Mindshift

Home / Belonging / MindShift President Trump's Education Department is telling schools to stop considering race when it comes to school discipline. Aug 25, 2026 Updated Aug 28, 2026 (DragonImages | iStockphoto via Getty Images) The U.S. Department of Education recently announced it was investigating Fayetteville Public Schools in Arkansas, much to the district’s surprise.

Mindshift Podcast Home / Digital Tools / Mindshift Podcast Families and educators are starting to reconsider school-issued computers and tablets. Aug 25, 2026 Updated 9:25 am PT (Halfpoint Images/ Getty Images) View the full episode transcript. When Los Angeles parent Lila Byock’s son started middle school, his grades suddenly collapsed. It didn’t make sense. “He’d always been a bright, curious, engaged kid who did really well in school,” Byock said. She and her husband were confused and concerned.

Home / Belonging / MindShift Common greetings, like 'How are you?,' may do little to create real opportunities for building relationships. Aug 24, 2026 (Drazen Zigic/iStock) Science high school teacher Furahi Achebe remembers getting a phone call from a former student whom she hadn’t heard from in six months. He told her that doctors found a heart defect; he’d just woken up after life-saving surgery, and he wanted to let her know that he’s doing ok.

Home / Parenting / MindShift The Child Care and Development Fund, the U.S. government's main source of funding to help low-income families pay for childcare, serves over 1.6 million children in a typical month. Aug 21, 2026 Updated 11:04 am PT A student plays with interlocking toys at the Connecticut State University Early Learning Center in New Britain, Conn., on March 12, 2025.

Home / Education research / MindShift The practice continues despite broad consensus among psychologists that corporal punishment can be harmful to children. Aug 19, 2026 Updated Aug 21, 2026 Deanna Staffo for NPR One day, about eight years ago, when Tessa Davis’ son was in kindergarten, she got a call from his school outside Little Rock, Ark. She said the school told her he had grabbed a girl’s jacket in the cafeteria and twisted it – they thought he was trying to choke her.

Home / Education research / MindShift A randomized experiment involved more than 6,000 Tennessee middle school students learning fractions. Aug 17, 2026 Matthieu Rondel / AFP via Getty Images Artificial intelligence makes many tasks faster and easier. But a new study suggests that students may learn more when AI makes them slow down.

Home / Digital Tools / MindShift As educators in the nation's second-largest district prepare for the new limits on classroom screen time, some teachers say it will be a difficult adjustment. Aug 11, 2026 Updated Aug 14, 2026 (Charlotte Gomez for NPR | ) This year brings a new challenge for Armaghan Khan and many other teachers in the nation’s second-largest school district: Ban screen time for younger students, and significantly limit it for older kids.

Mindshift Podcast Home / Belonging / MindShift More than a decade after Rita Pierson stepped onto the TED stage and declared, “Every child deserves a champion,” her words still echo through schools, teacher prep programs and staff meetings across the country. Aug 11, 2026 Images courtesy of Kristin Pierson Forrest View the full episode transcript.

Home / Education research The first evaluation of outcomes-based contracting found student achievement sometimes improved under this approach Aug 10, 2026 (Allison Shelley for EDUimages) School purchasing can seem like an administrative backwater, far removed from the heart of teaching and learning. But the way schools buy products and services like educational software or tutoring programs can influence whether students actually learn, some policymakers argue.

Home / Culture / MindShift It would slim regulation of the 60-year-old anti-poverty program and aim to save money. Advocates worry the changes could undermine the early education program's mission. Aug 6, 2026 Family educator Lisa Benson-Nuyen addresses her students in a circle in the Northern Lights classroom at the Meadow Lakes CCS Early Learning, a Head Start center, in Wasilla, Alaska, in 2024. The center has since closed because of a lack of staff and money.