Monica Hawk, CEO of Philadelphia鈥檚 One Bright Ray Community High School, understood the aim. But in her role running six accelerated high schools, she also had concerns. Some of her students were months or years behind in school before returning to get their diplomas. Few could pass state tests.

In addition, the new requirements would mean a new bureaucratic headache. And she wouldn鈥檛 have more money, staff, or resources earmarked to help.

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In July 2025, Gov. Josh Stein signed N.C. General Assembly’s House Bill 959 into law, which requires public school districts to establish policies that prohibit students from using or displaying wireless communication devices during instructional time. While the statewide mandate was not mandatory until Jan. 1 this year, many districts across the state, including Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, implemented these changes at the start of the 2025-26 school year to ease the transition for students and staff or already had previous plans in place.

Researched and written by Eva Telzer, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at UNC, and Kaitlyn Burnell, a research assistant professor in psychology and neuroscience at UNC, the study found that smartphones are no longer something that students only use occasionally during school, but rather now being used frequently throughout all hours of the school day.

Telzer and Burnell found that students spent an average of 2.22 hours, nearly one-third of a typical school day, on their devices, checking phones an average of 64 times during school hours. According to the study, social media and entertainment apps accounted for almost 70 percent of this activity. The researchers noted that the habitual phone checking is more damaging than overall screen time, fragmenting attention and depleting the limited cognitive resources needed for academic engagement.

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Religious leaders, teachers, parents and students spent hours Tuesday before the state education board arguing about the reading list for the state鈥檚 5.4 million kindergartners to 12th-graders. The debate is part of widening efforts in the U.S. to incorporate religion in schools, mostly in Republican-led states, driving legislation and legal action.

Nationally, President Donald Trump has pledged to protect and expand religious expression in public schools. And Texas, a red state that is home to about one in 10 of the nation鈥檚 public school students, often helps set the agenda.

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Knowledge and learning were once rare and expensive. Today, they are ubiquitous and cheap. Instead of traveling to Florence to consult a book bolted to a reading desk, you can access an online version, join remote discussions, sign up for online university courses from your living room or listen to experts share their views on podcasts during your commute.

From the invention of the alphabet to the rise of the internet, information technology revolutions have democratized learning. They have also repeatedly transformed the role of teachers, as educators adapted to the new tools at their disposal. The advent of generative A.I. will undoubtedly reshape the relationship between student and teacher once again.

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These are not separate challenges, and taken together, they point to a solution hiding in plain sight.

Teaching can be the entry point into the workforce that Gen Z graduates need.

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Sherrill wants to spend $33 million to launch what she calls Spark, for School-based Partnerships for Access and Resilience for Kids, to expand access to mental health services within school facilities. Her budget plan directs the state Department of Education to create a competitive grant program that school districts could tap to pay for on-site mental health professionals starting next fall.

New Jersey sought to expand behavioral health programs in schools across the state four years ago under former Gov. Phil Murphy when it launched NJ4S, or the New Jersey Statewide Student Support Services program.

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In a statement, leaders in the majority-Democrat chamber said the ban would be the most restrictive in the country. It comes amid a wider focus nationwide on the mental health impact of social media use on the youngest Americans.

鈥淭he simple reality is that Massachusetts must do more to ensure that our laws keep pace with modern challenges 鈥� especially when it comes to protecting our children, and to setting students up for success in the classroom and beyond,鈥� House Ways and Means Committee Chairperson Aaron Michlewitz, D-3rd Suffolk, said in a statement. 鈥淲e look forward to productive conversations with the Membership in the coming days, and to passing this important legislation on Wednesday.鈥�

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But the two Black Texans sharply diverge on whether the state鈥檚 new voucher program will make education in Texas better or worse for students who look like them.

Lee feels confident that vouchers, which allow families to use public funds for private school and homeschooling costs, will allow the state to drain money from a predominantly Hispanic and Black public school student population while benefiting majority-white private schools and worsening academic outcomes. That鈥檚 what she sees in other states with vouchers, often referred to as 鈥渟chool choice.鈥�

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U.S. District Judge Jay C. Zainey ended 11 years of federal oversight in an order Wednesday, which came after the school district and state said they had met the requirements of a consent decree and should be released from monitoring. But Zainey also acknowledged ongoing challenges for students with disabilities in the city鈥檚 charter schools, citing testimony from parents, students and advocates last year about issues they had experienced, such as not getting services they are legally entitled to.

鈥淭hat individual problems at the local level may continue to arise in Orleans Parish does not ipso facto imply that Defendants are not in compliance with their obligations under federal law,鈥� he wrote.

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The 4-3 ruling, led by Republican justices on the court, set aside a landmark ruling in 2022 when the court, then with a Democratic majority, ruled that a lower court judge had the authority to order that taxpayer money be directed to state agencies to address longstanding education inequities.

The following year, another trial judge calculated that the state owed $678 million to fulfill two years of an eight-year, multibillion-dollar comprehensive remedial plan in part to improve teacher recruitment and salaries, expand prekindergarten and help students with disabilities.

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