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.
In a three-hour hearing Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the influential scientist who led the national response to COVID, refused to respond to questions about his role in school closures and the mask and social distancing guidelines that experts say have drastically set back students’ learning. Subpoenaed by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the Republican chair […]
Pencils are more expensive. So are notebooks, scissors, glue sticks — just about every back-to-school item that families will load into their literal or virtual carts this summer has gone up in price at a time when American families already feel crushed by rising costs. According to one analysis of the 21 most common school […]
In Carlsbad, N.M., a tiny district in the southeastern corner of the state, nine of its 12 schools have turned teacher assignments upside-down, inviting their best teachers to coach a team of colleagues, model lessons and take direct responsibility for the achievement of every student the team serves. In exchange, each teacher-leader earns substantially more […]
Once upon a time, a knight in shining armor rode his gallant steed into a village where he was met with cheers and celebration. I like to believe that these heroes still exist — I know one named Fluviano. He’s a student in my English language development class. He does not ride atop a gallant […]
A new investment opportunity became available to millions of American babies and children this summer. Trump Accounts, which allow parents and guardians to establish an individual retirement account for children under age 18 who have a valid Social Security number, went live on July 4. Babies born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028 […]
With an eye on the clock, the Gates Foundation refreshed its vision for American schools Wednesday morning, unveiling a set of five-year goals intended to ease students’ transition to college graduation and career success. By 2030, the Foundation pledges to foster higher levels of math achievement; an increase in the number of first-generation college-goers; significantly […]
The conversation about social media and young people has been largely about what to take away. Devices. Screen Time. Push Notifications. Agenda-driven algorithms. It’s time to start talking about what we’re prepared to give them instead, especially as courts begin holding tech companies accountable. With news of Meta’s $17.1 billion settlement with 47 states and […]
Mandated vaccines for school attendance—and a parent’s ability to reject those vaccines— may have been injected into the race for Florida governor. With five months left before he’s term limited out of office, the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis Monday released a proposed regulation that would eliminate a number of vaccines required for public and […]
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Meta has agreed to pay $17 billion and add stronger child-safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram platforms to end a landmark trial over teen social media addiction and settle claims filed by 47 states, state attorneys general announced Wednesday. The settlement resolves a pivotal legal case years in the making that sought to hold […]
Hoping to make sure high school students don’t waste time earning career credentials that won’t help them find jobs, Ohio is slashing the credentials counted towards graduation, axing easy ones that thousands of students earn, but don’t lead anywhere. High schools nationally are increasingly encouraging students, especially those who don’t plan on going to college, […]
Artificial intelligence-based tutoring programs promise something schools have long struggled to provide: personalized instruction for every student at a fraction of the cost of traditional 1-on-1 tutoring. But for that promise to be fulfilled, students have to use the AI tools. New research suggests that may be much harder to achieve than schools assume. In […]
Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that public education lost 50,000 jobs between June and July. The numbers are preliminary and don’t show which types of jobs were lost. They are also small in percentage terms (a decline of 0.6%). Still, they potentially mark the end of the post-pandemic surge in school […]
Words like “failure” and “hardship” probably aren’t the first that come to mind in describing the legacy of the United States’ first president, George Washington. While Washington is generally viewed through a lens of strength in leading the colonies through the American Revolution 250 years ago, a new movie aims to deepen the nation’s understanding […]
Nearly 79% of students who used Iowa’s funding program for K-12 private schools were “already projected” to attend private schools, according to a report released Wednesday by Iowa Auditor Rob Sand. Iowa Department of Education called the report a “policy advocacy brief” that critiqued statutory provisions of the Iowa Education Savings Account (ESA) program. Iowa’s […]
With Alberto Carvalho’s resignation now official, Los Angeles Unified faces a new challenge: finding a superintendent to lead the nation’s second-largest school district through mounting budget deficits, declining enrollment and political uncertainty. Acting Superintendent Andrés Chait will continue leading the district in the interim, but board members have not yet outlined a timeline or process […]
Connecticut has long had among the most burdensome charter approval processes in the country, requiring both State Board of Education authorization and a separate legislative appropriation just to open a school. Although Connecticut’s charter school sector has produced strong academic results, per-pupil funding has not increased in years, and the pipeline for new charter schools […]
Last year, Indian River County tied for the highest scores in third grade reading across all Florida districts. It came in seventh for English language arts learning gains and tied for the top spot for growth rates for its lowest-performing students. Even more impressively, low-income third graders at Indian River schools scored better than the […]
MARIETTA, Ga. — In his first public school visit since taking office last year, President Donald Trump stopped at an Atlanta-area high school Wednesday to promote his administration’s effort to kickstart savings accounts for the nation’s children. For decades, he said, Washington politicians gave young people “nothing but debt,” he said. “The government is finally […]
BILOXI, Miss. — When nine young adults tossed their mortarboards into the air at the Little Biloxi Theatre on June 20, it wasn’t their first time graduating from high school. After an emotional celebration that honored the transgender and LGBTQ+ students’ resilience, it became their first graduation without gender-based dress codes or stipulations on how […]
When Child Protective Services and a police officer showed up at the home of former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, he assumed, as many people do, that this was an abuse of an otherwise well-meaning and well-functioning system. But what happened to Buttigieg’s family is not an anomaly. Every day, parents and children torn apart […]
In April, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that the 50 states and Washington, D.C., took in $1 trillion in federal, state and local revenue for K-12 public education in the 2023-24 school year. One. Trillion. Dollars. That’s a remarkable milestone. And while it doesn’t tell the whole story — it represents only revenues, […]
This March, Mary Ellen Lykins, a director of 10 Head Start centers serving around 200 kids in northwest Washington, submitted a seemingly simple application to the federal government: She wanted to convert one of her partial-day preschool classrooms into a full-day program, extending the hours to better support the families she serves. Under the existing […]
As superintendent of Desert Sands Unified in California’s Coachella Valley, Kelly May-Vollmer has a hard time naming a system that’s not somehow connected to the district’s broadband network. Parents can check a school bus tracking app to make sure their child arrived on time. Cafeteria staff don’t use cash registers; kids’ meal accounts are linked […]
New York State is betting big on Portrait of a Graduate. It could transform how schools think about student success — or become one of the most well-intentioned failures in recent education policy. Last summer, the state formally adopted its Portrait framework, committing to a new vision of what it means to earn a diploma […]
This summer, I ran a one-week artificial intelligence pilot at the Chicago headquarters of Forging Opportunities for Refugees in America, a nonprofit dedicated to helping refugees succeed in school. Most of the students were still building their literacy skills, and several of the 22 newcomers, ranging in age from 11 to 17, had arrived from […]
Indiana has more than 500 job openings for medical assistants, but training for the job isn’t cheap — between $1,500 and $4,000 at lower-cost schools, such as Indiana’s Ivy Tech Community College. The reduced $1,500 tuition for low-income people the college offers is still a challenge for students trying to bootstrap their way to an […]
Anthropic, one of the world’s most prominent artificial intelligence companies, is launching a version of its AI-powered assistant Claude for teachers, entering a race by technology companies to infuse AI into education. Anthropic boasts that its product can incorporate academic standards from all 50 states, and teachers can use it to help devise lesson plans, […]
Family preferences on childcare arrangements vary, sometimes wildly, but many parents consistently report a desire to be able to care for their young children themselves and for trusted family, friends and neighbors to be able to do so. Childcare policy, though, has historically been designed without fully accounting for what families actually say they want. […]
Indiana K-12 schools must meet new standards before seeking approval to implement a four-day school week. The model, once favored by rural schools due to a shortage of bus drivers, is spreading nationwide to urban and suburban districts seeking to recruit teachers and students by extending the school day, so students and staff can take […]
Picture a second grader who is struggling to read at a school trying hard to fix that. He gets his regular classroom lessons, is pulled out for intervention during the day and works with a tutor. On paper, he is a child surrounded by support. But here’s what it feels like from his seat. In […]
I run into a former student of mine, outside of school. “How are you, miss?” he asks. I respond in our native tongue, “Muy bien, ¿y tú?” We chat briefly about students from our class, and I ask about Camila — a silly ninth grader who always brightened our days. “Hay … la deportaron, miss,” […]
Jaleel is attending his first day of classes this month at a middle school opening its doors for the first time that specializes in air traffic control, commercial drones and engineering. His parents decided not to send him to the majority-Black, F-rated campus closer to their home in Fort Bend ISD. Still, they fear their […]
Countless times over the last few years, district leaders have reached out to my organization with a problem: They rolled out a new evidence-based curriculum and trained all their teachers, but many didn’t use it properly — or at all — and the school saw only pockets of success. Talking through what happened, they inevitably […]
Three years ago, a handful of Maine school districts struggling with student mental health needs applied for a federal grant to help them hire school counselors and social workers. The grant applications included a commitment to hiring staff that represented their particular community and understood its needs. The grant — part of the Bipartisan Safer […]
Nearly 25 years ago, I walked into the U.S. Department of Education at what felt like a remarkable moment in the history of reading instruction. The National Reading Panel had just been released, and for the first time in my professional life, there was broad agreement that educational policy should be grounded in scientific evidence. […]
On the brink of looming insolvency, Los Angeles Unified could have prevented its financial crisis by leaving vacated positions empty, making thousands of district employee layoffs unavoidable to address a $3.6 billion deficit, a top state fiscal watchdog said. “They’re overstaffed significantly,” said Michel Fine, CEO of California’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team of […]
About two-dozen Hoosier childcare providers and advocates overwhelmingly opposed looser statewide staff educational requirements during a Monday public hearing. “This is a profession. This is not just a babysitting job,” said Hanna Wetzel, the director of the Children’s Learning Center of Posey County. She spoke to representatives of the Family and Social Services Administration, the […]
Religious schools accepting public funds are required to follow Maine laws that protect against discrimination based on faith, gender identity and sexual orientation, a federal court has ruled. Crosspoint Church, which runs Bangor Christian Schools, and St. Dominic Academy in Auburn filed separate appeals in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit […]
Local technology companies may have solved some of their biggest problems after hearing from North Carolina high school students during the annual Teamship Showcase in Durham on June 25. Teamship is an internship experience through the College Board where students are paired in groups to solve real-world problems for the businesses they are assigned to. […]
I have been a high school teacher for almost three decades, spending almost all that time teaching seniors about American civics. My teaching tenure has overlapped with the rise of the very trends now engulfing our educational system: I have watched my students embrace smartphones, social media, online learning and now artificial intelligence. But recently […]
The science of reading has largely won the policy debate. Over the last decade, state after state has embraced evidence-based reading instruction. Legislatures have passed literacy laws, and teacher preparation programs are (slowly) shifting their coursework. Those changes are paying off: According to national data from the DIBELS early reading screener, 30% of second graders […]
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) said Thursday the state would provide an $800 credit and expedited admission processing for any of the hundreds of incoming Howard University freshmen who were abruptly told last week that they no longer had a place at the school. The governor said in a statement that he directed the Maryland […]
Artificial Intelligence will soon help teachers rate students’ academic and “soft” skills at schools using nontraditional report cards that skip A-F grading after an AI company purchased the non-profit Mastery Transcript Consortium last month. The New York-based company Legend.org is developing AI tools to give teachers and students immediate feedback on papers, exams, recorded presentations […]
Roughly 2,000 families received offers for a spot in the inaugural year of 2-K, New York City’s new free childcare program for 2-year-olds, officials announced Tuesday. Around 5,700 families applied for the initial 2,000 seats, which were restricted to priority neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. “Today represents a monumental step on the […]
A first grader reads an entire page on her own after months of specialized instruction. A middle school student with autism delivers his first classroom presentation. These moments are not medical breakthroughs, they are educational ones. Unfortunately, our history — and too often our present — shows that many students still do not experience classrooms […]
As millions of kids across the country prepare to head back to school — and many have already returned — the national count of measles cases continues to climb, reaching its highest number in 35 years. Utah and South Carolina, which both allow for various exemptions to school-based vaccine mandates, carry most of the disease burden, accounting […]