’s beliefs. It is not okay to become obsessed with other people’s beliefs because of their religious identity. Our students deserve better.”

The allegation that Hunter used antisemitic language was the most serious of a slew of accusations that Gaytán levied last month against Hunter and board member DJ Torres. Torres resigned last week, saying the board spent too much time on “internal conflict.”

The board voted on Oct. 1 to hire an outside investigator to look into the antisemitism allegation, with a report due back in seven days. The seven-page investigative report was delivered to the board just hours before the censure vote Thursday. In it, the investigator wrote that the accusations “boil down to a ‘she said, she said, he said.’”

Report: Allegations that Denver school board member used antisemitic language are ‘she said, he said’

The report says that the strongest documentation the investigator found about Hunter’s alleged language was a note made by Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero after he met one-on-one with Hunter on January 27. Marrero’s contemporaneous note said Hunter “referred to Klein Molk as a ‘Zionist b...’ and said she did not want to sit next to her.”

In addition, Gaytán told the investigator that Hunter said, “I’m not sitting next to that racist bitch,” referring to Klein Molk. Gaytán also said that Hunter told her she wouldn’t vote for Klein Molk to be a board officer because Klein Molk “said she’s a Zionist,” the report says.

Hunter denied having said those things to Gaytán and Marrero, telling the investigator “there is no such version where that is true,” according to the report.

At Thursday’s meeting, Hunter said “there is no smoking gun” in the investigative report. She questioned why Gaytán and Marrero didn’t come forward with the allegations until after Hunter raised questions about Marrero’s continued employment as superintendent this past summer.

“We cannot claim to oppose discrimination while allowing baseless allegations to become weapons of political retaliation,” Hunter said.

Gaytán expressed remorse for the delay, saying she had hoped she “could ignore the bad behavior.”

Klein Molk said Thursday that a conversation she and Hunter had in early December about Israel, which is detailed in the investigator’s report, was “extremely hurtful.” Klein Molk said she found it “deeply offensive that my religion and my geopolitical beliefs should ever be questioned because of my Jewish identity.”

“I felt targeted for being a Jewish woman,” Klein Molk said. “And I forgive you.”

Hunter said it was upsetting to hear that she’d hurt her fellow board member. However, Hunter said, “disagreeing with someone doesn’t necessarily make them racist or antisemitic.”

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.