OTHER STORIES

White House Blocks $2 Billion for Education: See All the Affected Programs

EdWeek

The More Hours in School, the Higher the Achievement, Study Finds

K12Dive

School Budgets Under Pressure Nationwide. What's Driving the Cuts?

Chalkbeat

Should Laptops Really Go the Way of Cell Phones in Schools?

Edutopia

Episode 3: Advancing Literacy Among Multilingual Learners

HGSE

Condition of Education Report

U.S. states spent on average $20,000 per student in 2024, according to the significantly pared-down annual compendium of education data recently released by the U.S. Department of Education. The new data highlight deep disparities in education spending across states, from a low of $12,400 per pupil in Idaho to a high of $33,600 per pupil in New York. The report also shows that the overall number of public K-12 students fell 2% in a decade, from 50.3 million in 2014 to 49.4 million in 2024. The director of the American Educational Research Association called this reduced Condition of Education release "deeply concerning," raising "serious questions about the ongoing erosion of capacity within the federal research infrastructure." EdWeek

Tracking Test Scores

Tom Kane is a Harvard University professor who has been poring over data on student learning for the last several years. Kane and several colleagues recently released an extensive database of test scores from most states in the country. The takeaway: Schools have made some progress recovering from steep learning declines in math, but scores in both math and reading are still far below where they were over a decade ago. Kane and his colleagues have hypotheses for why learning stalled even before the pandemic, but they still do not have clear answers. Interestingly, the study found that the highest- and lowest-poverty school systems have recovered faster than those in the middle. Chalkbeat

What's Driving Districts' Success?

Around a dozen school districts that have seen progress in reading and math after adopting high-quality curricula, professional learning, and other systemwide changes are spotlighted in a recently released report. Titled "Reach Higher, Together," the report draws from interviews and focus group research with district leaders, educators, and families nationwide to present lessons learned from districts that have demonstrated success. "We wanted to focus on places where things are going well and changes are happening…and making a difference for young people," said Elizabeth Chu, who led the report. K12Dive