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Tag: math

  • 5 cheat sheets for parents of preschoolers

    When my oldest child was a 2-year-old, we relocated to a new state and I found myself back at square one with my search for child care. In my new city, I now had a very good problem: There was an abundance of programs with availability, and I had a choice of where to enroll my son. As I toured a half-dozen of them, however, I worried that even as an early childhood reporter, I wasn’t asking the right questions or paying attention to the right thing. 

    A few months later, our early childhood team at Hechinger launched a project digging into the elements of a high-quality preschool. That article and the corresponding video became a quick and easy guide as I looked at options for my second child. It’s what I sent to friends who asked me for advice while navigating their own searches. 

    While I love telling stories from the field, my colleagues and I are also passionate about providing helpful tools and guides for teachers and caregivers. Here are a few of my favorite early ed “cheat sheets” from our decade of reporting on early childhood.

    1.  The five elements of a good preschool: What should you look for when you step inside a preschool classroom? What clues can you find on the walls or bookshelves? What questions should you ask teachers and school administrators? This video and article break it down. While classrooms and programs will vary by setting, many of these elements, like the way teachers talk to children and an emphasis on play, apply everywhere.

    2. Cracking down on unsafe sleep products: As an anxious new parent, nothing scared me more than hearing about infant deaths due to unsafe sleep products. Still, when desperate and exhausted, I tried several items that I heard would help my babies sleep, including some that the American Academy of Pediatrics later discouraged in updated safe sleep guidelines in 2022. While reporting this article, I was stunned by the lack of evidence and oversight of products that many parents like myself believe are tested before they are available to buy.

    3. How to boost math skills by talking about math with your kids: Most parents know how important it is to read to children. But did you know that there are easy ways caregivers can develop math skills? Earlier this year, my colleague Jill Barshay looked at a wave of research from the past dozen years on simple things adults can do to lay an early foundation in math. 

    4. How to answer tough questions about race and racism with your children: Research shows racial stereotypes start early, and that’s why it’s important to talk to young children about different races and read books and offer toys that have diverse characters. Many parents feel ill equipped for these conversations, however. In 2020, I asked three experts how they would respond to real questions from young kids about race and racism so adults feel better prepared for the questions that children inevitably ask.

    5. How parents can support their kids with play: With all the challenges of being a parent, it can be hard to hear there’s yet another thing we should be doing. But this 2023 conversation with researcher Charlotte Anne Wright helped me reframe the way I think about play and my role in it with my own children. While it’s important to give children opportunities for free play, Wright’s research shows “guided play,” or play with a learning goal in mind and light support from a parent, can have benefits for children, too. It’s not as heavy of a lift as it sounds, and Wright provides simple ways parents can engage in playful learning with their children on bus rides and trips to the laundromat.

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

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    Liz Willen
    Editor in chief

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    Jackie Mader

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  • Why early STEAM education unlocks the future for all learners

    Key points:

    When we imagine the future of America’s workforce, we often picture engineers, coders, scientists, and innovators tackling the challenges of tomorrow. However, the truth is that a student’s future does not begin in a college classroom, or even in high school–it starts in the earliest years of a child’s education.

    Early exposure to science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) builds the foundation for critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity. Research indicates that children introduced to STEAM concepts before the age of eight are significantly more likely to pursue STEM-related fields later in life. Yet for too many children, especially neurodivergent learners and those in underserved communities, STEAM education comes too late or not at all. That gap represents a missed opportunity not only for those children, but also for the industries and communities that will rely on their talents in the future.

    The missed opportunity in early education

    In most school systems, STEAM instruction ramps up in middle school or high school, long after the formative years when children are naturally most curious and open to exploring. By waiting until later grades, we miss the chance to harness early curiosity, which is the spark that drives innovation.

    This late introduction disproportionately affects children with disabilities or learning differences. These learners often benefit from structured, hands-on exploration and thrive when provided with tools to connect abstract concepts to real-world applications. Without early access, they may struggle to build confidence or see themselves as capable contributors to fields like aerospace, technology, or engineering. If STEAM employers fail to cultivate neurodivergent learners, they miss out on theirunique problem-solving skills, specialized strengths, and diverse thinking that drives true innovation. Beyond shrinking the talent pipeline, this oversight risks stalling progress in fields like aerospace, energy, and technology while weakening their competitive edge.

    The result is a long-term underrepresentation of neurodivergent individuals in high-demand, high-paying fields. Without access to an early STEAM curriculum, both neurodivergent students and employers will miss opportunities for advancement.

    Why neurodivergent learners benefit most

    Neurodivergent learners, such as children with autism, ADHD, or dyslexia, often excel when lessons are tactile, visual, and inquiry-based. Early STEAM education naturally aligns with these learning styles. For example, building a simple bridge with blocks is more than play; it’s an exercise in engineering, problem-solving, and teamwork. Programming a toy robot introduces logic, sequencing, and cause-and-effect.

    These types of early STEAM experiences also support executive functioning, improve social-emotional development, and build persistence. These are crucial skills in STEM careers, where theories often fail, and continued experimentation is necessary. Additionally, building these skills helps children see themselves as creators and innovators rather than passive participants in their education.

    When neurodivergent children are given access to STEAM at an early age, they are not only better equipped academically but also more confident in their ability to belong in spaces that have traditionally excluded them.

    Houston as a case study

    Here in Houston, we recognize the importance of early STEAM education in shaping our collective future. As the world’s Energy Capital and a hub for aerospace innovation, Houston’s economy will continue to rely on the next generation of thinkers, builders and problem-solvers. That pipeline begins not in a university laboratory, but in preschool classrooms and afterschool programs.

    At Collaborative for Children, we’ve seen this firsthand through our Collab-Lab, a mobile classroom that brings hands-on STEAM experiences to underserved neighborhoods. In these spaces, children experiment with coding, explore engineering principles, and engage in collaborative problem-solving long before they reach middle school. For neurodivergent learners in particular, the Collab-Lab provides an environment where curiosity is encouraged, mistakes are celebrated as part of the learning process, and every child has the chance to succeed. Additionally, we are equipping the teachers in our 125 Centers of Excellence throughout the city in practical teaching modalities for neurodivergent learners. We are committed to creating equal opportunity for all students.

    Our approach demonstrates what is possible when early childhood education is viewed not just as childcare, but as workforce development. If we can prioritize early STEAM access in Houston, other cities across the country can also expand access for all students.

    A national priority

    To prepare America’s workforce for the challenges ahead, we must treat early STEAM education as a national priority. This requires policymakers, educators and industry leaders to collaborate in new and meaningful ways.

    Here are three critical steps we must take:

    1. Expand funding and resources for early STEAM curriculum. Every preschool and early elementary program should have access to inquiry-based materials that spark curiosity in young learners.
    2. Ensure inclusion of neurodivergent learners in program design. Curricula and classrooms must reflect diverse learning needs so that all children, regardless of ability, have the opportunity to engage fully.
    3. Forge stronger partnerships between early education and industry. Employers in aerospace, energy, and technology should see investment in early childhood STEAM as part of their long-term workforce strategy.

    The stakes are high. If we delay STEAM learning until later grades, we risk leaving behind countless children and narrowing the talent pipeline that will fuel our nation’s most critical industries. But if we act early, we unlock not just potential careers, but potential lives filled with confidence, creativity and contribution.

    Closing thoughts

    The innovators of tomorrow are sitting in preschool classrooms today. They are building with blocks, asking “why,” and imagining worlds we cannot yet see. Among them are children who are neurodivergent–who, with the proper support, may go on to design spacecrafts, engineer renewable energy solutions, or code the next groundbreaking technology.

    If we want a future that is diverse, inclusive, and innovative, the path is clear: We must start with STEAM education in the earliest years, for every child.

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    Dr. Melanie Johnson, Collaborative for Children

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  • Teaching math the way the brain learns changes everything

    Key points:

    Far too many students enter math class expecting to fail. For them, math isn’t just a subject–it’s a source of anxiety that chips away at their confidence and makes them question their abilities. A growing conversation around math phobia is bringing this crisis into focus. A recent article, for example, unpacked the damage caused by the belief that “I’m just not a math person” and argued that traditional math instruction often leaves even bright, capable students feeling defeated.

    When a single subject holds such sway over not just academic outcomes but a student’s sense of self and future potential, we can’t afford to treat this as business as usual. It’s not enough to explore why this is happening. We need to focus on how to fix it. And I believe the answer lies in rethinking how we teach math, aligning instruction with the way the brain actually learns.

    Context first, then content

    A key shortcoming of traditional math curriculum–and a major contributor to students’ fear of math–is the lack of meaningful context. Our brains rely on context to make sense of new information, yet math is often taught in isolation from how we naturally learn. The fix isn’t simply throwing in more “real-world” examples. What students truly need is context, and visual examples are one of the best ways to get there. When math concepts are presented visually, students can better grasp the structure of a problem and follow the logic behind each step, building deeper understanding and confidence along the way.

    In traditional math instruction, students are often taught a new concept by being shown a procedure and then practicing it repeatedly in hopes that understanding will eventually follow. But this approach is backward. Our brains don’t learn that way, especially when it comes to math. Students need context first. Without existing schemas to draw from, they struggle to make sense of new ideas. Providing context helps them build the mental frameworks necessary for real understanding.

    Why visual-first context matters

    Visual-first context gives students the tools they need to truly understand math. A curriculum built around visual-first exploration allows students to have an interactive experience–poking and prodding at a problem, testing ideas, observing patterns, and discovering solutions. From there, students develop procedures organically, leading to a deeper, more complete understanding. Using visual-first curriculum activates multiple parts of the brain, creating a deeper, lasting understanding. Shifting to a math curriculum that prioritizes introducing new concepts through a visual context makes math more approachable and accessible by aligning with how the brain naturally learns.

    To overcome “math phobia,” we also need to rethink the heavy emphasis on memorization in today’s math instruction. Too often, students can solve problems not because they understand the underlying concepts, but because they’ve memorized a set of steps. This approach limits growth and deeper learning. Memorization of the right answers does not lead to understanding, but understanding can lead to the right answers.

    Take, for example, a third grader learning their times tables. The third grader can memorize the answers to each square on the times table along with its coordinating multipliers, but that doesn’t mean they understand multiplication. If, instead, they grasp how multiplication works–what it means–they can figure out the times tables on their own. The reverse isn’t true. Without conceptual understanding, students are limited to recall, which puts them at a disadvantage when trying to build off previous knowledge.

    Learning from other subjects

    To design a math curriculum that aligns with how the brain naturally learns new information, we can take cues from how other subjects are taught. In English, for example, students don’t start by memorizing grammar rules in isolation–they’re first exposed to those rules within the context of stories. Imagine asking a student to take a grammar quiz before they’ve ever read a sentence–that would seem absurd. Yet in math, we often expect students to master procedures before they’ve had any meaningful exposure to the concepts behind them.

    Most other subjects are built around context. Students gain background knowledge before being expected to apply what they’ve learned. By giving students a story or a visual context for the mind to process–breaking it down and making connections–students can approach problems like a puzzle or game, instead of a dreaded exercise. Math can do the same. By adopting the contextual strategies used in other subjects, math instruction can become more intuitive and engaging, moving beyond the traditional textbook filled with equations.

    Math doesn’t have to be a source of fear–it can be a source of joy, curiosity, and confidence. But only if we design it the way the brain learns: with visuals first, understanding at the center, and every student in mind. By using approaches that provide visual-first context, students can engage with math in a way that mirrors how the brain naturally learns. This shift in learning makes math more approachable and accessible for all learners.

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    Nigel Nisbet, Mind Education

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  • The ‘10 Martini’ Proof Connects Quantum Mechanics With Infinitely Intricate Mathematical Structures

    But in some ways, the proof was a bit unsatisfying. Jitomirskaya and Avila had used a method that only applied to certain irrational values of alpha. By combining it with an intermediate proof that came before it, they could say the problem was solved. But this combined proof wasn’t elegant. It was a patchwork quilt, each square stitched out of distinct arguments.

    Moreover, the proofs only settled the conjecture as it was originally stated, which involved making simplifying assumptions about the electron’s environment. More realistic situations are messier: Atoms in a solid are arranged in more complicated patterns, and magnetic fields aren’t quite constant. “You’ve verified it for this one model, but what does that have to do with reality?” said Simon Becker, a mathematician at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.

    These more realistic situations require you to tweak the part of the Schrödinger equation where alpha appears. And when you do, the 10-martini proof stops working. “This was always disturbing to me,” Jitomirskaya said.

    The breakdown of the proof in these broader contexts also implied that the beautiful fractal patterns that had emerged—the Cantor sets, the Hofstadter butterfly—were nothing more than a mathematical curiosity, something that would disappear once the equation was made more realistic.

    Avila and Jitomirskaya moved on to other problems. Even Hofstadter had doubts. If an experiment ever saw his butterfly, he’d written in Gödel, Escher, Bach, “I would be the most surprised person in the world.”

    But in 2013, a group of physicists at Columbia University captured his butterfly in a lab. They placed two thin layers of graphene in a magnetic field, then measured the energy levels of the graphene’s electrons. The quantum fractal emerged in all its glory. “Suddenly it went from a figment of the mathematician’s imagination to something practical,” Jitomirskaya said. “It became very unsettling.”

    Lyndie Chiou, Joseph Howlett

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  • Teachers unions leverage contracts to fight climate change

    This story first appeared in Hechinger’s climate and education newsletter. Sign up here. 

    In Illinois, the Chicago Teachers Union won a contract with the city’s schools to add solar panels on some buildings and clean energy career pathways for students, among other actions. In Minnesota, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators demanded that the district create a task force on environmental issues and provide free metro passes for students. And in California, the Los Angeles teachers union’s demands include electrifying the district’s bus fleet and providing electric vehicle charging stations at all schools. 

    Those are among the examples in a new report on how unionized teachers are pushing their school districts to take action on the climate crisis, which is damaging school buildings and disrupting learning. The report — produced by the nonprofit Building Power Resource Center, which supports local governments and leaders, and the Labor Network for Sustainability, a nonprofit that seeks to unite labor and climate groups — describes how educators can raise demands for climate action when they negotiate labor contracts with their districts. By emphasizing the financial case for switching to renewable energy, educators can simultaneously act on climate change, improve conditions in schools and save districts money, it says. 

    As federal support and financial incentives for climate action wither, this sort of local action is becoming more difficult — but also more urgent, advocates say. Chicago Public Schools has relied on funding for electric buses that has been sunsetted by the Trump administration, said Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union. But the district is also seeking other local and state funding and nonprofit support.

    Bradley Marianno, an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that educator unions embracing climate action is part of a move started about 15 years ago in which more progressive unions — like those in Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere — focus on “collective good bargaining,” or advocating for changes that are good for their members but also the broader community. But this approach is unlikely to catch on everywhere: “The risk lies in members feeling that core issues like wages and working conditions are being overlooked in favor of more global causes,” he wrote in an email. 

    I recently caught up with Potter, the CTU vice president, about the report and his union’s approach to bargaining for climate action. Collaborating with local environmental and community groups, the Chicago Teachers Union ultimately succeeded in winning a contract that calls for identifying schools for solar panels and electrification, expanding indoor air quality monitoring, helping educators integrate climate change into their curriculum, and establishing training for students in clean energy jobs, among other steps. 

    This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

    The report talks about contract negotiations being an underused — and effective — lever for demanding climate action. Why do you see that process as such an opportunity for climate action?

    On the local level, our schools are 84, 83 years old on average. There is lead paint, lead pipes, mold, asbestos, PCBs, all kinds of contamination in the HVAC system and the walls that require upgrades. By our estimate, the district needs $30 billion worth of upgrades, and right now I think they spend $500 million a year to just do patch-up work. We’re at a point where it’s a system fail of epic proportions if we can’t figure out a way to transition and make things healthier. And so if you’re going to do a roof repair, put solar on it, have independence from fossil fuels, clean air in areas that have faced environmental racism and contamination. 

    We’re also dealing with a legacy of discrimination and harm, and that is true of the nation. So how do we get out of this and also save the planet and also prevent greater climate events that further destabilize vulnerable communities and put people at risk? It made sense for us to use our contract as a path to do both things — deal with this local crisis that was screaming for new solutions and ideas, in a moment when the climate is on fire, literally.  

    How challenging was it to get educators to view climate issues as a priority? There are so many other things, around pay and other issues, on the table. 

    When we started, it almost felt like people in the membership, in the community, viewed it as a niche issue. Like, ‘Oh, isn’t that cute, you care about green technology.’ As we figured out how to think about it and talk about it and probe where people were having issues in their schools, it became really obvious that when you started talking about asbestos, lead and mold remediation — and helping communities that have been hit the hardest with cumulative impacts and carcinogens and how those things are present in schools — that became much more tangible. Or even quality food and lunch and breakfast for students who are low-income. It went from bottom of the list to top of the list, instantaneously. 

    Your contract calls for a number of climate-related actions, including green pathways for students and agreements with building trade unions to create good jobs for students. Tell me about that. 

    We’re trying to use the transformation of our facilities as another opportunity for families and students in these communities that have been harmed the most to get the greatest benefit from the transformation. So if we can install solar, we want our students to be part of that project on the ground in their schools, gaining the skills and apprenticeship credentials to become the electricians of the future. And using that as a project labor agreement [which establishes the terms of work on a certain project] with the trades to open doors and opportunities. The same goes for all the other improvements — whether it’s heat pumps, HVAC systems, geothermal. And for EV — we have outdated auto shop programming that’s exclusively based on the combustible engine reliant on fossil fuels, whereas in [the nearby city of] Belvidere they are building electric cars per the United Auto Workers’ new contract. Could we gain a career path on electric vehicles that allows students to gain that mechanical knowledge and insight and prepares them for the vehicles of the future? 

    The report talks about the Batesville School District in Arkansas that was able to increase teacher salaries because of savings from solar. Have you tried to make the case for higher teacher salaries because of these climate steps?  

    The $500 million our district allocates for facility upgrades annually comes out of the general fund, so we haven’t at all thought about it in terms of salary. We’ve thought about it in terms of having a school nurse, social worker, mental health interventions at a moment when there is so much trauma. We see this as a win-win: The fewer dollars the district has to spend on facility needs means the more dollars they can spend on instructional and social-emotional needs for students. In terms of the Arkansas model, it’s pretty basic. If you get off the fossil fuel pipelines and electric lines and you become self-sufficient, essentially, powering your own electric and heat, there is going to be a boon, particularly if there are up-front subsidies. 

    Math and climate change 

    When temperatures rise in classrooms, students have more trouble concentrating and their learning suffers — in math, in particular. That’s according to a new report from NWEA, an education research and testing company.

    The report, part of a growing body of evidence of the harms of extreme heat on student performance, found that math scores declined when outdoor temperatures on test days rose above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Students in high-poverty schools, which are less likely to have air conditioning, saw declines up to twice as large as those in wealthier schools. 

    The learning losses grew as temperatures rose. Students who took tests on 101-degree days scored roughly 0.06 standard deviations below students who tested when temperatures were 60 degrees, the equivalent of about 10 percent of the learning a fifth grader typically gains in a school year. 

    It’s not entirely clear why student math scores suffer more than reading when temperatures rise. But Sofia Postell, an NWEA research analyst, said that on math tests, students must problem-solve and rely on their memories, and that kind of thinking is particularly difficult when students are hot and tired. Anxiety could be a factor too, she wrote in an email: “Research has also shown that heat increases anxiety, and some students may experience more testing anxiety around math exams.”

    The study was based on data from roughly 3 million scores on NWEA’s signature MAP Growth test for third to eighth graders in six states. 

    The report urged school, district and state officials to take several steps to reduce the effects of high heat on student learning and testing. Ideally, tests would be scheduled during times of the year when it wasn’t so hot, it said, and also during mornings, when temperatures are cooler. Leaders also need to invest in updating HVAC systems to keep kids cool. 

    “Extreme heat has already detrimentally impacted student learning and these effects will only intensify without action,” wrote Postell. 

    Mea culpa: A quick note to say I got two things wrong in my last newsletter — the name of the Natural Resources Defense Council was incorrect, as was the number of hours of learning California students have missed so far this year. It’s more than 54,000. 

    Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at preston@hechingerreport.org.

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

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

    Caroline Preston

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  • Some social emotional lessons improve how kids do at school, Yale study finds

    Social emotional learning — lessons in soft skills like listening to people you disagree with or calming yourself down before a test — has become a flashpoint in the culture wars. 

    The conservative political group Moms for Liberty opposes SEL, as it is often abbreviated, telling parents that its “goal is to psychologically manipulate students to accept the progressive ideology that supports gender fluidity, sexual preference exploration, and systemic oppression.” Critics say that parents should discuss social and emotional matters at home and that schools should stick to academics. Meanwhile, some advocates on the left say standard SEL classes don’t go far enough and should include such topics as social justice and anti-racism training. 

    While the political battle rages on, academic researchers are marshalling evidence for what high-quality SEL programs actually deliver for students. The latest study, by researchers at Yale University, summarizes 12 years of evidence, from 2008 to 2020, and it finds that 30 different SEL programs, which put themselves through 40 rigorous evaluations involving almost 34,000 students, tended to produce “moderate” academic benefits.

    Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

    The meta-analysis, published online Oct. 8 in the peer-reviewed journal Review of Educational Research, calculated that the grades and test scores of students in SEL classes improved by about 4 percentile points, on average, compared with students who didn’t receive soft-skill instruction. That’s the equivalent of moving from the 50th percentile (in the middle) to the 54th percentile (slightly above average). Reading gains were larger (more than 6 percentile points) than math gains (fewer than 4 percentile points). Longer-duration SEL programs, extending more than four months, produced double the academic gains — more than 8 percentile points. 

    “Social emotional learning interventions are not designed, most of the time, to explicitly improve academic achievement,” said Christina Cipriano, one of the study’s four authors and an associate professor at Yale Medical School’s Child Study Center. “And yet we demonstrated, through our meta-analytic report, that explicit social emotional learning improved academic achievement and it improved both GPA and test scores.”

    Cipriano also directs the Education Collaboratory at Yale, whose mission is to “advance the science of learning and social and emotional development.”

    The academic boost from SEL in this 2025 paper is much smaller than the 11 percentile points documented in an earlier 2011 meta-analysis that summarized research through 2007, when SEL had not yet gained widespread popularity in schools. That has since changed. More than 80 percent of principals of K-12 schools said their schools used an SEL curriculum during the 2023-24 school year, according to a survey by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and the RAND Corporation. 

    Related: A research update on social-emotional learning in schools

    The Yale researchers only studied a small subset of the SEL market, programs that subjected themselves to a rigorous evaluation and included academic outcomes. Three-quarters of the 40 studies were randomized-controlled trials, similar to pharmaceutical trials, where schools or teachers were randomly assigned to teach an SEL curriculum. The remaining studies, in which schools or teachers volunteered to participate, still had control groups of students so that researchers could compare the academic gains of students who did not receive SEL instruction. 

    The SEL programs in the Yale study taught a wide range of soft skills, from mindfulness and anger management to resolving conflicts and setting goals. It is unclear which soft skills are driving the academic gains. That’s an area for future research.

    “Developmentally, when we think about what we know about how kids learn, emotional regulation is really the driver,” said Cipriano. “No matter how good that curriculum or that math program or reading curriculum is, if a child is feeling unsafe or anxious or stressed out or frustrated or embarrassed, they’re not available to receive the instruction, however great that teacher might be.”

    Cipriano said that effective programs give students tools to cope with stressful situations. She offered the example of a pop quiz, from the perspective of a student. “You can recognize, I’m feeling nervous, my blood is rushing to my hands or my face, and I can use my strategies of counting to 10, thinking about what I know, and use positive self talk to be able to regulate, to be able to take my test,” she said.

    Related: A cheaper, quicker approach to social-emotional learning?

    The strongest evidence for SEL is in elementary school, where the majority of evaluations have been conducted (two-thirds of the 40 studies). For young students, SEL lessons tend to be short but frequent, for example, 10 minutes a day. There’s less evidence for middle and high school SEL programs because they haven’t been studied as much. Typically, preteens and teens have less frequent but longer sessions, a half hour or even 90 minutes, weekly or monthly. 

    Cipriano said that schools don’t need to spend “hours and hours” on social and emotional instruction in order to see academic benefits. A current trend is to incorporate or embed social and emotional learning within academic instruction, as part of math class, for example. But none of the underlying studies in this paper evaluated whether this was a more effective way to deliver SEL. All of the programs in this study were separate stand-alone SEL lessons. 

    Advice to schools

    Schools are inundated by sales pitches from SEL vendors. Estimates of the market size range wildly, but a half dozen market research firms put it above $2 billion annually. Not all SEL programs are necessarily effective or can be expected to produce the academic gains that the Yale team calculated. 

    Cipriano advises schools not to be taken in by slick marketing. Many of the effective programs have no marketing at all and some are free. Unfortunately, some of these programs have been discontinued or have transformed through ownership changes. But she says school leaders can ask questions about which specific skills the SEL program claims to foster, whether those skills will help the district achieve its goals, such as improving school climate, and whether the program has been externally evaluated. 

    “Districts invest in things all the time that are flashy and pretty, across content areas, not just SEL,” said Cipriano. “It may never have had an external evaluation, but has a really great social media presence and really great marketing.” 

    Cipriano has also built a new website, improvingstudentoutcomes.org, to track the latest research on SEL effectiveness and to help schools identify proven programs.

    Cipriano says parents should be asking questions too. “Parents should be partners in learning,” said Cipriano. “I have four kids, and I want to know what they’re learning about in school.”

    This meta-analysis probably won’t stop the SEL critics who say that these programs force educators to be therapists. Groups like Moms for Liberty, which holds its national summit this week, say teachers should stick to academics. This paper rejects that dichotomy because it suggests that emotions, social interaction and academics are all interlinked. 

    Before criticizing all SEL programs, educators and parents need to consider the evidence.

    Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or barshay@hechingerreport.org.

    This story about SEL benefits was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

    Jill Barshay

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  • The Mystery of How Quasicrystals Form

    The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.

    Since their discovery in 1982, exotic materials known as quasicrystals have bedeviled physicists and chemists. Their atoms arrange themselves into chains of pentagons, decagons, and other shapes to form patterns that never quite repeat. These patterns seem to defy physical laws and intuition. How can atoms possibly “know” how to form elaborate nonrepeating arrangements without an advanced understanding of mathematics?

    “Quasicrystals are one of those things that as a materials scientist, when you first learn about them, you’re like, ‘That’s crazy,’” said Wenhao Sun, a materials scientist at the University of Michigan.

    Recently, though, a spate of results has peeled back some of their secrets. In one study, Sun and collaborators adapted a method for studying crystals to determine that at least some quasicrystals are thermodynamically stable—their atoms won’t settle into a lower-energy arrangement. This finding helps explain how and why quasicrystals form. A second study has yielded a new way to engineer quasicrystals and observe them in the process of forming. And a third research group has logged previously unknown properties of these unusual materials.

    Historically, quasicrystals have been challenging to create and characterize.

    “There’s no doubt that they have interesting properties,” said Sharon Glotzer, a computational physicist who is also based at the University of Michigan but was not involved with this work. “But being able to make them in bulk, to scale them up, at an industrial level—[that] hasn’t felt possible, but I think that this will start to show us how to do it reproducibly.”

    Vikram Gavini, Sambit Das, Woohyeon Baek, Wenhao Sun, and Shibo Tan hold examples of geometric shapes that appear in quasicrystals. The University of Michigan researchers have shown that at least some quasicrystals are thermodynamically stable.

    Photograph: Marcin Szczepanski Michigan Engineering

    ‘Forbidden’ Symmetries

    Nearly a decade before the Israeli physicist Dan Shechtman discovered the first examples of quasicrystals in the lab, the British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose thought up the “quasiperiodic”—almost but not quite repeating—patterns that would manifest in these materials.

    Penrose developed sets of tiles that could cover an infinite plane with no gaps or overlaps, in patterns that do not, and cannot, repeat. Unlike tessellations made of triangles, rectangles, and hexagons—shapes that are symmetric across two, three, four or six axes, and which tile space in periodic patterns—Penrose tilings have “forbidden” fivefold symmetry. The tiles form pentagonal arrangements, yet pentagons can’t fit snugly side by side to tile the plane. So, whereas the tiles align along five axes and tessellate endlessly, different sections of the pattern only look similar; exact repetition is impossible. Penrose’s quasiperiodic tilings made the cover of Scientific American in 1977, five years before they made the jump from pure mathematics to the real world.

    Patchen Barss

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  • The paradox of Hispanic Heritage Month: Celebrating heritage means honoring students’ languages

    Key points:

    Every year, Hispanic Heritage Month offers the United States a chance to honor the profound and varied contributions of Latino communities. We celebrate scientists like Ellen Ochoa, the first Latina woman in space, and activists like Dolores Huerta, who fought tirelessly for workers’ rights. We use this month to recognize the cultural richness that Spanish-speaking families bring to our communities, including everything from vibrant festivals to innovative businesses that strengthen our local economies.

    But there’s a paradox at play.

    While we spotlight Hispanic heritage in public spaces, many classrooms across the country require Spanish-speaking students to set aside the very heart of their cultural identity: their language.

    This contradiction is especially personal for me. I moved from Puerto Rico to the mainland United States as an adult in hopes of building a better future for myself and my family. The transition was far from easy. My accent often became a challenge in ways I never expected, because people judged my intelligence or questioned my education based solely on how I spoke. I could communicate effectively, yet my words were filtered through stereotypes.

    Over time, I found deep fulfillment working in a state that recognizes the value of bilingual education. Texas, where I now live, continues to expand biliteracy pathways for students. This commitment honors both home languages and English, opening global opportunities for children while preserving ties to their history, family, and identity.

    That commitment to expanding pathways for English Learners (EL) is urgently needed. Texas is home to more than 1.3 million ELs, which is nearly a quarter of all students in the state, the highest share in the nation. Nationwide, there are more than 5 million ELs comprising nearly 11 percent of the U.S. public school students; about 76 percent of ELs are Spanish speakers. Those figures represent millions of children who walk into classrooms every day carrying the gift of another language. If we are serious about celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, we must be serious about honoring and cultivating that gift.

    A true celebration of Hispanic heritage requires more than flags and food. It requires acknowledging that students’ home languages are essential to their academic success, not obstacles to overcome. Research consistently shows that bilingualism is a cognitive asset. Those who are exposed to two languages at an early age outperform their monolingual peers on tests of cognitive function in adolescence and adulthood. Students who maintain and develop their native language while learning English perform better academically, not worse. Yet too often, our educational systems operate as if English is the only language that matters.

    One powerful way to shift this mindset is rethinking the materials students encounter every day. High-quality instructional materials should act as both mirrors and windows–mirrors in which students see themselves reflected, and windows through which they explore new perspectives and possibilities. Meeting state academic standards is only part of the equation: Materials must also align with language development standards and reflect the cultural and linguistic diversity of our communities.

    So, what should instructional materials look like if we truly want to honor language as culture?

    • Instructional materials should meet students at varying levels of language proficiency while never lowering expectations for academic rigor.
    • Effective materials include strategies for vocabulary development, visuals that scaffold comprehension, bilingual glossaries, and structured opportunities for academic discourse.
    • Literature and history selections should incorporate and reflect Latino voices and perspectives, not as “add-ons” during heritage month, but as integral elements of the curriculum throughout the year.

    But materials alone are not enough. The process by which schools and districts choose them matters just as much. Curriculum teams and administrators must center EL experiences in every adoption decision. That means intentionally including the voices of bilingual educators, EL specialists, and, especially, parents and families. Their life experiences offer insights into the most effective ways to support students.

    Everyone has a role to play. Teachers should feel empowered to advocate for materials that support bilingual learners; policymakers must ensure funding and policies that prioritize high-quality, linguistically supportive instructional resources; and communities should demand that investments in education align with the linguistic realities of our students.

    Because here is the truth: When we honor students’ languages, we are not only affirming their culture; we are investing in their future. A child who is able to read, write, and think in two languages has an advantage that will serve them for life. They will be better prepared to navigate an interconnected world, and they carry with them the ability to bridge communities.

    This year, let’s move beyond celebrating what Latino communities have already contributed to America and start investing in what they can become when we truly support and honor them year-round. That begins with valuing language as culture–and making sure our classrooms do the same.

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    Altagracia “Grace” Delgado, Texas Association for Bilingual Education & Assessment for Good

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  • ‘The Wonder Years’ star shares why Hollywood ultimately doesn’t work out for some | The Mary Sue

    Hollywood can be a tough time for a lot of actors out there, and getting to be a recognizable face doesn’t exactly eliminate a lot of the anxieties around success. Danica McKellar was a household name in the United States after playing Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years from 1988 to 1993. For five years, she was basically the modern TV template for a “school aged crush” for a lot of Gen X viewers. However, McKellar left Hollywood after The Wonder Years concluded.

    Just a couple of days ago, the actress sat down with Hey Dude… The 90s Called!  to talk about her life’s work in and out of Hollywood. McKellar told Christine Taylor and David Lascher that math became her true calling and that Tinseltown just wasn’t in the plans for her. That’s actually perfectly fine with The Wonder Years star.

    McKellar mused that she needed to find some personal meaning beyond just being Winnie Cooper. She talked about people constantly asking her, “Aren’t you that girl, Winnie? Aren’t you that girl from TV?”

    “You’re trying to figure out who you are as a teenager, and everyone else is telling you who you are, and it’s like a thing that doesn’t exist anymore.” McKellar elaborated. “You guys are aware there’s all the insecurity that comes from having a lot of success early on, and then you don’t have that thing anymore. And you’re like, ‘Who am I now? Where do I get my validation?’”

    Hollywood isn’t for everybody and that’s okay

    Hollywood cast of The Wonder Years.
    (Hulu)

    Stories like the one McKellar tells here have become super commonplace over the last 5 years. People taking a step back from their careers, no matter what they are, to reassess and plot out what their future plans. There’s nothing quite like things being upended by things that you can’t control to trigger some introspection. (Some of it good, and some of it…well…not so great!) But yeah, there’s room for everyone when it comes to finding out what your purpose is and pursuing that! In fact, we should probably applaud that entire process more than we do currently.

    During the podcast, the Winnie Cooper actress shared how a hard exam at UCLA changed the course of the rest of her life. Basically, McKellar believed that she had bombed the test pretty hard. When in actuality, the exam was designed to see who in the class was the most prepared for the rigor of a Math degree ahead. Despite posting a seemingly low score, she got the highest marks in the class. It felt good for the Wonder Years star to have some sort of triumph that had nothing to do with her time on TV. And, she leaned into numbers and never looked back.

    “The math books have kept me sane for the last twenty years because it’s something that I can do something about,” McKellar mused. “Like, I can actually write a book and then have it published and then help kids with math and then make some money from that. It’s a thing that I can do that’s not like the business.” 

    It’s nice to read stories like this because there really is a life out there for all of us. No matter how niche the pursuit seems on the surface, there’s something  that your special talent can do for another person. Even if it seems obscure, there’s someone waiting to hear what you have to say, look at your art, or discuss the work you do everyday. That’s where our true purposes come into play. It probably feels amazing to be recognized as the math author as well as Winnie Cooper. It’s all a matter of perspective when you really drill down into it.

    (Credit: ABC)

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    Aaron Perine

    Aaron Perine is a writer that covers Free Streaming TV, normal TV, small TV (the kind that plays on your phone mostly!), and even movies sometimes!

    Phase Hero co-host. Host of Free Space: The Free Streaming TV Podcast.

    Aaron Perine

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  • OPINION: After-school and summer programs can help more students learn to embrace numbers and become ‘math people’ after all

    As a teacher, I heard it all the time: “I’m not a math person.” 

    I would be in line at the grocery store, wearing a math T-shirt one of my students got for me, and I’d hear it: “Algebra? Who needs it?”  

    I would ask the person if they’d shopped with a coupon, bought a cheaper store brand, looked at the unit price on toilet paper or if they’d mentally calculated their total before heading to the checkout line. 

    I’d smile and say — “All of that is algebraic thinking.”  

    Despite my assurances, the idea that “I am just not into math” was, and still is, pervasive. Sometimes the thought comes from students, often from parents or colleagues, and more often than not it is said with a kind of resignation — as if math were a club you either got into early or missed forever. 

    That mindset has never been more insidious than it is now, when mathematics knowledge is needed more than ever. Every day we rely on math to interpret data, whether it’s tracking public health trends, forecasting weather, making financial decisions or navigating technology. 

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.  

    The ability to reason quantitatively, spot patterns and make decisions based on evidence has become integral to how we all navigate the world. Yet recent national data shows we’re falling short. Fewer than one in three eighth graders are on grade level in math, according to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress scores. 

    Across nearly every industry, from agriculture to aerospace, mathematical reasoning is becoming more essential. Employers across sectors increasingly need people who can interpret data, test ideas and solve unfamiliar problems.  

    If we want more young people to access these growing opportunities, we need to rapidly expand access to the after-school and summer programs that help them develop the confidence and curiosity to build math skills. 

    Right now, too many young people are missing out. After-school and summer learning programs are rarely included in state or federal improvement plans, even though research shows that they are proven to reinforce classroom learning and build student confidence.  

    In addition, educators in these programs could benefit from training and resources to help young people connect more fully with math.  

    With the right support from funders and policymakers, these challenges can be addressed, and millions more students can build the math skills they’ll need. Every student deserves the chance to build confidence in math, not just those who excel early.  

    The stakes are far too high to keep throwing the same solutions at the problem. We need to think differently — not just about how we teach math, but how and where young people experience it. 

    After-school and summer programs give young people a chance to engage with math in low-pressure settings that don’t feel like an extension of school. They aren’t bound by curriculum or high-stakes test prep.  

    In these programs, educators can naturally bring math into real-life experiences — budgeting for a community project, designing a video game, planning the route for a field trip or understanding the data behind a favorite sport or song.  

    These programs also create opportunities to engage families in everyday math and to elevate older youth as peer mentors or tutors — making math feel more personal, social and relevant. 

    Out-of-school experiences mean students aren’t expected to memorize a formula before they can explore an idea. They’re encouraged to ask questions, try things out and see what happens. 

    And, importantly, they can take time to try, reflect and try again, without fear of being wrong. 

    Related: A lot of hope was pinned on after-school programs — now some are shutting their doors 

    When mistakes are treated as part of the mathematical reasoning process, students start to take more risks. They begin trusting themselves to navigate challenges, which builds their confidence. 

    That shift is especially important for students who have internalized the message that math isn’t for them, and it will carry them much further than an emphasis on better test scores and grades.  

    At STEM Next, we’re working to foster that shift by supporting after-school and summer programs, training informal educators and strengthening the learning environments where math confidence takes root.  

    Our recent publication offers a closer look at how after-school and summer programs are helping students experience math differently, and why that shift matters now more than ever.  

    Expanding access to these programs isn’t just to help kids grow math skills today, it’s a long-term investment in our workforce and our future.  

    Camsie McAdams is director of the Institute for a STEM Ready America at STEM Next Opportunity Fund. 

    Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.  

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

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

    Camsie McAdams

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  • NAEP scores for class of 2024 show major declines, with fewer students college ready

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    Students from the class of 2024 had historically low scores on a major national test administered just months before they graduated.

    Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, released September 9, show scores for 12th graders declined in math and reading for all but the highest performing students, as well as widening gaps between high and low performers in math. More than half of these students reported being accepted into a four-year college, but the test results indicate that many of them are not academically prepared for college, officials said.

    “This means these students are taking their next steps in life with fewer skills and less knowledge in core academics than their predecessors a decade ago, and this is happening at a time when rapid advancements in technology and society demand more of future workers and citizens, not less,” said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. “We have seen progress before on NAEP, including greater percentages of students meeting the NAEP proficient level. We cannot lose sight of what is possible when we use valuable data like NAEP to drive change and improve learning in U.S. schools.”

    These results reflect similar trends seen in fourth and eighth grade NAEP results released in January, as well as eighth grade science results also released Tuesday.

    In a statement, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the results show that federal involvement has not improved education, and that states should take more control.

    “If America is going to remain globally competitive, students must be able to read proficiently, think critically, and graduate equipped to solve complex problems,” she said. “We owe it to them to do better.”

    The students who took this test were in eighth grade in March of 2020 and experienced a highly disrupted freshman year of high school because of the pandemic. Those who went to college would now be entering their sophomore year.

    Roughly 19,300 students took the math test and 24,300 students took the reading test between January and March of 2024.

    The math test measures students’ knowledge in four areas: number properties and operations; measurement and geometry; data analysis, statistics, and probability; and algebra. The average score was the lowest it has been since 2005, and 45% of students scored below the NAEP Basic level, even as fewer students scored at NAEP Proficient or above.

    NAEP Proficient typically represents a higher bar than grade-level proficiency as measured on state- and district-level standardized tests. A student scoring in the proficient range might be able to pick the correct algebraic formula for a particular scenario or solve a two-dimensional geometric problem. A student scoring at the basic level likely would be able to determine probability from a simple table or find the population of an area when given the population density.

    Only students in the 90th percentile — the highest achieving students — didn’t see a decline, and the gap between high- and low-performing students in math was higher than on all previous assessments.

    This gap between high and low performers appeared before the pandemic, but has widened in most grade levels and subject areas since. The causes are not entirely clear but might reflect changes in how schools approach teaching as well as challenges outside the classroom.

    Testing officials estimate that 33% of students from the class of 2024 were ready for college-level math, down from 37% in 2019, even as more students said they intended to go to college.

    In reading, students similarly posted lower average scores than on any previous assessment, with only the highest performing students not seeing a decline.

    The reading test measures students’ comprehension of both literary and informational texts and requires students to interpret texts and demonstrate critical thinking skills, as well as understand the plain meaning of the words.

    A student scoring at the basic level likely would understand the purpose of a persuasive essay, for example, or the reaction of a potential audience, while a students scoring at the proficient level would be able to describe why the author made certain rhetorical choices.

    Roughly 32% of students scored below NAEP Basic, 12 percentage points higher than students in 1992, while fewer students scored above NAEP Proficient. An estimated 35% of students were ready for college-level work, down from 37% in 2019.

    In a survey attached to the test, students in 2024 were more likely to report having missed three or more days of school in the previous month than their counterparts in 2019. Students who miss more school typically score lower on NAEP and other tests. Higher performing students were more likely to say they missed no days of school in the previous month.

    Students in 2024 were less likely to report taking pre-calculus, though the rates of students taking both calculus and algebra II were similar in 2019 and 2024. Students reported less confidence in their math abilities than their 2019 counterparts, though students in 2024 were actually less likely to say they didn’t enjoy math.

    Students also reported lower confidence in their reading abilities. At the same time, higher percentages of students than in 2024 reported that their teachers asked them to do more sophisticated tasks, such as identifying evidence in a piece of persuasive writing, and fewer students reported a low interest in reading.

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

    For more news on national assessments, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub.

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    Erica Meltzer, Chalkbeat

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  • Comics artist inspires kids with his Marvel-ous work

    >> NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES. SOME HAVE A PENCIL, TALENT AND A CREATIVE APPROACH TO GET KIDS EXCITED ABOUT MATH. GULF COAST NEWS BRIT SHOWS US HOW IT ALL ADDS UP IN TONIGHT’S STORY TO SHARE. >> AND THEY KNOW WHO THIS GUY IS GOING TO >> INSIDE THE DIMENSIONS OF A HERO IN THE MAKING JERRY TO CARE LIGHTS THE PAGE WITH PASSION. YOU PUT SO MUCH WORK INTO IT. YOU’RE SO GOOD AT IT. NOW THAT IT’S IN ITS COMES TO. SO NATURALLY, IT IS JUST FUND. THAT’S THE POINT YOU WANT TO GET PUT THROUGH MARVEL’S UNIVERSE AND CHANCES ARE YOU’LL MARVEL AT HIS WORK. EXCELLENT FOR WOLVERINE PUNISHER CONE IN NICK FURY, AGENT SHIELD HAWKEYE DEAD POOL. >> EVEN TIME, CAMEOS OF DR. STRANGE IRONMAN. >> WHO ELSE? >> BELIEVE IT OR NOT, HIS DRAWINGS WEREN’T ALWAYS COVER WORD THE THIS BUT BUT I DON’T MEAN TO BUT THIS IS GARBAGE. BUT AFTER 4 YEARS OF STUBBORN, PERSISTENCE AND SKETCHES, HE WAS OFFERED TO DRAW ON X MEN ANNUAL SERIES. AND I SAID THE >> SHE COULD YOU GIVE ME A FANTASTIC 4 INSTEAD AND I’M THE GUY GOES, LISTEN, I’LL GIVE IT TO SOMEBODY ELSE. YOU KNOW, AND I SAID TAKE IT. YOU WITH MORE THAN 10 SUCCESSFUL MARVEL COMICS UNDER HIS BELT, HIS FAVORITE AUDIENCE ISN’T AT COMICON ANYMORE. YOU CAN DROP YOU IN THE CYLINDER FROM PRETTY MUCH YOU KNOW, BELIEVE THAT A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE, YOU CAN IMAGINE YOU CAN DRAW ANYTHING. HIS WORKSHOPS IN SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC LIBRARIES ACROSS AMERICAN MIX. MARVEL WITH MATT. THEY THINK SUPERHEROES A COOL LITTLE THING. MATHIS TO COOL. SO WHEN YOU COMBINE THOSE 2 THAT KIND OF ALL OF A SUDDEN MATHIS KIND OF COOL, WHICH IS WHAT THE MATH TEACHER WANTS FOR THEM. >> WHILE JERRY LOVES DRAWING MUSCLES LIKE THE NEXT COMIC. HIS WORK IS ABOUT STRENGTHENING CONFIDENCE. YOU KNOW SOMETHING TO BE AWARE TO JUST SET YOURSELF APART RIGHT FROM SUPERHEROES TO STUDENTS. HE’S TEACHING NEXT GENERATION THEIR OWN KIND OF SUPERPOWER THAT CAN DO. YOU CAN LOOK REALLY GOOD. AND SO I KN

    Sketching the outlines of a hero in the making, Jerry DeCaire lights the page with passion.”You put so much work into it that you’re so good at it now,” said DeCaire. “And it comes so naturally that it’s just fun, that’s the point you want to get to.”Flip through Marvel’s comics universe, and chances are, you’ll marvel at his work.X-Men, Thor, Wolverine, Dr. Strange, Iron Man — these are just a few comics he’s worked on.Believe it or not, his drawings weren’t always cover-worthy.”He says, ‘Hey buddy, I don’t mean to break your heart, but this is garbage,’” said DeCaire, describing what his mentor, comics legend John Buscema, told him when he was starting out.But four years of stubborn persistence and sketches later, he got an offer to draw an X-Men annual series.Now, with more than 10 successful Marvel comics under his belt, his favorite audience isn’t at Comic-Con anymore.”If you can draw a cube and a cylinder from pretty much any angle you can imagine or perspective you can imagine, you can draw anything,” said DeCaire.His workshops in schools and public libraries across America mix Marvel with math.”They think superheroes are cool. They don’t think math is too cool. So, all of a sudden, math is cool — which is what the teacher wants,” said Jerry.While DeCaire loves drawing muscles like the next comics artist, his work is about strengthening confidence.”Sometimes just being weird and setting yourself apart, right?” said DeCaire.

    Sketching the outlines of a hero in the making, Jerry DeCaire lights the page with passion.

    “You put so much work into it that you’re so good at it now,” said DeCaire. “And it comes so naturally that it’s just fun, that’s the point you want to get to.”

    Flip through Marvel’s comics universe, and chances are, you’ll marvel at his work.

    X-Men, Thor, Wolverine, Dr. Strange, Iron Man — these are just a few comics he’s worked on.

    Believe it or not, his drawings weren’t always cover-worthy.

    “He says, ‘Hey buddy, I don’t mean to break your heart, but this is garbage,’” said DeCaire, describing what his mentor, comics legend John Buscema, told him when he was starting out.

    But four years of stubborn persistence and sketches later, he got an offer to draw an X-Men annual series.

    Now, with more than 10 successful Marvel comics under his belt, his favorite audience isn’t at Comic-Con anymore.

    “If you can draw a cube and a cylinder from pretty much any angle you can imagine or perspective you can imagine, you can draw anything,” said DeCaire.

    His workshops in schools and public libraries across America mix Marvel with math.

    “They think superheroes are cool. They don’t think math is too cool. So, all of a sudden, math is cool — which is what the teacher wants,” said Jerry.

    While DeCaire loves drawing muscles like the next comics artist, his work is about strengthening confidence.

    “Sometimes just being weird and setting yourself apart, right?” said DeCaire.

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  • ST Math Students Double Math Gains Through Phillips 66 Partnership: 10+ Years of Lasting Impact and Local Commitment

    Over 60,000 students have benefited from the math program built on how the brain naturally learns

    A new analysis shows that students using ST Math at Phillips 66-funded schools are achieving more than twice the annual growth in math performance compared to their peers. A recent analysis by MIND Research Institute, which included 3,240 students in grades 3-5 across 23 schools, found that this accelerated growth gave these schools a 12.4 percentile point advantage in spring 2024 state math rankings.

    These significant outcomes are the result of a more than 10-year partnership between Phillips 66 and MIND Research Institute. This collaboration has brought ST Math, created by MIND Education, the only PreK–8 supplemental math program built on the science of how the brain learns, fully funded to 126 schools, 23 districts, and more than 60,000 students nationwide. ST Math empowers students to explore, make sense of, and build lasting confidence in math through visual problem-solving.

    “Our elementary students love JiJi and ST Math! Students are building perseverance and a deep conceptual understanding of math while having fun,” said Kim Anthony, Executive Director of Elementary Education, Billings Public Schools. “By working through engaging puzzles, students are not only fostering a growth mindset and resilience in problem-solving, they’re learning critical math concepts.”

    The initiative began in 2014 as Phillips 66 sought a STEM education partner that could deliver measurable outcomes at scale. Since then, the relationship has grown steadily, and now, Phillips 66 funds 100% of the ST Math program in communities near its facilities in California, Washington, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois, and New Jersey. Once involved, schools rarely leave the program.

    To complement the in-class use of ST Math, Phillips 66 and MIND introduced Family Math Nights. These events, hosted at local schools, bring students, families, and Phillips 66 employee volunteers together for engaging, hands-on activities. The goal is to build math confidence in a fun, interactive setting and to equip parents with a deeper understanding of the ST Math program and new tools to support their child’s learning at home.

    “At Phillips 66, we believe in building lasting relationships with the communities we serve,” said Courtney Meadows, Manager of Social Impact at Phillips 66. “This partnership is more than a program. It’s a decade of consistent, community-rooted support to build the next generation of thinkers and improve lives through enriching educational experiences.”

    ST Math has been used by millions of students across the country and has a proven track record of delivering a fundamentally different approach to learning math. Through visual and interactive puzzles, the program breaks down math’s abstract language barriers to benefit all learners, including English Learners, Special Education students, and Gifted and Talented students.

    “ST Math offers a learning experience that’s natural, intuitive, and empowering—while driving measurable gains in math proficiency,” said Brett Woudenberg, CEO of MIND Education. “At MIND, we believe math is a gateway to brighter futures. We’re proud to partner with Phillips 66 in expanding access to high-quality math learning for thousands of students in their communities.”

    Explore how ST Math is creating an impact in Phillips 66 communities with this impact story: https://www.mindeducation.org/success-story/brazosport-isd-texas/

    About MIND Education
    MIND Education engages, motivates and challenges students towards mathematical success through its mission to mathematically equip all students to solve the world’s most challenging problems. MIND is the creator of ST Math, a pre-K–8 visual instructional program that leverages the brain’s innate spatial-temporal reasoning ability to solve mathematical problems; and InsightMath, a neuroscience-based K-6 curriculum that transforms student learning by teaching math the way every brain learns so all students are equipped to succeed. Since its inception in 1998, MIND Education and ST Math has served millions and millions of students across the country. Visit MINDEducation.org.

    About Phillips 66
    Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX) is a leading integrated downstream energy provider that manufactures, transports and markets products that drive the global economy. The company’s portfolio includes Midstream, Chemicals, Refining, Marketing and Specialties, and Renewable Fuels businesses. Headquartered in Houston, Phillips 66 has employees around the globe who are committed to safely and reliably providing energy and improving lives while pursuing a lower-carbon future. For more information, visit phillips66.com or follow @Phillips66Co on LinkedIn.

    eSchool News Staff
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  • The Quest to Find the Longest-Running Simple Computer Program

    But just how much harder? In 1962, the mathematician Tibor Radó invented a new way to explore this question through what he called the busy beaver game. To play, start by choosing a specific number of rules—call that number n. Your goal is to find the n-rule Turing machine that runs the longest before eventually halting. This machine is called the busy beaver, and the corresponding busy beaver number, BB(n), is the number of steps that it takes.

    In principle, if you want to find the busy beaver for any given n, you just need to do a few things. First, list out all the possible n-rule Turing machines. Next, use a computer program to simulate running each machine. Look for telltale signs that machines will never halt—for example, many machines will fall into infinite repeating loops. Discard all these non-halting machines. Finally, record how many steps every other machine took before halting. The one with the longest runtime is your busy beaver.

    In practice, this gets tricky. For starters, the number of possible machines grows rapidly with each new rule. Analyzing them all individually would be hopeless, so you’ll need to write a custom computer program to classify and discard machines. Some machines are easy to classify: They either halt quickly or fall into easily identifiable infinite loops. But others run for a long time without displaying any obvious pattern. For these machines, the halting problem deserves its fearsome reputation.

    The more rules you add, the more computing power you need. But brute force isn’t enough. Some machines run for so long before halting that simulating them step by step is impossible. You need clever mathematical tricks to measure their runtimes.

    “Technology improvements definitely help,” said Shawn Ligocki, a software engineer and longtime busy beaver hunter. “But they only help so far.”

    End of an Era

    Busy beaver hunters started chipping away at the BB(6) problem in earnest in the 1990s and 2000s, during an impasse in the BB(5) hunt. Among them were Shawn Ligocki and his father, Terry, an applied mathematician who ran their search program in the off hours on powerful computers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In 2007, they found a six-rule Turing machine that broke the record for the longest runtime: The number of steps it took before halting had nearly 3,000 digits. That’s a colossal number by any ordinary measure. But it’s not too big to write down. In 12-point font, those 3,000 digits will just about cover a single sheet of paper.

    In 2022, Shawn Ligocki discovered a six-rule Turing machine whose runtime has more digits than the number of atoms in the universe.

    Photograph: Kira Treibergs

    Three years later, a Slovakian undergraduate computer science student named Pavel Kropitz decided to tackle the BB(6) hunt as a senior thesis project. He wrote his own search program and set it up to run in the background on a network of 30 computers in a university lab. After a month he found a machine that ran far longer than the one discovered by the Ligockis—a new “champion,” in the lingo of busy beaver hunters.

    “I was lucky, because people in the lab were already complaining about my CPU usage and I had to scale back a bit,” Kropitz wrote in a direct message exchange on the Busy Beaver Challenge Discord server. After another month of searching, he broke his own record with a machine whose runtime had over 30,000 digits—enough to fill about 10 pages.

    Ben Brubaker

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  • Start the School Year Strong with Free TEKS-Aligned Resources from Khan Academy

    Texas teachers, start the school year equipped with everything you need for success in the classroom! Whether you’re teaching 8th-grade science or Algebra 1, Khan Academy’s TEKS-aligned unit guides are designed to save you time, build your confidence, and deliver exceptional, standards-driven instruction.

    Thanks to the generous support of the ExxonMobil Foundation, these resources are available for free to teachers across Texas.

    TEKS Science unit guides: Engage students with real-world phenomena

    Aligned with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for 8th grade and high school, our science unit guides cover integrated science, biology, chemistry, and physics. They complement Khan Academy’s existing science courses while making it easier to plan cohesive, standards-based instruction.

    Each guide includes:

    • Lesson overviews: Essential questions paired with clear learning objectives
    • Real-world phenomena: Designed to spark curiosity and make content come alive
    • Targeted teaching tips: Practical strategies for addressing common misconceptions
    • Student-ready resources: Simulations, note-taking templates, and other classroom supports

    Explore TEKS science guides

    TEKS Math unit guides: Built by experts, backed by strategy

    More than a resource, these guides are like having a master teacher in your corner. Khan Academy’s math unit guides are aligned to TEKS standards for Grades 5–8 and Algebra 1, with additional guides for Grades 3–4, Geometry, Algebra 2, and Precalculus coming soon.

    Inside each guide you’ll find:

    • Standards & misconceptions: Quickly identify what students need to know and where they might struggle
    • Unit resources: Ready-to-use templates for video notes, vocab builders, graphing tools, and more
    • Lesson overviews: Teaching tips, warm-up ideas, and student supports for every lesson
    • Best practices: Instructional strategies and classroom activities to enhance engagement

    Unit guides are already live for Grades 5–8 and Algebra 1—just look for the “Teacher resources” lesson at the end of each unit.

    Explore TEKS math guides

    Teach confidently this year

    These guides are designed to empower you, making every unit easier to teach and more effective for your students. By providing strategies, ready-to-use resources, and expert insights, Khan Academy helps you focus on what matters most—supporting every learner.

    Once again, a special thank you to the ExxonMobil Foundation for making these free resources possible for teachers and students across Texas.

    Katie Roberts

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  • A gender gap in STEM widened during the pandemic. Schools are trying to make up lost ground

    IRVING, Texas — Crowded around a workshop table, four girls at de Zavala Middle School puzzled over a Lego machine they had built. As they flashed a purple card in front of a light sensor, nothing happened. 

    The teacher at the Dallas-area school had emphasized that in the building process, there are no such thing as mistakes. Only iterations. So the girls dug back into the box of blocks and pulled out an orange card. They held it over the sensor and the machine kicked into motion. 

    “Oh! Oh, it reacts differently to different colors,” said sixth grader Sofia Cruz.

    In de Zavala’s first year as a choice school focused on science, technology, engineering and math, the school recruited a sixth grade class that’s half girls. School leaders are hoping the girls will stick with STEM fields. In de Zavala’s higher grades — whose students joined before it was a STEM school — some elective STEM classes have just one girl enrolled. 

    Efforts to close the gap between boys and girls in STEM classes are picking up after losing steam nationwide during the chaos of the Covid pandemic. Schools have extensive work ahead to make up for the ground girls lost, in both interest and performance.

    In the years leading up to the pandemic, the gender gap nearly closed. But within a few years, girls lost all the ground they had gained in math test scores over the previous decade, according to an Associated Press analysis. While boys’ scores also suffered during Covid, they have recovered faster than girls, widening the gender gap.

    As learning went online, special programs to engage girls lapsed — and schools were slow to restart them. Zoom school also emphasized rote learning, a technique based on repetition that some experts believe may favor boys, instead of teaching students to solve problems in different ways, which may benefit girls. 

    Old practices and biases likely reemerged during the pandemic, said Michelle Stie, a vice president at the National Math and Science Initiative.

    “Let’s just call it what it is,” Stie said. “When society is disrupted, you fall back into bad patterns.”

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    In most school districts in the 2008-09 school year, boys had higher average math scores on standardized tests than girls, according to AP’s analysis, which looked at scores across 15 years in over 5,000 school districts. It was based on average test scores for third through eighth graders in 33 states, compiled by the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University. 

    A decade later, girls had not only caught up, they were ahead: Slightly more than half of districts had higher math averages for girls.

    Within a few years of the pandemic, the parity disappeared. In 2023-24, boys on average outscored girls in math in nearly 9 out of 10 districts.

    A separate study by NWEA, an education research company, found gaps between boys and girls in science and math on national assessments went from being practically non-existent in 2019 to favoring boys around 2022.

    Studies have indicated girls reported higher levels of anxiety and depression during the pandemic, plus more caretaking burdens than boys, but the dip in academic performance did not appear outside STEM. Girls outperformed boys in reading in nearly every district nationwide before the pandemic and continued to do so afterward.

    “It wasn’t something like Covid happened and girls just fell apart,” said Megan Kuhfeld, one of the authors of the NWEA study. 

    Related: These districts are bucking the national math slump 

    In the years leading up to the pandemic, teaching practices shifted to deemphasize speed, competition and rote memorization. Through new curriculum standards, schools moved toward research-backed methods that emphasized how to think flexibly to solve problems and how to tackle numeric problems conceptually.

    Educators also promoted participation in STEM subjects and programs that boosted girls’ confidence, including extracurriculars that emphasized hands-on learning and connected abstract concepts to real-life applications. 

    When STEM courses had large male enrollment, Superintendent Kenny Rodrequez noticed girls losing interest as boys dominated classroom discussions at his schools in Grandview C-4 District outside Kansas City. Girls were significantly more engaged after the district moved some of its introductory hands-on STEM curriculum to the lower grade levels and balanced classes by gender, he said.

    When schools closed for the pandemic, the district had to focus on making remote learning work. When in-person classes resumed, some of the teachers had left, and new ones had to be trained in the curriculum, Rodrequez said. 

    “Whenever there’s crisis, we go back to what we knew,” Rodrequez said. 

    Related: One state tried algebra for all eighth graders. It hasn’t gone well

    Despite shifts in societal perceptions, a bias against girls persists in science and math subjects, according to teachers, administrators and advocates. It becomes a message girls can internalize about their own abilities, they say, even at a very young age. 

    In his third grade classroom in Washington, D.C., teacher Raphael Bonhomme starts the year with an exercise where students break down what makes up their identity. Rarely do the girls describe themselves as good at math. Already, some say they are “not a math person.” 

    “I’m like, you’re 8 years old,” he said. “What are you talking about, ‘I’m not a math person?’” 

    Girls also may have been more sensitive to changes in instructional methods spurred by the pandemic, said Janine Remillard, a math education professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Research has found girls tend to prefer learning things that are connected to real-life examples, while boys generally do better in a competitive environment. 

    “What teachers told me during Covid is the first thing to go were all of these sense-making processes,” she said. 

    Related: OPINION: Everyone can be a math person but first we have to make math instruction more inclusive 

    At de Zavala Middle School in Irving, the STEM program is part of a push that aims to build curiosity, resilience and problem-solving across subjects.

    Coming out of the pandemic, Irving schools had to make a renewed investment in training for teachers, said Erin O’Connor, a STEM and innovation specialist there.

    The district last year also piloted a new science curriculum from Lego Education. The lesson involving the machine at de Zavala, for example, had students learn about kinetic energy. Fifth graders learned about genetics by building dinosaurs and their offspring with Lego blocks, identifying shared traits. 

    “It is just rebuilding the culture of, we want to build critical thinkers and problem solvers,” O’Connor said.

    Teacher Tenisha Willis recently led second graders at Irving’s Townley Elementary School through building a machine that would push blocks into a container. She knelt next to three girls who were struggling.

    They tried to add a plank to the wheeled body of the machine, but the blocks didn’t move enough. One girl grew frustrated, but Willis was patient. She asked what else they could try, whether they could flip some parts around. The girls ran the machine again. This time, it worked.

    “Sometimes we can’t give up,” Willis said. “Sometimes we already have a solution. We just have to adjust it a little bit.” 

    Lurye reported from Philadelphia. Todd Feathers contributed reporting from New York. 

    The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

    Annie Ma and Sharon Lurye

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  • Nation’s Report Card at risk, researchers say

    This story was reported by and originally published by APM Reports in connection with its podcast Sold a Story: How Teach Kids to Read Went So Wrong.

    When voters elected Donald Trump in November, most people who worked at the U.S. Department of Education weren’t scared for their jobs. They had been through a Trump presidency before, and they hadn’t seen big changes in their department then. They saw their work as essential, mandated by law, nonpartisan and, as a result, insulated from politics.

    Then, in early February, the Department of Government Efficiency showed up. Led at the time by billionaire CEO Elon Musk, and known by the cheeky acronym DOGE, it gutted the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, posting on X that the effort would ferret out “waste, fraud and abuse.”

    A post from the Department of Government Efficiency.

    When it was done, DOGE had cut approximately $900 million in research contracts and more than 90 percent of the institute’s workforce had been laid off. (The current value of the contracts was closer to $820 million, data compiled by APM Reports shows, and the actual savings to the government was substantially less, because in some cases large amounts of money had been spent already.)

    Among staff cast aside were those who worked on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — also known as the Nation’s Report Card — which is one of the few federal education initiatives the Trump administration says it sees as valuable and wants to preserve.

    The assessment is a series of tests administered nearly every year to a national sample of more than 10,000 students in grades 4, 8 and 12. The tests regularly measure what students across the country know in reading, math and other subjects. They allow the government to track how well America’s students are learning overall. Researchers can also combine the national data with the results of tests administered by states to draw comparisons between schools and districts in different states.

    The assessment is “something we absolutely need to keep,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said at an education and technology summit in San Diego earlier this year. “If we don’t, states can be a little manipulative with their own results and their own testing. I think it’s a way that we keep everybody honest.”

    But researchers and former Department of Education employees say they worry that the test will become less and less reliable over time, because the deep cuts will cause its quality to slip — and some already see signs of trouble.

    “The main indication is that there just aren’t the staff,” said Sean Reardon, a Stanford University professor who uses the testing data to research gaps in learning between students of different income levels.

    All but one of the experts who make sure the questions in the assessment are fair and accurate — called psychometricians — have been laid off from the National Center for Education Statistics. These specialists play a key role in updating the test and making sure it accurately measures what students know.

    “These are extremely sophisticated test assessments that required a team of researchers to make them as good as they are,” said Mark Seidenberg, a researcher known for his significant contributions to the science of reading. Seidenberg added that “a half-baked” assessment would undermine public confidence in the results, which he described as “essentially another way of killing” the assessment.

    The Department of Education defended its management of the assessment in an email: “Every member of the team is working toward the same goal of maintaining NAEP’s gold-standard status,” it read in part.

    The National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policies for the national test, said in a statement that it had temporarily assigned “five staff members who have appropriate technical expertise (in psychometrics, assessment operations, and statistics) and federal contract management experience” to work at the National Center for Education Statistics. No one from DOGE responded to a request for comment.

    Harvard education professor Andrew Ho, a former member of the governing board, said the remaining staff are capable, but he’s concerned that there aren’t enough of them to prevent errors.

    “In order to put a good product up, you need a certain number of person-hours, and a certain amount of continuity and experience doing exactly this kind of job, and that’s what we lost,” Ho said.

    The Trump administration has already delayed the release of some testing data following the cutbacks. The Department of Education had previously planned to announce the results of the tests for 8th grade science, 12th grade math and 12th grade reading this summer; now that won’t happen until September. The board voted earlier this year to eliminate more than a dozen tests over the next seven years, including fourth grade science in 2028 and U.S. history for 12th graders in 2030. The governing board has also asked Congress to postpone the 2028 tests to 2029, citing a desire to avoid releasing test results in an election year. 

    “Today’s actions reflect what assessments the Governing Board believes are most valuable to stakeholders and can be best assessed by NAEP at this time, given the imperative for cost efficiencies,” board chair and former North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue said earlier this year in a press release.

    The National Assessment Governing Board canceled more than a dozen tests when it revised the schedule for the National Assessment of Educational Progress in April. This annotated version of the previous schedule, adopted in 2023, shows which tests were canceled. Topics shown in all caps were scheduled for a potential overhaul; those annotated with a red star are no longer scheduled for such a revision.

    Recent estimates peg the annual cost to keep the national assessment running at about $190 million per year, a fraction of the department’s 2025 budget of approximately $195 billion.

    Adam Gamoran, president of the William T. Grant Foundation, said multiple contracts with private firms — overseen by Department of Education staff with “substantial expertise” — are the backbone of the national test.

    “You need a staff,” said Gamoran, who was nominated last year to lead the Institute of Education Sciences. He was never confirmed by the Senate. “The fact that NCES now only has three employees indicates that they can’t possibly implement NAEP at a high level of quality, because they lack the in-house expertise to oversee that work. So that is deeply troubling.”

    The cutbacks were widespread — and far outside of what most former employees had expected under the new administration.

    “I don’t think any of us imagined this in our worst nightmares,” said a former Education Department employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the Trump administration. “We weren’t concerned about the utter destruction of this national resource of data.”

    “At what point does it break?” the former employee asked.

    Related: Suddenly sacked

    Every state has its own test for reading, math and other subjects. But state tests vary in difficulty and content, which makes it tricky to compare results in Minnesota to Mississippi or Montana.

    “They’re totally different tests with different scales,” Reardon said. “So NAEP is the Rosetta stone that lets them all be connected.”

    Reardon and his team at Stanford used statistical techniques to combine the federal assessment results with state test scores and other data sets to create the Educational Opportunity Project. The project, first released in 2016 and updated periodically in the years that followed, shows which schools and districts are getting the best results — especially for kids from poor families. Since the project’s release, Reardon said, the data has been downloaded 50,000 times and is used by researchers, teachers, parents, school boards and state education leaders to inform their decisions.

    For instance, the U.S. military used the data to measure school quality when weighing base closures, and superintendents used it to find demographically similar but higher-performing districts to learn from, Reardon said.

    If the quality of the data slips, those comparisons will be more difficult to make.

    “My worry is we just have less-good information on which to base educational decisions at the district, state and school level,” Reardon said. “We would be in the position of trying to improve the education system with no information. Sort of like, ‘Well, let’s hope this works. We won’t know, but it sounds like a good idea.’”

    Seidenberg, the reading researcher, said the national assessment “provided extraordinarily important, reliable information about how we’re doing in terms of teaching kids to read and how literacy is faring in the culture at large.”

    Producing a test without keeping the quality up, Seidenberg said, “would be almost as bad as not collecting the data at all.”

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

    Kate Martin and Carmela Guaglianone

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  • ‘I’m not going anywhere’: For one Altadena fire survivor, the math makes sense to rebuild

    Jennie Marie Mahalick Petrini has a big decision on her hands.

    For Petrini, the night of Jan. 7 brought total loss. The Eaton fire decimated her quaint home in the northwest corner of Altadena near Jane’s Village, reducing her sanctuary to a pile of rubble.

    “I have a spiritual connection to that house,” she said. “It was the only place I felt safe.”

    Now, like thousands of others, she’s crunching the numbers on whether to sell her burned lot and move on, or stay and rebuild.

    For many, it makes more sense to sell. Experts estimate a rebuild could take years, and navigating contractors, inspectors and governmental red tape, all while recovering from a traumatic incident, just isn’t worth the effort. It’s the reason why lots are hitting the market daily.

    But for Petrini — for reasons both emotional and financial, a melding of head and heart — staying is the only realistic option.

    Breaking down the math

    Petrini, 47, bought her Altadena home, where she lived with her partner and two daughters, for $705,000 in 2019. Built in 1925, it’s 1,352 square feet with three bedrooms and two bathrooms on a thin lot of just over 5,300 square feet.

    She was able to refinance her loan during the pandemic, lowering the interest rate to 2.75% on a $450,000 mortgage. The move brought her mortgage payments from $3,600 down to $3,000 — a relative steal, and only slightly more than the $2,800 rent she has been paying for a Tujunga apartment since the fire.

    The property was insured by Farmers, which sprang into action following the fire, sending the first of her payouts on Jan. 8.

    Petrini received $380,000 for the dwelling, an extra 20% for extended damage equating to roughly $70,000, and $200,000 for personal property. She used the $200,000 payout to cover living expenses such as a second car, medical bills and a bit of savings, and also tucked away $50,000 to use toward rebuilding.

    She estimates that even the thriftiest rebuild will cost around $700,000, and right now, she can cover around $500,000: the $380,000 and $70,000 insurance payouts, plus $50,000 of the personal property payout she stashed for a rebuild.

    To cover the extra $200,000, she received a Small Business Administration loan up to $500,000 with an interest rate of 2.65%, which can be used for property renovations. Once she starts pulling from that loan, she estimates she’ll pay around $1,000 per month, which, combined with her $3,000 mortgage, totals roughly $4,000.

    It’s a hefty number, but still far cheaper than selling and starting over.

    “I could sell the lot for $500,000, take my insurance payout and buy something new, but my house was valued at $1.2 million,” she said. “So even if I put $500,000 down on a new house, to get something similar, I’d have a $700,000 mortgage with a much higher interest rate.”

    As it stands, if she cashed out, she’d be renting for the foreseeable future in the midst of a housing crisis where rents rise and some landlords take advantage of tenants, especially in times of crisis. Price gouging skyrocketed as thousands flooded the rental market in January, leading to bidding wars for subaverage homes. To secure her Tujunga rental, Petrini, through her insurance, had to pay 18 months of rent up front — a total of more than $50,000.

    “It sounds so lucrative: sell the land, pay off my mortgage and be debt-free. But then my children wouldn’t have a home,” she said.

    Bigger than money

    Jennie Marie Mahalick Petrini, from left, and her daughters, Marli Petrini, 19, and Camille Petrini, 12, look over the lot where their home stood before the Altadena fire. It was the first time the daughters had looked through the lot.

    (Robert Hanashiro / For The Times)

    While the math makes sense, Petrini has bigger reasons for staying: she’s emotionally tied to the lot, the community and the people within it.

    Altadena is a safe haven for her. She bought her home after escaping a domestic violence situation in 2017. The seller had higher offers, but ended up selling to Petrini after she wrote a letter explaining her circumstances.

    It’s also the place where she got sober after abusing stimulants to stay awake and keep things running as a single mom.

    “When I was getting sober, I’d go for walks five times a day through the neighborhood,” she said. The trees, the animals, the flowers, the variety of houses. It was — is — a special place.”

    Petrini once worked as the executive director of operations at Occidental College, but took a break in 2023 to focus on her children and her health. She and a daughter both have Type 1 diabetes.

    Petrini hasn’t been employed since, and her parents helped her pay the mortgage before the fire. She acknowledges that she’s operating from a place of privilege, but said accepting help is crucial when recovering from something.

    “Even being unemployed, I just knew I’d be okay here,” she said. “I would trade potting soil to a man who owned a vegan restaurant in exchange for food. You always get what you need here.”

    Getting crafty

    For Petrini, speed is the name of the game. Experts estimate rebuilding could take somewhere between three and five years or even longer, but she’s hoping to break ground in August and finish by next summer.

    In addition to nonprofits, she’s also reaching out to appliances manufacturers and construction companies. The goal is to stitch together a house with whatever’s cheap — or even better, free. She recently received 2,500 square feet of siding from Modern Mill.

    “I’m not looking for a custom-built mansion, but I also don’t want an IKEA showroom box house,” she said. “My house was 100 years old, and I want to rebuild something with character.”

    To help with costs, she’s also hoping to use Senate Bill 9 to split her lot in half. She’d then sell the other half of the property to her contractor, a friend, for a friendly price of $250,000.

    Jennie Marie Mahalick Petrini is diving into the complicated process of staying in Altadena and rebuilding her property.

    Jennie Marie Mahalick Petrini is diving into the complicated process of staying in Altadena and rebuilding her property.

    (Robert Hanashiro / For The Times)

    To speed up the process, she’s opting for a “like-for-like” rebuild — structures that mirror whatever they’re replacing. For such projects, L.A. County is expediting permitting timelines to speed up fire recovery.

    So Petrini’s new house will be the exact same size as the old one: 1,352 square feet with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. She submitted plans in early June and expects to get approval by the end of the month.

    For the design, she turned to Altadena Collective, an organization collaborating with the Foothill Catalog Foundation that’s helping fire victims in Jane’s Village rebuild the English Cottage-style homes for which the neighborhood is known. For customized architectural plans, project management and structural engineering, Petrini paid them $33,000 — roughly half of what she would’ve paid someone else, she said.

    “I’m going with whatever’s quickest and most efficient. If we run out of money, who needs drywall,” she said. “I want my house to be the first one rebuilt.”

    It doesn’t have to be perfect. Petrini and her daughters have been compiling vision boards of their dream kitchen and bathrooms, but she knows sacrifices will be made.

    “It’s gonna be a scavenger hunt to get this done. We’re gonna use any material we can find,” she said. “But it’ll have a story. Just like Altadena.”

    Jack Flemming

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  • 3 Reasons Conceptual Understanding is Critical to Learning

    3 Reasons Conceptual Understanding is Critical to Learning

    “Adaptive learning programs are so important for meeting students where they are, especially in classrooms where there is such a wide range of skill levels. When you combine that with teacher input and guidance, which DreamBox Math does through the assign-a-focus feature, you’re creating a truly individualized learning experience for each student.”

    Audrey Otto

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  • LAUSD math, English test scores show strong gains, but most students still not proficient

    LAUSD math, English test scores show strong gains, but most students still not proficient

    Los Angeles public school students have some positive news when it comes to the standardized tests they took in spring: Their scores rose in math and English across nearly every grade level and demographic — a year-over-year increase that bested improvements seen in state scores.

    But in the broader picture — beyond a one-year snapshot — the percentage of students meeting the state math and English standards remains below the state. Highlights include:

    • 43% of LAUSD students met grade-level standards in English, up 1.8 percentage points. Statewide, 47% of students are proficient in English.
    • In math, 32.8% of Los Angeles students met standards, up 2.3 percentage points from 2023 scores. Statewide, 35.5% of student are proficient.
    • LAUSD proficiency rates in science reached 24%, up 1.8 percentage from 2023. Statewide it’s 30.7%.

    Put another way, 57% of Los Angeles Unified students do not meet standards in English; 67.2% do not meet standards in math and 76% in science.

    Yet, Los Angeles school leaders Friday found reason to celebrate the improving scores.

    “We’re not done,” school board President Jackie Goldberg said at a news conference. “We’re not at the state average in anything yet. … But when you see growth that looks like this, you actually now believe that it’s possible to get there.”

    Supt. Alberto Carvalho said students’ growth, not their overall proficiency rates, is most important. The proficiency rate measures what percentage of students have met the California learning standard expected for a certain grade or subject matter.

    “America has a proficiency issue, particularly applicable to students of color, English language learners and students with disabilities,” Carvalho said. “The strategy for that is to improve the rate of growth separating those students from all other students in America, and what we’re doing here, what we’re proving is it’s working.”

    The Department of Education has administered the Smarter Balanced assessments, which measure whether students are meeting state standards, since 2015. Students are tested in math and English in grades three through eight and 11. They are tested in science in grades five and eight as well as once in high school.

    Gains among English learners, others

    The district saw particular gains among English learners and students with disabilities, both groups achieving the proficiency rates last seen before the pandemic. Still, scores remain low: 10.7% of English learners met standards in English and 8.9% in math. For students with disabilities, 13.5% of students met English standards and 11% in math.

    That means that across both groups, more than 85% of students are not proficient in math and English.

    LAUSD’s 121 priority schools — schools the district has determined to be in need of additional investment — saw gains, according to the district. But LAUSD did not release proficiency rates for those schools.

    Black student performance in math was a particularly bright spot for growth. Metrics not only surpassed those of the district’s Black students in pre-pandemic 2019, but also hit the state’s 2019 metrics with 20.7% of students meeting grade-level standards. Still, nearly 4 in 5 Black students are not proficient in math.

    But spring 2024 scores remain low for 11th grade students, who will be graduating this year: 49.6% of students are proficient in English and 21.4% in math, rates at least 6 percentage points below this year’s 11th-grade state scores. Scores remain 2.1% lower than before the pandemic in English and 3.9% in math. At the same time, LAUSD’s graduation rate has jumped to nearly 84% in 2023, about 5 percentage points above the 2019 rate.

    LAUSD’s youngest students — in grades 3 through 5 — saw increases that exceeded pre-pandemic levels in math. However, older students are still struggling to recover.

    Stanford professor Thomas S. Dee said this in part could result from compositional changes. Younger families were more likely to move or pull their students out of public schools during the pandemic to avoid online instruction. High school students were more likely to stay and also faced chronic absenteeism and mental health struggles.

    USC professor Morgan Polikoff said that there is still far to go to reach strong academic levels, an issue that districts across the state have grappled with since before the pandemic.

    “California is not a particularly high-performing state. There are still serious concerns about student performance, not to mention other outcomes like chronic absenteeism and graduation,” he said, when looking at LAUSD’s performance in comparison to California.

    Dee said the gains among LAUSD’s demographics are hopeful but that there were important caveats to consider within the data’s composition.

    With declining enrollment, the district’s demographics have changed, which would affect the data.

    “I do see that as encouraging, but also would hold those results until we can more carefully assess whether it reflects true academic recovery,” Dee said. “We don’t quite understand who is now in the district and who is sitting for these tests several years after the pandemic started.”

    Polikoff agreed, noting that many other states compare an average of individual student progress to determine improvements, whereas California compares only the percentage of students who have met the state’s learning standards.

    LAUSD’s rising test scores come three years after the pandemic pushed schools to close and classes to shift online for nearly a year — and as state and federal pandemic funds expire, which will limit district funding for extra intervention programs.

    L.A. Unified and other districts across the state continue to grapple with enrollment declines and chronic absenteeism as educators focus on getting students back on track academically.

    Carvalho said the district is refining its budgetary approaches to maintain investments in its schools despite the reduction in funding, choosing to reduce administrative funding, while also calling for further investment.

    “We are concerned and we ought to rally before members of Congress and Sacramento for increased levels of funding, not decreased,” he said.“

    Rachel Ruffalo, EdTrust West’s senior director of strategic advocacy, applauded LAUSD’s growth this year, emphasizing a need for continued investment in its students. She also said it was important to understand that test scores are not the only metric that districts should be looking at when evaluating student success.

    “Other data points that get to students’ experiences and the different types of access and resources that students have really all need to be taken into consideration as we think about what’s working and where we should invest,” she said.

    Kate Sequeira

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