Chalkbeat

Education stories we’re watching in 2024

2024-01-02T14:22:00+00:00

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This spring, the students who spent most of their freshman year of high school on Zoom will walk across the graduation stage. This fall, schools will face the expiration of billions in pandemic aid that allowed them to reenvision what schools could do for students.

This is a critical year as the nation grapples with the long-term effects of the pandemic amid a technological revolution, a still-unfolding refugee crisis, and a presidential election that could intensify political tensions.

These are some of the education stories we’ll be watching in 2024:

School districts confront the ESSER fiscal cliff

This is the last year school districts will have access to federal pandemic relief, an unprecedented influx of money meant to mitigate the effects of COVID disruptions and support student recovery. Schools received a total of $190 billion in three waves. So far, roughly $122 billion has been spent or committed, and schools still need to spend an additional $68 billion.

Some schools have spent this money on programs directly related to pandemic recovery, such as tutoring and counseling. Some have stood up or expanded programs that help families find housing or provide more intensive mental health support.

Running those programs often meant hiring more people, workers whom districts might not have the money to employ after this year. And while the money is going away, students still have significant needs.

Already major districts, such as Detroit and Montgomery County, Maryland, have announced cuts to services like college transition planning and summer school that were funded with pandemic dollars.

Districts that want to maintain these programs will face tough decisions about where to find the money and what else to give up.

“There was a clear need and with the extra funds, in many cases, really hard-working people responded,” said Marguerite Roza, the director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab. “But you can still say, from the outside, this was really a precarious model. It relied on one-time funds that we knew were going to go away, and we didn’t build anything to last beyond that.”

In some communities, districts have used pandemic aid to shore up budgets amid declining enrollment and to delay painful cuts and school closures. For these communities, 2024 could bring a difficult reckoning.

The expiration of pandemic aid will prompt a larger conversation about what students and schools got from that investment and whether the money was spent well or poorly.

Jennifer Reczkowicz assists a student during a typing lesson at Lincoln Elementary School in Dolton, Illinois. Max Herman for Chalkbeat

Schools must adapt to serve migrant students

Last year, many school systems across the country — but particularly New York City and Chicago — enrolled thousands of asylum-seeking students from Central and South America.

Some of these children have been out of school for months or even years. Some carry emotional wounds from things they saw and experienced on their journeys. Some are sleeping outside in tents. All are navigating a new country and a new school system with few financial resources.

In 2024, schools will need to rise to the challenge of serving these students over the long haul. Bilingual teachers were already in short supply — and bilingual counselors and school psychologists even more so. Some school districts are stepping up international recruitment to bring in more Spanish-speaking educators.

There are so many new students that cities as different as New York and Denver are seeing enrollment increases after years of declines. Increased enrollment could result in more state funding, but it’s not clear if the additional money will be enough to meet students’ needs or whether these students will stay in the cities where they first arrived or disperse to suburbs and smaller cities.

Many of these students’ needs — for mental health counseling, for academic recovery, for housing assistance — mirror those of students who were already here but at a larger scale or with greater intensity.

Even children who seem OK now may need significant support down the road, said Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, executive director at Counseling in Schools. The nonprofit provides counseling services to about 70 schools in New York City and is trying to expand its bilingual staff. Younger children, especially, may be in a honeymoon period now that they’re physically safe, getting meals at school, and making new friends, he said.

“That’s going to shift as they go from 8 years old to 12 years old. Those pains are kind of festering over time,” Dahill-Fuchel said. One smiling child his organization works with crossed the Rio Grande with about a dozen people who drowned. “That’s PTSD-kind of stuff that’s going to come up later.”

Advocates say schools need to think beyond the immediate crisis. They need to accurately assess where students are academically and think about how to serve older students with limited English skills who may be at higher risk of leaving school entirely. They also see a greater role for state education departments in offering guidance and helping school districts learn from each other.

Will our schools rise to the challenge?

AI will play a larger role in American classrooms — we’re still figuring out the ground rules

ChatGPT is a little more than a year old. In the education space, the new technology’s ability to produce an eerie mimicry of human thought and writing initially prompted fears that students would cheat widely and with impunity.

But a recent Stanford study found that cheating among high school students hasn’t increased much. And while most respondents thought it would be acceptable to use ChatGPT to generate ideas, few thought it would be OK to have AI write an essay for them. “It shows that a majority of students truly want to learn,” the lead researcher told CNN.

In the meantime, ChatGPT and other AI-powered technologies are showing up in the classroom in all kinds of ways. Students recently told Chalkbeat that they’ve used such programs to better understand concepts in history texts or to identify problems in the code they wrote for computer science class. Some schools are using AI to tutor students. The National Education Association has a guide for using ChatGPT to create lesson plans.

Given that the technology isn’t going away, K-12 schools and colleges will need to grapple with what constitutes cheating and what constitutes legitimate use that might even enhance students’ learning experience.

Researchers, meanwhile, are experimenting with using AI to read students’ college essays and grade student papers. Some observers are optimistic about the potential for AI to reduce bias and notice trends, while others worry about inaccuracy and outsourcing human judgment.

The culture wars are dead. Long live the culture wars.

November’s school board elections were generally seen as a setback for cultural conservatives, with Ballotpedia estimating that more than half of candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty lost their races. The right-wing advocacy group itself is in disarray amid associations with white supremacists and rape allegations against the husband of one founder. The founder acknowledged she had participated in a threesome with her husband and the woman who accused him of assault in an unrelated incident.

But conservative candidates still picked up seats on school boards around the country, where some are reshaping what students learn about U.S. history and how LGBTQ staff and students are treated.

Conservative concerns about progressive ideologies in public schools have also been used to justify the expansion of private-school choice in states, such as Tennessee, Florida, and Arizona.

Even as education politics remains intensely polarized, surveys find that most parents report they’re pretty satisfied with their kids’ schools — and the most negative opinions come from those without children in the schools.

This year could see some of the most intense debates recede into the background or take on new forms. The presidential election has the potential to exacerbate divisions even if education isn’t a dominant issue.

The biggest question is how these debates and policy shifts affect students and families.

Students are reconsidering the value of college — for better or for worse

This spring’s graduating class was in eighth grade in March 2020 when schools shut down, and many of them spent their freshman year — a critical year for students’ academic and social development — mostly online or bouncing in and out school due to quarantines.

These students are applying to college in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision banning racial preferences in admissions. They’ve had to rethink how they talk about themselves in college applications. The federal government has delayed the release of a new federal financial aid application, raising fears that fewer students will fill out the form and creating more uncertainty for families waiting on financial aid packages.

Colorado School of Mines in Golden is the most selective public university in Colorado. The science- and engineering-focused school historically has enrolled few students from low-income backgrounds.

Recent surveys show high school students are interested in education after high school but unsure about the value of a four-year college degree. They’re worried about taking on debt and not being able to pay it back. And they want to start earning money sooner.

Conservative parents, too, are less keen on sending their kids to college as they increasingly see higher education institutions as being at odds with their own values.

At the same time, Americans with college degrees still outearn those without.

The most recently available national data on college-going covers the high school class of 2022 and shows overall college enrollment increasing or stabilizing after a sharp dip during the pandemic. But enrollment is down for white, Black, and Native American students.

Meanwhile, colleges are putting more effort into retaining the students they have. High school counselors are rethinking how they support students interested in careers that don’t require a four-year degree.

The decisions the class of 2024 makes could tell us a lot about the lingering impacts of the pandemic and what students need from their schools to be successful.

Senior Reporter Kalyn Belsha and New York Bureau Chief Amy Zimmer contributed.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado.

Nine education stories that defined 2023

2023-12-22T13:00:00+00:00

Three years after the COVID pandemic began, schools across America are still finding their new normal.

School communities are desperately trying to reduce chronically absent students, struggling with how to spend waning federal COVID relief dollars, implementing new “science of reading” laws, and waffling on how ChatGPT should (or should not) be a part of classrooms.

Below are nine storylines from Chalkbeat reporters across the country that dove into those topics. What education stories mattered most to you this year? We would love to hear from you at community@chalkbeat.org.

Jan. 3: NYC education department blocks ChatGPT, but later reverses course

AI is here to stay, so how will America’s schools respond? At the beginning of 2023, New York City opted to run far away, blocking access to the program and citing “negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content.” But a few months later, the city reversed course, with schools Chancellor David Banks proclaiming the city’s schools were “determined to embrace its potential.”

Now, just over a year after the tech group OpenAI introduced ChatGPT to the public, some students at New York City high schools report widespread use of AI-powered chatbots among their peers. The same patterns appear elsewhere. In one national survey from July, 44% of teenagers said they were likely to use AI-powered tools to complete their schoolwork, even though a majority considered it cheating.

March 10: Tutoring help reaches few students despite nationwide push

As America’s schools confront dramatic learning setbacks caused by the pandemic, experts have held up intensive tutoring as the single best antidote. Yet even as schools wield billions of dollars in federal COVID relief, only a small fraction of students have received school tutoring, according to a survey of the nation’s largest districts by Chalkbeat and The Associated Press.

In eight of 12 school systems that provided data, less than 10% of students received any type of district tutoring this fall. The startlingly low tutoring figures point to several problems. Some parents said they didn’t know tutoring was available or didn’t think their children needed it. Some school systems have struggled to hire tutors. Other school systems said the small tutoring programs were intentional, part of an effort to focus on students with the greatest needs.

Library at Southport Elementary School in Perry Township in Southport, In. Indiana has joined a growing number of states that require schools to use curriculum materials that emphasize phonetic instruction when teaching children how to read.

May 25: Indiana’s new ‘science of reading’ law requires districts to adopt research-backed curriculum

Indiana joined a growing number of states that require schools to use curriculum materials that emphasize phonetic instruction when teaching children how to read. The new law came amid concern from lawmakers and education officials in Indiana and nationwide about elementary school students’ reading ability — an issue exacerbated by the pandemic.

Yet new state reading laws have almost entirely omitted attention to another critical component of reading: background knowledge, or the idea that students are better able to comprehend what they read when they start with some understanding of the topic they’re reading about. In other words, building background knowledge is an idea supported by science that has not fully caught on to the science of reading movement.

June 16: The ‘Tennessee 3′ created a historic teachable moment. Will schools be allowed to teach it?

Tennessee is at the front of a conservative-driven wave of censorship about what can and cannot be taught in K-12 schools. A 2021 state law restricts classroom discussions about systemic racism, white privilege, and slavery’s ongoing legacy.

This had real effects in Tennessee classrooms, students and teachers said, when two young Black Democrats were ousted by the House’s all-white GOP supermajority for staging a protest on the House floor urging gun reforms after a mass school shooting in Nashville. Rep. Justin Pearson and Rep. Justin Jones were later reinstated.

“We definitely have noticed that a silencing is happening in our schools,” said Ava Buxton, also a senior at Hume-Fogg, when asked whether the expulsions of Jones and Pearson had been discussed in her classes.

Emerging state data compiled by Chalkbeat suggests rises in students missing school did not come close to returning to pre-pandemic levels last school year.

August 31: One Detroit school’s multilayered effort to get absent students back to school

At one elementary-middle school in Detroit, a staggering 82% of students were chronically absent, meaning they missed 18 or more days. So, school leadership started a mentorship program, dispatched staff to students’ homes to help families solve problems contributing to absenteeism, and used data to track attendance patterns.

This school isn’t alone in battling poor student attendance. Emerging state data compiled by Chalkbeat suggests that the stunning rise in students missing school did not come close to returning to pre-pandemic levels last school year.

September 20: The pandemic is over. But American schools still aren’t the same.

Many students and educators say school is feeling more normal than it has in over three years. COVID health precautions have all but vanished. There’s less social awkwardness. Students say they’re over the novelty of seeing their classmates in person.

But beneath the surface, profound pandemic-era consequences persist. More students are missing school, and educators are scrambling to keep kids engaged in class. Nationally, many students remain far behind in math and reading where they would have been if not for the pandemic. There have been especially steep learning drops at schools that taught virtually for most of the 2020-21 school year. Learning loss is even more pressing for older students, who have less time to fill in those holes.

September 27: Roxborough High remembers Nicolas Elizalde, killed one year ago

One Philadelphia high school planted crocuses on the first anniversary of one of the most devastating events in the history of Roxborough High: a brutal shooting mere steps from the school that took the life of 14-year-old Nicolas Elizalde as he walked home from a football scrimmage at the field nearby.

During the last school year, 199 Philadelphia students were shot, and 33 of those died, district officials said. Nationwide, data confirms that school gun violence is pervasive — and spreading. The number of guns seized in schools and fired on school property has skyrocketed since before the pandemic, according to gun violence databases.

Nov. 21: Students want to talk about Israel and Gaza. Schools are struggling to keep up.

Both Muslim and Jewish students told Chalkbeat they’ve noticed an uptick in hurtful and derogatory comments from classmates at school or over social media, echoing a recent New York state review that found Islamophobic and antisemitic rhetoric have each jumped by more than 400% on social media since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s retaliation.

Classrooms can feel like one of the few safe places to make sense of the Israel-Hamas war, learn about the historical underpinnings of the crisis, and try in some small way to take action, teens said. But schools are taking divergent approaches to navigating conversations about the war and in some cases largely avoiding it, according to interviews with educators and students at six high schools.

Graduates line up to receive their degrees during the graduation from Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Dec. 15: Is college worth it? A Colorado report aims to answer that question.

Is college worth it? It can be, but students need to have better information about what a college education can lead to. According to a recent Colorado report, residents who complete college fare much better than their counterparts. In fact, those who finish a bachelor’s degree greatly outearn residents with only a high school diploma by several hundred dollars a week.

The information in the report is crucial to help students make a decision about whether they should go to college, advocates said. They also say the state can go a step further by displaying more information that students can use, including which college programs benefit them the most.

Caroline Bauman is the deputy managing editor for engagement at Chalkbeat.

Teen stories: What our student fellows shared in 2023

2023-12-27T13:00:00+00:00

This year, Chalkbeat’s Student Voices fellows continued to impress us with their resonant real-life stories about what it means to be a high school student today. Our essay-writing fellowship, now in its third year and open to public school students in New York City and Newark, New Jersey, aims to amplify the voices of teens, who have written powerfully about everything from immigrating to America to facing down bigotry in school to benefiting from restorative justice programs. Here’s a sampling of their recent work:

The pandemic defined my high school class in painful and precious ways

The COVID lockdown came midway through Jasmine Harris’ freshman year, and it kept her home all of sophomore year. When she and her classmates returned to campus as juniors, “conversations were short and awkward,” as teens readjusted to in-person learning and socializing, Jasmine explained in this Chalkbeat New York essay about how the pandemic affected her high school career. By senior year, though, Jasmine and her classmates were determined to make up for lost time. She wrote that they often reflect on how “even though it is sad that this is our last year together, it feels like we’re just getting started. That feeling has also bonded us and made us more appreciative of our time together.”

Losing my Spanish feels like losing part of myself

Ashally De La Cruz was born in the Dominican Republic and spoke only Spanish until she started kindergarten in New York City. Once in school, she quickly picked up English and began using her Spanish less frequently. Her hardworking mother, however, never had the chance to learn much English — and that created a language barrier between mother and daughter. “After 12 years in the U.S., I’m always forgetting Spanish words,” Ashally wrote in Chalkbeat New York, explaining that she sometimes relies on Google Translate to communicate with her mom. “In these moments, it can feel like I’m losing an important part of myself — the Dominican part.”

The racist bullying at school was unbearable, so I decided to speak out

Facing racist bullying, David Malakai Allen worked to change the reality for Black students at his high school. In this Chalkbeat Newark essay, he opened up about his efforts — founding the Black Student Union and advocating for change at the district level. Despite being an ambivalent public speaker, David offered searing testimony before the Newark Board of Education. He wrote: “When it was time to decide if I was going to speak up or remain silent, I remembered a quote by the incomparable writer Zora Neale Hurston: ‘If you are silent about your pain, they will kill you and say you enjoyed it.’”

What a cultural exchange program taught me about responding to racism

New York City native Vanessa Chen recently took part in a cultural exchange alongside students from across the U.S. and Europe. She was the only young woman of Chinese descent in the program — something she didn’t think much about until she found herself on the receiving end of racist remarks. These incidents left her so filled with emotion that, at first, she struggled with how to respond. “I had always imagined that I’d demand an apology … ,” she wrote in this Chalkbeat New York essay. “The fact that I stayed silent and laughed still feels disappointing.” Eventually, Vanessa learned how to push back against the racism in her midst.

Here’s what it was like for me to transition from ESL to mainstream classes

2022-23 Student Voices Fellow Karen Otavalo

After moving to the United States from Ecuador, Karen Otavalo was placed in ESL classes for students learning English. But when it came time to transfer to mainstream courses alongside fluent English speakers, Karen found herself newly afraid to speak aloud. She wrote about the rocky transition in this Chalkbeat Newark essay, explaining, “Language acquisition is rarely a linear path. More effort doesn’t always translate into more progress. Instead, I had to learn to be patient, and that isn’t an overnight transformation either.”

Gabrielle Birkner is the features editor and fellowship director at Chalkbeat. Contact her at gbirkner@chalkbeat.org.

The impact of Chalkbeat’s reporting in 2023

2023-12-26T12:00:00+00:00

When readers pored over Chalkbeat national reporter Kalyn Belsha’s investigative stories that looked into Paper, a virtual tutoring company with contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, they saw the truth about how the company operates.

Belsha found Paper’s tutors often juggled sessions with multiple students at a time and were even offered “surge” bonuses of two to three times their normal pay for every minute they worked with four or more students at once. Some of the districts sending their federal pandemic relief money to Paper were under the impression the tutors worked with one student at a time, a method found to have more success with struggling students.

The result was swift. The nation’s fifth-largest school district, Clark County in Nevada, gave schools the option to stop using Paper’s tutoring. One hundred and fifty schools opted out. Parents in Virginia shared the Chalkbeat articles at a school board meeting. In the weeks that followed, Boston and Hillsborough County, Florida announced they wouldn’t be working with Paper anymore.

This wasn’t the only time Chalkbeat’s stories on education news had a real and important impact on school communities this year. Here are a few of the many changes our thoughtful reporting brought about in 2023.

Chalkbeat made sure the public saw a plan that would impact nearly every aspect of Philadelphia’s district schools

Back in May, Philadelphia’s Board of Education was scheduled to vote on a consequential five-year strategic plan impacting nearly every aspect of the district’s schools.

But there was one problem. With only three days to go before the vote, the public hadn’t seen the plan.

This didn’t sit right with Chalkbeat Philadelphia. They knew this plan from Superintendent Tony Watlington would cover subjects they write about every day: remediation of asbestos in schools, a plan for year-round classes, gun violence, and low test scores.

They knew readers would care, too. So they wrote about the lack of transparency, and it had a quick impact. Just 24 hours before the Board of Education meeting, the district postponed the vote a week and released the strategic plan.

When disaster struck NYC, reporters made sense of conflicting information to help the community

A historic downpour paralyzed New York City in September and hit some schools hard, flooding buildings and creating treacherous commutes for families.

At a press conference that morning, Mayor Eric Adams reassured families that their children were made safe by a shelter-in-place order, meaning no one was to enter or leave school buildings. Chalkbeat quickly heard from sources across the school system, all with the same message: There had been no such order.

Chalkbeat’s reporters got to work and provided a comprehensive look at the communication breakdown between officials that led to the crossed wires — a misunderstanding that could someday have serious consequences as climate change leads to more unpredictable and severe weather.

A day after the article was published, schools Chancellor David Banks told reporters that he had launched an internal review to “do better next time,” vowing to pinpoint policies that need updating in light of events like that rainstorm and the air quality emergency over the summer.

A pattern of racism at a Newark school was made public because of a reporter’s close attention to a community

One by one, Newark parents, students, and educators stood before the Board of Education at a meeting and described being targeted at their school — the Newark School of Global Studies — for the color of their skin.

This wasn’t the first time school leaders had been warned in calls and emails about the harassment, threats, and slurs endured at the magnet school. But this time was different. Chalkbeat Newark reporter Jessie Gomez was in the audience.

Gomez doggedly reported out the allegations, obtaining emails that revealed how administrators had been aware of the racial tensions at the school for months and how pleas for help reached the offices of powerful elected officials.

Just weeks after Chalkbeat’s first story was published, Superintendent Roger León and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka met in person with the students to discuss the issues that were driving some to transfer out. Baraka’s office also organized a town hall to spotlight student voices and discuss unity among Newark’s Black and brown communities in light of the situation at the school.

Additionally, the Newark Board of Education then paid a third-party consultant to study the racial and cultural dynamics at the school — a report Chalkbeat is pushing to be released publicly.

Without Gomez’s consistent reporting, attendance at school board meetings, and relationship building, the school community would not have known about these critical issues that have far-reaching consequences. Her reporting received the prestigious Local Impact in New Jersey Journalism award, presented by the Corporation for New Jersey Local Media.

Authors couldn’t discuss or distribute their own book at a school event in Memphis. Now the banned book is being reviewed

In a story showing the chilling effect of Tennessee’s censorship laws, Chalkbeat’s Laura Testino reported on significant restrictions put on a book event at a Memphis high school.

The authors of “His Name Is George Floyd” were instructed to limit their comments, the only student questions were pre-screened, and students were denied their own copies of the book.

NBC News and FOX News followed up with their own reports, crediting and linking to Chalkbeat Tennessee’s story. The book’s co-author then published a first-person account for The New Yorker, where he is a staff writer, and also credited and linked to Testino’s reporting.

After admitting to not reading it beforehand, district officials said they would undertake an academic review of the Pulitzer Prize-winning work for placement in the school library.

None of this impact would have happened without our readers

For her reporting on Paper, Belsha interviewed 75 people, filed at least 33 public records requests, and reviewed hundreds of pages of internal documents and screenshots of employee communications. Similarly rigorous work is done every day by Chalkbeat’s reporters, editors, and staff to bring readers the education news they need to know.

We believe in the power of information to transform education. If you want to help us bring about more change in 2024, consider donating to Chalkbeat. Your contribution supports in-depth reporting and analysis of education policies, trends, and local issues. With your contribution, we can strengthen our efforts to ensure that each child receives the excellent education they deserve.

New leaders, COVID spending, bus troubles: 6 Chalkbeat Chicago stories that defined 2023

2023-12-21T22:45:44+00:00

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This year brought big shifts for education in Chicago and Illinois. As schools continued to return to normal and recover from the COVID pandemic’s impact on learning, the city elected a new mayor who appointed a new school board.

Schools grappled with a wave of migrants, who partly helped stave off continued enrollment declines, and the district entered a third straight year of transportation troubles.

As we approach the end of 2023 and look ahead to 2024, here are six of the biggest education stories we covered this past year:

New leadership to shape a new era

If the 2023 education beat had a theme, it might be leadership transitions. The state of Illinois got a new superintendent in Tony Sanders and Chicago got a new mayor and a new school board.

When Brandon Johnson, a former public school teacher, union organizer, and public school parent, made it into the runoff in February, he unexpectedly dashed incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s hopes for a second term. He would face Paul Vallas, a former CPS CEO who made a career as an education consultant and “fixer” turning around urban school districts.

Johnson’s victory over Vallas reflected, in part, ongoing shifts in local and national education policy. By July, he replaced six of seven school board members — a common act of new mayors — with more public school parents, community activists, and the leader of the parent group Raise Your Hand. The new board has already signaled some significant policy shifts, including moving away from a system of school choice and redoubling efforts to boost neighborhood schools.

What’s to come in 2024? Chicagoans will soon elect school board members, though state lawmakers are still working out the details of how that will happen. Before the legislature wrapped up its veto session, they did appear to agree on how the city would be divided into 20 districts after releasing their third draft of a district map.

Teresa Przybyslawski, an interventionist at Chicago’s Brunson Elementary School, works with a student on multiplication and division using flashcards. Przybyslawski, a former classroom teacher, took on the interventionist role this school year to help catch up struggling students.

COVID recovery money fuels interventionists, tutors

Federal COVID recovery money is dwindling and set to run out in 2024. But districts across the country have continued to spend millions on everything from tutoring to summer school to existing staff. In Chicago, more than $2 billion in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds have already been spent.

After months of questions and public records requests, Chalkbeat found a complicated picture of summer school spending in Chicago in February of this year. Many schools reported strong success in offering students robust programs, but tracking participation and attendance proved difficult. Data obtained six months after an initial request showed repeat sign ups or unusually high enrollments, raising questions about accuracy.

Chicago also continues to spend a large amount of its federal funds on existing staff, including a cadre of academic interventionists. These are mostly classroom teachers already on the district’s payroll who were tapped to help struggling students catch up. The district also spent $25 million to create a Tutor Corps to support students who may have gaps in their learning from when schools switched to virtual learning during the pandemic.

But the district is not only spending its money on staff. It also used some of the money to pay vendors to help develop a new $135 universal curriculum bank known as Skyline. In partnership with WBEZ, Chalkbeat took a closer look at how Skyline is being implemented and what teachers think of it.

Outside of Chicago, one south suburban school district is moving ahead with an uncommon technology plan to keep hybrid learning at the ready.

What’s to come in 2024? Chicago is planning to spend the final $300 million of the $2.8 billion it got in the 2024-25 school year and Illinois’ education budget could see some belt-tightening as districts set about spending roughly $1.9 billion of the $7 billion.

Migrant support group at Brighton Park Elementary in 2023 in Chicago, Illinois.

Schools see influx of migrant students

Chicago has seen an estimated 4,000 migrant students coming to the city from the southern border, most of them via bus from Texas. Among the many people stepping up to help families, especially children, adjust to a new country are teachers. During summer, we featured a few teachers volunteering at a south side police station to help refugee youth navigate a new language, a new culture, and in the fall, new schools. We also spent time at one school trying to help newcomer students navigate trauma.

Amid back-to-school season, it was not clear if schools would be ready to welcome waves of newcomers. A Chalkbeat analysis of staffing data obtained through records requests found the number of bilingual teachers had declined in recent years, but teachers with endorsements to teach in a bilingual program had grown.

What’s to come in 2024? Chicago continues to struggle to manage the influx of new arrivals, which has slowed in recent weeks. Plans to construct temporary tents in two locations have been put on ice. But the city instituted a 60-day limit on how long people can stay in temporary shelters just before Thanksgiving. However, migrant students do have a right to remain in the same school and receive transportation if they’re forced to move. (Leer en español.)

Joshua Long is the new Chicago Public School District district's department leader for students with disabilities on Mon., Dec. 11, 2023.

Special education sees shakeup

Chicago Public Schools has struggled to provide services to students with disabilities for several years and the COVID pandemic only exacerbated the issue.

In June, Chalkbeat obtained documents that found the district was violating state law on the use of restraint, timeout, and seclusion in school. Two days later, the top official overseeing the department that serves students with disabilities stepped down.

After that departure and after Johnson appointed a new school board, the district asked the public for input in hiring a new special education chief. In December, officials announced it had found a new special education leader from among its own ranks. Joshua Long, the longtime principal of a school for students with disabilities, was approved by the school board and will start his new role in January.

What’s to come in 2024? Long inherits a troubled department that remains under state watch for use of restraint, timeout, and seclusion in school. It also continues to face challenges providing students with disabilities with transportation, which they’re entitled to under federal law. Last year, hundreds of students with disabilities were on the bus for longer than 90 minutes each way, but that has declined significantly. Just over 100 were riding the bus longer than an hour, as of the end of November.

School bus at the front of North-Grand High School in Chicago. Photo by Stacey Rupolo/Chalkbeat �May, 2019 photo�

Transportation troubles continue

Amid state oversight, Chicago Public Schools announced in late July it would only provide bus transportation to homeless students and those with disabilities. Both groups are entitled to transportation under federal law.

Citing a bus driver shortage, district officials also offered families of students with disabilities and those in temporary housing a $500/month stipend to cover their own transportation, which nearly 4,000 families have taken as of late November. But those payments were initially delayed and the first checks weren’t mailed until late September.

By late September, district officials also confirmed that general education students attending schools outside their neighborhood, most of them selective or magnet options, would not get busing for the rest of the semester, leaving some parents grasping for help or switching schools.

What’s to come in 2024? CPS officials announced this week that the district would not provide busing to general education students for the rest of this school year. At a City Council meeting last month, officials outlined possible solutions for next school year, including having students picked up at a regional site rather than their home and working with schools to adjust bell schedules.

A Haugan Elementary classroom on Thursday, August 4, 2022 Chicago. | Christian K. Lee for Chalkbeat

Preschool expansion goes statewide

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is promising to expand preschool and make child care more accessible in his second term. He said he hopes to make Illinois one of the best states to raise a family.

A longtime supporter of early childhood education, Pritzker’s push to boost the sector in his first term started off with a $100 million increase in 2019, but got sidelined by the COVID pandemic. Now, he’s making moves with a plan to increase early childhood by $250 million over the next four years and the creation of a standalone agency to bring together programs that are now housed across three separate departments. He also signed a bill requiring school districts to get up to speed by offering full-day kindergarten by 2027.

Chicago started rolling out universal preschool for all 4-year-olds in 2018, when then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel made it a re-election promise before bowing out of the 2019 mayoral election. Now, full-day preschool is a reality in every neighborhood, officials say, and enrollment figures from this fall show pre-K helped, in part, stabilize enrollment in CPS.

What’s to come in 2024? The governor typically gives a speech and releases a budget in early February. It’s likely he’ll continue increasing early education funding, but also could begin to detail the shape and scope of the new early childhood agency.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Six big storylines that defined Tennessee education in 2023

2023-12-20T22:25:19+00:00

For a third straight year, many Tennessee students strived to climb back from academic and mental health challenges after COVID-19 forced them into remote learning.

But it was the unexpected events that dominated education news in Tennessee in 2023 and exposed new fault lines: A deadly shooting at a Nashville private school sparked protests and a backlash at the state Capitol. A superintendent search in the state’s largest school district unraveled just as it was about to wrap up. And the state ordered an 11th-hour overhaul of school accountability measures that will fall hardest on schools that serve students from low-income families.

Beyond that, some of the biggest headlines were about the ripple effects of Tennessee laws that put new pressure on public schools, including the rapid spread of private-school vouchers, the anxiety around high-stakes testing for third graders, and restrictions on what teachers can say in their classrooms about race and bias.

Chalkbeat Tennessee’s Marta W. Aldrich, our senior correspondent in Nashville, and Laura Testino, our Memphis-Shelby County Schools reporter, covered all those issues like honeysuckle covers the South. They connected with experts and advocates, sought out documents and data, and, most of all, showcased the voices of students, parents, and educators to bring you closer to the big stories driving education in the Volunteer State.

Here are some of the 2023 stories that resonated most with you — and with us.

Nashville students walked out of school April 3, 2023, and gathered at the Tennessee State Capitol for a demonstration against gun violence, organized by the youth group March for Our Lives.

Nashville students protest the state’s lax gun laws

On March 27, an intruder armed with legally obtained, high-powered guns entered The Covenant School in Nashville and killed three adults and three 9-year-olds. The school was private, but the impact quickly spread to the public sphere when thousands of students and educators responded with days of protests against the state’s lax gun laws.

A story by Marta about the students protesting at the state Capitol in Nashville was the most-read story of 2023.

Among other things, it called attention to the disconnect between public support for tighter gun safety laws and a legislature that has moved in the other direction, eliminating many requirements for permits, safety training and waiting periods, and allowing purchases of some of the most deadly weapons.

Marta’s coverage that day showcased the voices — and faces — of the students who are coming of age in an era of escalating gun violence and turning their anger and anxiety into activism.

“We all want to live through high school,” said a 17-year-old student Marta spoke with, “and that’s why we’re here today.”

In her continuing coverage, Marta focused on how Tennessee lawmakers continued to push for broader access to guns, even as Nashville teachers were struggling to cope mentally and emotionally with the aftermath of the Covenant shooting.

A special legislative session on gun safety yielded no new restrictions, angering parents, students, and gun control activists.

“Today is a difficult day,” said David Teague, a father of two children at Covenant. “A tremendous opportunity to make our children safer and create brighter tomorrow’s has been missed. And I am saddened for all Tennesseans.”

(From left) Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, and Justin Pearson of Memphis speak at a press conference on April 4, 2023, about GOP-sponsored resolutions to kick the three Democrats out of office. The House voted to oust Jones and Pearson, but not Johnson.

Lawmaker expulsions: When a teachable moment becomes taboo

The gun safety protests roiled the state Capitol, culminating in the expulsion of two lawmakers who led the protests on the House floor. They also created confusion in Tennessee classrooms about how to discuss what happened.

In all, three Democratic lawmakers faced expulsion resolutions over their role in the protests, but only two of them — Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis, both young Black men — were actually voted out by the GOP-dominated chamber. The House spared the third lawmaker, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, who is a white woman.

The incident drew national attention, and scorn, as an example of racism and white privilege in the halls of power. But because of a state law that restricts teaching about race, many teachers struggled with how to answer students’ questions or engage them in conversations about it. While tracking the expulsion story, Marta and Laura also explored what happens when state policies collide with learning and engagement in the classroom, and what students lose when they do.

“I think these conversations would go much deeper if our teachers didn’t have the fear of these new laws hanging over them,” one high school senior in Nashville told them.

The same themes resurfaced in Laura’s coverage of a book event at Whitehaven H.S. in Memphis, featuring authors of “His Name Is George Floyd.”

Laura discovered a social media exchange that revealed how the authors faced restrictions on presenting their book to students because of concerns about the state laws governing library books and “age appropriate” materials. Tennessee’s laws restricting classroom discussions of race also loomed in the background.

Laura resolved to tell the story of how the restrictions came to be, and how they were communicated to the organizers of the book event and the authors. But the state law is a touchy subject for educators trying to steer clear of trouble, and Laura found it challenging to get the full story from the school district.

According to the authors of the book, journalists Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, students at Whitehaven didn’t get the full story about George Floyd either. Samuels wrote an essay about the experience in The New Yorker.

Memphis superintendent search moves in fits and starts

It was just over a year ago that Memphis-Shelby County Schools announced an accelerated process for selecting a permanent successor to Joris Ray, who resigned in August 2022 amid charges that he abused his power and violated district policies.

But the superintendent post is still vacant, and the search continues.

What was supposed to be a grand unveiling of finalists in April devolved into an argument about process when some board members decided they didn’t like the slate of candidates selected by the search firm.

Toni Williams, interim superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, addresses the board during a special-called meeting on June 13, 2023.

A big sticking point was the selection of the interim superintendent, Toni Williams, as a finalist. She had once pledged not to apply for the permanent post. And Chalkbeat Tennessee reported that the search firm, Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, didn’t enforce board policies on minimum qualifications for the job in screening candidates.

Chalkbeat Tennessee has closely tracked the ensuing drama, including the resignation of the board’s vice chair, the banning of several activists from district property, and big questions about whether the public display of board dysfunction would repel top national candidates.

A rebooted search is now reaching its final stages, with a target of having the next superintendent on the job by summer. Whoever emerges as the leader will have a heavy workload: navigating tough budget decisions, coordinating a massive facilities overhaul, and driving academic recovery in a district where nearly 80% of students aren’t proficient in reading.

Accountability measures add to pressure on districts — and children

In a sign of continuing recovery from the pandemic, students’ proficiency rates in math and language arts improved in most districts across the state, according to results from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP test. The gains in Memphis-Shelby County schools were more muted than in past years.

Along with Thomas Wilburn, Chalkbeat’s senior data editor, Marta provided a comprehensive report on the results and a data tool to help readers look up how students in each district performed.

Beyond the scores, Chalkbeat’s coverage zeroed in on last year’s class of third-graders, and the outsized burden they carried. These students were kindergartners when the pandemic struck in March 2020, sent home to learn remotely just as their formal education was beginning.

Statewide, this was also the first cohort of third-graders who faced the threat of being held back if they couldn’t demonstrate proficiency on the TCAP language arts test. Statewide, about 60% of third-graders did not meet the standard for proficiency. In MSCS alone, more than 6,000 students missed the mark.

Laura focused on one of them: 8-year-old Kamryn, an anxious third-grader who chose to walk out of her school rather than face the results of a state test that could cause her to remain in the third grade.

“She told me that she was tired of school,” her mother told Laura.

Kamryn’s tale reflected the human toll of testing and accountability measures in a school district where children were, long before the disruption of COVID-19, already facing many challenges.

Lizzette Reynolds takes her oath during her swearing in ceremony as Tennessee’s newest education commissioner. She ordered a revamp of the state's grading system for schools, stressing proficiency over growth.

School district leaders and administrators now face another set of accountability pressures: the start of a new letter-grading system for all public schools, mandated by a 2016 state law.

They had been waiting for these A-F grades for years, thinking they understood what the criteria would be. But the state education department decided to change the criteria late this year to stress proficiency over growth, mostly ignoring the feedback it received from town halls and public comments. That means more schools in struggling areas are likely to receive D’s or F’s.

The grades are due out Thursday.

Laura and Marta’s coverage adds to the discourse of how Tennessee continues to apply new scrutiny to public schools with no guarantees of helping them to improve.

Tennessee legislature looks at rejecting billions of dollars in federal education funds

To many observers, it seemed like just political posturing when Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton suggested that the state reject billions of dollars in federal education funds so it could free itself from federal regulations.

But Marta knew that such a potentially sweeping idea needed to be treated seriously, because Tennessee receives about $1.8 billion in federal aid — and because no state had ever rejected federal funding before.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton in the Tennessee State House chamber in 2022. Sexton suggested this year that Tennessee forgo federal education funding.

She went to work on a Q&A for readers to show what giving up federal funds would mean for families and the state’s most vulnerable students. In particular, Marta noted, without the conditions that come with federal funding, there’s no guarantee that Tennessee law would work as well as federal laws designed to protect students with disabilities.

Sure enough, Sexton was serious enough about his suggestion to order a full-blown legislative study, with hearings featuring testimony from school district leaders and conservative think tanks — but not parents.

The panel considering the idea is still doing its research, but its co-chair says it’s unlikely the state will follow through.

Tennessee governor proposes to make private-school vouchers available to all

One by one, obstacles to Gov. Bill Lee’s private-school voucher program have fallen away.

A program once billed as a pilot project for two counties has expanded to a third under a law passed this year. And Lee now wants to make it universal, available to all students statewide.

Gov. Bill Lee calls for a statewide education voucher program in Tennessee during a press conference in Nashville on November 28, 2023, as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders offers her support.

Marta’s coverage of the proposal delivered needed context about Lee’s continuing effort to persuade more parents to sign on to the program, which has attracted only about 2,000 students so far, well below capacity.

The story also looks ahead to the obstacles Lee will face in getting his bill through the legislature. Already, leaders of many rural and suburban school districts have announced their opposition to the bill based on the same concern that urban districts have: that it will divert more money away from public schools.

It’s a story that we’ll be following closely when the legislature convenes next month and the full language of the bill becomes available. Stay tuned.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

Literacy, vouchers, and IPS: Indiana education issues we’re watching in 2024

2023-12-21T12:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.

It may be a new year on the calendar, but January marks the halfway point of the school year and the start of the legislative session in Indiana. And there’s no shortage of education news and issues to watch.

Here’s five topics we’re watching in 2024:

How students learn to read

No surprise here, but reading will likely get a lot of attention, just like in 2023.

Lawmakers passed a new state law in 2023 that requires school districts to adopt a curriculum that’s aligned with the science of reading. The law also specifies that districts are no longer allowed to use literacy curriculum that rely mostly on the three-cueing model, in which students use context clues and pictures.

The new law grew out of concerns held by lawmakers and education officials about students’ reading ability, and our story about what it means for students, teachers and schools was our most-read story of 2023.

When discussing next year’s legislative session, lawmakers said they want to continue to address literacy by looking into Indiana’s third grade retention laws for students who don’t pass the state reading exam, the IREAD-3.

2024 elections feature gubernatorial, IPS school board races

The new year means that it’s a big election year — and not just because there’s a race for the White House.

Here in Indiana, there’s an election for governor with no incumbent, since term limits prohibit Gov. Eric Holcomb from running again. There are multiple candidates on the Republican side and former Indiana Superintendent of Education Jennifer McCormick on the Democratic side.

At the local level, four of the seven seats on the IPS Board of Commissioners are up for election in November, plus there will be school board elections across the state.

Rebuilding Stronger becomes reality for IPS

Approved by the Indianapolis Public Schools board in fall of 2022, Rebuilding Stronger is the district’s sweeping overhaul that aims to address pressing challenges of declining enrollment and educational inequities for students of color.

The Rebuilding Stronger rollout started this school year with the closure of several schools. But the bigger piece begins in the 2024-25 school year, when grade reconfigurations at the elementary and middle schools start, along with expanded academic programs and enrollment zones.

The district is working hard to make sure families know their options for the coming year with an invitation for families to “Choose your IPS.”

The enrollment period is underway, and IPS reported in early December that applications were up from the same time last year by about 470 families.

The future of old IPS school buildings

Per state law, school districts must offer closed school buildings to charter schools to buy or lease for $1. But the law comes with exemptions, including one added this year for districts that share funds from voter-approved property tax increases for operating or safety expenses with an “applicable charter school.”

What that new exemption means is the focus of a legal dispute between IPS and the state that will likely continue into the new year. The outcome will determine whether the district can sell the buildings or must essentially give them to charter schools that could enroll former IPS students.

IPS filed a lawsuit in August against Attorney General Todd Rokita and state board of education officials, arguing that the school district is exempt from the state law. A Marion County judge sided with the district, and Rokita appealed the ruling. In the meantime, the IPS has paused the sale of closed buildings, but the district plans to lease one of the facilities (which it previously voted to sell to a nonprofit) while the court battle plays out.

More students using vouchers

Earlier this year, lawmakers expanded the state’s voucher program to make nearly all students eligible to receive public money to attend private school. Indiana was one of several Republican-led states to do so recently.

Roughly 97% of students now qualify, and state projections show that participation could increase by nearly 42,000 students within two years. And in November, we had our first glimpse into what the participation looks like.

More than 69,000 Choice Scholarship applications were approved during the first round of the program for the 2023-24 school year, per the Indiana Department of Education. That’s a record number. And it’s likely to rise after the second application period, which closes in January.

Chalkbeat Indiana reporters Amelia Pak-Harvey and Aleksandra Appleton contributed to this article.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. She also covers access to higher education and Warren Township Schools. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

These are some of the education questions Chalkbeat answered through data in 2023

2023-12-18T16:06:51+00:00

This was a year for asking questions. With students firmly ensconced back in physical classrooms, it felt like we were taking stock of the new normal. How bad was COVID learning loss? What will it take to recover? What fresh surprises can we expect from 2024?

This was also the year in which, if you had questions, AI had answers. They were probably wrong, generated from illicit Internet scraping and presented with the boundless confidence of a late-night infomercial — but they were answers, of a sort.

As a human and not a large language model, I can’t always promise answers, although our data team will certainly try to find them. Some problems are complicated, and I believe it’s more important to be precise and correct than to be reassuring. But here are seven questions, and the data stories that answer them, from 2023.

How many certified bilingual teachers work in Chicago?

With Chicago facing an influx of immigrants, how is the district handling new English language learners? A Chalkbeat data analysis found that the answer is complicated: There are now fewer designated bilingual instructors than in the past, mostly due to a decline in part-time positions. But more teachers with a bilingual endorsement are working in general education positions. Our team looked at public and internal staffing data to get a better picture of how staff and students are matching up.

How much is your new Memphis teacher salary?

Most of our team’s work consists of data visualization and analysis. But we’re sometimes able to also provide interactive tools for our readers, as in this story by Laura Testino about the new Memphis salary schedules. Data intern Nadia Bey helped write a calculator embed that takes a teacher’s current salary and education level into account, then computes the new band and how it compares to changes at other salary levels. Nadia also wrote about the development process on the data team blog.

What anti-trans laws are pushing students to Illinois?

As a wave of anti-trans legislation has swept through the country, Chalkbeat Chicago intern Max Lubbers profiled several students who have moved (or are planning to move) to Illinois as a refuge. To provide context for their stories, we downloaded the ACLU’s full list of LGBT-related legislation, and then read through the actual bills — almost 500 of them — to categorize them and find trends in their spread, like the rise of “parental rights” language. The resulting story is not just about Illinois, but also about a wider national movement, and its impacts on vulnerable students.

How does gender segregation affect NYC public schools?

In 17% of NYC high schools, boys outnumber girls by at least 2 to 1, or vice versa. That’s the striking conclusion from a Common Core of Data analysis in this Chalkbeat story by Michael Elsen-Rooney and Kae Petrin, with a deep dive into the selection criteria, history, and possible outcomes. Many of these schools specialize in career and technical education programs like health care or tech, and may reflect — or even contribute to — the corresponding gender gaps in similar careers.

Does staff diversity in Newark match the student body?

Despite New Jersey’s diverse student population, it’s one of the most segregated public school systems in the country. In this story by Catherine Carrera and Jessie Gómez, with data analysis by Nadia Bey, Chalkbeat specifically looked at Newark’s teachers and administrators in the context of its growing Latino population.

Just how bad was COVID’s impact on English language learners?

It’s undeniable that the pandemic affected student test results across the board, but English learners were particularly impacted. Chalkbeat Colorado’s Yesenia Robles looked at passage rates on standardized tests, with data analysis by Kae Petrin, to see just how bad it’s been, and examined how districts are doing about it. As often happens with education, what seem like simple test scores might mask a much more complicated situation, depending on changes in the makeup of the English learner population, participation rates, and changes in student designation.

Were Indianapolis’ Restart charters successful?

Charter schools operate struggling district schools through “turnaround” programs in cities throughout the U.S., including Indianapolis. But researchers and advocates encounter a number of difficulties evaluating exactly how those schools perform after operator changes, shifts in standardized tests, and more. Chalkbeat Indiana’s Amelia Pak-Harvey teamed up with Kae Petrin to dig into how the data picture doesn’t quite match officials’ promised outcomes.

Chalkbeat readers helped make these stories possible in 2022. Here’s how you can get involved in 2023

2022-12-30T15:01:00+00:00

As 2022 comes to a close, Chalkbeat is reflecting on another year of covering public education across America.

The following stories are among many made possible by the hundreds of readers who shared their experiences with us throughout the year.

We thank you for reading Chalkbeat and being a core part of our work.

The teachers who quit teaching tell us why

In May, Chalkbeat asked teachers who quit why they left.

The 80 teachers we heard from said respect, support, better pay, and more flexibility are just a few of the things that might have kept them working in education. The insights shared here are diverse, touching on burnout, school funding, teacher training, and cultural representation in curriculum.

Read the full story for more insight on why teachers quit the profession.

School psychologist, counselor hiring lags nationwide even as student mental health needs soar

We asked: Are efforts to support student mental health working? Help Chalkbeat investigate.

The readers we heard from helped inform a story months later on how schools nationwide couldn’t keep up with demand for staff psychologists and counselors.

Read the full story, published in partnership with the AP.

Chicago high school students are giving back to their school by tutoring peers

In October, Chalkbeat Chicago wanted to hear more about how local schools were finding joy after a few tough years. We asked readers to share their stories with us, and we heard about a free peer tutoring and mentoring program at Infinity Math, Science & Technology High School in Chicago’s Little Village.

“I feel like tutoring does make a change and a difference,” one student tutor said. “It really does make an impact.”

Read more about the Infinity High School tutoring program, which offers tutoring every Thursday and a four-hour session one Saturday per quarter.

NYC says all classrooms have air conditioning, but gaps remain

Days before the school year started, New York City officials said they made good on a major promise: ensuring every public school classroom has air conditioning. But as students and educators returned to their classrooms, some were still sweltering. Dozens of educators, students, and parents told Chalkbeat New York that there were still gaps in air conditioning coverage. In some cases, AC units were installed, but have fallen into disrepair and have not been fixed or replaced. In others, units have yet to be delivered, or school officials are waiting for upgrades to outdated electrical systems before switching them on. Some areas, including auditoriums and gyms, were never guaranteed air conditioning in the first place.

Read the full story by Alex Zimmerman here.

LGBTQ reading list: What Chalkbeat readers recommend

How can educators make classrooms more inclusive for LGBTQ+ youth? One small way, Chalkbeat readers said, is to incorporate stories that are reflective of the student body throughout the school year. We asked parents, students, and teachers for their book list suggestions — and you responded with titles ranging from picture books to young adult literature.

Read the full story for more LGBTQ+ reading recommendations from Chalkbeat readers.

We heard from educators and students with their recommendations for building an inclusive classroom for LGBTQ youth.

How you can participate in our journalism in 2023

Share your own story with Chalkbeat journalists

From Chalkbeat Detroit

Tell us: What attendance barriers does your family face in Detroit? Chronic absenteeism is widespread. Last year, two-thirds of students in the city of Detroit missed school at least 10% of the time. Half a million students across the state missed that much school.
Share your story as part of Chalkbeat Detroit’s reporting on the causes and solutions to absenteeism.

From Chalkbeat Newark

Have you faced barriers to special education services in Newark schools? Chalkbeat wants to hear your story. Take our short survey.

From Chalkbeat Indiana

Parents and teachers: Tell us how your school works with English learner students. Chalkbeat Indiana wants to hear from parents and teachers about English learner education. Tell us your story in our quick survey.

Subscribe to text updates from local school board meetings

Do you live in Detroit, Indianapolis, Memphis or Newark, New Jersey?

You can sign up for monthly text from reporters in your community on what’s happening in your local school board meetings.

How to sign up:

In Detroit, text SCHOOL to 313-637-3777 for updates on the Detroit Public Schools Community District Board of Education from Chalkbeat Detroit reporter Ethan Bakuli.
In Indianapolis, text SCHOOLS to 317-932-3900 to receive monthly updates from the Indianapolis Public Schools board from Chalkbeat Indiana reporter Amelia Pak-Harvey.
For Memphis, text SCHOOL to 901-565-5550 for monthly updates on Memphis-Shelby County school board decisions from Chalkbeat Tennessee reporter Samantha West.
In Newark, text SCHOOL to 973-327-7774 for monthly updates on the Newark Board of Education from Chalkbeat Newark reporter Jessie Gomez.

Do you want this service in your community? Let us know by reaching out to us at community@chalkbeat.org.

Submit a first-person essay

Chalkbeat regularly publishes personal essays in our First Person series, which aims to highlight the views of educators, students, parents, advocates, and others on the front lines of working to improve public education.

These aren’t traditional opinion pieces or newspaper editorials. We’re looking for essays, about 800 words or so, that center your individual experiences or observations in education.

Recent First Person essays include:

Here’s how to pitch your written personal essay to Chalkbeat.

For even more ways to be involved with Chalkbeat’s journalism, check out chalkbeat.org/get-involved.

13 education data stories that explained U.S. schools in 2022

2022-12-29T15:00:00+00:00

A map, a graph, a timeline: When we think about data in news stories, our minds naturally jump to these kinds of visual elements. But the core of data journalism is less about specific charts, and more about scale—it gives us a way to understand big stories and lots of numbers, by analyzing and aggregating them until we can see the shape of the trends within.

2022 was my first full calendar year as the editor of Chalkbeat’s data team, and what a year for data it was. Here’s a baker’s dozen of the stories that we feel captured our best work, and help sum up a busy 12 months reporting on education data across America.

1. NYC parents, was your child exposed to COVID? Here’s what to do next

It’s easy to forget now, but at the start of 2022 there was still a lot of confusion around what the return to school meant for public health: Policies around masking, quarantine, and contact tracing were all changing rapidly. Our team worked with Chalkbeat editors and reporters in New York City to create an interactive flowchart to reduce some of that confusion, so that parents could walk step by step through the requirements if their child or a classmate tested positive.

2. What five graphics tell us about COVID vaccine disparity in Chicago schools

Once vaccines were approved for children, they became part of a layered public health strategy for school districts trying to get kids back into classrooms. But like so much about COVID, vaccine distribution also revealed persistent inequality. In Chicago, data analysis from the district’s vaccination dashboard showed an organization struggling to keep kids safe, especially in historically Black and Hispanic neighborhoods on the South Side of the city.

3. Technology, Skyline rollout dominate Chicago Public Schools’ federal relief vendor spending

With the pandemic came federal money, through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds, also known as ESSER I, II, and III. Flush with cash, school districts across the country channeled money into renovation, hiring, and equipment.

On this story, we looked at the data from Chicago Public Schools’ spending, to see who was making the most from ESSER purchases. Unsurprisingly, the tree map at the top shows how more than half of all spending went to only 10 mega-vendors out of almost 1,000 companies in the dataset.

4. How the COVID-19 pandemic is changing school data

Pandemics are natural data stories, but they are also big data events for governments and school administrations, and many states responded accordingly. Data reporters Kae Petrin and Kaitlyn Radde collaborated on this story to explore how COVID had exposed weaknesses in school data infrastructure, and the improvements they were making in response.

5. Nonbinary students aren’t reflected in federal civil rights data. That might change.

In a similar vein, this story from Kae Petrin looked into a proposed change from the federal Office of Civil Rights that would expand the gender categories used in state-reported data on harassment, absenteeism, and sexual assault. More than just a demographic marker, these kinds of changes — highlighted in a map from Cam Rodriguez — also show the seams of our patchwork educational system, and where they sometimes strain to keep up with social change.

6. In New Jersey, thousands of Black and Hispanic students are shut out of AP classes

One of the advantages of working on data at Chalkbeat is our local coverage, and the ability to work with bureaus that are deeply sourced in their communities. This story by Patrick Wall is a perfect example, as it digs into New Jersey’s AP class attendance gap, and its disproportionate effect on students of color, including maps and graphs from Cam Rodriguez that put the disparity into sharp contrast.

7. How the age-appropriate debate is altering curriculum in Tennessee and nationwide

This year saw the political debate around critical race theory — the academic framework that examines how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism and that is not commonly taught in primary or secondary schools — turned into an ongoing controversy around reading material in libraries and classrooms. For this enterprise story, our team added context for objections that parents had raised against the curriculum used by Williamson County, which included accusations of racism against Ruby Bridges’ autobiography and an assertion that a book on seahorses normalizes male pregnancy. We also wrote up some of our notes on the development of the visualization.

8. Nation’s report card: Massive drop in math scores, slide in reading linked to COVID disruption

After a year of delay from its normal schedule, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released test results that showed just how severely students were affected by learning loss during the pandemic. Our team worked with all of Chalkbeat’s bureaus to analyze these scores around the country, including demographic breakdowns. On the national level we also added comparisons to the impact of remote learning by state.

9. Online enrollment grows in Colorado but some say more accountability is needed

Analysis of NAEP scores showed that students didn’t clearly lose or gain in online schools, but that those schools’ growth hasn’t always been transparent. This report by Colorado reporter Yesenia Robles and data team member Kae Petrin dove deep into concerns around graduation rates and academic achievement at virtual schools, as well as wide gaps in the state’s data on their effectiveness.

10. As pandemic aid runs out, America is set to return to a broken school funding system

Pandemic relief funds were a windfall for many districts, especially after years of tight budgets at high-poverty schools. But with ESSER money due to expire soon, questions remain about how to make those changes sustainable and address historical underfunding. Our team worked on several ways to visualize this problem, including a spike map that juxtaposes population against per-student funding.

11. Ahead of school closures, 5 takeaways about the number of schools and students in Denver

Nationwide, shrinking school enrollment has led districts to make hard choices about keeping schools open, especially as smaller schools are more expensive and offer fewer options for each student. In Colorado, Chalkbeat has covered the debate over school closures, including this analysis-based story on how Denver school growth (both district and charter) has tracked against the student population.

12. Interest in running for Indianapolis school board drops to new low

Two sets of local elected officials became the center of intense (often negative) scrutiny this year: election supervisors and school boards. In Indiana, Cam Rodriguez worked with Chalkbeat and WFYI reporters to put together this comparison of election cohorts over time, showing how candidate interest in school board openings has dropped, even as the cost of running has increased.

13. Michigan students who are homeless more likely to be disciplined

Based on a University of Michigan study, this story features a map that isn’t just an illustration of population density (a common mistake) but gives readers a way to explore the relationship between school discipline and student homelessness.

Meet 10 inspiring educators from Chalkbeat’s 2022 coverage

2022-12-28T14:55:00+00:00

Over the past year, Chalkbeat has shared stories from dozens of teachers, principals, and educators sharing what motivates them and what it’s like to be an educator in America today.

One teacher pushes her students not to despair, but to act in the face of climate change. Another discussed the importance of showing up to school after a student’s death. And a principal talked about what it was like to inspire former students to become teachers — she recruited four of them to work at her school.

These are just a few of the thousands of educators making a difference in U.S. schools. After you’ve met these 10, we invite you to read more from our pages.

She shows students how to fight climate change locally

New York City teacher Sarah Slack’s award-winning career as a science educator began with a desire to share accurate information about the world with students, such as the fact that Pluto has not, thus far, exploded.

Over 14 years in middle school classrooms, Slack has learned to draw on students’ passion for their communities. To teach about the climate crisis, she shows students that they don’t have to save the whole world right away. They can begin by working to save their neighborhoods.

She helps her students gain media literacy

Tara Cocanower wants her world studies students to have a diverse diet of news media and cite evidence for their opinions about current events. And she wants all of it discussed in a respectful way.

The 2023 Indiana Teacher of the Year, whose approach to teaching is inspired by her grandmother Phyllis’ emphasis on humility, is also a voracious reader whose historical interests stretch from ancient Egypt to World War I. And she doesn’t want her lessons to be confined to her classroom walls.

“I love hearing that what I’m teaching overflows from the classroom to the dinner tables, couches, and patios of my students,” she said.

A principal’s ex-students can’t stay away

Marla Travis, the principal of West Philadelphia High School, calls four of her teachers “my children.” They’re not literally her offspring, but she’s got a good reason for using that phrase: Jean-Claude Forte, Yaseemah Foster, Robert Green, and Brittney Smith all used to be students of hers at a different Philadelphia high school.

While they took different paths into the teaching profession, all four talked about Travis’ influence and what it’s like to work for her now. And two of them said they are studying to become principals one day.

He fell in love with teaching while incarcerated

Ryan M. Moser was less than thrilled he entered the Florida Department of Corrections and a classification officer assigned him the role of teaching assistant. But he became dedicated to the work, helped fellow inmates earn their GEDs, and learned to become a mentor in the process.

Moser, who says he “hated school” as a student, also learned about prison bureaucracies and the inequities he and his peers faced. Eventually, his cynicism transformed into pride in his students’ curiosity and successes.

She wants more students to read Native authors

When it comes to depictions of Indigenous peoples and nations that today’s adults might remember fondly from childhood books, Dr. Debbie Reese has some basic advice: Let go of them.

Reese has written extensively about the harm that such stereotypical presentations — from “Little House on the Prairie” to university mascots — can do. She’s also advocated for students and teachers to read more books by Native authors.

He inspires students of color to new heights

Colorado science teacher Eddie Taylor came to teaching the same way he came to summit Mount Everest: through serendipity.

Taylor sees other parallels between the teaching profession and the world of outdoor sports, such as a lack of diversity. Taylor, who is Black, said he thinks that just like his (ultimately successful) quest to climb the world’s highest mountain, his lessons and his presence in the classroom inspire his students, including students of color.

“Sometimes that kid’s just going to connect with that person a little better,” he says.

His healing music earned a Grammy nomination

When the pandemic shut down schools in 2020, Chicago music teacher Trevor Nicholas drew on his childhood experience and composed songs for his students. His belief in the “healing power of music” ultimately led to a Grammy nomination for his work.

Nicholas has also helped raise more than $300,000 in grants, donations, and free music lessons for Chicago Public Schools students. “As a teacher, I give my students space to work individually, to jam out, and have some fun,” he says.

Tennessee teacher faced grief and found hope

During his career in Memphis schools, veteran math teacher Adrian Hampton has many fond memories, like the time he and his students met President Barack Obama at commencement. But one day before a scheduled interview with Chalkbeat, one of his students, Damien Smith, Jr., was shot and killed. At the time, police said 23 children in Memphis had died by homicide during the 2021-22 school year.

An emotional Hampton discussed how he and others deal with gun violence’s impact on schools, why he showed up to work instead of taking the day off after his student’s death, and what gives him hope.

Why one teacher tells students to ‘trust your pen’

English teacher Talena Lachelle Queen infuses poetry into her writing lessons in Paterson, New Jersey, to help students learn about their creativity. And her favorite lesson is what she calls the “science of writing,” in which she creates parallels between math instruction and essay writing so that students can better understand how to express themselves powerfully.

Queen, who previously worked in broadcast journalism and ran a preschool and day care before becoming a teacher, also says that praise even for seemingly trivial things is a big help. “Love creates sincere feelings of safety. It prompts scholars to confide in me and want to get higher grades because they know they are valuable,” she says.

A mother’s journey inspires an adult education career

Christian Young’s mother dropped out of school when she was 17. Yet she didn’t give up on education, and went on to get her GED, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and finally her doctorate.

That experience inspires Young’s work in Michigan, where in March he was named the Adult Educator of the Year by the Michigan Reading Association. Most of his students are parents, and he empowers them to get involved in their children’s schools to share their important perspectives as adult learners.

How Chalkbeat’s reporting impacted schools and local communities in 2022

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COVID and the pandemic’s many effects continued to disrupt education in 2022. School communities are grappling with mental health challenges and the broad impact of longstanding inequities. Families are dealing with homelessness, food insecurity, and other challenges.

How do we know? Because you told us.

In 2022, Chalkbeat’s reporting had an impact on schools and families across the U.S. because the teachers, students, parents, and communities in these places were willing to help us tell the story of education in this moment.

Here are eight Chalkbeat stories that made a difference in school communities in 2022 — impact that would have been impossible without the people who support our work.

A Chicago reporter’s award-winning work highlights education gaps for boys of color

Since the outbreak of COVID, Chalkbeat Chicago senior reporter Mila Koumpilova has dedicated herself to documenting the experience of students and families through a lens of exposing inequity. This year, her work was recognized by the Education Writers Association with the Beat Reporting award for a midsize newsroom. Judges cited her in-depth series on the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on Black and Latino boys as particularly impactful. (Mila’s reporting was also published in USA Today.)

“Three Black and Latino teens, Leonel Gonzalez, Derrick Magee and Nathaniel Martinez, took my breath away, and [I] even got teary-eyed in this extraordinary story by Mila Koumpilova,” one judge said.

Only one reporter covered this virtual charter school in Indiana. It made a difference

Chalkbeat Indiana’s Aleksandra Appleton was the only reporter to write a story on a virtual charter school offering cash stipends to families who enrolled their children .

The payments would have violated a state law that bans schools from offering enrollment incentives. But after Chalkbeat’s story, the school received overwhelmingly negative responses at its public hearing and ultimately withdrew its application.

We were the only publication covering the school.

Asking the right questions leads to school funding accountability in Pennsylvania

Sometimes, data is wrong, as Chalkbeat’s Matt Barnum found in reporting on a high-stakes school funding court case in Pennsylvania. State officials used data from the Urban Institute to argue that funding in Pennsylvania is fair. But this data differed from what appeared in other research.

After Chalkbeat asked about the discrepancy, the Urban Institute “updated a national study of school funding patterns to fix how it accounted for funds flowing to charter schools,” we reported in April. “The results now show that students from low-income families in Pennsylvania have received slightly less funding for their schools than wealthier students for many years.”

“Researchers acknowledged … that an analysis used by Pennsylvania officials to argue that the state’s funding system doesn’t shortchange poor students was flawed — and the revised version comes to the opposite conclusion.”

Colorado students narrowly missed being taught Holocaust misinformation

“A Republican State Board of Education member who believes socialism poses grave dangers at home and abroad has put his stamp on how Colorado students will learn about the Holocaust,” Chalkbeat Colorado Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer reported in October.

What happened next changed the way Colorado students would learn about history going forward — in a good way.

Chalkbeat’s reporting drew attention to how Republican board member Steve Durham had shaped the state academic standards related to the Holocaust and genocide to connect Nazis to socialists, and had overridden expert recommendations in the process.

The Colorado State Board of Education ended up changing its academic standards, adopting language describing the Nazi Party as fascist and restoring references to genocide in Bosnia, Rwanda and the Darfur region of Sudan.

Multiple people told Chalkbeat that our reporting made a difference in this decision and in spotlighting the importance of State Board of Education races and academic standards.

Funding for restorative justice programs saved in New York

New York City was planning to cut funding for restorative justice programs, Chalkbeat reported in August. Less than a month later, that was no longer the case.

“After intense pushback from dozens of advocacy groups, New York City’s education department is no longer considering cuts to restorative justice programs,” Chalkbeat New York’s Alex Zimmerman reported in a follow-up in September.

An official said that Chalkbeat’s coverage of those planned cuts played a role in influencing the city to keep funding for restorative justice programs steady.

Shedding light on a controversial charter school partnership in Tennessee

Chalkbeat Tennessee’s intrepid senior statehouse correspondent, Marta Aldrich, was the first to report the details of Gov. Bill Lee’s intentions to bring more charter schools to Tennessee after he announced during his annual state address that the state was “formalizing a partnership” on civics education with Hillsdale College, a small private Christian school in Michigan, without giving details.

Other news organizations followed our report with their own stories, and the ACLU of Tennessee later called for the state to release all records related to the partnership.

Marta tracked the story as outrage over remarks by Hillsdale’s president disrupted the charter school plans. But the saga isn’t close to done.

“A group linked to Michigan’s conservative Hillsdale College is formally exploring opening schools in five Tennessee counties, just months after a controversial failed attempt to open its first charter schools in the state,” Chalkbeat reported in December.

Tutoring gets a boost in Michigan

In early May, Chalkbeat Detroit (along with our partners at Bridge Michigan) reported that Michigan was behind other states in the use of ESSER dollars to support tutoring programs that help students catch up from COVID-related learning losses. The report cited a lack of action from state officials and the governor’s office, and multiple requests for comment got no response.

But in late May, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced a proposal to use $280 million in state funds to create a tutoring program. Only some of that made it into the school aid budget, but the governor continues to talk about tutoring as a potential recovery tool for Michigan students, even bringing it up on the campaign trail. Chalkbeat’s reporting also continues to draw media attention to tutoring.

The public learned how Newark failed students with disabilities

The New Jersey Department of Education found that Newark Public Schools failed to meet six responsibilities under federal law for students with disabilities. Chalkbeat Newark’s Jessie Gomez was the first to report this news.

“The findings are a fraction of the issues district leaders continue to face after the pandemic as they relate to students with disabilities,” Chalkbeat reported in August. “Previously, the district was cited in 2019 for failing to meet key mandates related to education plans for students with disabilities.”

The director of the district’s Office of Special Education presented the state’s findings during a September parent advisory council meeting where they addressed their failures and said they would work to fix those issues by providing additional training to staff.

The state’s findings would not have been presented to the public without Chalkbeat reporting.

Thank you, readers

None of this impact on schools, students, and communities would have happened in 2022 without the people who are willing to support our work through interviews, readership, and more.

Support our work today with a donation so we can continue bringing change to the education landscape.

Susan Gonzalez is Chalkbeat’s social media strategist. Connect with her at sgonzalez@chalkbeat.org.

2022: The year in Chalkbeat photos

2022-12-23T14:30:00+00:00

This year was supposed to be a triumphant return to normalcy for an education system rocked by two years of a global pandemic. Then reality set in: Educators, parents, and students are still dealing with COVID trauma and uncertainty. Teachers are adapting to students of all ages who are falling behind academically and, in some places, dealing with the added pressures of the politicization of their classrooms.

Chalkbeat reporters and contributing photographers have told these stories in school communities across the country. We’ve documented the effects of culture wars on students, the daily journey a family undertook to get to school from temporary housing, and gun violence’s devastating toll.

But we were also there to show the strength and resilience of our schools. We met seniors who navigated the challenges of the pandemic to graduate, activists who brought fresh food to their communities, and even a science teacher who rewrote history by climbing Mount Everest.

Here is a collection of photographs that help tell the vivid story of life in our school communities in 2022.

Through the stories of seniors Keshawn Arnold (pictured) and Gerlia Baker, we learned about a challenging return to school for Richards Career Academy in Chicago. We also were there for their triumphant graduations.

Aletha Darby and the students in her Great Start Readiness Program class motion to truck drivers to get a honk during a neighborhood walk near Growing Minds Learning Center in Detroit. GSRP is a state-funded preschool program for 4-year-olds from low income families. Darby is a teacher and the center’s founder. When the weather is good, she takes her class on a walk to connect with the community.

(From left) Starr Whiteside, Danisha Willaimson, and Tah’gee Van Dunk stand outside of The HUBB in Newark, New Jersey. Organizations like The HUBB are working to address gun violence in communities nationwide.

Brittany Brunson stands outside of South Philadelphia High School with a cutout of her son, 16-year-old Kahlief Myric, who was killed on February 18, 2021. By telling Kahlief’s story, Chalkbeat examined the rippling effects that the trauma of losing a child to gun violence in a city where it’s the leading cause of death for people over the age of 15.

Guests gather in the History Colorado Center for the opening of the Sand Creek Massacre exhibit, which brings awareness to the tragedy and spotlights the culture of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people. Colorado is developing curriculum to better teach the history of the Sand Creek Massacre in its schools.

The Philadelphia School Board is updating the district’s African American history course curriculum, which is mandatory for graduation and taught by teachers like Northeast High School’s Stacy Hill (left) and Keziah Ridgeway.

For many teens in the LGBTQ+ community, discussing gender and sexuality can be difficult, and they often don’t see themselves represented in book and other media. Chalkbeat readers recommended a list of LGBTQ+ books to bring amplify stories from that community.

We brought readers into the rural Fowler High School, where the school has fostered a culture that promotes college, bucking Colorado’s trend of lower college attendance rates for rural students.

We met Centaurus High School science teacher Eddie Taylor (center) of Colorado as he prepared to climb Mount Everest with Full Circle Everest. Later in the year, the team became the first all-Black climbing team to summit what is considered the ultimate goal for competitive climbers.

Ahjhané Blackwell, who studied welding at Randolph Skills Center, is one of 11 graduating seniors from Philadelphia district schools hired straight out of high school for their skills through the Talent Pipeline Projects partnership.

Our readers took a field trip with East High School Sustainability Club for a Tree-Plenish event in Denver, part of the student-led push to make the district more environmentally conscious.

We went on a journey to Fishkill, New York, with students from Leaders High School. The trip upstate was part of the school’s annual camping trip — their first in two years — that aimed to build teamwork and address the trauma of COVID-19.

Chalkbeat learned about Indiana’s Workforce Ready Grant through River Forest Schools parent liaison Noemi Lozano, who was a recipient of the program.

Crystal Shephard hugs her daughter Taliyah, 5, before the first day of kindergarten at Mark Twain School for Scholars in Detroit. There was optimism in the district as it reopened with plans to overcome the hardships of the last two pandemic school years.

In a partnership with Bridge Michigan, we looked at tutoring programs in Michigan districts like Ecorse Public Schools as they worked to curb learning loss in their classrooms.

Chalkbeat traveled to a refuge for Black queer teens in Selma, Alabama, a state where legislation is targeting gender-affirming care and the way LGBTQ+ history is taught.

Community activists Power Malu and Lila Mejia work to combat food insecurity by placing refrigerators full of healthy, plant-based food in school communities across New York City.

We embarked on a journey across New York City with a mother and her two daughters as she took them to school. Their story illustrated how hard it can be for the nearly 30,000 public school students living in temporary housing to get to class each day.

For principals like Glenmount Elementary/Middle School’s Benjamin Mosley in Colorado, federal dollars have been instrumental in addressing staffing issues and adding programming. What will happen to schools across the country when pandemic aid runs dry?

Black girls like Crosstown High senior Winter Shields graduated from high school at a higher rate than their Memphis-Shelby County Schools peers.

In Iowa, we saw the effects of CRT legislation on students like (clockwise from top left) Mariah Martinez, Volta Adovor, and Orlando Fuentes, who were supposed to speak at an education equity conference that was postponed indefinitely.

We were at New York City’s P.S. 503 in Brooklyn for the first day of the 2022-23 school year, as the largest public school district in the United States welcomed back their students in full for the first time since the pandemic began in March 2020.

From students like Brooklyn Tech’s Kekeli Amekudzi, we learned about the future plans from a senior class that navigated two uncertain years of pandemic learning.

Learning loss, mental health needs, staff shortages: Most read Newark education stories of 2022

2022-12-22T17:54:48+00:00

Newark students and educators called for an improvement to their school environments.

Standardized test scores gave educators a glimpse of the COVID-19 pandemic’s toll on learning — and led the teachers union to declare a “war on learning loss.”

And mental health needs reached unprecedented levels, prompting students to protest for more counselors in schools.

Chalkbeat Newark covered all of this and so much more in 2022. Below is a list of our most-read stories this year.

Communities across the city called for improved conditions in schools, including Malcolm X Shabazz High School, pictured here.

Demands escalate for safer, fairer school environments

Students and educators throughout the city’s charter and traditional public schools raised their voices — either in public protests or through the legal system — for better learning and working conditions.

Educators across the country were reporting a rise in behavioral issues as students returned to full-time in-person learning for the first time since remote or hybrid instruction began amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But while those behavioral issues might have intensified after the pandemic, students and teachers also said that in many schools, such as Malcolm X Shabazz High School, they weren’t new.

In the years before the pandemic, the school community at Shabazz pleaded with school officials to improve the school environment in terms of safety, academic achievement, and stability with enrollment and leadership.

Want to read more? Check out these stories:

All student groups in New Jersey saw a drop in proficiency rates in math and literacy in this year’s state standardized test, results showed.

Test scores show pandemic’s impact on student learning

The switch to remote instruction for 18 months caused a disruption to learning, especially for many Newark students who struggled to keep up with virtual lessons due to a language barrier, lack of laptop or mobile device, or no internet access. Standardized test scores released over the last year show just how much the pandemic had an effect on students’ education, especially in math and reading.

The first snapshot of a significant drop in grade-level proficiency sparked the Newark Teachers Union to call for a “war on learning loss” and urge city leaders, educators, parents, and residents to unify in an effort to help catch students up academically.

Results from the New Jersey Standard Learning Assessments, which were administered for the first time this spring since the pandemic, showed that 13% of Newark students are proficient in grade-level math compared to 27% in 2019.

Want to read more? Check out these stories:

Student need for mental health resources in schools rose in 2022.

Children’s mental health needs reach unprecedented levels

The pandemic also took a toll on the mental health of students, teachers, and the entire school community. Newark ramped up mental health services for students by partnering with third-party providers, including universities, nonprofits, and private companies.

As the need for mental health services reached unprecedented levels, access to those resources became top of mind. A study released over the summer found that Black and Latinx students in New Jersey have less access to school mental health staff than they did a decade ago.

Want to read more? Check out these stories:

Nassan’s Place, a nonprofit helping children with autism and their families, provided affordable summer programming for students in 2022.

Students with disabilities need more support, parents say

As the 2022-23 school year started, a familiar issue came to light: school bus assignments were delayed or missing. For students with disabilities, a lack of district-provided safe transportation to school can completely derail their routine and impede access to crucial services they can only obtain in school.

Parents this fall began to raise concerns about the months of missed in-person services, including speech, occupational, and physical therapies, during the pandemic for their students with disabilities. Under a law passed earlier this year, school districts have until Dec. 31 to determine if compensatory education must be provided to students with disabilities as a result of disruptions to consistent services during remote instruction.

Want to read more? Check out these stories:

Newark schools are spending millions in COVID aid on tutoring, buildings, and more.

BONUS: COVID spending, staff shortages, and more

How are schools spending the millions of dollars pouring in from federal COVID aid? From tutoring to infrastructure, readers can see how Newark charter schools and the traditional public school district is spending this money using data look-up tools provided in these stories:

Newark raised salaries for veteran and rookie teachers, and even brought back retired teachers to fill in gaps left by staffing shortages. Read more about those recruitment strategies here:

New Jersey stopped charter schools in Newark from expanding this year, slowing a rapid growth the schools had under the previous administration in 2016. The largest Newark charter school networks made a major decision to shift from the nearly decade-old public and charter school agreement to collaborate under one universal enrollment system, and created their own. Catch up on these stories here:

Catherine Carrera is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Newark, covering the city’s K-12 schools with a focus on English language learners. Contact Catherine at ccarrera@chalkbeat.org.

School closures, COVID spending, gun violence: 12 of Chalkbeat Chicago’s top stories of 2022

2022-12-22T15:45:16+00:00

The past year started much like the previous two years for students, parents, and educators in Illinois: tumultuous and uncertain.

In January, a clash over COVID safety measures between Chicago Public Schools, its teachers union, and Mayor Lori Lightfoot led to five days of canceled classes. The remainder of the school year was marred by staffing shortages, stubborn transportation issues, and budget-related layoffs that were met with criticism from people arguing that students needed more staff, not less to help them recover from the pandemic.

The ebb and flow of COVID quarantines crimped efforts to boost student attendance and contributed to high absenteeism rates. Legal challenges prompted school districts across the state to lift mask mandates and eventually, other COVID mitigations in schools were relaxed.

When students returned this fall, students, parents, and school leaders expressed cautious optimism. But a decade-long trend of enrollment losses continued in Chicago Public Schools, and the district lost its title as the nation’s third largest school district. By October, parents and educators had a clearer picture of the educational fallout from remote learning and COVID-19 when national and state test results showed a steep drop in reading and math — wiping out a decade of progress.

As we approach the end of 2022 and look ahead to 2023, here are some of the biggest education stories we covered this past year:

January: How Chicago schools became an outlier in the latest COVID disruption

The abrupt cancellation of classes for five days after returning from winter break grabbed headlines in January — with parents, students, and teachers wondering nightly if and when classes would resume. But after the dust settled, reporter Mila Koumpilova dug into what happened behind the scenes, the logistical realities, and the political drama that played out. This story is worth a reread — especially as the 2023 mayoral election looms.

February: Free college for 4,000 students and their parents: ‘This means so much’

The tragic shooting outside Benito Juarez Community Academy has rocked the Pilsen high school in recent days. But in February, the entire senior class — and their parents — were awarded full college scholarships covering tuition, room and board, books, and fees at 20 Illinois institutions. The giveaway from Hope Chicago, a nonprofit run by former Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson, went to 4,000 students at five separate high schools. “This is going to open the door to this generation, a generation of immigrants, and future generations,” Maria Vazquez, then a senior at Juarez, told Chalkbeat’s Mauricio Peña.

March: Inside a Chicago high school’s year of uncertainty

Last school year was supposed to be a time to reinvent public education for students across Chicago and the country. But at Richards Career Academy — and countless other schools — the push to re-engage students with innovative new approaches to learning collided with the need to “just make it through another trying week.” This vivid portrait from inside one of the city’s public neighborhood high schools illustrates the challenges and small victories of a recovery year that never was.

April: Which education bills made it through the Illinois legislature?

Before election season was in full swing, Gov. J. B. Pritzker and the state legislature passed several new laws — and debated dozens of others — that would have an impact on public education throughout the state. Chalkbeat Chicago’s state education reporter Samantha Smylie tracked the ins-and-outs of policy-making in real time and then compiled a recap of what went down in Springfield. The list also includes bills that didn’t make it to the Governor’s desk, such as the “Right to Read Act,” which would set literacy standards for the youngest learners. But it’s possible those reemerge in 2023.

May: Chicago’s Virtual Academy will return this fall, but little is known after its first year: ‘It’s been a black box.’

Though Chicago Public Schools had returned to in-person learning last year, the district continued to offer a virtual option to medically fragile students. As Mauricio Peña reported, advocates and parents had concerns about curriculum, support for English language learners, and meeting the needs of students with disabilities. The Chicago Virtual Academy is now in its second year and currently serves 413 students, a district spokesperson said. The school now uses the universal digital Skyline curriculum, launched in 2021, and has a long list of support staff for students with disabilities. More than 1,200 high school students are also taking Advanced Placement and dual credit courses through the Virtual Academy, according to the district.

June: ‘Ignore the negativity’: 16 Chicago valedictorians on finishing high school in the COVID era

Chicago’s graduating seniors were in their sophomore year of high school when schools shuttered in 2020. Despite the uncertainty and upheaval of their pivotal high school years, the Class of 2022 earned their diplomas and got to walk across the stage in June. They reflect in this piece on their experiences of going to school during the COVID era.

July: After Highland Park shooting, local schools became healing centers to help grieving community

What started as a joyful, patriotic summer celebration turned into a tragic mass shooting that thrust an otherwise quiet Chicago suburb into the national spotlight. Though classes were not in session, Highland Park’s public schools transformed into local healing centers for the community about 45 minutes north of downtown. School staff and students offered support and mental health services to anyone who needed it.

August: In Chicago and other urban districts, a new embrace of career and technical programs

As a new school year began, district CEO Pedro Martinez unveiled some details of a three-year blueprint he hopes will help Chicago students bounce back from the pandemic. One key element of that plan is a revitalization of its career education programs. This deep-dive, two-part series examines why some students still lack access to career programs and probes the limited data on student outcomes. Plus, a bonus look at what Chicago might learn from Nashville.

September: Can Chicago revitalize its tiny high schools?

Chicago’s decade-long decline in enrollment has undoubtedly hit neighborhood high schools the hardest. In fact, enrollment drops in grades nine through 12 are happening almost exclusively at schools with fewer than 250 students. This phenomenon has been written about since 2011 – and again year, after year, after year, after year. Though the problem seems to be intractable, fresh eyes are looking for creative solutions, including transforming these shrinking high schools into career academies, community hubs, or incubators for democracy. With a moratorium on school closures in place until 2025, CEO Martinez might have plans for 2023.

October: Illinois uses federal COVID money to expand high-impact tutoring & At some high-poverty Illinois districts, a slower pace in spending federal COVID relief

With a historic amount of federal funding flowing into Illinois schools, officials have a chance to dramatically impact public education. One of the key elements of the state’s plan for using those federal COVID recovery dollars is the Illinois Tutoring Initiative. It intends to reach 3,000 students across 72 districts. As for how school districts are spending their federal money? It’s been slow, a Chalkbeat and Better Government Association analysis found. Spending in high-poverty districts, particularly those in Chicago’s south suburbs, stand out for how little they’ve used. Now, the state has a dashboard where people can track the spending.

November: How high school students in Chicago’s Little Village are giving back by tutoring

While the state is ramping up its massive high-impact tutoring program, one school on Chicago’s Southwest side is growing its own tutors. Every Thursday at Infinity Math, Science & Technology High School, upperclassmen volunteer to help underclassmen catch up on their studies. This heartwarming story shows how Little Village teens are “not giving in to the stereotypes,” said Infinity senior Lisett Avalos. “We are going above and beyond.”

December: Chicago Public Schools says it now has a computer for each student. But the hard work is just beginning.

Chicago Public Schools saw a historic investment in technology thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and federal dollars. This Chalkbeat and WBEZ investigation found that the district has struggled to keep track of its inventory of laptops, iPads, and other devices. It also lacks a cohesive plan for using the new devices to accelerate learning. This story goes deep into how Chicago schools went from device disparities to having more laptops and iPads than they know what to do with — at a time of “PTSD with the screens.”

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

13 Chalkbeat stories that defined 2022

2022-12-21T19:15:00+00:00

This was the year when many of the pandemic-era challenges facing America’s schools went from acute to chronic.

Classrooms fully reopened, but attendance and enrollment have yet to fully rebound. Tutoring and mental health programs got off the ground, but staffers remained in short supply. Students began making academic progress, but new national data underscored how far they’d fallen behind. Each step toward recovery, moment of joy, and successful lesson came with a reminder of the pandemic’s ongoing fallout.

Meanwhile, the nation’s conflicts continued to envelop schools. Republican lawmakers and local activists redoubled their efforts to restrict what students can learn about racism and LGBTQ issues. And shootings erupted on and off school grounds, cementing gun violence’s new status as the leading cause of death for America’s young people.

Below are 13 stories from Chalkbeat reporters across the country that documented those forces in action and explained what it all meant for America’s schools:

February 3: Schools got $190 billion in COVID relief from the feds. What’s happened to it?

This year, schools were figuring out how exactly they were going to use the biggest chunk of their billions in federal COVID relief. Tutors? Building renovations? Both? Matt Barnum explained the state of play — and how to find your district’s plans for yourself.

“The idea that schools aren’t spending it quickly partly reflects a monthslong lag in the data, not local officials dragging their feet. And the best evidence available suggests that schools are making seemingly reasonable purchases: buying masks, computers, and air filters, while adding summer school programs, tutoring, counselors, and teachers. But district plans vary widely in quality, and there are more than 13,000 school districts across the country. Zoom out further, and, so far, information at the state and national levels is limited, incomplete, or nonexistent, making it difficult to closely monitor this unprecedented infusion of federal cash.”

March 11: Iowa scrapped teacher training on equity. Students of color felt the sting of that decision.

Volta Adovor was one of several high school students asked to help shape a conference for Iowa’s teachers focused on racial equity in 2021 put on by the state education department. Once Iowa’s legislature began considering a bill that would restrict how teachers talk about racism, it all ground to a halt, as Kalyn Belsha reported.

“The deferred conference stands as just one illustration of the nation’s about-face on centering race and equity in teachers’ work over the last year. For the students, though, the fallout has been both local and personal. After state officials asked them to share their time and experiences as students of color, the apparently open-ended postponement has left some feeling doubly dismissed. ‘We wanted to give solutions,’ Adovor said. ‘It was just us talking about things that we cared about.’”

March 19: As schools try to recover, COVID’s toll lingers: ‘We haven’t seen fine, ever’

This story, by Kalyn Belsha, Melanie Asmar, and Lori Higgins reporting from Tulsa, Denver, and Detroit, captured the exhaustion of last spring, when schools were inching toward “normal” but nothing came easily.

“When the virus seemed like it was under control, the omicron wave of cases brought half-empty classrooms or temporary returns to virtual learning. It’s been a year of survival and triage for teachers, school leaders, students, and their families. Now a shift is underway. Mask mandates have largely lifted, and more Americans say they are ready to leave the pandemic in the rearview mirror. But teachers like [Ana] Barros are still grappling daily with issues that COVID has left in its wake, most of which defy easy solutions. ‘I really feel scared to say that we’ve turned a corner,’ she said. ‘The things that we were struggling with, even outside of COVID, are just still there.’”

April 12: ‘Am I not allowed to mention myself?’ Schools grapple with new restrictions on teaching about gender and sexuality

As laws restricting how teachers can talk about gender and LGBTQ issues took effect, Kalyn Belsha chronicled the effects on classrooms in Tennessee and beyond.

“A history teacher skipped over PowerPoint slides about the fight for gay rights during a lesson on the civil rights movement. Another English teacher hinted that Oscar Wilde was, ‘you know,’ instead of saying he was gay while teaching ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray.’ Queer symbolism throughout the text went unmentioned. To 17-year-old Aneshka, who asked that their last name be withheld, these were all indications that a new law requiring teachers to notify parents about lessons on gender and sexuality had had an effect at their eastern Tennessee high school.”

June 7: Student voices on Uvalde: Our leaders ‘are just not going to protect us’

After 19 children and two adults were shot and killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May, we turned space over to students to reflect. Meleena Salgado, then a junior at John Hancock College Preparatory High School in Chicago, wrote about the moment she heard what had happened.

I was feeding my dogs, and my dad rushed in and said a school had been shot up. My heart just sank. I was frustrated that there was another one. I hate to use that term because there were people who were lost. But I was just like, come on. No matter how many are hurt, [politicians] are just going to say, ‘Oh wow, what a tragedy,’ and then we’ll find out about the next one. I’ve been worried about a school shooting since I was little. The oldest fear I have about being shot up at school is when I was, maybe, in third grade. I was in the bathroom alone and heard this really loud bang, and I thought, ‘Oh, God, maybe this is it.’ (That bang turned out to be someone dropping a textbook in the hallway.)

Aug. 1: As fewer kids enroll, big cities face a small schools crisis

Mila Koumpilova, Matt Barnum, and the Associated Press’ Collin Binkley looked at one consequence of the enrollment declines many cities experienced during the pandemic — more tiny schools — and the pain ahead for communities that will be forced to reckon with their cost.

Chalmers [School of Excellence] lost almost a third of its enrollment during the pandemic, shrinking to 215 students. In Chicago, COVID-19 worsened declines that preceded the virus: Predominantly Black neighborhoods like Chalmers’ North Lawndale, long plagued by disinvestment, have seen an exodus of families over the past decade. The number of small schools like Chalmers is growing in many American cities as public school enrollment declines. More than 1 in 5 New York City elementary schools had fewer than 300 students last school year. In Los Angeles, that figure was over 1 in 4. In Chicago it has grown to nearly 1 in 3, and in Boston it’s approaching 1 in 2, according to a Chalkbeat/AP analysis.

Oct. 24: Nation’s report card: Massive drop in math scores, slide in reading linked to COVID disruption

Matt Barnum dove into one of the biggest stories of the year: scores on national exams that offered the most authoritative accounting yet of learning lost because of the pandemic.

Students in fourth and eighth grade saw unprecedented declines in math and significant dips in reading achievement between 2019 and 2022, according to the results of national exams given last school year and released Monday. The declines were broad-based — affecting students in every state and every region of the country. ‘The results point out and confirm that this is a pretty massive hit to student achievement in our country,’ said Scott Marion, a testing expert and member of the board that oversees the tests.

Nov. 2: A look inside Colorado’s yearslong push to change how schools teach reading

This year saw more schools, school districts, and entire states take a hard look at their reading curriculums and push for changes aligned with the “science of reading.” Colorado was among the most forceful in requiring districts to make changes, and Ann Schimke has followed the story closely.

Peter and his classmates were learning a rule about the English language that they applied over and over that day — when reading and writing ‘hope,’ ‘cute,’ ‘tape,’ and ‘slide.’ Such lessons reflect both a districtwide and statewide shift in how children are taught to read in Colorado. Gone by the wayside are reading programs that encourage children to figure out what a jumble of letters says by looking at the picture or using other clues to guess the word — a debunked strategy still used in some popular reading curriculums. Now, there’s a greater emphasis on teaching the relationships between sounds and letters in a direct and carefully sequenced way.

Nov. 7: Not ‘present,’ and paying a steep cost: How pandemic recovery in Detroit and across Michigan hinges on getting kids to class

Districts across the U.S saw chronic absenteeism spike last school year, and the numbers have prompted a variety of campaigns to boost attendance. Detroit’s challenge is especially acute: Two-thirds of the city’s students missed at least 10% of last school year. The issue extends beyond education, as Koby Levin, Ethan Bakuli, and Kae Petrin explain.

Absences seldom boil down to a decision to skip school, experts say. Interviews with parents and researchers show that families generally understand the importance of regular attendance and do their best to get their children to class. Instead, absences often result from painful but rational choices between a family’s basic well-being and attending school. Problems with housing, health, work, or transportation can quickly spiral into a crisis for a family that lacks money or a social support system.

Nov. 9: Hope, healing, and the return of an annual camping trip for Brooklyn high-schoolers

A multi-day hike outside New York City this fall was much more than a field trip for one group of high-schoolers, as Michael Elsen-Rooney wrote. It was a return to tradition and a chance for students to grow as leaders after several trauma-heavy years.

Surrounded by her classmates on a bright October morning in the woods of Fishkill, New York, Diana Ramirez had no trouble making herself heard. The 14-year-old enthusiastically initiated chants and cheerfully shouted instructions to her peers during team-building activities on a multi-day camping trip organized by their Brooklyn public high school. Speaking up hasn’t always been so easy for the high school freshman — especially during the past several years overshadowed by the pandemic.

Nov. 17: Schools across the U.S. have turned to Paper’s online tutoring. Some worry it’s falling short.

Virtual tutoring has grown in popularity as schools look for ways to help students catch up and struggle to staff up in-person programs. Kalyn Belsha took a look at one popular program, Paper, and found low usage rates and concerns it wasn’t helping the students who needed it most.

The district spent $913,000 in COVID relief funds for Paper to provide its middle and high school students with access to 24/7, on-demand tutoring. But Columbus quietly cut ties with the company in September because too few students were using the tool. District records obtained by Chalkbeat show that less than 8% of students with access logged on last school year. Half of those students used it just once. In some schools, not a single student logged on.

Nov. 18: School psychologist, counselor hiring lags nationwide even as student mental health needs soar

As students struggle, many schools have talked about the ways they are adding mental health support for students. But this fall, many still hadn’t managed to add counselors or psychologists, despite an influx of federal relief money, Patrick Wall, Kalyn Belsha, and the Associated Press’ Annie Ma documented.

Among 18 of the country’s largest school districts, 12 started this school year with fewer counselors or psychologists than they had in fall 2019, according to an analysis by Chalkbeat. As a result, many school mental health professionals have caseloads that far exceed recommended limits, according to experts and advocates, and students must wait for urgently needed help. ‘They have so many students that they’re dealing with,’ said Mira Ugwuadu, 17. ‘I personally don’t want to blame them. But I also deserve care and support, too.’

Dec. 9: How one Chicago school social worker is grappling with COVID’s toll on students

Chicago has doubled the number of social workers in schools. But each of them is still juggling hundreds of students’ needs, as Mauricio Peña documented, at a moment when students are struggling with academics and behavior.

In the bathroom, [Mary] Difino took another deep breath, then headed back to her office. There she tidied up and fixed her desk. She grabbed her soccer bag from that morning’s Piccolo girls soccer team practice and a binder full of drills and activities. Her role as coach for second, third, and fourth grade students is a reprieve from her frenetic duties during school hours. She thought about what was needed to calm the fights and help her students: a restorative justice coordinator, smaller class sizes, perhaps another social worker. But as Difino left for home that night, that wish list seemed far away — and she just felt exhausted.

From teaching about race to COVID and Rebuilding Stronger, here are our 5 most-read stories of 2022

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From Indiana Statehouse bills grabbing the national spotlight and a sweeping overhaul of Indianapolis Public Schools, to a high-stakes midterm election, 2022 was a full year for education news.

So as we look ahead to 2023, we’re also looking back at our top stories from 2022 to find the five topics that Chalkbeat Indiana readers were most interested in this year.

Below is a list of our most-read articles this year, plus a few related stories that you should check out too.

Statehouse debate on teaching about race

Several of our most popular stories were articles about bills in the 2022 legislative session, especially those that addressed how teachers approach race and racial issues in the classroom.

Most-read stories:

If you liked those, read:

What happens to my school under Rebuilding Stronger?

Rebuilding Stronger is an overhaul of IPS that aims to address pressing issues of enrollment, finances, and inequities for students of color. The school board approved the plan in November, and now district leaders are turning to a pair of referendums to help fund the overhaul’s changes.

Most-read stories:

If you liked those, read:

Election 2022: Voters chose school board members

For this year’s school board elections, Chalkbeat Indiana collaborated with WFYI to create voter guides for districts across Marion County, and also co-hosted a candidate forum for IPS candidates. Victorious candidates will start their terms in January.

Most-read stories:

If you liked those, read:

COVID learning recovery and virtual attendance changes

Nearly three years after COVID shuttered school buildings, data is showing the impact the pandemic has had on students and their learning. Plus, a state law changed how often students can learn virtually and guidance on COVID exposures continued to change.

Most- read stories:

If you liked those, read:

Accountability for state lawmakers

Aside from the legislation they proposed, lawmakers themselves made news too as they discussed race and education.

Most-read stories:

If you liked those, read:

How Indiana’s curriculum bill about racism motivated a new wave of statehouse candidates

Bonus: Charter troubles, special education staffing, and more

While the above topics were the most popular this year, there were a few more prominent stories that didn’t fit into a category. Read those and a few more below.

Most-read stories:

If you liked those, read:

MJ Slaby is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

Tough year for Michigan schools: A Chalkbeat Detroit year in review

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The year 2022 was another difficult one for education in Michigan. Educators, parents, and students were still dealing with the academic and emotional turmoil from multiple years of pandemic learning. And there was sobering evidence of just how much work must go into getting students back on track, despite billions of federal relief dollars that were designed to ease that process.

Through it all, the Chalkbeat Detroit team (get to know us here) was there for readers, asking the right questions, digging into the data, cutting through the noise, and helping readers understand what it all means. As the year comes to a close, it’s a good time to look back at what we accomplished.

Here’s a look at the stories (and photos) that reflect our best, most important work of the year on some key topics:

Chronic absenteeism causes alarm

At the end of the last school year in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, nearly 80% of the students were chronically absent. Such a high rate of absenteeism is costly, both financially and academically, and it is hurting efforts to help students recover from the pandemic. This issue isn’t just affecting Detroit. As Chalkbeat reporters Koby Levin and Ethan Bakuli reported, chronic absenteeism is reaching alarming levels across Michigan.

Chalkbeat will be diving even deeper into this issue in the coming year. If you or someone you know is struggling with school absenteeism, or if you’re an educator in a school that is working to get kids to school more consistently, you can fill out this survey or reach out to us at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

A group of kindergarten students run around their after school tutoring class in Ecorse during a lesson on counting. Many Michigan school districts used federal COVID relief funding to expand tutoring programs.

COVID relief cash courses through Michigan

Michigan’s K-12 education system received $6 billion in federal COVID relief funds that were aimed at helping students and staff recover from the pandemic. That’s a lot of cash, and Chalkbeat partnered with Bridge Michigan and the Detroit Free Press to shine a light on how school leaders are spending the money, and whether the money is doing what it was designed to do.

Here’s what we found: Koby teamed up with Isabel Lohman from Bridge to report that while tutoring is a key piece of efforts to accelerate students academically, a lack of state leadership created a patchwork of programs that struggled to address learning loss. As districts invested more money in mental health services for students, Koby’s reporting identified a major challenge: A tight labor market was hampering districts’ efforts to hire additional staff. But they found some help among furry, four-legged friends. Meanwhile, Koby and Ethan wrote about how the COVID aid became a lifeline for financially troubled Michigan districts.

You can read all of our COVID aid spending coverage at this page, including about how the Detroit school district is investing $700 million to address its longstanding facility problems.

Student teacher Destelle Keller embraces Stella Wielopolski, 9, at Willow Run Middle School in Ypsilanti in July. Keller is part of an alternative certification program, one of a growing number that have been created to provide an expedited route to the classroom.

Teacher shortages draw multilevel response

Chalkbeat reporter Tracie Mauriello spent much of the year writing about a teacher shortage many Michigan school districts are experiencing, and what Michigan K-12 schools and colleges are doing to attract more people to the profession. In August, Tracie wrote about alternative certification programs that are providing an expedited route to the classroom, amid concerns about whether the route is rigorous enough. There were also stories about schools that were trying the “grow your own” route to promote teaching as a career, as well as a legislative effort that was supposed to ease substitute teacher shortages by allowing some support staff to become subs. Few took advantage of it.

Voucher-like initiative stalls

Betsy DeVos waded back into Michigan education policy this year by pushing the Let MI Kids Learn voucher-like initiative, which would have given tax credits to donors who contributed to so-called opportunity scholarships to help families to pay for private school tuition, tutoring, or other educational resources. DeVos, who was U.S. education secretary in the Trump administration, has long been a big proponent of school choice, including vouchers.

Backers of the proposal sought to put the initiative to voters in a ballot proposal — sometimes using misleading messaging — but didn’t turn in signatures in time to get it on the November ballot. A plan to have the GOP-led Legislature approve the proposal on its own during the lame duck session that ended earlier this month fizzled, because the state had not yet certified the petitions. Tracie and Koby noted that the proposal’s chances are slim for now, and with Democrats poised to take control of the Legislature in January, DeVos’ influence in the Legislature has dimmed.

COVID roils the classroom

The year 2022 began in the midst of a surge in COVID cases, thanks to the emergence of the omicron variant. The Detroit and Flint school districts canceled in-person classes for most of January, leaving students to learn online. Schools that kept their buildings open struggled with low attendance among students and staff who were affected by the virus. In a team story in January, Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti explained the difficult decisions he had to make. Later in the winter, Chalkbeat reporters in multiple cities, including Detroit, teamed up for a story on how the lingering pandemic was taking a toll on teachers in the classroom.

Early childhood education faces setbacks

Koby wrote several important pieces on early childhood education, including a look at how Detroit isn’t dedicating any of its COVID relief money to early childhood education. He also wrote about a pilot preschool program for 3-year olds that was at risk of ending, and the state’s $100 million plan to open new child care programs. Meanwhile, Chalkbeat co-published a Muckrock investigation that found Michigan’s child care crisis is worse than official statistics suggested.

2022 was another tough year for education, but students and parents were all smiles on the first day of school in Detroit.

Students, parents and teachers speak out

At Chalkbeat, we’re invested in elevating the voices of students, teachers, and parents who have a huge stake in the policy decisions that are made by administrators and lawmakers. In December, we published a question-and-answer piece from Ethan on Perriel Pace, an outspoken student activist who sits on the boards of more than a dozen youth-led organizations. Koby tapped into the joy students feel in elective classes like choir in a back-to-school piece. We highlighted multiple teachers and school leaders in How I Teach and How I Lead features, including an adult educator, the state’s teacher of the year, an art teacher, an English teacher, a principal, and two nutrition leaders. And we published first-person pieces from a Detroit high school student who urged the school district to recognize Pride Month, a Michigan middle schooler who wrote about the need for diverse books, a teen who wrote about social media use, and a teacher who wrote about the importance of school libraries.

Do you have a story to tell (or know someone else who does)? Reach out to us at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org or lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Parents’ rights, book bans draw spotlight

Schools in Michigan, and across the nation, were frequently challenged this year by groups advocating for parents’ rights, and groups pushing to ban books that touched on LGBTQ themes and race. The issues heated up during election season, as Koby and Tracie noted in a story that looked at how Michigan school boards were facing a wave of culture war debates. After the election, Koby and Isabel from Bridge wrote an analysis that showed that conservative activists who were pushing parental rights lost far more local school board races than they won.

Students continue to struggle academically

The year brought more sobering data showing just how damaging the pandemic has been for Michigan’s students. Koby, Tracie, and Isabel from Bridge teamed up to write about the results of the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, which not surprisingly found scores were down sharply from before the pandemic. Tracie wrote about an uptick in the number of third graders whose reading scores on the state exam were poor enough that they could be held back (few were), thanks to the state’s Read by Grade 3 law. The disappointment continued this fall with the release of scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which found similar declines in achievement, particularly in Detroit.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.