Named after the hundred-eyed watchman of Greek myth, Argus watches the education landscape: spotting new opportunities, pressure-testing the ventures we're building, and tracing every read back to the real-world signals behind it.
The evidence library: the raw signals the pipeline is watching across the education ecosystem. Every idea is built from these.
Schools across the country are focusing keenly on two key priorities: teaching children to read and bringing down high chronic absenteeism rates that undermine learning. Both these goals could be scuttled by an alarming increase in the number of young children who lack access to healthcare. Our new analysis shows that nearly 1.2 million children […]
Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has resigned as leader of the Los Angeles Unified School District, four months after the FBI searched his home and office. A district spokesperson confirmed a letter of resignation from Carvalho on Sunday night. The reason for the timing wasn’t immediately clear. “The Board remains steadfast in its commitment to ensuring stability, […]
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. At Pinedale Elementary in Fresno, there’s almost no classroom aides, after-school tutors or behavioral counselors. Literacy activities and parent workshops are scarce. Field trips? Almost non-existent. The school survives on one of the lowest per-pupil expenditures in the state: $16,700 a year, nearly […]
Policymakers and influencers from across the political spectrum spend a great deal of time thinking, talking and writing about how to close the wealth, opportunity and other gaps that are both markers and drivers of growing income inequality. But there is another gap they would do well to pay special attention to if they are […]
Davenport, Iowa, superintendent TJ Schneckloth has an easy way of describing the impact of student absenteeism. “Take your favorite book,” he said. “Let me rip one page out and it’s no longer your favorite book.” The loss of knowledge and continuity mirrors what students face when they miss even a single day of school, he […]
Nearly every child in Hawaiʻi lives in a community that lacks adequate licensed childcare, with access rates falling far behind the national average, according to recent reports from the Center for American Progress. Challenges finding affordable childcare have also worsened for some families this year as they face delays with receiving state subsidies reducing the […]
There’s a prevailing principle in the U.S. that funding disparities are at the root of education inequality, with poorer districts receiving less money than their wealthier counterparts. But a recent study has actually found the opposite, documenting that over the past nearly 50 years high-poverty and predominantly non-white districts across all 50 states actually spent […]
U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has detained more than 650 children in California under President Donald Trump’s second term, an EdSource analysis of federal data has found. Most arrests happened in California communities, rather than at the border, and involved minors who resided and attended school in the state. The number of children detained in […]
More than 250 million American adults start the new calendar year with a pledge to complete Dry January. By giving up alcohol for a month, some hope for a physical or mental reset, while others hope to give up drinking for good. While more than a quarter of participants won’t make it through the full […]
Princess Moss has been a leader of the National Education Association since 2014, but soon she will implement her own plans for the union as incoming president. One of her top goals when she takes office Sept. 1 is to shift campaigning and organizing from the union’s centralized, national level to local affiliates. Moss was […]
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Parent-teacher conferences can conjure a familiar scene: adults crammed into child-size chairs, listening to teachers run through a list of students’ achievements and struggles. For many families, they can also mean frustration. Today’s school conferences are sometimes 15 to 20 minutes, with little time for parents to ask their own questions. Adults may arrive […]
This year’s startling collapse of New York City’s reading scores, followed by last year’s big gains, has some experts asking: Did something go wrong with the test itself? There is no clear evidence there is a problem, experts emphasize, but the unusually wide swing in scores warrants careful investigation, multiple testing experts told Chalkbeat this […]
Conversations about Education Savings Account programs seem to start in the same place: the money. Where is it going? How is it being used? Who is benefiting? Understandably so. When taxpayer money moves, people talk. But being on the frontlines for several years as a certified literacy specialist — working with families, taking the calls, […]
Prospective home buyers are often experiencing transition in their personal lives. Perhaps a wedding — or divorce — is on the horizon. Maybe their kids have grown up and moved out, or their financial circumstances have changed. In many cases, though, people are looking to move because they want to start or grow their families, said Daryl […]
Updated August 18, 2026 Every few years, testing experts at the U.S. Department of Education weigh state assessments against their “gold standard,” the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as “the nation’s report card.” In a review released in 2021, two states stood out, but not in a good way. Both Iowa and Virginia […]
Every few years, testing experts at the U.S. Department of Education weigh state assessments against their “gold standard,” the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as “the nation’s report card.” In a review released in 2021, two states stood out, but not in a good way. Both Iowa and Virginia established fourth grade reading […]
Maine joined 15 states on Friday in suing the Trump administration to prevent millions of dollars in cuts to school-based mental health funding. The new lawsuit is part of an ongoing legal battle between Democratic-led states and the U.S. Department of Education over a mental health grant program that Congress established following the 2018 school […]
This year, at least six states enacted laws trying to reduce the number of students chronically absent from school. The measures include requiring monitoring of absences and publicly releasing data, developing new guidance on the best ways to address the problem and increasing punishments for parents and guardians of chronically absent students. Chronic absenteeism is […]
This year, at least six states enacted laws trying to reduce the number of students chronically absent from school. The measures include requiring monitoring of absences and publicly releasing data, developing new guidance on the best ways to address the problem and increasing punishments for parents and guardians of chronically absent students. Chronic absenteeism is […]
State education agencies are being asked to do something they have rarely been asked to do before: lead. As the federal government’s influence over education recedes, leaving confusion in its wake, calls for guidance, clarity and strategic direction are shifting to states. And they are shifting fast, to agencies that are often understaffed, under-resourced and […]
For anyone who cares about student literacy, the past few years have given us reason to cheer. While trends in national test scores, young people’s reading habits, and talk of a “learning recession” are clear causes for concern, there’s another side to the story. More than 40 states now mandate evidence-based reading instruction in public […]
On a mid-June morning in the small city of Norfolk, Nebraska, a group of 2- and 3-year-olds clumsily ran around a playroom wearing identical purple cloth vests. As the toddlers babbled to their teachers, a rectangular recording device hidden in a chest pocket captured every word as they asked to go to the bathroom, talked […]
On a mid-June morning in the small city of Norfolk, Nebraska, a group of 2- and 3-year-olds clumsily ran around a playroom wearing identical purple cloth vests. As the toddlers babbled to their teachers, a rectangular recording device hidden in a chest pocket captured every word as they asked to go to the bathroom, talked […]
Updated When Jen Hanson, a veteran multilingual educator, first arrived at Denver’s Cherry Creek School District in June 2025, she said she quickly suspected the district was creating its own rules for moving students out of its English learner program, leaving her to question whether it was holding on to kids — and the state […]
Standardized testing has long been the gold standard of student success. Large-scale assessments give districts a big-picture view of student progress, offering convenient data points to compare performance, identify trends and demonstrate accountability. But numbers can only tell part of the story. They never capture the child behind the score — the effort behind mastering […]
As students head back to class across the country, Varsity Tutors for Schools, one of the nation’s largest providers, has gone out of business. In a shareholder letter last week, Chuck Cohn, CEO of Nerdy, Varsity’s parent company, wrote that leaders would “wind down” the online service they launched during the pandemic as districts nationwide […]
For the past several years in Miami public schools, every student — including my own children — could stand in the same cafeteria line, carry the same tray and eat lunch for free. But on July 22, the Miami-Dade County School Board voted to end its universal school lunch program, reversing a policy that had […]
It’s 2026. Satellites connect to devices in our pockets, artificial intelligence algorithms can drive cars and scan X-rays, and Homer’s 3,000-year-old poem is the basis for the summer’s hottest movie. But there’s always a but. And right now, in a time when public school absences remain stubbornly high since Covid closures five years ago, it […]
Princess Moss was elected president of the National Education Association during its annual representative assembly on Sunday. She was previously vice president of the nation’s largest teachers union and a music teacher from Louisa County, Virginia. Moss won the election with 50.3% of votes from a delegate assembly of nearly 6,000 members, according to the […]
A second grader in Norway drew a YouTube logo when my colleagues and I asked what they wanted to be when they grow up. When we asked why, the child explained that YouTubers are famous and make lots of money. When we asked second graders in Wisconsin this same question, we were surprised to often […]
The teenagers at the entrepreneurship class at a new Detroit Boys and Girls Club had ideas for a business or product they could create. Now they had to refine them and think about how to pitch them to investors or customers. “Go back to your product statement, what your product is, and then tell us […]
Peter Rosario has spent years watching his teachers help Spanish-speaking preschoolers sound out English words at La Casa de Don Pedro, a Newark-based nonprofit organization that offers support for immigrant families and contracts with Newark Public Schools to provide state-funded preschool. But Rosario says the state’s investment in programs like his hasn’t turned into clear […]
A family shopping for college today knows more about the cost of a mortgage than the real price of a college degree. That confusion isn’t only a technical problem inside financial aid offices. It’s a public trust problem for higher education. This problem isn’t new. In 1998, the National Commission on the Cost of Higher […]
When Joel Francik became principal of Central Elementary School in 2019, all of his prior education experience had been in middle school — first as a teacher, then as an assistant principal. He wanted the job, he said, because he thought he could make a bigger difference in students’ lives if he met them earlier […]
As a professor, I recently gave a chatbot a weak student thesis, propped up by evidence that did not support the claim, and asked what it thought. It called the argument sharp, the structure clear and the reasoning strong. My job is to tell a student, kindly, when an argument is not working yet. But […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is planning a dramatic overhaul of Head Start that would gut its quality standards, upending the hallmarks of the early education program for impoverished children, two people familiar with the deliberations said. Head Start, established in the 1960s to help fight poverty, has long been considered by experts to be […]
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced in-person classroom instruction to go virtual, students suddenly needed to have their own laptops or tablets in order to interact with teachers and complete assignments. Most states used federal pandemic funding to address the digital divide. This refers to the gap between students and families who had their own tablets, […]
Money will start flowing in January for the new federal scholarship tax credit program. Per the law, taxpayers will be able to direct $1,700 of their annual federal taxes to fund scholarships for students. Since public school students are eligible, Edunomics Lab outlined a way that districts could tap real money — we estimate $1,000 […]
As book bans surge nationwide, Jan Lacina — professor at Texas Christian University and associate editor of the Early Childhood Education Journal — explores the benefits of diverse children’s literature in her new textbook for educators, “Children’s Literature to Read Our World.” The research-grounded guide aims to help teachers intentionally select books for their students, […]
This article was co-published with FastCompany. NEWNAN, Ga. — Arnco-Sargent Elementary sits in a wooded area on a two-lane road about 50 miles south of Atlanta. Across the street is a child care center. A Baptist church is less than a mile away. But if developers get their way, the school’s newest neighbor could be […]
CHICAGO — A bipartisan group of state lawmakers is calling for an overhaul of the nation’s childcare system, which they say is failing children, parents and providers. The group of 13 Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who have spent the last year studying childcare access and affordability problems, offered an array of policy recommendations during the […]
A major and final piece of West Virginia lawmakers’ 2023 hallmark education legislation goes into effect this school year when schools are required to retain third graders whose reading and math abilities aren’t at grade level. Lawmakers carved out some exceptions for students with disabilities and other young learners. The robust education bill, known as […]
Short of dropping a dead weight copy of the state Education Code on your foot, a State Board of Education agenda item on the California School Dashboard normally wouldn’t evoke tears. But Jessica Sawko’s tears earlier this month were spontaneous and heartfelt during her one-minute testimony before the State Board of Education. They expressed joy […]
In the Pilsen neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, there’s a mural of my grandfather selling ice cream. My dad worked construction and sold ice cream too, and he and my mom both spent years working in factories. The mural is a tangible reminder of where I came from and how far my family has traveled […]
Anthropic recently rolled out its Claude for Teachers tool, making a free version of Claude with advanced technical capacities available to any K-12 U.S. educator who applies to the company using a school email address and asserts that CfT will be used for educational purposes. The tool has many features that will make it appealing […]
A Louisiana teacher is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his constitutional challenge to a state law that requires the Ten Commandments to be posted in K-12 and college classrooms. The posters began going up in classrooms this summer, following the approval of a 2024 law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in […]