Category: Education

By the time he entered six grade, he could spell his name, but he still couldn’t make out words, spell, or read with understanding. The situation was made worse by a series of teachers who made him feel worthless.

“Many of the teachers were not very patient, not very kind,” he said.

“I struggled in school with a deep sense of loss and shame and humiliation.”

When Ghunta was about 12, a young teacher-in-training decided to start a special reading program for struggling students. Ghunta was the first student to sign up. That teacher, whose name he does not recall, would become Ghunta’s unsung hero — the person who changed his life.

“The teacher was incredibly kind to me,” he sad. “She was patient. She was creative. She did not ask anything of me, except that I work hard and believe in myself.”

Under her guidance, Ghunta’s reading skills finally started to improve. And his sense of inadequacy began to lift.

“She had left me with the gift of literacy,” he said. “And with a deeper appreciation of my personhood, and value as a human being.”

After Ghunta’s experience with the teacher, his life took a new direction. He graduated from elementary school with a number of academic awards, including one for “most improved in reading.”

He went on to college, and later, graduate school. Today, he is the author of two children’s books, including Rohan Bullkin and the Shadows: A Story about ACEs and Hope, about overcoming difficult experiences in childhood. He’s now working on his first full-length collection of poetry.

In 2010, Ghunta went back to his old school, to ask the principal and teachers if they knew his old teacher’s name. But no one did. He still hopes to find her one day, so that he can tell her thank you for seeing his potential.

“I would love for her to see the significant impact that she has made on my life, and the ways in which I have carried this memory of her — the hope, the light, with me — and how it continues to be a source of joy.”

My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

High-quality instructional materials (HQIMs) are educational resources designed to effectively support student learning. They can include textbooks, lesson plans, digital resources and other materials carefully crafted to meet the needs of diverse learners and facilitate meaningful learning experiences. By using HQIMs, educators can enhance the quality of instruction, support differentiated learning and improve overall learning outcomes.

While the concept of HQIM has been established and embraced in other core academic disciplines, applying this concept to social studies has been more complex. Unlike content standards for math or science, where there is more uniformity across states, social studies standards can vary significantly from one state to another. This variation reflects the diverse historical and cultural priorities of different states. Additionally, social studies encompasses a wide range of disciplines, including history, geography, civics and economics, each with its own set of disciplinary practices. This variety makes it challenging to create materials that are universally recognized as high quality across all aspects of social studies.

Recently, EdSurge spoke with Kathy Swan, a 20-year veteran professor of social studies education at the University of Kentucky. Swan worked as a bank examiner for the FDIC before transitioning to teaching, which she pursued both domestically and internationally for about 10 years. She then earned her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia before joining the faculty at the University of Kentucky.

Throughout her career, Swan has been interested in inquiry-based pedagogy, drawing from her experiences as a teacher. Despite initially having reservations about standards, she became the lead writer and project director of the College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework, a set of national standards for social studies education. Swan views the C3 Framework and inquiry-based learning as guideposts for teachers to create and implement effective and engaging social studies classrooms. She has leveraged her expertise to contribute to Imagine Learning, where she served as a lead consultant in the development of Traverse, its new social studies program.

EdSurge: What is inquiry-based learning? Why is it considered an effective instructional strategy?

But experts also say that terms such as disorder or defiance are so broad and subject to interpretation that they can quickly become a catchall. For instance, in Oregon, the umbrella category of disruptive behavior includes insubordination and disorderly conduct, as well as harassment, obscene behavior, minor physical altercations, and “other” rule violations.

2. Educators classify a huge range of behavior as insubordination or disruption.

As part of our reporting, we obtained more than 7,000 discipline records from a dozen school districts across eight states to see what specific behavior was leading to suspensions labeled this way. It was a wide range, sometimes even within a single school district. Sometimes students were suspended for behavior as minor as being late to class; others, because they punched someone. And it was all called the same thing, which experts say prevents school discipline decisions from being transparent to students and the greater public. 

There were some common themes though, behaviors like yelling at peers, throwing things in a classroom or refusing to do work. We developed a list of 15 commonly repeated behaviors and coded about 3,000 incidents by hand, marking whether they described that type of conduct. We used machine learning to analyze the rest. 

In fewer than 15% of cases, students got in trouble for using profanity, or for talking back, or for yelling at school staff. In at least 20% of cases, students refused a direct order and in 6%, they were punished for misusing technology, including being on their cell phones during class or using school computers inappropriately.

3. Inequities can be even more pronounced in these ambiguous categories. 

We know from decades of research and federal data collection that Black students are more likely to be suspended from school than their white peers. In many places, that is especially true when it comes to categories like insubordination.

In Indiana, for example, Black students were suspended or expelled for defiance at four times the rate of white students on average. In 2021-22, eight Black students received this punishment per 100 students, compared with just two white students. In all other categories, the difference was three times the rate.
Research suggests that teachers sometimes react to the same behavior differently depending on a child’s race. A 2015 study found that when teachers were presented with school records describing two instances of misbehavior by a student, teachers felt more troubled when they believed a Black student repeatedly misbehaved rather than a white student.

They “are more likely to be seen as ‘troublemakers’ when they misbehave in some way than their white peers,” said Jason Okonofua, assistant professor at University of California-Berkeley and a co-author of the study. Teachers are usually making quick decisions in situations where they are removing a child from the classroom, he said, and biases tend to “rear their heads” under those circumstances.

Similar disparities exist for students with disabilities. In all states for which we had demographic data, these students were more likely to be suspended for insubordination or disorderly conduct violations than their peers. In many states, those differences were larger than for other suspensions.

4. Suspension rates vary widely within states.

Further underscoring how much educator discretion exists in determining when or whether to suspend a student, individual districts report hugely different suspension rates. 

Take Georgia, for instance, which allows for students to be punished for disorderly conduct and “student incivility.” In 2021-22, the 3,300-student McDuffie County School System cited these two reasons for suspensions more than 1,250 times, according to state data. That’s nearly 40 times per 100 students. Similarly sized Appling County issued so few suspensions for disorderly conduct and student incivility that the numbers were redacted to protect student privacy. 

Editors’ note: The Hechinger Report’s Fazil Khan had nearly completed the data analysis and reporting for this project when he died in a fire in his apartment building. Read about the internship fund created to honor his legacy as a data reporter. USA TODAY Senior Data Editor Doug Caruso completed data visualizations for this project based on Khan’s work.

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

Does your school offer elective classes? Have you taken any? If so, which have been your favorite? Why?

Are there any elective classes you wish your school offered?

For example, would you be interested in a class that teaches you about where your food comes from?

In “OK, Class, First We Shoot the Deer,” Mark Josephson writes about a Missouri high school program that teaches students just that — in a very hands-on way:

At Maysville High School in Maysville, Mo., population 1,100, classes can be a little tough for the squeamish. Course work can involve assigned reading and algebra, but also a serious amount of blood and guts.

In 2022, the high school, an hour’s drive north of Kansas City, added an elective farm-to-table course run by a family and consumer science teacher, Amy Kanak, who works with an agriculture teacher, Brandi Ellis. Students were already learning to harvest and process livestock and wild game in their agriculture classes, and dissect the organs in science classes. The new course gives them the opportunity to cook meals using the harvested meat, a logical conclusion to the hard work of students in other classes. Ms. Kanak provides instruction on the tail end of the nose-to-tail process, in meal prepping, yield, budgeting and bulk cooking.

But it all starts with the most difficult and messiest part: culling animals and breaking them down. For many students, it’s their first time holding a knife and butchering. Ms. Kanak hopes that students will finish her course with an understanding of where their food comes from.

Ms. Ellis, who finds the classes to be vital in a time of rising grocery bills, said, “It forces them out of their comfort zone a little bit.”

Students, read the entire article and look at the images (though beware if you’re squeamish, as they can be graphic). Then tell us:

• What do you think about the farm-to-table course at Maysville High School? Is it one you’d like to take? Why or why not?

• What is one elective you wish your school offered? Use your imagination! What would this class look like? Whom would you want to teach it? What would you hope students would learn from it? Why do you think it would be important?

• Tell us about the best elective class you’ve ever taken. What made it so meaningful to you?

• How essential do you think it is for schools to offer elective classes? What do you think students learn from these classes that they may not learn from the regular curriculum?

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.

It’s not news to anyone working in education that many students struggle with their mental health. The latest research by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on teen mental health found that almost half of all students (42%) felt persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness within the last 12 months. School administrators today probably didn’t enter the profession expecting that mental health would figure so heavily into the job description, but this moment calls for school leadership to have clear strategies for improving and protecting the mental well-being of their campus communities. 

Mental well-being is fundamental to academic success

As part of a student’s educational experience, mental health isn’t a sideshow. A growing body of research demonstrates that strong mental health is a major determinant of a student’s academic success. Mentally healthy students are more likely to engage with their academics, create positive connections with others, and be ready to learn in the classroom setting.  However, even students who experience mental health challenges can thrive academically if they receive affirming care that helps them manage their symptoms, develop resilience, and navigate the academic landscape with support.

While mental health challenges can prevent your most talented and ambitious students from achieving their full potential, they can also cause at-risk students to fall farther behind their peers. Students with poor mental health are more likely to experience credit deficiency, suspension and expulsion. Improving mental health can be a catalyst for educational achievement. 

Schools need a strategy for both intervention and prevention

Your school’s plan for supporting student mental health must include both a way to identify students with challenges and intervene quickly and appropriately, while also creating a school culture where mental health is prioritized and, hopefully, mental health problems are prevented from developing.  Identifying those who are struggling requires frequent and open communication between teachers, counselors, and, ideally, parents and guardians, so that students can get the support they require, quickly and consistently. Many students need mental health care beyond the scope of what a school counselor’s office can provide, and when such student needs are identified schools should have a protocol for ensuring that they receive specialized care appropriate to their needs. 

Preventing mental health challenges among students is less about a single set of protocols and more about creating a campus culture where positive mental health is prioritized and mental health struggles are discussed openly and without stigma. This can start with an open dialogue about the importance of student mental health and well-being, and this needs to be far more than the occasional meeting or conversation. A prevention strategy can center around educating students on topics like stress reduction and mental resilience, to help them develop tools for navigating pressures like deadlines, competition, grades, exams, and social issues. Aside from the lessons themselves, the fact that your school gives a platform to these topics helps create a supportive ecosystem.

Empowering staff and including parents is essential

Administrators certainly can’t accomplish this alone. You must get the buy-in of the people who interact with your students every day, the teachers, coaches, counselors, and support staff. Providing them with resources, training, and support will allow them to actively contribute to a mentally healthy school culture. 

Although you have less control over your parents, they can be vital assets to your mental health effort. You can help parents and guardians understand the importance of mental health and learn what they can do to support students by offering workshops and information sessions with school counselors or outside experts, keeping lines of communication open, and regularly surveying parents and guardians to keep the school’s finger on the pulse of their perspectives and mental health challenges they see at home. 

Follow the roadmap to a mentally healthy school community

Administrators who prioritize maintaining a culture with mental health at its core help create student success and thriving schools. To learn specific, expert-backed strategies for being a mental health leader, download the Talkspace whitepaper Beyond Academics: A Roadmap for Administrators in Fostering Positive Student Mental Health. It’s filled with a wealth of facts and stats that demonstrate the need for mental health support in schools (and will help you persuasively make the case for more focus and resources) as well as all the factors you should consider as you plan and execute a strategy for ensuring your students thrive.

Measuring Employee Engagement: Why It Is Important And How You Can Achieve It

Employee engagement is a necessity for your organization. It defines how satisfied employees are with their position and their work environment, as well as the enthusiasm and passion they put into everyday tasks. The higher the levels of engagement, the more loyal, productive, and innovative employees are. But how can organizations know that the measures they are taking to boost engagement are truly making a difference? By learning how to measure employee engagement, of course. Although it can be a complex process, tracking employee engagement is paramount to keeping your employees happy and making sure that organizational resources are used effectively. Read on to explore 10 employee engagement metrics that will give you the most reliable results.

What’s The Importance Of Measuring Employee Engagement?

No forward-thinking organization can be successful and achieve its goals without being focused on measuring employee engagement. Identifying and regularly monitoring key employee engagement metrics informs leaders on employee satisfaction, motivation, and commitment, helping them better manage their resources and drive success. Additionally, measuring engagement helps them foster a supportive and trusting work environment that values open communication. This doesn’t only keep their current workforce happy, engaged, and productive but also helps them attract new talent that will seamlessly fit into their company values.

Benefits Of Measuring Employee Engagement

There is no shortage of benefits for organizations when it comes to measuring employee engagement. The invaluable insights that they gain from this process allow them to identify areas for improvement as well as targeted initiatives they can implement to improve the work environment and, in turn, employee engagement levels. Not to mention, they are able to identify problems early on before they irreversibly damage employee morale and loyalty. When organizations figure out how to turn a disinterested workforce into an engaged one, they enjoy higher levels of productivity, profitability, innovation, and ultimately, success.

10 Ways To Measure Employee Engagement

1. Employee Engagement Goals

Before jumping into measuring employee engagement, it’s crucial that you understand it. You must know what the needs of your workforce are, their current state, and the end goal that you are trying to achieve. Through this information, you will gain a clearer picture of the specific employee engagement metrics you should monitor. Whether quantitative or qualitative, define them from the get-go, determine your starting point, and use it as a benchmark to distinguish engaged from disengaged employees and keep track of the impact of your actions.

2. Internal Email Engagement

A significant indicator of employee satisfaction and engagement is the often overlooked email. Emails are indeed the primary means of communication within an organization, but how do they measure employee engagement? Open and click-through rates reflect how receptive your employees are to internal news and announcements. For example, do employees open these messages? If yes, do they interact with them at all? Which departments are more engaged? These metrics give you valuable insights into the effectiveness of your preferred communication channels and highlight possible adjustments you could implement to make them more captivating.

3. Pulse Surveys

Often, businesses distribute annual surveys to gather comprehensive information about employee engagement levels. Although these surveys can be very useful, they are too long and not regular enough. To effectively measure employee engagement, it’s best to look into pulse surveys. Those are short and can be distributed far more often. With their targeted questions, they provide a real-time snapshot of employee engagement and easily capture sudden changes. For example, if you notice a dip in engagement since last month, you can easily pinpoint the culprit in comparison to a survey that gives you data once a year. Not to mention that their short form attracts more responses and, therefore, more reliable insights.

4. Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)

The Employee Net Promoter Score calculates employee loyalty and satisfaction by asking them how likely they are to promote their place of occupation as a great place to work. This simple question helps you understand your workforce’s feelings towards your company and, in turn, how engaged they are. It is a quick, low-cost, and effective way to gauge employee engagement levels in your organization. However, it doesn’t provide any information about the reasons behind the results. Therefore, make sure to combine it with more in-depth employee engagement surveys.

5. One-On-One Meetings

Anonymous surveys are very effective in giving you valuable insights into employee satisfaction levels, but you shouldn’t neglect direct communication. Setting up one-on-one meetings with your employees and having meaningful conversations gives you direct access to their thoughts, concerns, and opinions. Moreover, you can discuss possible solutions together and come up with a personalized plan for the future. But, most importantly, these meetings help foster trust between employee and employer, strengthening the feeling of belonging and, ultimately, increasing employee engagement.

6. Focus Groups

Despite the many benefits of personalized check-in meetings, this option is not always accessible, especially for large-scale businesses. If this is the case, then you have to opt for the next best thing, which is focus groups. To measure employee engagement with a focus group, start by gathering a representative sample of your workforce. Pick a few employees from each department and try to account for all ages, backgrounds, and professions. Then, organize an engagement-focused discussion so that you can get their opinion on what your company does well and what could be improved.

7. Employee Retention Rates

Monitoring employee retention rates over time is a key employee engagement metric. Besides, the more engaged employees are, the more loyalty they exhibit. However, turnover and retention rates can reveal more than just whether your workforce is engaged. It can also show you if you’re moving in the right direction or not. For instance, a noticeable dip in employee retention compared to three or six months ago can reveal that you have slipped into practices that leave your employees disgruntled and lead them to other employers. Staying on top of these metrics will help you optimize your employee engagement strategy and steer clear of costly mistakes.

8. Employee Productivity Rates

Considering that productivity directly relates to employee engagement, it only makes sense to regularly monitor it. Engaged employees are more motivated to perform better in their jobs, thus increasing their company’s overall productivity and profitability. On the contrary, when engagement levels drop, so do business outcomes. As a result, it’s crucial that you stay on top of employee productivity levels to identify changes as soon as they happen. Although the reasons behind a dip in engagement may be unclear, you will still be motivated to check other employee engagement metrics and identify the steps you need to take moving forward to change the tide.

9. Employee Absenteeism Rates

Absenteeism refers to the habitual lack of punctuality in the workplace, which results in lost work days. Although a few days off now and then are not an issue, being absent often can certainly be a sign of employee disengagement. Engaged employees will not try to make up excuses to miss work. On the contrary, they want to be there to contribute as much as possible to the accomplishment of organizational goals. It’s crucial to take action against absenteeism, as it can derail your company’s productivity, increase the workload for other employees, and negatively impact overall satisfaction levels.

10. Exit Interviews

When an employee leaves their position, organizations often conduct exit interviews with them. These meetings are crucial in helping you decode employee engagement, as they provide valuable feedback regarding the employee’s overall opinion of your company and the possible causes of their resignation. Prepare a set of questions that will shed light on the positive as well as the negative aspects of their professional journey. This way, you will be able to understand how you can boost employee engagement and talent retention in the future. Make sure to conduct stay interviews, as well, to collect feedback not just from employees who leave but also from those who choose to stay.

Measuring Employee Engagement: Effective Strategies And Common Mistakes

Monitoring employee engagement metrics is crucial for businesses that want to foster a positive work culture and maximize productivity. There are many effective strategies to measure employee engagement, most of them involving a combination of quantitative and qualitative data. Therefore, the metrics that we discussed above cannot provide comprehensive information on their own. On the contrary, you have to use a variety of them and analyze their results to uncover a holistic understanding of the state of employee engagement in your organization.

Apart from using the right techniques, you must also be aware of the challenges and mistakes that can impact the effectiveness of this process. A common mistake is only relying on annual reports. Such scarce data cannot give you a clear picture of engagement rates in your company. Another mistake is gathering information and feedback from your employees but failing to act on it, resulting in disappointment and disillusionment. Finally, you might overlook the importance of anonymity, thus receiving dishonest answers from your employees. Fostering a safe and trusting environment is extremely important when measuring employee engagement.

Final Thoughts

Measuring employee engagement is not just a valuable practice for organizations but an essential one. It’s the secret that is going to help your workforce develop and thrive in the competitive business environment. By analyzing the above metrics, you will be able to gain a comprehensive understanding of how your employees feel working in your organization and what motivates them to perform better. You can use this knowledge to implement targeted initiatives that will surely improve employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention. Ultimately, knowing how to measure employee engagement will help you drive long-term success and innovation.

What Are Employee Engagement Programs?

All of us dream of a workplace where people thrive and enjoy doing their tasks without bad vibes and toxic behaviors. This is where employee engagement programs come into play to make that dream a reality. These are programs designed to help employees feel more connected to their work, colleagues, and the company’s objectives. The main goal is to make employees happier and more productive, which in turn helps the company become more profitable. Since you care about how your staffers feel and want your organization to contribute to their happiness, let’s examine some ideas for employee engagement programs that will benefit everyone involved.

10 Employee Engagement Program Ideas

1. Recognition And Rewards Program

It’s always nice to reward your employees for their performance when they reach a milestone or for something as simple as helping their peers. A pat on the back isn’t always enough; this is why you can create a rewards program that truly aligns with your company culture. You can choose from a variety of options, like gift cards for a shop or service they like, extra vacation days, or a post on the company’s social media profiles. Find out their preferences and go all out because their hard work is worth it.

2. Flexible Work Arrangements

Giving your workforce more control over when, where, and how they work does wonders for their engagement. Remote work, flexible schedules, job sharing, and even a short workweek can satisfy them significantly. Firstly, they have a better work-life balance, as they have more time to focus on their relationships and personal time. Then, they get rid of the stress of commuting without worrying about train delays or traffic. Lastly, they have autonomy over their schedule and workload and gain a sense that the company trusts them.

3. Professional Development Opportunities

One of the key benefits of professional development opportunities is that they can boost job satisfaction. When employees learn new skills and acquire new knowledge, they are likely to feel more confident and capable in their jobs, which can increase their sense of fulfillment and purpose. Plus, they are more motivated to use those skills and take on new challenges. This can result in increased productivity and performance, which can benefit both the employee and the organization.

4. Employee Wellness Programs

Employees need to stay healthy in order to perform at their best. Wellness programs can create an environment that fosters well-being and physical and mental health within the workplace. You can offer your employees gym memberships, organize regular yoga sessions in the meeting room, or invite professionals to talk about nutrition, fitness, and mental health. Your choice depends on your team’s needs and your budget, of course.

5. Team-Building Activities

A bonded team is vital for a high-performing workforce, as it sets the foundation for collaboration and smooth communication. To bring your team members together, the key is to choose activities that are both enjoyable and meaningful. For example, do a scavenger hunt in the park or the office to enhance their problem-solving skills. If you want to add a more adventurous element, organize a paintball match or a short hiking trip.

6. Feedback Channels

Employees need to know how they’re performing in real time. This is why you need to establish feedback channels between managers, employees, and their peers. From one-on-one meetings and anonymous surveys to team meetings and peer-to-peer reviews, you can always find a channel that resonates with your workforce’s preferences. Once you realize the importance of speaking up and sharing comments and insights with your team, you know that a feedback channel can contribute to a more productive team.

7. Employee Volunteer Opportunities

People want to know that their work is meaningful and contributes to the greater good. Show them that they can get involved in this by organizing volunteer events. For instance, you can take the whole company to clean a local beach or help at a homeless shelter. Similarly, give them the chance to volunteer for a cause near and dear to their hearts individually and on their own time. Overall, this will show that your organization makes a difference and instill a sense of pride among the workforce.

8. Appreciation Days

Appreciation days are small (or grand) celebrations on the premises dedicated to expressing gratitude for your team’s achievements and contributions. Your people will come into a decorated office, receive a thank-you note or gift, and celebrate their hard work with the rest of the company. You can make this a whole-day event or devote some hours off the workday to have fun with food, drinks, music, and conversations with your workforce, all while thanking them for everything they do.

9. Cross-Departmental Collaboration

By breaking the silo mentality, you can encourage employees from different departments to work on a common goal, like the company’s vision or a project that requires their expertise. Cross-departmental collaboration allows employees to share resources with their peers from other teams, collect their knowledge and experience, and complete tasks much faster, gaining confidence in their work. Additionally, joining forces results in more innovative ideas and plenty of solutions to common problems.

10. Social Events And Celebrations

Holidays like Christmas and Easter, birthdays, or special occasions like the birth of a child, marriage, or retirement among the workforce are worth celebrating. They give employees something to look forward to and boost their mood and, thus, their productivity. For example, a Secret Santa gift-exchanging event on Christmas or a baby shower for a pregnant employee goes a long way in showing your appreciation towards your staffers and fostering an emotional connection that hardly breaks.

How To Develop An Effective Employee Engagement Program

Understand Your Team

Listen to your employees and hear what they have to say about their needs. You need to gather information about their motivations, their day-to-day challenges, or what they enjoy at their job. You can get an idea through conversations, surveys, and meetings and use your employees’ opinions to create the perfect engagement program or a combination of them.

Set Goals

First, decide what you want to achieve with your program. For instance, is it to reduce turnover rates or increase productivity? Make your goals realistic and measurable, and set a time frame to keep track more easily. However, since those goals are based on your team’s suggestions, don’t forget to involve them in the goal-setting process, too.

Design Activities

Now, it’s time to put your surveys and goals into action. If your workforce feels that their tasks are getting mundane and you also need to boost their morale, choose fun activities like team sports or outings for lunch or dinner. On the other hand, if they express mental health concerns and there’s a need for productivity to increase, focus on meditation or therapy sessions provided by experts.

Clear Communication

After creating the program and setting your goals, you must communicate everything to your staffers. Start by highlighting your vision and mission and connecting them with the program’s objectives. Then, mention how important their contribution is to the activities and show them everything in detail. Remember, their participation isn’t mandatory, but it’s crucial that every single employee is aware of the program and what it entails, no matter how active they are.

Conclusion

Keeping your employees interested in their jobs is important to make sure they stick around for the long haul. Don’t forget to use technology, especially employee engagement software. It’ll help you keep track of important data, monitor your progress, and stay in control of your program’s performance based on various metrics. By using these tools, you can make your employee engagement initiatives more successful, boost productivity, and create a positive work environment.

Dive Brief:

• The U.S. Department of Labor’s final rule updating the standard by which some workers may be excluded from the overtime pay requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act cleared review by the White House Thursday.
• The details have not been made public but DOL last year proposed to increase the minimum annual salary threshold that determines overtime pay eligibility from $35,568 to $55,068. If adopted as proposed, the rule also would provide for automatic future updates to the threshold every three years. The exemption applies to workers employed as bona fide executive, administrative, professional and outside sales employees, as well as some computer employees.
• The final rule now must be published in the Federal Register before it can take effect. In December, DOL projected that the rule would be published in April.

Dive Insight:

One of the most anticipated regulatory updates in employment law appears to be right on schedule. Employers could see the final rule appear as early as the end of next week, if not sooner, said Brett Coburn, partner at Alston & Bird.

In public comments on DOL’s initial proposal, the Society for Human Resource Management asked DOL to consider delaying the final rule’s effective date to 2025, which SHRM said would allow employers to “tie any classification or pay-related changes into budgeting efforts and operational changes for the new year.”

Until the final rule is published, however, it is uncertain what changes the department will make to its initial proposal. That includes the effective date of the rule as well as the salary threshold itself. While the proposed rule set the annual minimum at $55,068, the agency indicated in the proposal that this could change.

“The Department relied on [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics] data for calendar year 2022 to develop this NPRM, including to determine the proposed salary level,” DOL wrote. “In the final rule, the Department will use the most recent data available, which will change the dollar figures.”

Once published, the final rule is almost certainly headed for a court challenge. “But just because lawsuits are brought quickly does not mean much in terms of when a court will rule,” said Coburn, who compared the current situation to that faced by the Obama administration in 2016, which similarly issued an updated overtime rule months ahead of a presidential election. “It feels like a repeat of what we saw in 2016.”

At the time of the proposed rule’s publication, DOL estimated that some 3.6 million workers would receive overtime eligibility as a result. Aside from the aforementioned provisions, the rule also would increase the total annual compensation requirement for certain highly compensated employees to $143,988 per year. DOL did not propose changes to the “duties test” for determining overtime eligibility.

Coburn said employers will need to prepare for the final rule in part by determining the number of employees whose compensation falls between current and newly proposed thresholds. Employers may decide to raise the salary of these employees to preserve their exempt status or convert them to non-exempt status. There are a number of considerations to make no matter how an employer moves forward, however, including cultural aspects.

“I have so many clients say [that they] have so many people who want to be exempt and paid a salary,” Coburn said. But “there’s not a good answer” to the question of how employers should manage such employees, he continued. “The law is what it is. If they’re non-exempt, they have to track their time. They can’t be checking emails at night and doing things that exempt employees do.”

By: Dr. Jordan Matsudaira and U.S. Undersecretary of Education James Kvaal

Highlights

As the Department of Education works to smoothly transition borrowers back into repayment, we highlight the following:

• More borrowers made payments on their loans in January and February of this year than in any previous month since these data started being collected in 2018
• The share of the federal portfolio making payments returned to approximately the same level as in January prior to the pandemic
• The average payment among borrowers making non-zero payments has nearly returned to its pre-pandemic level —an indication that similar types of borrowers (reflected in their monthly payment amounts) are making payments now relative to prior to the payment pause

In October 2023, as required by Congress, most federal student loan borrowers saw their payments come due for the first time in 43 months. Returning this many borrowers to repayment at one time is a daunting challenge. Between October and November, over 28 million borrowers entered repayment – more than seven times the number of borrowers who typically enter repayment in a full year. These borrowers also faced several challenges in returning to repayment after over three years pause. Many borrowers who left school during the payment pause were negotiating payment for the first time, and many millions more had been out of the habit of paying their loans for three and a half tumultuous years as the nation weathered the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, millions of borrowers had their student loan accounts transferred to new servicers during the pause, and many were still becoming familiar with their new servicers.

Despite these challenges, millions of borrowers have successfully started making payments on their loans since October. When the millions of borrowers making $0 payments under the Biden-Harris Administration’s SAVE program are included, more borrowers made payments on their loans in January and February of this year than in any previous month since the Department started collecting such data directly in 2018. Additionally, by the end of December 2023, nearly 15.9 million borrowers were reported “current” on their student loan payments by their servicers – just 2.5 percent fewer than the 16.3 million borrowers that were current in December of 2019, prior to the student loan pause.  We provide further context to these statistics and how they’ve changed from prior to the pandemic below.

There are no exact historical comparisons available by which to judge this progress. One point of reference, however, is how borrowers have fared after recent natural disaster forbearances, where borrowers are also automatically placed into forbearances for extended periods of time (albeit much shorter than three years). Following such forbearances—typically lasting three to six months following disruptive events like a hurricane or other natural disasters—roughly a third of borrowers missed their payments in the first months after payments resumed, and their rates of payment recovered gradually over a two- to three-year period.

In recognition of these challenges, the Biden-Harris Administration created an on-ramp to repayment whereby payments are due and interest accrues, but the negative consequences of missed payments like credit reporting and involuntary collections are suspended for 12 months. The early progress over the first five months after the payment pause ended is encouraging, and the Administration is continuing to provide support to borrowers to help them successfully manage repayment on their student loans.

However, returning to how things were is not our goal. Rather, we hope to ensure that borrowers who are eligible for loan forgiveness receive it, other borrowers can afford their payments, and borrowers avoid default and the adverse credit consequences that follow. We show below that these efforts are also bearing fruit, with record numbers of new borrowers enrolling in our new Saving on a Valuable Education or “SAVE” repayment plan—the most affordable repayment plan ever.

Recent Trends in Borrower Repayment Outcomes

A key indicator historically used by the Department to monitor repayment success is the share of borrowers that are current on their loans relative to the population of borrowers that are in “active repayment.” These rates exclude borrowers who are still in-school or in the grace period after they leave and borrowers who have defaulted on their loans, since those borrowers do not have scheduled payments due to servicers. Similarly, borrowers who are in forbearance or deferment statuses are also excluded. Focusing on repayment behavior only for borrowers in active repayment helps focus attention on borrowers who have a payment due. 

As shown in the Table below, by the end of December of last year the share of borrowers that were current on their student loan accounts was 64 percent (i.e., the ratio of the number of borrowers current in row A to the number of borrowers in active repayment in row B), down from 78 percent in December 2019. A closer look at the data in the Table, however, helps to illustrate how comparing this rate before and after the pandemic might give a misleadingly negative impression of the progress made in the first three months of repayment.

In particular, the decline in the share of borrowers who are current on their loans is driven more by the large increase in the number of borrowers classified as being in active repayment, rather than by the (modest) decline in the number of borrowers current on their loans. Row B of the table shows the number in active repayment was 19 percent higher in 2023 relative to 2019, even though the number of borrowers in the federally managed student loan portfolio grew only by 6 percent over the same time period.

There are several reasons for the large increase in the number of borrowers in active repayment, but the most important factor is that the payment pause kept millions of borrowers in active repayment by preventing them from defaulting on their student loans. Prior to the pause, over 1 million borrowers were defaulting on their student loans each year. In the month prior to the pause, about 3.3 million borrowers were over a month late on their student loan payments, with nearly 100,000 borrowers less than 30 days away from defaulting and being transferred to collections. Due to the payment pause, these borrowers were prevented from sliding into default. They began October 2023 in active repayment, rather than in default, and therefore they are included in the calculation of the share of borrowers who are current. Since the passage of time may not have alleviated the issues causing difficulty in making payments for many of these borrowers, their inclusion lowers the share of those in active repayment who are current on their student loan payments.  

One way to avoid the bias of this compositional change is to focus on the share of all borrowers in the federal portfolio (excepting those that are in school or in grace) that are current. That comparison (row A divided by row D) suggests that about 42 percent of all borrowers in the federal portfolio were current on their federal loans in December 2023, whereas about 48 percent were current in December 2019.

Other compositional changes in the portfolio among borrowers in repayment also affect the comparison of performance before and after the payment pause. Most notably, there has been a very pronounced increase in the number of borrowers who have never been in repayment before: approximately 7 million borrowers have loans that entered repayment during the payment pause. Historically, borrowers new to repayment tend to have much lower payment rates in their first year or so in repayment.

A variety of other special circumstances have also led the composition of borrowers in active repayment to have more borrowers who may be less likely to repay than prior to the pandemic’s start. These include borrowers who had previously been in default or would have otherwise defaulted if not for the payment pause, and borrowers who had their accounts transferred to a different servicer.   

In January, the number of borrowers current in repayment increased substantially to over 17.7 million. This was primarily due to a large number of borrowers successfully starting to make payments who had temporarily been put into forbearances to shield them from servicer errors in the first couple of months of repayment. Starting at the end of January, however, the “on-ramp” initiative to support borrowers began, which automatically resets loan statuses that are more than 90 days past-due to current to avoid adverse credit reporting consequences while borrowers make the transition back to repayment. As a result, using changes in borrowers’ current status with servicers to gauge progress in returning to repayment is more complicated in the most recent months.

To track more recent trends, we can instead use a closely related set of metrics on the number of borrowers with federal loans making payments (including zero-dollar payments under income driven repayment plans) and the amount of those payments. The Figure below shows the trend in these data from when they were first collected in late 2018 through February of 2024, the most recent month available.

The Figure shows the number of borrowers making payments, including zero-dollar IDR payments, on their federal student loans over the last six years, shown with the solid orange line. As of January 2024, the share of the federal portfolio making payments returned to approximately the same level as in January prior to the pandemic. In the year prior to the pandemic in 2019, an average of 14.4 million borrowers made payments each month on their federal loans, and the pre-pandemic peak was 15.04 million in January of 2020. This plummeted during the pandemic, and by the summer of 2023 just over 1 million borrowers were making payments each month. As shown in the Figure, however, between 13.5 and 13.9 million borrowers made payments in each of the first three months after payments restarted in October of 2023– close to the pre-pandemic average of 14.4 million. In January of 2024 a record 16.04 million borrowers made payments—more than in any previous month since the Department began tracking data. In other words, by January 2024, roughly the same share of borrowers in the federal portfolio were making payments as prior to the pandemic. 

Figure 1: Number of Federal Student Loan Borrowers Making Payments (including $0 payments) and Average Monthly Payments

Due largely to the Department’s new SAVE income driven repayment plan, many more of the borrowers making payments were making zero-dollar payments in 2024 relative to prior to the pandemic. As a result, as shown in the blue solid line, the average payments being made by borrowers was lower than the average level in 2019, with the average borrower making payments paying about $299 last month, relative to an average of $348 in 2019.  This too shows a recovery of sorts: during the pandemic, average payments among borrowers paying were nearly double the pre-pandemic average, since primarily relatively affluent borrowers with high payments were making payments. The fact that the average payment among borrowers making non-zero payments has returned to roughly its pre-pandemic level is an indication that similar types of borrowers are making payments now relative to prior to the payment pause.

Administration Efforts to Assist Borrowers

The Biden-Harris Administration has taken historic steps to fix a broken student loan system, forgive the loans of borrowers who have earned relief and make student loan payments more affordable than ever before. It has taken more than 25 executive actions to forgiven loans for nearly 4 million borrowers. Its efforts have helped 871,000 public servants receive the loan forgiveness they have earned. We remedied past errors in counting payments and loan servicers’ actions to steer borrowers in loan forbearances and delivered loan forgiveness to borrowers who had made payments for 25 years or longer, have permanent disabilities, or were cheated by for-profit colleges. And, in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on the President’s plan to provide up to $20,000 in debt relief to low- and middle-income borrowers, the Administration continues its work to pursue an alternative path to debt relief through negotiated rulemaking under the Higher Education Act.

The Biden Administration created the SAVE Plan, which for low-balance borrowers provides an earlier pathway to forgiveness. SAVE is the most affordable repayment plan for low- and middle-income borrowers. For borrowers earning less than about $15 per hour, or more if they have families to support, they will have $0 payments on their loans. Borrowers who still owe a payment are saving roughly $102 per month, or $1,244 per year. The SAVE Plan has also eliminated runaway interest that caused balances to grow even when borrowers were making payments. Starting in July, undergraduate payments will be cut in half.

We estimate that under the SAVE Plan, 85 percent of future community college borrowers will be debt free within 10 years.  Additionally, future borrowers can opt in to becoming automatically enrolled in the SAVE plan if they become delinquent, which could prevent millions of loan defaults over time.

The Administration secured the largest increase to Pell Grants in a decade and is leading a national movement to eliminate tuition at community colleges. It has also finalized new rules to protect borrowers from career programs that leave graduates with unaffordable debts or insufficient earnings.

The Biden Administration will never stop fighting to fix the broken student loan system, provide relief to borrowers who need it most, and make payments manageable. Through the data released today, we have seen that borrowers continue to make payments and others are utilizing the protections available to them during the transition.

The Universities of Wisconsin system is facing major projected budget shortfalls in the coming years as financial reserves dwindle and retention rates fall.

These are the main themes the system’s president, Jay Rothman, pointed to in recently released third-party reports on the state’s universities. 

The system’s trustees charged Rothman with eliminating structural shortfalls a year ago, with 10 of the system’s 13 universities running budget deficits at the time. Rothman’s office hired consulting firm Deloitte to analyze the finances of Wisconsin’s colleges.

The results were stark. At the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, for example, financial reserves are nearly depleted as expenses rise and revenues fall. The report on the institution predicted UW-Oshkosh will face a nearly $20 million budget deficit by the 2028 fiscal year and said it needs to act swiftly to avoid liquidity issues. 

The reports on the system’s other universities tell a similar story. The analysis of the Parkside, Platteville and Whitewater campuses all contained notes warning of looming liquidity strains. Reports are still forthcoming for several universities in the system. 

Only University of Wisconsin-Madison, the system’s flagship, is operating in the black, the president noted in a lengthy statement.

Declining retention and rising costs weren’t the only issues raised in the reports. Rothman called out other concerns, including aging facilities and maintenance backlogs, uncompetitive salaries for faculty and staff, programs that produce few graduates, and increased demand for student services, such as mental health.  

The enrollment picture is equally bleak. Total enrollment fell nearly 12% between its peak in 2010 and 2022, when the figure bottomed out at 160,782 students.

Opportunities include rolling out direct admissions, which involves notifying students they are admitted before they apply. Rothman also pointed to expanding dual enrollment and continuing education offerings while also focusing on improving retention. 

“For years, we have tried to make ends meet on the backs of those who provide the education students deserve and parents expect – our faculty and staff,” Rothman said in an open letter, alluding to recent layoffs at the state’s universities. “That should not have to continue.” 

He called on Wisconsin lawmakers to support its higher education system with more funding. 

“While we will do our part on the expense side of the ledger, ultimately it is up to the state to decide whether it wants and can afford a weakened Universities of Wisconsin,” Rothman said. 

A 2023 report from Wisconsin Policy Forum found the state ranked 43rd in per-student state funding for its four-year universities. In his letter, Rothman cited the low funding the system receives compared to other states.

“Continued funding at that level will result in further cuts at our universities and will negatively impact the single best generator of talent and economic growth in Wisconsin,” Rothman said. 

Getting to the median level of funding would take an investment of $440 million.