“The Anchorage School Board may be forced to eliminate approximately 650 educators, paraprofessionals, and key support staff in May 2024 unless Legislative action is taken,” the resolution says.

Value-neutral education is a myth, critics say. The 2023 American Family Survey shows areas of broad agreement on what to teach kidsd—but also deep divides.

Three times a week, on average, a police car pulls up to a school in Wicomico County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A student is brought out, handcuffed and placed inside for transport to a hospital emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation.

Earlier this year the Legislature passed the Read Act. The new law seeks to undo the legacy of Minnesota’s vast reading gap by requiring schools to teach reading in new ways. The act gives $70 million to schools to pay for training and curriculum from a menu of approved options. In a state that has traditionally left curriculum choices to individual districts, the law is unprecedented.

Deena Bishop, Alaska’s education commissioner, said this week that she believes the rise in absenteeism is a result of a change in routines brought on by the pandemic, when students were kept at home much more as part of virus mitigation efforts.

Now at least 16 of the 20 largest U.S. public school districts are offering online therapy sessions to reach millions of students, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. In those districts alone, schools have signed provider contracts worth more than $70 million.

While critics of the proposed updates said they are borne of good intentions—the proposal states that science has “sometimes been used by those in power to oppress and abuse others"—they also said that injecting the materials into a middle school science curriculum could distract from conventional scientific principles and could jeopardize science education.

The nonprofit program Code Nation is bridging the gap between tech professionals and underserved schools.