There are few topics in college access and higher education that inspire as much conviction from opposing sides as standardized tests.

Over the last few years, many people have come to believe that such tests are at the root of education inequity.

Opponents of tests have argued that removing tests from college admissions is the primary way to expand access.

Those beliefs, combined with the banal reality that few people like the tests — whether it’s the students studying for them, the parents paying for test prep or institutions being called out for using them in admissions — have made tests a perfect target.

But tests are not the single source of inequity, their elimination is not the cure and likability is not the criterion upon which the future of American education should rest. While I did not like taking a Covid test or the unmistakably pink line it summoned right before my planned vacation, the test was a meaningful predictor of what was to come, as well as where I had been.

Related: PROOF POINTS: Test-optional policies didn’t do much to diversify college student populations

Today, because many colleges and universities across the country no longer require students to include SAT or ACT scores in their applications, there’s a perception among some students that including test scores adds no additional value.

And yet, in the class of 2023, 1.9 million students took the SAT at least once, while 1.4 million took the ACT. Millions of students still take the SAT and ACT and choose to include their scores as one more way to stand out in admissions.

However, fewer students from lower-income backgrounds are taking these tests than in years past. The College Board reported that in 2022 only 22 percent of test-takers were from families earning less than $67,084 annually — a steep decline from 43 percent six years earlier. In contrast, from 2016 to 2022, the percentage of test-takers from wealthy households grew slightly or stayed about the same.

A clear pattern has emerged in which two groups — one wealthy and one not — have responded to test-optional policies in disparate ways. The middle and upper class opt in, and the others opt out. Publicly available information from various colleges compiled by Compass Education Group shows that students who submit scores have a higher rate of acceptance than those who don’t.

If these tests supposedly no longer matter, why are privileged students using them as a competitive advantage — while underrepresented students opt out?

We now have evidence that standardized tests in fact may help — not hurt — students from low-income families and underrepresented minority groups get into and persist in college. The latest research shows that not only are test scores as predictive or even more predictive than high school grades of college performance, they are also strong predictors of post-college outcomes.

Therefore, earning and reporting high test scores should boost acceptance odds for students from under-resourced high schools and communities, since admissions officers seek data that indicates a student can keep up with the academic rigor at their institutions. Reporting higher scores can be the difference between attending a two- or a four-year college, where chances of persistence and graduation are exponentially higher.

Furthermore, for thousands of high-schoolers, these tests are not optional — and this has nothing to do with the admission policies of colleges and universities.

Many states and school districts in the U.S. use the SAT and ACT tests as part of their high school graduation requirements, accountability and evaluation systems.

These states and systems rely on the tests because they are a standardized way to tell whether students across a variety of districts — rich, poor; big, small; urban, rural — are ready for postsecondary success.

Many educators believe that standardized tests flatten such variables by placing everyone on the same scale — that they are, in fact, more equitable than the alternatives.

Yes, there are score gaps by race and class. However, standardized tests did not cause these realities — the unfairness associated with them is symptomatic of the broader inequalities that permeate education and all aspects of our society.

Related: OPINION: The charade of ‘test-optional’ admissions

The SAT and ACT measure a student’s mastery of fundamentals, including the English and math skills they should be learning in K-12. The unfairness lies in the fact that wealthier students often attend better schools and can afford to pay for extracurricular test preparation, which reinforces their schoolwork and often comes with valuable counseling. In doing so, they increase their confidence as well their motivation. All these things also help prepare students for life, not simply a test.

Rather than target our rage at tests that consistently deliver bad news, let’s focus our energies on preparing all students to do well on these tests so that they know that college is within their reach, and they are prepared to succeed when they get there.

We must embed test preparation in the school day for all students, not just a select few, all across America. We should work with teachers to ensure they are prepared to deliver high-quality instruction that reinforces what students learn in class and enables them to achieve scores that will unlock a myriad of opportunities.

There are models for this. Advanced Placement classes, for example, prepare students for tests that specifically help them become more competitive in admissions and earn college credit, allowing them to save time and money in college. (Unsurprisingly and unfortunately, this advantage, too, is often unavailable in many under-resourced schools and districts.) We can and should create a similar but more equitable model for college entrance exams.

As we begin 2024, let’s adopt a fresh and nuanced perspective on standardized tests so that all students can use them to their advantage — to be prepared for and succeed on the tests and, ultimately, in college and beyond.

Yoon S. Choi is CEO of CollegeSpring, a national nonprofit that provides in-school test preparation to districts in high-poverty neighborhoods, working with and through teachers to ensure they can deliver high-quality instruction that prepares students for standardized tests.

This story about standardized tests was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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Millions of families may now face a lack of child care following the recent expiration of pandemic-era federal funding.

The child care “stabilization” funds included in the American Rescue Plan Act were just that — emergency funding to stabilize the sector amid a pandemic.

As vital as that funding was, it was insufficient to address the many systemic problems impacting early childhood education and its workforce, including inequitable wages.

Wages for early childhood workers already lag far behind those of their K-8 colleagues who have similar credentials. These workers, disproportionately Black, Latina and indigenous, face poverty rates an average of 7.7 times higher than other teachers.

This financial condition perpetuates economic inequality and reflects systemic racism, with early childhood education programs continuing to be subsidized through the long hours that Black, Latina and indigenous women work for unjust wages and limited benefits.

Related: Early education coalition searches for answers to raise teacher pay, even as budgets are cratering

This inequity and the end of the crucial pandemic-era federal lifeline for early childhood educators will negatively impact families and workers, The Century Foundation estimates. Some 70,000 child care programs are likely to close; millions of families will struggle to get access to child care; 232,000 jobs could soon be lost; and states will lose $10.6 billion in tax and business revenue every year.

There is one bright note: State and local governments are offering models of innovation and glimmers of hope in the face of such a dire challenge.

In late 2022, New Mexico became the first state in the nation to create a permanent child care fund, making child care free or affordable for many families and increasing early educator wages.

State and local governments are offering models of innovation and glimmers of hope.

Washington, D.C., recently established the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund, which aims to achieve pay parity between early childhood educators and their K-12 counterparts. Since 2022, almost $70 million has been distributed to nearly 3,000 early childhood educators. The district is also expanding health insurance for early childhood educators.

In Louisiana, a coalition of state and local government partners is working with a nonprofit to test the impact of projects that increase child care workers’ wages in key communities; if positive, they intend to scale the programs across the state.

Minnesota last year signed into law the Great Start Compensation Support Payment Program to fill the gap following the ending of the federal child care stabilization grants. The program will provide $316 million this fiscal year, and $260 million every two years ongoing, to directly increase child care workers’ pay.

These solutions are critical, because it is our nation’s youngest students who will ultimately suffer the consequences of high teacher turnover and an unstable learning environment at a key time in their development.

Early childhood education directly impacts their future learning outcomes and lifelong success; it deserves our attention and investment.

Building on these efforts, the Early Educator Investment Collaborative — a group of funders that has come together to accelerate progress in the early childhood education profession — recently announced grants for state and local partnerships in Colorado, Louisiana and Washington, D.C.

These grants will bolster innovative approaches to increasing early childhood education workforce pay, including the creation of dedicated revenue streams and pilot demonstration projects to evaluate the impacts of salary increases.

They will also promote greater collaboration between agencies to improve workforce compensation — aimed at increasing the capacity of financial and data systems to support long-term wage and benefits increases.

Related: OPINION: School district leaders must make early education a priority, so children enter school prepared

I’m excited for the solutions these grants will amplify and hope they can provide useful models and encouragement for other states to explore ways to better compensate early childhood educators.

But we also need state and federal legislators to step up for their constituents on this issue. It’s critical for legislators to reflect the majority of voters’ interest in early childhood education reform by increasing investment, enacting legislation to boost compensation and advocating for broader support of early childhood educators.

Philanthropy also has a big role to play. By supporting governments with the funding needed to explore unique solutions, philanthropic organizations can help find what works, scale successful models and support sustainable change.

Along with boosting the rallying cry for increased federal investment in early childhood education and its workers, this moment is an opportunity for states, communities and philanthropists to find truly long-term solutions to fully support early childhood education workers and the families they serve.

Ola J. Friday is the director of the Early Educator Investment Collaborative.

This story about early childhood educator pay was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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When I made the challenging, life-altering decision in April 2023 of where to pursue my Ph.D., the University of Texas at Austin seemed like the best fit.

As an underrepresented student, I felt assured by the school’s diverse faculty and student population, along with their embrace of a robust diversity, equity and inclusion mission, and looked forward to continuing my research on improving the quality of mental health care for all families.

Then came Texas Senate Bill 17, which became law on January 1, making it illegal to have DEI offices and programming in public universities. This bill also outlaws mandatory diversity training and does not allow departments to ask prospective faculty about their commitment to building diverse campuses.Texas is not the only state to pass such a bill.

Legislation that bans many DEI initiatives in our universities is already having a significant chilling effect on students like me, creating concerns over the potential impact on the quality of our education and raising questions regarding whether Texas even wants us.

Had the Texas bill passed before my decision to attend UT Austin, I would most likely not have chosen to come here. For me, as a new resident of Texas and a first-year Ph.D. student planning to learn, teach and research for the next four to five years, this bill, now law, creates a hostile environment.

Given that top-ranked programs fight for the most qualified applicants, states that adopt these policies have to realize that they will discourage top diverse talent from attending their schools.

Related: Beyond the Rankings: The College Welcome Guide

Some educational leaders and policymakers argue that institutions will remain true to their values of welcoming diverse ideas and people — despite the bills and their policies.

I disagree. As a first-generation Mexican immigrant in this country, I believe that establishing structural and transparent mechanisms that offer support and keep schools accountable are the keys to creating and preserving spaces of genuine belonging for students and faculty from diverse backgrounds.

I align most with the view expressed in UT Austin’s Change Starts Here strategic plan: Tangible benefits for students and the greater community cannot be accomplished without “creating processes and policies that cultivate a diverse, equitable, and inclusive campus.”

My abuelita taught me that “mas hace una hormiga andando que un buey echado” (“an ant on the move does more than a dozing ox”).

During my post-master’s work at the Yale Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine, I vividly remember navigating a difficult situation with the support of the chief diversity officer.

While no institution has it all figured out, that experience allowed me to appreciate the tangible benefits of having DEI structures in place.

Lawmakers, university presidents, deans and all those who decide on and carry out educational policies should understand that students like me are no longer settling for simply being allowed into higher education institutions. We now demand what we all deserve: structures and mechanisms that support our educational growth.

Related: STUDENT VOICE: Poor and first-generation transfer students often don’t feel welcome on college campuses

While many academics may genuinely hold values that align with diversity, equity and inclusion, fear of the retaliation empowered by legislation like Senate Bill 17 (e.g., losing their campus positions, department appointments, etc.), and a sense of powerlessness, may override those values.

But my Abuelita taught me that “mas hace una hormiga andando que un buey echado” (“an ant on the move does more than a dozing ox”).

This expression, or “dicho,”reminds me that while I may be no more than a tiny ant compared to massive systems, I can still act. Additionally, coming from a multigenerational migrant farmworker family taught me the importance of planting seeds.

That is why I am confident that if enough of us collectively call for additions to DEI efforts (e.g., expanding DEI offices and resources), we can help reverse the backlash against DEI.

During this liminal period, as we decide if we will move forward or backward as it pertains to DEI, we must remember the new message introduced by the University of Texas at Austin: “What starts here changes the world.”

We need decision-makers to plant seeds that bear fruit to nurture all community members and have roots strong enough to break the concrete foundations of inequitable systems.

Hector Chaidez Ruacho is a doctoral student at The University of Texas at Austin Steve Hicks School of Social Work and a recipient of the Graduate School Recruitment Fellowship and Graduate School Mentoring Fellowship.

This story about DEI and universities was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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CONCORD, Calif. – Aylah Levy had some catching up to do this fall when she started first grade.

After spending her kindergarten year at an alternative program that met exclusively outdoors, Aylah, 6, had to adjust to being inside a classroom. She knew only a handful of numbers and was not printing her letters clearly. To help her along, the teacher at her Bay Area elementary school has been showing her the right way to hold a pencil.

“It’s harder. Way, way harder,” Aylah said of the new grip.

Still, her mother, Hannah Levy, says it was the right decision to skip kindergarten. She wanted Aylah to enjoy being a kid. There is plenty of time, she reasoned, for her daughter to develop study skills.

The number of kindergartners in public school plunged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Concerned about the virus or wanting to avoid online school, hundreds of thousands of families delayed the start of school for their young children. Most have returned to schooling of some kind, but even three years after the pandemic school closures, kindergarten enrollment has continued to lag.

Some parents like Levy don’t see much value in traditional kindergarten. For others, it’s a matter of keeping children in other child care arrangements that better fit their lifestyles. And for many, kindergarten simply is no longer the assumed first step in a child’s formal education, another sign of the way the pandemic and online learning upended the U.S. school system. 

Kindergarten enrollment remained down 5.2 percent in the 2022-2023 school year compared with the 2019-2020 school year, according to an Associated Press analysis of state-level data. Public school enrollment across all grades fell 2.2 percent. 

Kindergarten is considered a crucial year for children to learn to follow directions, regulate behavior and get accustomed to learning. Missing that year of school can put kids at a disadvantage, especially those from low-income families and families whose first language is not English, said Deborah Stipek, a former dean of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. Those children are sometimes behind in recognizing letters and counting to 10 even before starting school, she said.

But to some parents, that foundation seems less urgent post-pandemic. For many, kindergarten just doesn’t seem to work for their lives.

Related: We know how to help young kids cope with the trauma of the last year – but will we do it?

Students who disengaged during the pandemic school closures have been making their way back to schools. But kindergarten enrollment remained down 5.2 percent in the 2022-2023 school year compared with the 2019-2020 school year, according to an Associated Press analysis of state-level data. Public school enrollment across all grades fell 2.2 percent. 

Kindergarten means a seismic change in some families’ lifestyles. After years of all-day child care, they suddenly must manage afternoon pickups with limited and expensive options for after-school care. Some worry their child isn’t ready for the structure and behavioral expectations of a public school classroom. And many think whatever their child misses at school can be quickly learned in first grade. 

Christina Engram was set to send her daughter Nevaeh to kindergarten this fall at her neighborhood school in Oakland, until she learned her daughter would not have a spot in the after-school program there. That meant she would need to be picked up at 2:30 most afternoons.

“If I put her in public school, I would have to cut my hours, and I basically wouldn’t have a good income for me and my kids,” said Engram, a preschool teacher and a mother of two. 

Engram decided to keep Nevaeh in a child care center for another year. Engram receives a state child care subsidy that helps her pay for full-time child care or preschool until her child is 6 and must enroll in first grade.

“If I put her in public school, I would have to cut my hours, and I basically wouldn’t have a good income for me and my kids.”

Christina Engram, a preschool teacher and a mother of two

Compared with kindergarten, she believed her daughter would be more likely to receive extra attention at the child care center, which has more adult staff per child. 

“She knows her numbers. She knows her ABC’s. She knows how to spell her name,” Engram said. “But when she feels frustrated that she can’t do something, her frustration overtakes her. She needs extra attention and care. She has some shyness about her when she thinks she’s going to give the wrong answer.”

Related: Luring Covid-cautious parents back to school

In California, where kindergarten is not mandatory, enrollment for that grade fell 10.1 percent from the 2019-20 to 2021-22 school year. Enrollment seemed to rebound in the next school year, growing by over 5 percent in fall 2022, but that may have been inflated by the state’s expansion of transitional kindergarten — a grade before kindergarten that is available to older 4-year-olds. The state Department of Education has not disclosed how many children last school year were regular kindergartners as opposed to transitional students. 

Many would-be kindergartners are among the tens of thousands of families that have turned to homeschooling.

Some parents say they came to homeschooling almost accidentally. Convinced their family wasn’t ready for “school,” they kept their 5-year-old home, then found they needed more structure. They purchased some activities or a curriculum — and homeschooling stuck.

Others chose homeschooling for kindergartners after watching older children in traditional school. Jenny Almazan is homeschooling Ezra, 6, after pulling his sister Emma, 9, from a school in Chino, California. 

“She would rush home from school, eat dinner, do an hour or two of schoolwork, shower and go to bed. She wasn’t given time to be a kid,” Almazan said. Almazan also worried about school shootings and pressures her kids might face at school to act or dress a certain way.

To make it all work, Almazan quit her job as a preschool teacher. Most days, the children’s learning happens outside of the home, when they are playing at the park, visiting museums or even doing math while grocery shopping.

“She would rush home from school, eat dinner, do an hour or two of schoolwork, shower and go to bed. She wasn’t given time to be a kid.”

Jenny Almazan, who is homeschooling Ezra, 6, after pulling his sister Emma, 9, from a school in Chino, California

“My kids are not missing anything by not being in public school,” she said. “Every child has different needs. I’m not saying public school is bad. It’s not. But for us, this fits.”

Kindergarten is important for all children, but especially those who do not attend preschool or who haven’t had much exposure to math, reading and other subjects, said Steve Barnett, co-director for the National Institute for Early Education Research and a professor at Rutgers University.

“The question actually is: If you didn’t go to kindergarten, what did you do instead?” he said.

Related: Millions of kids are missing weeks of school as attendance tanks across the US

Hannah Levy chose the Berkeley Forest School to start her daughter’s education, in part because she valued how teachers infused subjects like science with lessons on nature. She pictured traditional kindergarten as a place where children sit inside at desks, do worksheets and have few play-based experiences.

“I learned about nature. We learned in a different way,” daughter Aylah said.

But the appeal of a suburban school system had brought the family from San Francisco, and when it came time for first grade, Aylah enrolled at Cornell Elementary in Albany.

Early this fall, Levy recalled Aylah coming home with a project where every first grader had a page in a book to write about who they were. Some pages had only scribbles and others had legible print. She said Aylah fell somewhere in the middle.

“It was interesting to me because it was the moment I thought, ‘What would it be like if she was in kindergarten?’” she said.

In a conference with Levy, Aylah’s teacher said she was working with the girl on her writing, but there were no other concerns. “She said anything Aylah was behind on, she has caught up to the point that she would never differentiate that Aylah didn’t go to Cornell for kindergarten as well,” Levy said.

Levy said she feels good about Aylah’s attitude toward school, though she misses knowing she was outside interacting with nature.

So does Aylah.

“I miss my friends and being outside,” she said. “I also miss my favorite teacher.”

Lurye reported from New Orleans and Stavely reported from Oakland. Daniel J. Willis of EdSource contributed from Concord.

This article was produced by The Associated Press and. EdSource is a nonprofit newsroom based in California that covers equity in education with in-depth analysis and data-driven journalism.

The Associated Press receives support from the Overdeck Family Foundation for reporting focused on early learning. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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OWENTON, Ky. — During a school-wide club fair in this northern Kentucky town, a school administrator stood watch as students signed up for a group for LGBTQ+ students and their allies.

After the club sign-up sheet had been posted, students wrote derogatory terms and mockingly signed up classmates, according to one of the club’s founders. The group eventually went to the administrator, who agreed to help.

Simply being able to post the sign-up sheet in school was a victory of sorts. For two years, the club, known as PRISM (People Respecting Individuality and Sexuality Meeting), gathered in the town’s public library, because its dozen members couldn’t find a faculty adviser to sponsor it. In fall 2022, after two teachers finally signed on, the group received permission to start the club on campus.

Much of that happened because of one parent, Rachelle Ketron. Ketron’s daughter Meryl Ketron, who was trans and an outspoken member of the LGBTQ+ community in her small town, had talked about wanting to start a Gay-Straight Alliance when she got to high school. But in April 2020, during her freshman year, Meryl died by suicide after facing years of harassment over her identity. 

Following Meryl’s death, Ketron decided to continue her daughter’s advocacy. She gathered Meryl’s friends and talked about what it might mean to start a Gay-Straight Alliance, a student-run group that could serve as a safe space for queer youth on campus. After trying, and failing, to get the school to sign off on the idea, the group decided to gather monthly at the public library, where its members discussed mental health, sex education and experiences of being queer in rural areas. Ketron, a coordinator of development at a community mental health center just across the border in Indiana, also founded doit4Meryl, a nonprofit that advocates for mental health education and suicide prevention, specifically for LGBTQ+ youth in rural communities like hers.

Around the country, LGBTQ+ students and the campus groups founded to support them have become a growing target in the culture wars. In 2023 alone, 542 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced by state legislatures or in Congress, according to an LGBTQ-legislation tracker, with many of them focused on young people. Supporters of the bills say schools inappropriately expose students to discussions about gender identity and sexuality, and parents deserve greater control over what their kids are taught. Critics say the laws are endangering already vulnerable students. 

Kentucky’s law, passed in March, is one of the nation’s most sweeping anti-LGBTQ+ laws, prohibiting school districts from compelling teachers to address trans students by their pronouns and banning transgender students from using school bathrooms or changing rooms that match their gender identity. The law also limits instruction on and discussion of human sexuality and gender identity in schools. A separate section of the law bans gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth in the state.

“What started out as really a bill focused on pronouns and bathroom use morphed into this very broad anti-LGBTQIA+ piece of legislation that outlawed discussions of gender and sexuality, through all grades, and all subject matters,” said Jason Glass, the former Kentucky commissioner of education. Glass left the state in September to take a job in higher education in Michigan after his support for LGBTQ+ students drew fire from Republican politicians in Kentucky, including some who called for his ouster.

Related: In the wake of ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ LGBTQ students won’t be silenced 

Because the law’s language is sometimes ambiguous, it’s up to individual districts to interpret it, Glass said. Some have adopted more restrictive policies that advocates say risk forcing GSAs, also known as Gender and Sexuality Alliances or Gay-Straight Alliances, to change their names or shut down, and led to book bans and the cancellation of lessons over concerns that they discuss gender or sexuality. Others have interpreted the law more liberally and continue to offer services and accommodations to transgender or nonbinary students, if parents approve.

Across the country, the number of GSAs is at a 20-year low, according to GLSEN, an LGBTQ+ education advocacy nonprofit. GLSEN researchers say there may be two somewhat contradictory forces at work. Fewer students may feel the need for such clubs, thanks to school curricula and textbooks that have become more inclusive of LGBTQ+ individuals and thanks to an increase in the number of school policies that explicitly prohibit anti-gay bullying. Conversely, the recent surge in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, as well as the halt to extracurricular activities during the pandemic, may also be fueling the drop, the researchers said.

Willie Carver, a former high school teacher and Kentucky’s Teacher of the Year in 2022, left teaching this year because of threats he faced as an openly gay man. Laws like the one in Kentucky legitimize and legalize harassment against LGBTQ+ kids, he said, and may even encourage it. “We’ve ripped all of the school support away from the students, so they’re consistently miserable and hopeless,” he said.

Owenton is a picturesque farming community with rolling green hills and winding roads located halfway between Cincinnati and Louisville. Its population of about 1,682 is predominantly white and politically conservative: The surrounding county has voted overwhelmingly Republican in every presidential election since 2000.

Ketron moved here from Cincinnati in 2014 with her then-husband, seeking to live on a farm within driving distance of large cities. Shortly after the move, she recalled, a city official visited the property to give Ketron a rundown of expectations in the community — and a warning.

“It was basically ‘You better watch what you do and don’t get on the bad side of people because one person might be the only person that does that job in this whole county.’ Do you understand what I mean?’ ‘Yup,’” Ketron recalled saying, “‘I understand what you mean.’”

A few years later, she met her now-wife, Marsha Newell, and the two began raising their blended family of eight children on the farm. They also started fostering LGBTQ+ kids. Ketron said her family is one the few in the county to accept queer kids. Their children were often met with hostility, Ketron said; other students made fun of them for having two moms and told them that Ketron and her wife were sinners who were “going to hell.”

Ketron said the couple thought about moving, but beyond the financial and logistical obstacles, she worried about abandoning LGBTQ+ young people in the town. “Just because I’m uncomfortable or this is a foreign place for a queer kid to be doesn’t mean there aren’t queer kids born here every day,” she said.

Related: Inside Florida’s ‘underground lab’ for far-right education policies

After Meryl came out to family and friends in fifth grade, the bullying at school intensified, Ketron and Gwenn, Meryl’s younger sister, recalled. Few adults in Meryl’s schools took action to stop it, they said. When Meryl complained, school staff didn’t take her seriously and told her to “toughen up and move on,” Ketron said. (In an email, the high school’s new principal, Renee Boots, wrote that administrators did not receive reports of bullying from Meryl. Ketron said by the time Meryl reached high school, she’d given up on reporting such incidents.)

That said, as she got older, Meryl became more outspoken. As a ninth grader, in 2019, she clashed with students who wanted to fly the Confederate flag at school; Meryl and her friends wanted to fly a rainbow flag. The school decided to ban both flags, Ketron said. After that, Meryl brought small rainbow flags and placed them around campus. (According to Boots, students were wearing various flags as “capes” and were advised not to do so as it was against school dress code.)

Ketron said she generally supported her daughter’s advocacy, but sometimes wished she’d take a less combative approach. “You might need to dial it back a little bit,” Ketron recalled telling Meryl once, when her daughter was in eighth grade.

Ketron recalled seeing Meryl’s disappointment; she said it was the only time she felt that she let her daughter down.

For years, the most effective wedge issue between conservatives and progressives was marriage equality. But when the Supreme Court in 2015 recognized the legal right of same-sex couples to marry, opponents of gay rights pivoted to focus on trans individuals, particularly trans youth. After early success with legislation banning trans kids from playing sports, conservative legislators began to expand their efforts to other school policies pertaining to LGBTQ+ youth.

The ripple effects of these laws on young people are becoming more apparent, said Michael Rady, senior education programs manager for GLSEN. Forty-one percent of LGBTQ youth have seriously considered suicide in the past year, according to a 2023 survey by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ+ suicide prevention nonprofit. Nearly 2 in 3 LGBTQ+ youth said that learning about potential legislation banning discussions of LGBTQ+ people in schools negatively affected their mental health.

Konrad Bresin, an assistant professor in the department of psychology and brain sciences at the University of Louisville whose research focuses on LGBTQ+ mental health, said that for LGBTQ+ individuals just seeing advertising that promotes legislation against them has negative effects. “Even if something doesn’t pass, but there’s a big public debate about it, that is kind of increasing the day-to-day stress that people are experiencing,” he said.

Bresin said that student participation in GSAs can help blunt the effect of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, since the clubs provide students a sense of belonging.

Supporters of Kentucky’s new law argue that the legislation creates necessary guardrails to protect students. Martin Cothran, spokesperson for The Family Foundation, the Kentucky-based conservative policy organization that advocated for the legislation, said the law is designed to keep students from being exposed to “gender ideology.”

Cothran said that nothing in the law impedes student speech, nor does it entirely prohibit traditional sex education. “It just says that you can’t indoctrinate,” he said. “Schools are for learning, not indoctrination.”

Related: College wars on campus start to affect students’ choices of college

When the law, known as SB 150, went into effect last spring, Glass, the former education commissioner, said school districts were forced to scramble to update their curricula to comply with the bill’s restrictions. In some cases, that meant removing any information on sexuality or sexual maturation from elementary school health curricula, and also revising health, psychology and certain A.P. courses in middle school and high school, he said.

Some families have sued. In September, four Lexington families with trans or nonbinary kids filed a lawsuit against the Fayette County Board of Education and the state’s Republican attorney general, Daniel Cameron, alleging that SB 150’s education provisions violate students’ educational, privacy and free speech rights under state and federal law. The families say that since the law passed, their kids have been intentionally misgendered or outed, barred access to bathrooms that match their gender identity and had their privacy disregarded when school staff accessed their birth certificates in order to enforce the law’s provisions.

School districts that don’t comply fully with the law could face discipline from the state’s attorney general, said Chris Hartman, executive director of the Fairness Campaign, a Kentucky-based LGBTQ+ advocacy group.

“Teachers who before this were willing to speak out and advocate are, as a general rule, unwilling to speak publicly about what’s happening.”

Willie Carver, Kentucky Teacher of the Year, 2022

Meanwhile, LGBTQ+ and student rights advocates fear that GSAs in the state will close or change their names because of the law. Teachers from across the state have also shared stories about their schools removing pride flags and safe space stickers, banning educators from using trans students’ pronouns and names, and removing access to bathrooms for trans kids, according to Carver, the former Teacher of the Year, who is collecting that information as part of his work with the nonprofit Campaign for Our Shared Future. The law’s broad language has not only affected teaching about gender and sexuality, he said: Educators have complained of schools banning references to the Holocaust in image or film, removing books with LGBTQ+ characters, and nixing discussion of scenes in Shakespeare’s plays because of images that may depict nudity, sex or language that talks about sexuality and gender.

Educators and school staff are fearful, said Carver. “It’s nearly impossible to know what’s happening because the law gets to be interpreted at the local level. So, the district itself gets to decide what the law’s interpretation will look like,” he said. “And teachers who before this were willing to speak out and advocate are, as a general rule, unwilling to speak publicly about what’s happening.”

For supporters of the law, that may be the point. GLSEN’s Rady said the bills are often written in intentionally vague ways to intimidate educators and school district leaders into removing any content that might land them in trouble. This year, his group is focused on providing educators, students and families information about their rights to free speech and expression in schools, including their right to run GSAs, Rady said.

In March 2020, when the pandemic hit and schools went remote, Meryl, then a high school freshman, posted a video diary on social media. In it, she strums her ukulele, and shares a message to her friends. “Some of you guys don’t have social media, some of you guys don’t like being at home,” Meryl said in the video. “I won’t get to see you guys for a whole month which is awful because you guys make me have a 10 times better life, you guys make mountains feel like literally bumps and steep cliffs just feel like a little bit of walking down the stairs.”

The video ends with her saying she’ll see her peers in school on April 30, when schools were scheduled to reopen. On the morning of April 18, Meryl died.

Ketron, Meryl’s mother, had thought remote school would be a relief for her daughter after years of bullying in school buildings. But it was difficult to be separated from her friends, she said, and Meryl also knew some of them were struggling in homes where they did not feel accepted.

“Suicide is never one thing,” Ketron said. “A lot of times people talk about death by a thousand paper cuts. As sad as it sounds, for me to have that come out of my mouth, I feel like that really speaks to Meryl’s life. She had wonderful things, but it was just like thousands of paper cuts.”

For months after Meryl’s death, Ketron would read text messages on Meryl’s phone from her friends sharing stories about how she’d stood up for them in school and in the community. Ketron said she made a promise to herself — and to Meryl — that she was going to be loud like her daughter and “make it better.” In the spring of 2020, she started doit4Meryl.

“I don’t ever want this to happen again, ever, to anyone,” she said. “I never want someone to be in that place and pieces of it that got them there was hate and ignorance from another human being.”

In 2021, the anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-critical race theory book bans movement reached the Owenton community after a teacher in the district taught “The 57 Bus,” a nonfiction book that features a vocabulary guide explaining gender identities and characters who are LGBTQ+.

The book created an uproar in the town, with parents calling for its removal and for the educator to be disciplined. After that, Ketron said the few teachers who had seemed open to sponsoring the GSA no longer felt comfortable.

Related: Teachers, deputized to fight the culture wars, are often reluctant to serve

In mid-2021, Ketron decided to start the club herself, at the public library. Each month, a dozen or so kids gathered in one of the building’s study rooms, talking about what it means to be queer in rural Kentucky, and what they hoped to accomplish through their GSA. Some of them were Meryl’s friends, others were new to Ketron.

In July 2022, the group held a Color Run, a 5K to bring together various advocacy groups from around the county and state to uplift people after the isolation of Covid. Later that year, they invited Carver to speak about his experiences as an openly gay man growing up in rural Kentucky. The students worked with Ketron and doit4Meryl to create a “Be Kind” campaign: They printed signs with phrases like “You’re never alone” and “Don’t give up,” along with information on mental health resources, and placed them in yards around town.

In the fall of 2022, after two teachers agreed to serve as advisors for the GSA, the school principal allowed the club on campus. While Ketron checks in with the students occasionally, the club is now student-led, she said. The past school year would have been Meryl’s senior year, and the club’s students were excited about finally being welcomed onto campus, Ketron said.

Then Kentucky’s 2023 legislative session began with the onslaught of bills targeting LGBTQ+ youth that eventually merged to become SB 150.

Around the same time, tragedy entered Ketron’s life again: She lost one of her foster children, who was trans, to suicide. The loss of her daughters prompted her to spend countless hours in the state capitol, attending committee meetings and hearings and signing up to testify against the anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ bills on the senate floor. She watched, devastated, as legislators quickly voted on and passed SB 150.

“All I could think about was Meryl,” she said. “They’re just starting and this world is supposed to love them through this hard part. When you’re shaping yourself and instead we’re going to tell you that we don’t want you to exist.”

In Owenton, the district follows SB 150 as per law, said Reggie Taylor, superintendent of Owen County Schools. Little has changed as a result of the legislation, he said: “It’s been business as usual.” Trans and nonbinary students have long had a separate bathroom they could use and that hasn’t changed, he said, and the district offers a tip line for students to anonymously report bullying, as well as access to school counselors.

Ketron, though, sees fallout. Fearful of bullying and other harms, she said that she and the other parents with trans kids in the school system are trying to get their children support by applying for help through Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. While 504 plans are typically for students with disabilities, they are sometimes used to help secure LGBTQ+ students services and accommodations, such as protection from bullying, mental health counseling and access to bathrooms that match their gender identity.

SB 150 has also had a chilling effect on the work of the school’s GSA, according to Ketron. During the summer, after the law went into effect, PRISM members discussed changing the club’s name and direction to focus on mental health.

Related: How do we teach Black history in polarized times?

Across the state, students and educators are grappling with what their schools will look like as the law takes hold. In March, Anna, a trans nonbinary student from Lexington, launched an Instagram account called TransKY Storytelling Project, anonymously documenting the impact of the new law on young people and teachers.

People shared examples of the ways the legislation affects them, such as making them afraid to go to school, erasing their identities and making the jobs of educators and librarians tougher. A middle school guidance counselor in rural Kentucky wrote that the new law makes it harder to connect with students and support them: “If we are the only ones students have, and we can’t provide them the care they desperately need and deserve, the future looks very bleak.”

Even in the state’s more progressive cities, the law has changed daily life in schools, Anna, the Instagram account’s curator said. The GSA at Anna’s Lexington high school used to announce club meetings and events on the loudspeakers and post flyers in school hallways, Anna said. But the group has since gone underground, to avoid bringing attention to its existence lest administrators force it to stop meeting.

“The school felt so much safer knowing that [a GSA] existed because there were students like you elsewhere. You could go in and say, ‘Hey, I’m trying out this set of pronouns. I’m trying to learn more about myself. Can you all like call me this for a couple of weeks?’” Anna said. “It just allowed for a place where students like me could go.”

But while the absence of a GSA is concerning, Anna fears most the impact of SB 150 on students in rural parts of Kentucky. GSA members from rural communities have shared that they no longer have supportive school staff to advocate for their clubs because of the climate of fear created by the law, Anna said.

That said, November’s election brought some hope for LGBTQ+ advocates: Cameron, the state attorney general who backed SB 150 and campaigned on anti-trans policies, lost his bid for the governorship to incumbent Andy Beshear, and several other candidates for office who advocated anti-trans policies were defeated too.

Back in Owenton, Ketron is working with Carver to plan a summit for Kentucky’s rural, queer youth. Ketron said she hopes the gathering will serve as a reminder for students that even though they may be isolated in their communities, there are people like them across the state.

But as of this fall, participating in a GSA is no longer an option for students at the Owenton high school. Boots, the school principal, wrote in an email that the club had changed its focus, to one geared toward addressing “social needs across a variety of settings.”

But according to Ketron, students said they were afraid to continue a club focused on LGBTQ+ issues in part because of SB 150. She offered to help students restart the club in the library, or at her house, she said, but members worried that would be too difficult because many of them have not come out to their families.

Ketron said she’s not giving up. “At its core,” she said, a GSA is “a protective factor and so very needed, especially in a rural community.”

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org for free, 24-hour services that can provide support, information and resources.

This story about LGBTQ+ students in schools was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter, and share your thoughts about this story at editor@hechingerreport.org. 

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When I became a mom, I thought my dream of teaching would have to remain just that: a dream.

Juggling single parenthood was a full-time job in and of itself. I didn’t have the support or resources to pursue the path to becoming a teacher, even though I thought I could be a great one and it was what I so desperately wanted to do.

Barriers to entering the profession are too high.

To become a teacher in California you have to study for, pay for and pass a slew of standardized tests. Then you have to earn your certification through an accredited program involving more tests, classes and student teaching. And then, if you’ve passed all your classes and tests and pay tens of thousands of dollars, maybe you can finally enter the classroom.

How does someone who is already a parent, and not wealthy, manage to do all that?

I am a better teacher because I am a parent, and a better parent because I am a teacher.

I’m fortunate that I found a program that broke down those barriers to entry. I’m now earning my teaching credential through a low-cost program that allows me to work full-time in a classroom; I will graduate debt-free.

With a national teacher shortage looming, it’s time to support students by creating more programs like mine and easier pathways into the classroom for parents.

Related: To fight teacher shortages, schools turn to custodians, bus drivers and aides

Here are some ideas about how we can make the teaching profession more attainable for parents:

1. Pay higher salaries. It’s no secret that being a parent comes with challenges — often financial ones. The average debt load for experienced educators is $56,500. We need to increase pay and make teaching a financially viable profession.
2. Prioritize flexibility in teacher prep programs. My teacher prep program is called TeachStart, and as one of their fellows I receive paid study days. This means that parents like me working toward credentials can study while our children are in school or daycare so we don’t have to give up precious time in the evenings or on weekends.
3. Personal support. TeachStart also provides me with a designated in-house mentor, so I have a point person for questions or concerns and to celebrate personal and professional wins with. TeachStart has also created scheduled times for me to lesson plan and collect my bearings at the beginning and end of each day.
4. Utilize skills parents bring to the table. Years of motherhood can translate directly into classroom skills. My son has made me a better listener. Parenthood is a two-way street: You grow with your child just as they grow with you. Teaching is no different. As a single parent, I bring empathy, understanding and dedication to the classroom. My experience as a mother has allowed me to connect with students and families on a deeper level, fostering a sense of trust and partnership. I appreciate the pivotal role parental involvement plays in a child’s education and actively work to bridge the gap between home and school lives. And I take pride in listening to and learning from my students. We can take these lessons and skills that parents have learned through their experience raising children and allow them to utilize them in the classroom. Our students will be better for it.

Related: OPINION: To solve teacher shortages, let’s open pathways for immigrants so they can become educators and role models

Furthermore, increasing the number of parents leading classrooms could be a key to reducing teacher turnover. Parents who have earned certification have already proven their strength and dedication, which will help them remain in the classroom and, in turn, help improve student achievement.

I want other parents like me to know that with the proper support, they too can pursue a career that fulfills them and makes them better parents along the way.

Being a parent has equipped me with a unique perspective and a deep understanding of the challenges that families of all backgrounds face. I am always learning.

When I ask my son at the end of the day what he learned in school, he knows to ask me the same. I am a better teacher because I am a parent, and a better parent because I am a teacher.

All aspiring educators deserve the same opportunities that brought me to the classroom. If legislators, teacher prep programs and school leaders can commit to breaking down barriers to entry for future teachers, we will all benefit.

Katie Dillard is a TeachStart fellow. She teaches middle school English at Samuel Jackman Middle School in Sacramento.

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Immediately following the Saturday, Oct. 7, attack on Israeli communities by Hamas and Israel’s resulting declaration of war, teachers began reaching out to the San Diego County Office of Education seeking guidance on how to address the war on Monday morning with their students.

Julie Goldman, the office’s director of equity curriculum and instruction, and her team spent that weekend compiling a detailed guide for educators and parents on how to discuss the events happening overseas. The guide, released Oct. 9, contains resources on how to have civil discourse on contested issues; historical information and current news on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; material on discussing war and violence in age-appropriate ways, and information on combating antisemitism and Islamophobia in schools.

Goldman said the office, which serves the county’s 42 school districts, 129 charter schools and five community college districts, has many Palestinian American, Israeli American, Jewish and Muslim students.

“We want to make sure that every child feels seen and heard and loved and valued in our classrooms,” Goldman said. “None of us can learn if we don’t feel safe, and so it’s really about creating those safe spaces for dialogue.”

The work Goldman’s office did to provide these educational guides is exactly how education leaders should respond to important social issues, according to Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

“Their job is to help students understand the world, to help them wrestle with a world which is complex and sometimes overwhelming,” said Hess.

Related link: How do we teach Black history in polarized times? Here’s what it looks like in 3 cities

Hess and Jal Mehta, a professor of education at Harvard University, routinely debate big issues in education, often from opposing viewpoints, on their blog, “Straight Talk with Rick and Jal.” The goal, according to the two, is to offer educators a model for promoting constructive dialogue among students, where two people may disagree but can still learn from one another.

Mehta said teachers and principals may be tempted to stay out of teaching about the Israel-Hamas war because it’s so politicized. But even younger students are aware of what’s happening in the world – in particular Jewish and Palestinian students who may be deeply affected by the events.

“What schools can do is broaden students’ understanding and help them see kind of the multiple truths that are there in this situation,” Mehta said.

These conversations can be conducted in age-appropriate ways beginning in first grade, Hess added. While elementary students may be too young to understand the emotional, historical and moral debates surrounding Israel and Palestine, he said, they can build a basic understanding of the region’s geography, the history of how and why Israel was created, and why Palestinians feel like they have been “trapped in ghettos.”

“None of us can learn if we don’t feel safe, and so it’s really about creating those safe spaces for dialogue.”

Julie Goldman, San Diego County Office of Education’s director of equity curriculum and instruction

It’s okay for teachers to acknowledge with students that they aren’t experts on the topic, Mehta added. “In terms of this conflict, I wouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” he said. Educators can share that they are learning alongside their students, he said.

Goldman said teachers trust her office’s resource guides because of the process that goes into to creating them. Starting in 2020, the office began putting together educator guides out of “a real and immediate need” to address political events, school shootings, hate crimes and various heritage months, as topics within the classroom, she said. Her staff reaches out to community groups and others for their input.

Goldman said a resource guide that includes vetted primary sources from different perspectives can give students and educators a way into difficult discussions without shutting anyone out. The guide on the Israel-Palestine conflict includes links to lessons and curricula from the education nonprofit Facing History and Ourselves and the Judaism-focused Institute for Curriculum Services, as well as sources from the Anti-Defamation League and AllSides, a company designed to combat media bias.

“We will have had this meaningful scholarly discussion that’s based in history and primary sources,” she said.

While the Israel-Palestine conflict has always been a difficult subject for educators, the recent adoption of policies in some states that limit conversations on topics such as race has added to teachers’ fears about discussing such contested issues, said Deborah Menkart, co-director of the Zinn Education Project, a collaboration between progressive nonprofits Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.

“Their job is to help students understand the world, to help them wrestle with a world which is complex and sometimes overwhelming.”

Rick Hess, director of education policy studies, American Enterprise Institute

The Zinn Education Project recently released a list of resources and lesson plans for educators that include both Palestinian and Israeli voices, but Menkart said the focus is on providing perspectives often left out of mainstream media or textbooks. Many of the resources on their list include Palestinian and Arab authors and lessons from nonprofits such as Teach Palestine.

That has led to some criticism of her group’s list of resources, acknowledged Mimi Eisen, program manager at the Zinn Education Project. But she said it’s important that educators both share resources that aren’t one-sided and uplift the voices of those who’ve been “oppressed and stifled.” 

Classroom discussions, especially in middle school, should explain the differences between Judaism and Zionism, and Palestinian people and groups like Hamas, she said. 

Eisen said she has heard from teachers who said that even if they aren’t able to dedicate full class periods to talk about what’s happening in Gaza, they leave time at the start or end of each class to ask students to share how they are feeling, what they are hearing and learning about the issue, and to allow some discussion that’s student-led.

In San Diego, Goldman said teachers have found the resource guide to be helpful for starting conversations on Israel and Palestine.

“The main point is, are we preparing teachers not to step away but to find these age-appropriate ways to have meaningful conversations,” Goldman said. “The essence is how am I creating an inclusive space, so that all of my children feel seen and valued and they know that they can bring all parts of their languages and cultures to the classroom.”

This story on teaching about Israel-Palestine was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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While the reading and math “wars” have gotten a lot of attention in education in recent years, writing instruction has not received that same focus. That is, until the release of ChatGPT last year.

There isn’t really an agreed-upon approach to teaching writing, according to Sarah Levine, an assistant professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. But now that ChatGPT is here to stay, experts like Levine are trying to figure how to teach writing to K-12 students in an age of AI.

“The question that teachers are having to ask themselves is, what’s writing for?” she said.

ChatGPT can produce a perfectly serviceable writing “product,” she said. But writing isn’t a product per se — it’s a tool for thinking, for organizing ideas, she said.

“ChatGPT and other text-based tools can’t think for us,” she said. “There’s still things to learn when it comes to writing because writing is a form of figuring out what you think.”

Earlier this year, Levine and her team conducted a pilot study at a high school in San Francisco. Students in an English class were given access to ChatGPT to see how they engaged with the tool.

Some were given prompts that asked them to create an argument based on directions, such as, “Some people say we should have a new mascot at our school. Some people say we should keep our old mascot. What do you think?” Other prompts were more creative, such as asking students to write an outline for a movie script about a new superhero based at their school.

Levine and her team found that students looked to ChatGPT, primarily, for help in two categories: Ideas or inspiration to get started on the prompt questions (for example, “What kind of mascots do other schools have?”) and guidance on the writing process (“How do you write a good ghost story?”).

“What the kids are now getting from this AI is what expert writers already have: a big bank of examples that they can draw from when they’re creating,” Levine said. Using ChatGPT as a sounding board for specific questions like these can help students learn to be stronger writers, she added.

Related: How college educators are using AI in the classroom

While the study is ongoing, the early findings revealed something surprising: Kids weren’t excited about ChatGPT’s writing. “They thought it was ‘too perfect.’ Or ‘like a robot,’” Levine said. “One team that was writing said, ‘We asked ChatGPT to edit our work, and it took out all of our jokes so we put them back.’”

Levine said that, to her, that was the big takeaway of the pilot. She’s heard teachers say they struggle to help students find their voice in writing. When students could contrast their own writing to ChatGPT’s more generic version, Levine said, they were able to “understand what their own voice is and what it does.”

Mark Warschauer, a professor of education at the University of California, Irvine, has spent years studying how technology can change writing instruction and the nature of writing itself. When ChatGPT was released, he decided to tailor some of his research to study ways generative AI could help students and teachers, particularly English language learners and bilingual learners.

Like Levine, Warschauer, director of the university’s Digital Learning Lab, said he believes ChatGPT can help students who struggle with writing to organize their ideas, and edit and revise their writing. Essentially, it could be used as an early feedback tool to supplement the work of a teacher, he said.

As part of a project on the effectiveness of ChatGPT as a tool for giving students feedback on their writing, his team at the Digital Learning Lab placed student essays that had already been evaluated by teachers into ChatGPT and asked the AI to provide its own feedback. Then experts blindly graded both the human and AI feedback. While the experts found the human feedback was a little better overall, the AI feedback was good enough to provide value in the classroom. It could help guide students as they progressed on an assignment, allowing teachers to spend more time with students who need extra support, Warschauer said.

Warschauer’s team has also partnered with UC Irvine’s school of engineering to create an intelligent writing coach, to be called PapyrusAI. The tool, which the teams plan to release next year, would be tailored to help middle school and high school students improve their writing through intensive coaching, he said.

In addition, he said, the tool is being designed to provide a safe and protected way to use AI, to address parents’ and educators’ concerns about student data and privacy on ChatGPT, which stores students’ data.

Stanford’s Levine also sees value in using ChatGPT to coach students on writing. 

“A lot of teachers feel intimidated when it comes to teaching writing, because they themselves don’t necessarily feel like they’re the best writers,” Levine said. ChatGPT can help teachers fill in gaps in writing instruction by working as students’ debate partner or coach she said.

ChatGPT could also help teachers more quickly analyze trends in student writing, identifying areas of success or struggle. If students “don’t understand how to connect one idea to another,” Levine said, Chat GPT could provide this feedback instead of teachers having to write, “Try connecting these ideas using a transition,” on every paper. Teachers could then devote more time to developing lessons that focus on that skill.  

“Writing should be and is a human experience,” Levine said. Teachers can retain that experience, even when using AI. If they help students learn how to use the new tool effectively — much as they now use spellcheck or Grammarly — students will understand that ChatGPT is “more or less a giant autocomplete machine, as opposed to a place that has facts,” she said.

“If we think that clarifying your own thinking is something worth doing, then we need to teach writing,” Levine said. “In other words, writing is a way of learning. It’s not just a way of showing your learning.”

This story about AI writing was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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House Republicans recently returned to one of their favorite targets for spending cuts: the country’s most vulnerable youth and the schools that serve them. Their plan would represent a major setback to efforts to achieve racial equity in our nation’s public schools.

During the latest battle over preventing a government shutdown, Republicans called for cutting Title 1 education grants earmarked for low-income students by 80 percent, which would mean a loss of nearly $15 billion in funding for schools with sizeable populations of these students, disproportionately affecting schools that serve more children of color.

We already see this racial logic playing out in the efforts of red states to use school funding as a political football. In Tennessee, the house speaker and lieutenant governor have teamed up to explore rejecting federal education funds altogether. They hope to shirk federal oversight on matters related to inequality, including civil rights protections based on race.

Given the patterns in funding schemes across the country, it is clear that we need to set aside targeted school funding on both the state and local levels with the express purpose of remedying injustices inflicted upon particular groups of students.

Yet the reality is that government funding decisions about education have long been a way to install and preserve racial inequality in our society. And since these inequalities have origins in funding malpractice, to remedy them, the government must use targeted funding for racial equity going forward.

Related: ‘Kids who have less, need more’: The fight over school funding

School funding stems from three major sources: federal, state and local. Looking at average breakdowns from recent data, we see that U.S. schools receive about 47 percent of their funds from their state government, 45 percent from local and 8 percent from federal.

This means that states and districts can counteract any proposed federal cuts with concerted efforts to reinvest in vulnerable youth. But even states with Democratic leadership have struggled to do so.

For example, in Pennsylvania, where I call home, the state’s funding scheme has been found unconstitutional for providing inadequate and unequal funding. Recent investigations have revealed how damaging the effects of this system have been on districts where a majority of students are students of color; one study, from the advocacy group The Education Trust, found that “districts with the most students of color on average receive substantially less (16 percent) state and local revenue than districts with the fewest students of color, equating to approximately $13.5 million for a 5,000-student district.”

Related: OPINION: Pennsylvania’s school funding is a case study in the future of inequality

The state of California, and its largest city, Los Angeles, however, have initiated thoughtful and large-scale efforts to right the wrongs of governments past. California’s funding formula and Los Angeles’ program to holistically support Black students are both concrete efforts to tinker with school funding to move towardequity, rather than away from it. In a nutshell, these programs exemplify meaningful, targeted investments in marginalized populations and represent a significant course reversal from much of United States history.

Though these two programs in California have flaws, which I detail below, there are real lessons that leaders across the country can glean from them in order to make real, lasting change in their own locales.

I spent the previous five years in California training teachers and studying school improvement. This year, we are arriving at the 10th anniversary of the state’s Local Control Funding Formula, which changed how schools were funded and allows for greater flexibility in how local education agencies meet the needs of three targeted student populations: low-income, foster youth and English learners.

These programs exemplify meaningful, targeted investments in marginalized populations and represent a significant course reversal from much of United States history.

Results so far include a demonstrable gain in test scores for these “high-need” students, including a 13 percentage point increase in the number of students meeting or exceeding standards on state tests in districts where 95 percent of students are high-need.

These numbers could have been even higher, however, had there been greater compliance at the district level. The same report noted that roughly 60 percent of districts reported spending “less money on high-need students than they were allocated for these students. Nearly 20 percent spent about half or less.”

Further, advocates argue that California’s funding formula does not do enough to target the needs of Black students in the state, who continue to face an accumulation of disadvantages both in and out of school. This was one impetus for even more targeted funding in California’s largest district: Los Angeles Unified.

In February 2021, Los Angeles approved a reform initiative known as the Black Student Achievement Plan. This plan set out to address rampant racial disparities in the district, pulling together $36.5 million in funds from the school police department budget and the district’s general fund.

The money went toward many important endeavors, including reforms of school discipline and curriculums and hiring support staff such as counselors, school climate coaches and nurses.

Additional resources were provided according to need, with schools serving the highest number of Black students also receiving psychiatric social workers, attendance counselors and funding for restorative justice programs.

Early data found some notable gains, including increases in graduation rates, completion of courses required for admission to California State universities, enrollment in Advanced Placement courses and attendance. These successes, while modest, provide evidence that targeted funding for Black students can improve how schools serve them.

But the problems with LA’s program are also instructive. An April report found that, similar to the deployment of the state funding formula, nearly 40 percent of the allocated funds were not used after the first year of the program, while the rollout and follow-through varied greatly across school campuses.

Those findings were later corroborated by an ongoing evaluation study, which noted that several LA schools dealt with unfilled positions related to the Black Student Achievement Plan while others tended to overwhelm program staff with responsibilities beyond their job descriptions.

These struggles show how, to fulfill their promise, programs like California’s targeted funding formula and Los Angeles’ plan for Black students must: (1) hire appropriate numbers of staff with clear job responsibilities, (2) communicate actively with communities about the purpose of the funds, (3) check-in regularly with schools to keep track of the funds they have left to spend and (4) consistently support the educators making use of the funds.

While there will certainly be differences in state policies, school district size and budgets, more states and districts should heed the lessons, both good and bad, from California.

Given how much pressure we collectively put on schools to improve society, setting aside specific funds for programs to support the most systematically disadvantaged students constitutes an educational imperative. These important California models can pave a path forward with more explicit commitments to racial justice.

 Julio Ángel Alicea is an assistant professor of sociology at Rutgers University-Camden. A former public school teacher, his research interests include race, urban education and organizational change.

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Hope Reed saw stark disparities in math classes at Blythewood High School about a decade ago.

At the school, in suburban Columbia, South Carolina, nearly half of students were white. In the freshman remedial math classes, however, almost all the students were Black. Many of those in the remedial classes came from lower-income families. 

Reed, then chair of the school’s math department, intervened. She wanted to experiment with detracking, or eliminating classes that separated students by level.

She started with a small test.

In 2013, she took on leading a ninth-grade remedial class and taught nearly 50 students the regular Algebra 1 curriculum.

“You’re in honors class, so you’re gonna do honors work,” she recalled telling them. 

At the end of the year, about 90 percent of the students passed. 

The success of that single class spurred Reed to expand the program. Rather than sorting ninth graders with high test scores into Algebra 1 and giving those with lower test scores remedial instruction, the school enrolled everyone into Algebra 1 classes. 

That year, 90 percent of Blythewood students passed the Algebra 1 end-of-course exam, an increase from the previous year’s passage rate of 87 percent. The average score for Black students on the exam was 80, up two points from the year prior. Meanwhile, the average for white students was 83, an increase by less than one point from the year prior.

The experiment convinced Reed that detracking math classes could be a key component in narrowing achievement gaps between student groups.  

Gaps between how minority students perform academically in comparison to their white peers have long been an issue across the country. The disparities often stem from larger structural issues — a lack of access to quality curricula, for instance, or teachers expecting students to perform poorly. 

Recently, the gaps have worsened in the wake of the pandemic and its disruptions to learning.

“It’s like ironing a shirt. When you run the iron over one time, some wrinkles fall out but when you run it back over the second time, it’s crisp. That’s what it did for them.”

Hope Reed, former chair of Blythewood High School math department

Math scores for Black 13-year-olds had dropped by 13 points between the 2019-20 school year and the 2022-23 school year, shows the latest data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the nation’s report card. White students had a six-point decrease between the three years.

As a result, the difference between Black and white students’ scores widened from 35 points in 2020 to 42 points in 2023.

Addressing those disparities is more critical than ever then, for both strengthening students’ understanding of math and increasing their opportunities to higher-paying jobs in STEM fields. And nearly a decade ago, Reed’s experiment with detracking showed some promise as an aid. 

Related: Why it matters that Americans are comparatively bad at math

Step into any American school and you’ll most likely find tracked classes, especially for math.

Tracking students took root during the 20th century. Following immigration waves, desegregation orders and the inclusion of special education students in classes, tracking grew in use and separated those students deemed fit for higher learning at college from those who were viewed as less intelligent and only capable of learning a trade or craft, said Kevin Welner, an educational policy professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. 

As a result, tracking reflected the country’s larger societal inequalities then and it continues to do so today given some students, often from marginalized backgrounds, come to kindergarten or first grade already with measured achievement gaps. 

While offering students more support in a separate class may sound ideal, lower-level classes often linger on remediation and watered down curricula. That exacerbates opportunity and achievement gaps, Welner said. 

Tracked systems are also fairly rigid, he added. Students placed in higher tracks have the flexibility to move down to a lower track if necessary, but few students in lower tracks have the opportunity to advance to the higher track.

Detracking, in theory, then aims to level the playing field by exposing students to the same higher concepts and standards. 

“If you have kids who are really struggling at mathematics, they really need to be identified and probably treated differently in terms of curriculum and instruction than kids who are just sailing through math courses.”

Tom Loveless, an education researcher and former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

Welner said studies of schools that have detracked classes show that achievement gaps have been narrowed to varying levels of success. Students who would have been otherwise placed in lower-track classes improve academically, while students who would have been in a higher track see no significant differences in their performances, he added. 

Welner pointed to the Rockville Centre school district on Long Island, N.Y., as the gold standard for detracking. In the ‘90s, the district got rid of many tracked classes in its middle school and high school, and provided significant professional development for teachers so they could properly handle students of varying levels in the same classroom. As a result, the district has seen more students take more advanced classes later in high school.

Ultimately, Welner views tracking as a structural tool that places obstacles in the way of learning for kids in lower-track classes. Detracking alone doesn’t improve student achievement, but it addresses those obstacles.

“It’s just removing the harm,” he said.

Related: How Texas plans to make access to advanced math more equitable

When Reed expanded detracking across ninth-grade math classes in the 2014-15 school year at Blythewood High, the effort involved more than just bringing all students together into several Algebra 1 courses. 

One key component to Reed’s detracking program was the math seminar, an additional class period required for students who would have otherwise been placed in lower-level math classes. Students took the seminar in the morning, where they would pre-learn Algebra 1 lessons, as Reed said, and then they took their Algebra 1 class later in the day with the other students. 

The additional learning time offered yet another boost in confidence for students, Reed said. By the time they arrived in their Algebra 1 class, she joked those students thought they were geniuses. Teachers would ask questions during lessons and students would eagerly answer.  

“It’s like ironing a shirt. When you run the iron over one time, some wrinkles fall out but when you run it back over the second time, it’s crisp. That’s what it did for them,” Reed said. “They didn’t go in there just blindsided, lost.”

The goal was always to keep the students focused on progressing ahead in concepts rather than pausing and slowing down to remediate. 

The math seminar also ensured that, for students who would have regularly been placed in a higher-level class, lessons did not slow down their learning. 

Kianna Livingston was one of the ninth-graders enrolled in the math seminar and detracked Algebra 1 in 2014-15. She initially believed she wasn’t good at math, but saw her skills grow through the two classes.

Livingston, who is Black, also said she saw how the class instilled confidence in herself and other Black ninth-graders at the school; the classes gave the students attention and access to support many hadn’t had previously. Livingston recalled feeling so assured of her knowledge that she would help other students during the Algebra 1 course.

“It really allowed me to really own my leadership skills,” she said.

By the end of the school year — and to her surprise — she had been recommended for Honors Geometry for the following year. 

Related: Is it time to stop segregating kids by ability in middle school math?  

Still, tracking seeped back into Blythewood’s math classes, partially out of necessity.

Despite the support from the math seminar, a small group of students continued to struggle with the material, Reed said. By the middle of the 2014-15 school year, she realized they might fail and not receive math credit. 

That struggle highlights what some education experts, such as Tom Loveless, believe is one troubling aspect of detracking: The approach lacks flexibility for when some students genuinely need more support. 

Loveless, an education researcher and former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has been studying detracking for three decades. He cited San Francisco as an example where detracking hasn’t helped. When the school district eliminated tracks in middle and high schools starting in 2014, middle school students could no longer take Algebra 1. Instead, all students would take the course in ninth grade.

But Loveless said his analysis of assessment data indicates gaps between Black and Latino students and their white peers in San Francisco have only widened since the district detracked math.

“If you have kids who are really struggling at mathematics, they really need to be identified and probably treated differently in terms of curriculum and instruction than kids who are just sailing through math courses,” Loveless said. 

At Blythewood, Reed decided to act after realizing several students were falling further behind.

She and the nine other teachers leading the detracked classes identified four students from each class who needed the most support. Those 40 students were then dropped down to a remedial math class starting in January 2015 for the rest of the school year.  

Related: Teachers conquering their math anxiety

Despite having to group some students into a lower-track class, Reed, who now works with just freshmen at Blythewood, said she still believes in the promise of detracking. She highlights the school’s 90-percent passing rate on the Algebra 1 exam in 2014-15 as proof. And while 40 students had to drop down to a lower-level class, she emphasizes that they were still a fraction of the nearly 400 students who had been in the detracked Algebra 1 classes. 

More detailed end-of-course data also showed more signs of progress. While the percentage of Blythewood’s Black students who scored within the “A” range on Algebra 1 stayed the same as the year prior, the percentage of students who scored in the “B” range increased from 14 percent in 2013-14 to 25 percent in 2014-15. 

But after that first year of Algebra 1 detracking, Blythewood approached the set-up differently. Rather than dropping struggling students down to a lower-level math class midyear, teachers started the school year with two lower-level math classes, each with 20 students. 

In 2015-16, Blythewood’s passing rate on the Algebra 1 end-of-course exam dropped back to 87 percent. 

Still, with teachers concerned about struggling students falling through the cracks, the school stuck with offering some lower-level math classes, and continues to do so, Reed said. 

The school’s end-of-course passing rate has never been as high as it was in 2014-15, when for at least half a year the school had completely detracked Algebra 1. Reed believes that all students being exposed to the regular Algebra 1 curriculum, even for just half a year, made a difference. 

The last remnant of her program, the math seminar, ended with the 2022-23 school year. Due to a scheduling change with class length, the school no longer offers the seminar to be taken concurrently with Algebra 1.

Reed isn’t critical of the school’s changes. Students’ scores still might improve this year, she said. But she’s keen on seeing this year’s end-of-course data. Then maybe she and school leaders could have a conversation about detracking and the seminar again.

At the core of Reed’s efforts is creating equity for all students. 

“They just need to know they matter,” she said.

This story about detracking was produced by The Post and Courier as part of The Math Problem, an ongoing series about math instruction. The series is a collaboration with the Education Reporting Collaborative, a coalition of eight newsrooms that includes AL.com, The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, Idaho Education News, The Post and Courier in South Carolina, and The Seattle Times. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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