As a parent of children with learning disabilities, a researcher studying family-school partnerships and a board member of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, I’ve spent a lot of time listening to families describe their experiences navigating special education.…
Opinion: Why Access to Special Education Depends Too Much on Parents
The details vary, but one theme emerges repeatedly: Obtaining support …
Last winter, NCLD convened a focus group of Family Leadership Council …
Ohio students’ reading scores rose slightly last school year, the first the science of reading was mandated, but it’s too soon to say whether the phonics-based lessons are making a difference.…
Ohio Reading Scores Rise. Is the Science of Reading Working?
About 63 percent of Ohio third graders — the grade educators have long…
Statewide reading proficiency also rose for all grades combined, as di…
New York At 10:30 p.m.on a Monday in the Bronx, it’s bedtime for many children.But at Juana Grisel Peña’s apartment, 2-year-old Brandon is just arriving.…
The Night Shift: Inside One Provider’s After-Hours Childcare Program
Peña, who goes by Grisel, greets him with a hug as he joins three othe…
(The 74 is using the children’s first names only to protect their priv…
The Board of Regents took another dangerous step this week: one that could leave New York’s 1 million high school and middle school students less prepared for college and the workforce.…
Opinion: New York Must Not Abandon Regents Exams Without a Better Measure of Readiness
The discussion on NY Inspires, the state’s ambitious plan to overhaul …
Students will still take the exams, administered since 1865, to meet f…
Students attending microschools are progressing at the same rate as their peers nationally and sometimes a whole lot faster than expected, even though parents often choose such programs because their kids have disabilities or other significant challenges, new data shows.…
Microschool Students Keep Pace Academically on National Test, New Data Shows
From fall 2025 to spring 2026, about 400 students from 27 schools made…
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A year ago, a report from the University of California San Diego made major waves when it showed that a rising share of its incoming freshmen had math skills that were below the high school level.…
As NJ Lowers Math Standards, Fewer Students Can Handle College-Level Work
Was this problem unique to that particular college?
Over the past few years, a suburban Philadelphia school district has become a flashpoint for nearly every fault line in America’s school culture wars, with a lawsuit and federal civil rights investigation alleging discrimination against LGBTQ students and a library book-review policy quietly shaped by a Christian nationalist advocacy group.…
‘Bucks County, USA’ Sees School Board Fights As Reflection of a Nation Divided
School board meetings have regularly dissolved into shouting matches, …
A new five-part documentary, Bucks County, USA, trains its lens on tho…
“Portrait of a Graduate,” embraced by 26 states, describes essential skills that high school students should master, including thinking critically, communicating clearly and engaging as citizens.…
Opinion: Student Newspapers Impart Critical Skills. The Nation Needs More of Them
As school districts nationwide grapple with this new vision of what it…
Unfortunately, student newspapers are increasingly rare.
Ohio officials are tackling the math struggles of students with an effort resembling its science of reading push, but have yet to deal with perhaps the most fundamental issue — how instruction should change.…
Ohio’s Next Education Fight Could Be Over How Kids Learn Math
That decision won’t come until next April when the Ohio Department of …
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For most of its existence, the autism therapy known as applied behavior analysis, or ABA, has relied on armies of parents — eager to share heartrending stories of the transformation it could bring about in their children’s lives — to lobby state lawmakers to require insurance coverage and other benefits.…
As States Crack Down, Autism Therapy Providers Target Lawmakers — and Schools
The coverage mandates these parents helped secure have driven hundreds…
Over the last decade, the ready flow of cash has attracted private equ…
Jenny Thamer had low hopes for the meeting called by the superintendent of the Boulder Valley School District to hear from families of autistic students.…
How Parents in Boulder, Colorado, Rewrote the Rules on Autism Therapy in School
From her experience, such so-called listening sessions are often pro f…
This one had been called hastily, after a handful of caregivers had co…
For 61 years, Head Start has served both as the United States’ largest early care and education system and one of its most successful, tangible commitments to children living in poverty and those from historically underserved communities.…
Opinion: Trump Administration’s English-Only Head Start Edict is Bad for Young Learners
The program has served around 40 million children and families in ever…
It also supports their families to become healthy, well, socioeconomic…