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Why several northern Illinois schools are cutting staff and reckoning with multi-million-dollar budget deficits

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 16:07:00 +0000

The Freeport School District 145 board recently voted to eliminate dozens of staff positions because of a projected $11 million budget deficit.

They mostly cut support staff along with some certified teachers and a few administrators.

“We’re definitely going to see students who struggle with reading and math be impacted at the elementary level,” said Kelly Everding, president of the Freeport Education Association and a history teacher at the high school. “We’re going to see students who utilize the library and library lessons impacted. We’re going to see students who need social emotional support impacted.”

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Screen time opponents target 1-on-1 devices in schools after success with cellphone bans

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 14:03:31 +0000

Personal laptops, Chromebooks and iPads are on the chopping block in many classrooms as parents and advocates look to expand efforts to limit technology in schools.

Despite millions of dollars spent by districts before and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic to give students 1-to-1 personal devices, the tides are turning as some worry about the distractions and negative learning effects from sitting in front of a screen all day.

The fight is an expansion from those who worked to get cellphones banned from schools. Over the past five years, more than 30 states have enacted legislation that requires schools to create policies around cellphones in classrooms, with some districts going as far as forcing students to put their devices in a pouch they can’t access all day.

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Schools are urged to embrace AI—and ban phones. Can we resolve the tension?

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:58:04 +0000

Educators have a lot of questions about AI. Well, when I want practical insight on ed tech, I frequently turn to the ever-thoughtful Michael Horn—lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, co-founder of the Christensen Institute, co-host of the Future U podcast, and author of many books, including Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools. As we navigate big talk and dire warnings about what AI means for schools, I reached out to Michael for a reality check. Here’s what he had to say.
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Rick: Michael, evangelists are touting AI’s transformative promise in schooling. At the exact same time, schools are being urged to ban phones, limit social media, and reduce screen time. These strike me as contradictory takes on the role tech should play in classrooms—one fueled by optimism, the other by a growing backlash.

You’ve thought about these tensions more deeply than almost anyone. How should we make sense of them? Is this situation less contradictory than it appears, or are the schools racing to embrace AI simply repeating the mistakes of the recent past?

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Los Angeles schools strike averted as deal reached

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:45:12 +0000

A Los Angeles Unified School District strike has been avoided and schools are open Tuesday after the district and the Service Employees International Union reached a tentative agreement.

SEIU Local 99, which represents about 30,000 aides, bus drivers, custodians and cafeteria workers, said the deal with the district, LAUSD, includes a 24% wage increase.

The tentative agreement also increases work hours to ensure thousands of workers have health care benefits, rescinds layoffs for hundreds of IT technicians and expands health care benefits for teacher assistants and others, according to SEIU Local 99.

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Is Colorado’s four-day school week trend impacting student learning? A panel of education experts weighs in

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:35:38 +0000

By the time many Colorado kids who attend school four days a week graduate high school, their education is cut two years short.

It’s a math problem driven by a state funding problem that creates many more problems, according to Philip Qualman, the superintendent of Eagle County School District.

Qualman calculates it like this: Students enrolled in districts that run on four-day school weeks are in school under 160 days per year, with some down to 150 days, compared with the 180 days many of their peers across the country attend school. Those students are in school 30 fewer days, which adds up to six weeks in a single school year. Over the span of a student’s time in grades K-12, that shaves about two years off the total time they spend in school.

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How NJ plans to modernize curriculum in the age of fakery and AI

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:17:45 +0000

New Jersey’s public school students are on the brink of new curriculum standards designed to teach them how to spot misinformation, use artificial intelligence, protect online privacy and even build wealth.

Educators, in turn, will base some of these preschool and K12 lessons on technology and “unplugged” activities, according to the latest New Jersey Student Learning Standards. Introduced last week, the standards are expected to be adopted at an upcoming state Board of Education meeting and will go into effect in about two years.

Department officials have proposed modernizing the statewide curriculum for preschool and subject areas for K12 students, including career readiness, life literacies and key skills; science; computer science, innovation and society; world languages; and visual and performing arts.

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‘It’s all gas, no brakes’: Delaware fully sanctions high school girls wrestling

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:12:00 +0000

In 2023, when Eustace Beazer held his first practice for the new girls wrestling team at St. Georges Technical High School in Delaware, three kids showed up at the gym.

Each year since, however, the number of girls hitting the mat has grown dramatically. This year, 40 girls competed, and the Hawks had the most team points at the unofficial state tournament.

The growth at St. Georges, located near Middletown, mirrors the statewide rise of the sport. This year, 305 girls competed. That’s nearly triple the number who wrestled just two seasons ago.

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How dubious high school credentials like ladder safety are boosting Pennsylvania’s graduation rate

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:46:02 +0000

When Pennsylvania introduced new graduation requirements four years ago, lawmakers said there would be options for students who struggled with standardized tests to show they were ready for college or careers.

Monica Hawk, CEO of Philadelphia’s 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’t have more money, staff, or resources earmarked to help.

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UNC study reveals phone use in schools negatively impacts attention

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:44:10 +0000

As students and teachers navigate an increasingly digital landscape, a recent study by researchers at UNC suggests that frequent smartphone use during school hours is linked to a decline in cognitive control. The findings come after recent state legislation that attempted to limit phone use during instructional time in schools and prevent digital distractions.

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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Bible stories would be part of a new Texas public schools reading list drawing attention

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:28:34 +0000

Biblical stories like Jonah and the whale would be required reading for Texas public schools students under proposals that are putting the state at the center of another contentious wrangling over the role of religion in classrooms.

Religious leaders, teachers, parents and students spent hours Tuesday before the state education board arguing about the reading list for the state’s 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’s public school students, often helps set the agenda.

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