The Hechinger Report

01/06/2026

A new study suggests that one surprisingly simple difference between stronger and weaker math teachers may be how often they use mathematical vocabulary, words such as “factors,” “denominators” and “multiples,” in class.

Teachers who used more math vocabulary had students who scored higher on math tests, according to a team of data scientists and education researchers from Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of Maryland. The size of the test score boost was substantial. It amounted to about half of the benefit researchers typically attribute to having a highly effective teacher, which is among the most important school-based factors that help children learn. Students with highly effective teachers can end up months ahead of their peers.

“If you’re looking for a good math teacher, you’re probably looking for somebody who’s exposing their students to more mathematical vocabulary,” said Harvard data scientist Zachary Himmelsbach, lead author of the study, which was published online in November 2025. https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-math-vocabulary/

01/05/2026

Amid declining birth rates and growing competition from private-school voucher programs, the number of students in U.S. public schools dropped about 2.5 percent between 2019 and 2023, according to the most recent federal data. Fewer students leads to higher per-pupil spending, because district staffing and other expenses largely remain in place despite enrollment drops, and states are increasingly trying to escape the education budget crunch via school consolidation: In the past three years alone, at least 10 states have considered measures to mandate or incentivize district mergers. These pressures are especially keen in rural areas where the smallest schools predominate and play an outsized role in community life. Vermont, the nation’s most rural state, has lost about 20 percent of its K-12 public school student population in the past two decades. That’s helped push per-pupil costs and property taxes to the breaking point. Early in 2025, the state’s governor and education secretary released a plan to overhaul Vermont education, proposing massive district consolidation as the foundation for sweeping changes in school funding, curricula and academic standards. https://hechingerreport.org/schools-are-closing-across-rural-america-heres-how-a-battle-over-small-districts-is-playing-out-in-one-state/

12/29/2025

Within the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is a small office devoted to educational issues, including seclusion, as well as desegregation and racial harassment. The division intentionally chooses cases with potential for high impact and actively monitors places it has investigated to ensure they’re following through with changes. When the Educational Opportunities Section acts, educators and policymakers take notice.
Now, however, the Trump administration is wielding the power of the Justice Department in new and, some say, extreme ways. Hundreds of career staffers, including most of those who worked on education cases, have resigned. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights also has been decimated, largely through layoffs. The two offices traditionally have worked closely together to enforce civil rights protections for students. The result is a potentially lasting shift in how the nation’s top law enforcement agency handles issues that affect public school students, including millions who have disabilities. https://hechingerreport.org/under-trump-protecting-students-civil-rights-looks-very-different/

12/29/2025

Just last year, there was hope that the racial climate at Lubbock-area schools might improve. The federal government had launched civil rights investigations after several alleged incidents of racial bullying shocked the community and made national headlines. In fall 2024, a resolution seemed to be in sight: An investigator from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights was planning to visit the area, community members said, for what they hoped would be a final round of interviews before the agency put in place a set of protections negotiated with the Lubbock-Cooper school district.

Then the 2024 presidential election happened — and the visit didn’t. In March, the Trump administration closed seven of the Education Department’s 12 regional civil rights enforcement offices, including the one in Dallas, which had been investigating complaints about Lubbock. Emails from the lawyer representing the families to the federal investigator bounced back — like hundreds of other OCR employees, she had been terminated. https://hechingerreport.org/probes-into-racism-in-schools-stall-under-trump/

12/28/2025

A California community college started its Safe Parking Program for housing-insecure students, while other colleges have students sleeping in alumni’s homes, napping pods, Airbnbs, even an assisted living facility.
Forty-eight percent of college students experience housing insecurity, meaning “challenges that prevent them from having a safe, affordable, and consistent place to live,” suggests the most recent Student Basic Needs Survey Report from the Hope Center at Temple University. That number rises to 60 percent for Black students, 67 percent for students who are parenting and 72 percent for former foster youth. The problem also tends to be worse for veterans and those who identify as LGBTQ+ or have been labeled undocumented, said Sara Abelson, an assistant professor and the Hope Center’s senior director of education and training. Fourteen percent of the nearly 75,000 students surveyed experienced homelessness, the most severe form of housing insecurity. Other analyses produce similar estimates. https://hechingerreport.org/a-new-solution-to-student-homelessness-a-parking-lot-where-students-can-sleep-safely-in-their-cars/

12/28/2025

About 1.5 million people teach on college campuses in the United States, and nearly 4 million teachers work in its public elementary and secondary schools. More than 15 million undergraduates attend U.S. colleges and universities. There are more than 50 million school-age children across the country.

They all have one thing in common: Federal education policy affects their lives.

President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon say they want to close the Department of Education and return control of education to the states. At the same time, however, they have aggressively, and rapidly, wielded federal power over schools.

12/28/2025

Child care workers, students and teachers shared dismay over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that are disrupting learning. School superintendents and college presidents described how uncertainty around federal funding is making their jobs far trickier.

Others — including a charter school leader and a for-profit college president — told The Hechinger Report they were grateful for recent changes to education policy, including a new emphasis on school choice and on the importance of workforce education.

Those were just a few of the many reactions we heard from 17 parents, students, educators and others around the country when we asked about the impact of President Donald Trump’s actions this year on their schools and communities. Several people told us that with the federal government stepping back from many of its long-standing responsibilities in education, they and their communities were taking on new roles.

Click link in bio to read the story.

11/17/2025

From the archives, Aug. 7, 2017. Every summer, the federal government provides meals to millions of American children living in poverty.

In 2016, the Department of Agriculture fed 179 million meals to nearly 4 million children who rely on free or reduced meals during the school year. In the Mississippi Delta, the program is a lifeline for many families, and it could become even more important in the coming years.

The Trump administration has proposed cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, by $191 billion. More than half of the 67,000 Delta families on food stamps have children.

Every summer, the federal government provides meals to millions of American children living in poverty. In 2016, the Department of Agriculture fed 179 millio...

11/17/2025

The teaching profession is one of the most female-dominated in the United States. Among elementary school teachers, 89 percent are women, and in kindergarten, that number is almost 97 percent. Many sociologists, writers and parents have questioned whether this imbalance hinders young boys at the start of their education. Are female teachers less understanding of boys’ need to horse around? Or would male role models inspire boys to learn their letters and times tables? Some advocates point to research that lays out why boys ought to do better with male teachers....

A teacher's gender doesn’t matter for young boys, national study shows

11/17/2025

Imagine clocking out of an eight-hour shift and your compensation is a pat on the back and experience for your resume. This scenario is a disturbing reality for around one million college students, and it needs to stop. Students work countless hours on top of their academic pursuits only to be told they should be “grateful for the opportunity.” The government must pass legislation mandating that all internships include monetary compensation; employers must stop exploiting students and recent graduates while they build necessary work experience. The idea of an unpaid internship is odd considering that most of us grew up learning that work is rewarded....

Roughly one million college students have unpaid internships. The government must pass legislation mandating an end to this practice; all internships should include monetary compensation, and employers must stop exploiting students while they build necessary work experience.

11/14/2025

Proof Points columnist Jill Barshay explains why one reading expert argues that giving students easy texts is holding back US reading achievement.

11/14/2025

Thirty states now limit or ban cellphone use in classrooms, and teachers are noticing children paying attention to their lessons again. But it’s not clear whether this policy — unpopular with students and a headache for teachers to enforce — makes an academic difference.

Indeed, it did.

Student test scores rose a bit more in high cellphone usage schools two years after the ban compared with schools that had lower cellphone usage to start. Students were also attending school more regularly.

The policy also came with a troubling side effect. The cellphone bans led to a significant increase in student suspensions in the first year, especially among Black students. But disciplinary actions declined during the second year.

“Cellphone bans are not a silver bullet,” said David Figlio, an economist at the University of Rochester and one of the study’s co-authors. “But they seem to be helping kids. They’re attending school more, and they’re performing a bit better on tests.”

If student achievement goes up after a cellphone ban, it’s tough to know if the ban was the reason. Some other change in math or reading instruction might have caused the improvement. Or maybe the state assessment became easier to pass. Imagine if politicians required all students to wear striped shirts and test scores rose. Few would really think that stripes made kids smarter.

Two researchers from the University of Rochester and RAND, a nonprofit research organization, figured out a clever way to tackle this question by taking advantage of cellphone activity data in one large school district in Florida, which in 2023 became the first state to institute school cellphone restrictions. The researchers compared schools that had high cellphone activity before the ban with those that had low cellphone usage to see if the ban made a bigger difference for schools that had high usage.

Indeed, it did.

Student test scores rose a bit more in high cellphone usage schools two years after the ban compared with schools that had lower cellphone usage to start. Students were also attending school more regularly.

The policy also came with a troubling side effect. The cellphone bans led to a significant increase in student suspensions in the first year, especially among Black students. But disciplinary actions declined during the second year.