The Hechinger Report

Universities across the country are investing in artificial intelligence literacy. Students are attending workshops, experimenting with generative AI tools and earning certificates meant to show that they are ready for an economy shaped by AI. The problem is that we don’t know if these programs help students solve workplace problems, if they open doors to job opportunities, or both. We also don’t know if they give students from different institutions a fair chance to compete.

Before Kris and Matthew Ferderer could take their 9-month-old daughter, Elliott, home for the first time, they had to receive specialized training to manage her oxygen equipment, feeding tubes and a catheter that delivered medication directly to her heart. Elliott, now 6, was born with a rare heart defect requiring a transplant before she was old enough to roll over. Complications caused seizures and two strokes, leaving her with cerebral palsy and limited mobility.

This story also appeared in Big Local News and The Assembly More than a decade of data from schools across the U.S. shows stark divides in who is held back: Boys are more likely than girls to repeat a grade, and Black boys are held back at nearly three times the rate of white boys.

This story also appeared in AL.com and Idaho Education News Cori Space spent her freshman year of high school in Madison, Alabama, trying to keep up with her coursework while managing her celiac disease and other health problems that her school wouldn’t accommodate. For her sophomore year, her family opted for the Alabama Destinations Career Academy, a public, virtual school that promised a jump-start on an occupation.

FOLSOM, Calif. — At Folsom Lake College’s main administrative building, a flyer on the wall tells undocumented students, “You can still go to college in California even with the current political climate.” “Keep going,” it says. “You are not alone.” Nearby is Alicia Alejo’s office at the Undocu-Falcons Center, where the student support specialist helps undocumented students access pro bono legal consults, mental health appointments, food pantries and financial aid.

Something essential has been missing from the national conversation about what it will take to improve and sustain early childhood education. We are not producing nearly enough leaders with the specialized expertise to turn good policy ideas into lasting systems that work. Early childhood policy decisions are made every day by people who care deeply about children but were prepared to do something else entirely.

Forget fun runs, PTA bake sales and Saturday morning car washes. The future of public school fundraising may soon look more like a payroll deduction. Or perhaps door-to-door campaigns each tax season asking filers to earmark donations to support nearby public schools.

This story also appeared in STAT CHICAGO — Midway through her graduate nursing program, Yesenia Raithel Vargas made a desperate plea to a Facebook group for other moms in Chicago: Does anyone know a licensed therapist willing to let her sit in on sessions and work with their clients under their supervision? It was a strange ask in the therapy world, which is one reason Raithel Vargas had resorted to Facebook.

We want to know how artificial intelligence use is changing your class time and assignments. Students and teachers at all levels of education are using it, even as researchers work in real time to analyze its effects on learning, good and bad. A majority of students and instructors report using AI regularly, with equal numbers saying that it improves and that it harms learning. Recent research indicates that its unregulated use is eroding math skills.

Like many parents, I remember visits to the pediatrician’s office in my daughter’s earliest years as overwhelming — a swirl of weights and measurements, rushed conversations about sleep training, breastfeeding and tummy time, all while trying to keep the featured attraction (my wiggly baby) from derailing everything. The visits felt especially cramped when someone handed me a heavy electronic tablet with prompts to answer what seemed like an endless list of questions about my daughter.