The AI-fueled program claims its students grow academically more than twice as fast as the national average, with only two hours of learning per day. Initially, I was skeptical. But after I read a parent and a of school founder Mackenzie Price and principal Joe Liemandt, and listened to on , I was intrigued both as a parent and as an education policy wonk. 

Alpha started as a small private school in Austin, Texas, in 2014 but now operates a growing network of 18 locations. Its AI tools are also in use in specialized gifted and talented programs, sports academies and a Montessori-like elementary school. As the network grew, it drew the attention of Liemandt, an Austin tech billionaire, who not only decided to send his kids there but stepped away from the industry, became the school’s leader and now says he plans to spend $1 billion to transform education. 

How? Mainly through its technology-enabled, personalized 鈥溾�� model. Alpha points to NWEA MAP Growth gains that are, on average, 2.6 times as large as other similarly scoring students make. In 2024-25 for , the main Alpha campus had, depending on the grade level, 67% to 90% of students meeting their growth targets in math and 65% to 100% of students meeting their targets in English. 

These rates are high, but I find them plausible. like i-Ready, DreamBox, Khan Academy, IXL and Zearn produce strong academic gains by combining, to varying degrees, the best of homeschooling (personalization) with instruction that leads kids’ through harder and harder content. They also incorporate lessons from the   field, which has found that quizzes and practice that鈥檚 spaced out over time help students gradually store new content in their long-term memory.  

Alpha uses artificial intelligence to tailor learning experiences for each student. For example, the school has catalogued the specific lessons a student would need to master, say, sixth grade math. Then, the AI uses a child鈥檚 test scores or past work to determine what remaining lessons need to be completed. Eventually, the goal is to personalize the content, giving students who are interested in, say, baseball or fashion lessons about fractions or algebra that use examples from those subjects. 

The trick is to get kids to actually with the apps and persevere. Not many students can do that on their own.

Alpha takes this insight and supercharges it. It essentially promises that if kids buckle down each morning and get through their academic lessons, they can have their afternoons free to pursue their own interests and other . The contours of its 鈥溾�� model vary by student and location. Some will practice chess or play sports, but schools also use the afternoon to work on public speaking, entrepreneurship or outdoor education 鈥� real-world activities, not stuff you might learn in a book.

This approach 鈥� not chatbots 鈥� is what Alpha School means when it boasts that its students can complete their core academic subjects in just two hours a day. In fact, Liemandt has quite negative things to say about chatbots and warns that they lead kids to cheat, get distracted or outsource their thinking to the computers. He also hinted on a recent that the school’s AI tools struggle with errors and hallucinations.

The ultimate goal is mastery of the subject matter. And when Liemandt talks about mastery, he literally wants kids to know 100% of the material in each course sequence. 

In fact, he believes this lack of mastery is a key failing of the current educational system. Kids get passed along if they know 70% or 80% of the material in a given grade. But, Liemandt argues, if kids don鈥檛 know the other 20% to 30% 鈥� or don’t know it well enough 鈥� this deficit builds up over time and leaves students struggling as they get into harder material. This might explain why math proficiency rates as kids get older.  

When new students enter Alpha, Liemandt offers them a deal: They can earn $100 if they can ace the state math test. Sounds impossible, but the deal applies to any tested grade, from third on up. So, for example, those who enter Alpha as seventh graders are encouraged to go back and take the earlier-grade math tests. If they can ace those, they get the $100. By offering the monetary reward in this way, Liemandt tries to trick kids into filling any knowledge gaps. 

Alpha’s goal is to have kids who love school so much that they might even prefer it over vacation. That鈥檚 a super high bar (!), but Liemandt swears that a lot of Alpha students ask to keep going over the summer or holidays.

To keep kids on track, Alpha gives each a set of personalized daily goals. These are based on the lessons students need to master, not the time it might take to complete them. Kids also earn 鈥淎lpha bucks鈥� that they can use to buy treats. And because most people can鈥檛 focus for hours on end, Alpha uses the 鈥溾�� time management technique to push kids to focus for 25 minutes before taking a break. 

Who is doing all the motivating? It鈥檚 not traditionally licensed teachers. Instead, Alpha employs one 鈥済uide鈥� 鈥� a sort of coach or assistant 鈥� for every . The typical guide is a young college graduate who may be a former athlete or cheerleader 鈥� they鈥檙e good with children and high-energy, but their primary job is more about support and encouragement than delivering pedagogy. 

The original Alpha School in Austin charges $40,000 in tuition per year. An Alpha School opening near me in is going to charge $65,000 annually. The network is expanding rapidly and will be extending its model into public charter schools and much lower-cost private schools, including one in , Texas, that costs 鈥渙nly鈥� $10,000 per year.

What do they use the money for? The AI costs are high, and Alpha has nice buildings, small classes and well-paid staff. It also uses the money to do things a typical school couldn鈥檛 afford, like offering financial incentives for acing exams and on a field trip to Poland. 

The families who can afford Alpha鈥檚 lofty fees are not exactly your run-of-the-mill public school parents. It鈥檚 worth a healthy dose of skepticism to question whether Alpha鈥檚 results will hold up to scrutiny or work as well as it claims for less advantaged students. Alpha has suggesting that its model also works well for lower-performing students, but the sample size is small.

Still, it鈥檚 worth understanding which parts of the Alpha model are the most important and most replicable. Similar AI/ technology components, such as and , are already being incorporated in schools to varying degrees. 

Implementing an Alpha-style mastery approach would require schools to put students in classes based on ability level rather than age. That would be hard to do, given how most schools are organized. Still, have made to apply the same .

Some of the motivation aspects are worth trying, although perhaps not at the same scale or boldness as what Liemandt is able to do. For example, research has found from paying students to show up to school and complete their homework on time. Many teachers already run their own mini-rewards systems, which they could focus on academics both in the classroom and at home. 

Mostly, I appreciate that Alpha School is pushing the frontier of what makes for a good school. No matter what else it accomplishes, its experiments with technology, student motivation and content mastery are good for the world. 

*Disclosure: The author is a policy adviser for NWEA, the makers of the MAP Growth assessments mentioned in the piece. 

returns to Austin, Texas, running March 3-6. As always, it鈥檒l offer a huge number of panels, discussions, film screenings, musical performances and workshops exploring education, innovation and the future of schooling.

Keynote speakers this year include neuroscientist , founder of Ness Labs, an online educational platform for knowledge workers; astronaut, author and TV host , and , CEO of Search for Common Ground, an international non-profit. Idriss will speak about what it means to be strong in the face of opposition 鈥� and how to turn conflict into cooperation. Also featured: indy musical artist Jill Sobule, from her musical F*ck 7th Grade.

As in 2024, artificial intelligence remains a major focus, with dozens of sessions exploring AI鈥檚 potential and pitfalls. But other topics are on tap as well, including sessions on playful learning, book bans and the benefits of prison journalism. 

To help guide the way, we鈥檝e scoured the to highlight 25 of the most significant presenters, topics and panels: 

Monday, March 3:

A new independent film features a Seattle school counselor who builds a world-class Ultimate Frisbee team with a group of immigrant children at Hazel Wolf K-8 School. 

Generative AI is accelerating the adoption of a skills-based economy, but many are skeptical about its value, impact and the pace of growth. Will AI spark meaningful change and a new economic order, or is it just another overhyped trend? Meena Naik of Jobs for the Future leads a discussion with Colorado Community College System Associate Vice Chancellor Michael Macklin, Nick Moore, an education advisor to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, and Best Buy鈥檚 Ryan Hanson.

The Clayton Christensen Institute鈥檚 Julia Freeland Fisher headlines a panel that looks at how generative AI can help students access 24/7 help in navigating pathways to college. As new models take root, the panel will explore what entrepreneurs are learning about what students want from these systems. Will AI level the playing field or perpetuate inequality? 

New research shows students who are engaged in schoolwork not only do better in school but are happier and more confident in life. And educators say they鈥檇 be happier at work and less likely to leave the profession if students engaged more deeply. In this session, LEGO Education鈥檚 Bo Stjerne Thomsen will explore the science behind playful learning and how it can get students and teachers excited again.

Mike Yates of The Reinvention Lab at Teach for America leads an interactive session offering participants the chance to build their own AI tools to solve real problems they face at work, school or home. The session is for AI novices as well as those simply curious about how the technology works. Participants will get free access to .

Join Charlotte West of Open Campus, Lawrence Bartley of The Marshall Project and Yukari Kane of the Prison Journalism Project to explore real-life stories from behind bars. Journalism training is transforming the lives of a few of the more than 1.9 million people incarcerated in the U.S., teaching skills from time management to communication and allowing inmates to feel connected to society while building job skills. 

Tuesday, March 4:

Amid the hand-wringing about what AI means for the future of education, there鈥檚 been little conversation about how a few smart educators are already employing it to shift possibilities for student engagement and classroom instruction. In this workshop, attendees will learn how to leverage promising practices emerging from research with real educators using AI in writing, creating their own chatbots and differentiating support plans. 

AI-enabled tools can be helpful for students conducting research, outlining written work, or proofing and editing submissions. But there鈥檚 a fine line between using AI appropriately and taking advantage of it, leaving many students wondering, 鈥淗ow much AI is too much?鈥� This session, led by Turnitin鈥檚 Annie Chechitelli, will discuss the rise of GenAI, its intersection with academia and academic integrity, and how to determine appropriate usage.  

Explore the real-world impact of AI in education during this interactive session hosted by Zhuo Chen, a text analysis instructor at the nonprofit education startup Constellate, and Dylan Ruediger of the research and consulting group Ithaka S+R. Chen and Ruediger will share successes and challenges in using AI to advance student learning, engagement and skills. 

In 2025, authors face unprecedented challenges. This session, which features Scholastic editor and young adult novelist David Levithan, as well as Emily Kirkpatrick, executive director of the National Council of Teachers of English, will explore the battle for freedom of expression and the importance of defending reading in the face of censorship attempts and book bans.

Kate Arend and Kim Lessing, the co-presidents of Amy Poehler鈥檚 production company Paper Kite Productions, will be live to record their workplace and career advice podcast 鈥淢illion Dollar Advice.鈥� The pair will tackle topics such as setting and maintaining boundaries, learning from Gen Z, dealing with complicated work dynamics, and more. They will also take live audience questions.

With rising recognition of neurodivergent students, advocates say AI can revolutionize how schools support them by streamlining tasks, optimizing resources and enhancing personalized learning. In the process, schools can overcome challenges in mainstreaming students with learning differences. This panel features educators and advocates as well as Alex Kotran, co-founder and CEO of The AI Education Project.

Assessments are often disruptive, cumbersome or disconnected from classroom learning. But a few advocates and developers say AI-powered assessment tools offer an easier, more streamlined way for students to demonstrate learning 鈥� and for educators to adapt instruction to meet their needs. This session, moderated by 麻豆精品鈥檚 Greg Toppo, features Khan Academy鈥檚 Kristen DiCerbo, Curriculum Associates鈥� Kristen Huff and Akisha Osei Sarfo, director of research at the Council of the Great City Schools.

Wednesday, March 5:

Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for American children and teens, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, yet coverage of gun violence鈥檚 impact on youth is usually reported by adults. Run, Hide, Fight: Growing Up Under the Gun is a 30-minute documentary by student journalists about how gun violence affects young Americans. Produced by PBS News Student Reporting Labs in collaboration with 14 student journalists in five cities, it centers the perspectives of young people who live their lives in the shadow of this threat. 

Educators are at the forefront of testing, using artificial intelligence and teaching their communities about it. In this interactive session, participants will hear from educators and ed tech specialists on the ground working to support the use of AI to improve learning. The session includes Stacie Johnson, director of professional learning at Khan Academy, and Dina Neyman, Khan Academy鈥檚 director of district success. 

As AI becomes increasingly present in the classroom, educators are understandably concerned about how it might disrupt their teaching. An expert panel featuring Jake Baskin, executive director of the Computer Science Teachers Association andKarim Meghji of Code.org, will look at how teaching will change in an age of AI, exploring frameworks for teaching AI skills and sharing best practices for integrating AI literacy across disciplines.

Generation Alpha is the first to experience generative artificial intelligence from the start of their educational journeys. To thrive in a world featuring AI requires educators helping them tap into their natural creativity, navigating unique opportunities and challenges. In this session, a cross-industry panel of experts discuss strategies to integrate AI into learning, allowing critical thinking and curiosity to flourish while enabling early learners to become architects of AI, not just users.

Join a panel of educators, tech leaders and nonprofit officials as they discuss AI鈥檚 ethical complexities and its impact on the education of Black children. This panel will address historical disparities, biases in technology, and the critical need for ethical AI in education. It will also offer unique perspectives into the benefits and challenges of AI in Black children鈥檚 education, sharing best practices to promote the safe, ethical and legal use of AI in classrooms.

Is teacher morale shaped by where teachers work? Find out as Education Week releases its annual State of Teaching survey. States and school districts drive how teachers are prepared, paid and promoted, and the findings will raise new questions about what leaders and policymakers should consider as they work to support an essential profession. The session features Holly Kurtz, director of EdWeek Research Center, Stephen Sawchuk, EdWeek assistant managing editor, and assistant editor Sarah D. Sparks.

While most students in U.S. public schools are now young people of color, more than 80% of their teachers are white. How do white educators understand and address these dynamics? Join a live recording of a podcast that brings together white educators with Christopher Emdin and sam seidel, co-editors of From White Folks Who Teach in the Hood: Reflections on Race, Culture, and Identity (Beacon, 2024).

Schools are locked in a battle with students over fears they鈥檙e using generative artificial intelligence to plagiarize existing work. In this session, join Elliott Hedman, a 鈥渃ustomer obsession engineer鈥� with mPath, who with colleagues and students co-designed a GenAI writing tool to reframe AI use. Hedman will share three strategies that not only prevent plagiarism but also teach students how to use GenAI more productively.  

Thursday, March 6:

Join futurists Sinead Bovell and Natalie Monbiot for a fireside discussion about how we prepare kids for a future we cannot yet see but know will be radically transformed by technology. Bovell and Monbiot will discuss the impact of artificial intelligence on our world and the workforce, as well as its implications for education. 

Young children spend 80% of their time outside of school, but too many lack access to experiences that encourage learning through hands-on activities and play. While these opportunities exist in middle-class and upper-income neighborhoods, they鈥檙e often inaccessible to families in low-income communities. In this session, a panel of designers and educators featuring Sarah Lytle, who leads the Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network, will look at how communities are transforming overlooked spaces such as sidewalks, shelters and even jails into nurturing learning environments accessible to all kids.

In this session, participants will build an AI chatbot alongside designers and engineers from Stanford University and Stanford鈥檚 d.school, getting to the core of how AI works. Participants will conceptualize, outline and create conversation flows for their own AI assistant and explore methods that technical teams use to infuse warmth and adaptability into interactions and develop reliable chatbots.  

In this session, participants will learn how educators, technologists and policymakers work to develop AI responsibly. Panelists include Isabelle Hau of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, Amelia Kelly, chief technology officer of the Irish AI startup SoapBox Labs, and Merlyn Mind CEO Levi Belnap. They鈥檒l talk about how policymakers and educators can work with developers to ensure transparency and accuracy of AI tools.聽

Such a school could expose students to a multitude of career fields, allow students to choose learning opportunities that reflect their passions, and facilitate credential-building experiences that support students in launching careers they care about 鈥� all before entering college or the workforce. 

This type of learning isn鈥檛 hypothetical, and it isn鈥檛 always restricted to high school. Innovative communities across the country are proving the power of career-connected learning 鈥� which integrates real-world skills and experiences into curricula 鈥� to give students of all ages the 21st-century know-how needed to thrive and lead in the future. 

Just outside Austin, Texas, IDEA Round Rock Tech recognizes that must access computer science courses to be prepared for the region’s . The school implemented a comprehensive COMP3 (computer science,computational thinking, and general computing) progression for all of its pre-K through high school students. Programming languages like Python and JavaScript bolster students鈥� access to tech jobs (if they want them) and build the foundational logic and problem-solving skills they鈥檒l need in any career. 

At the Brooklyn STEAM Center in New York City, 11th and 12th grade students from across the borough spend their afternoons 鈥渓earning by doing.鈥�  Located at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a robust industry ecosystem with over 400 businesses, STEAM students choose from six in-demand industries, engaging in professional work, developing robust industry networks, and ultimately creating tangible pathways to a career.

Students鈥� personal stake in the industry and opportunities they pursue is helping STEAM build toward its founding goal of transforming the 鈥渟chool to prison pipeline鈥� into 鈥渟chool to career.鈥� It鈥檚 working: 83% of STEAM鈥檚 first graduating class earned a career credential, 100% had a fully-developed post-secondary plan, and 95% enrolled in a four-year college.

Career-connected learning solves for the future by engaging students today. Where I work at , a national nonprofit committed to extraordinary learning for all children, my colleagues and I are hearing from too many students that school is falling short. It is not engaging, relevant or connected to their real-life. They are telling us directly in surveys like our and continued tracking of Gen-Z engagement. They鈥檙e also telling us by simply not showing up to class. 

By giving students agency to pursue the kinds of relevant, rigorous learning experiences they care about, career-connected learning can help solve the youth disengagement crisis. 

In Chicago, families designed Intrinsic Schools to address the troubling reality that just of kids entering local public schools would earn a four-year degree by the time they were 25. Intrinsic built a unique school design where students personalize and own their learning with support from innovative technology that helps students and teachers know where to focus and adjust day-to-day. 

For Isaaq, who went on to graduate from University of Chicago with a degree in computer science and psychology, this flexible design was key in pursuing his budding passion for math. While taking three math classes concurrently 鈥� unheard of in a traditional curriculum that stresses sequential, paced progression 鈥� Isaaq launched a club around video games and used his math skills to code a real-time rankings system he鈥檇 been told 鈥渃ouldn鈥檛 be done.鈥� 

This student-centered design looks different for every kid, but gets results for most of them: more than 90% of the class of 2023 enrolled in college, compared to the national college enrollment rate of 39%.

Rural communities are also tackling student engagement with career-connected learning. In Colorado鈥檚 Clear Creek School District, students were increasingly disengaged in school as their community confronted a serious water crisis. Spurred by students鈥� advocacy for project-based learning, Clear Creek High School transformed 34 of its classes to tackle real-life challenges, in part by learning more about the careers that influence them.聽

In AP Bio, students began learning about filtration systems and water quality. Some students delved into communications, fundraising, and liaising with school and business leaders. In just one school year, students鈥� belief that they鈥檝e 鈥渟een adults in my school listen to the ideas and voices of youth when making decisions鈥� grew from 45% to 54%. And the momentum generated by Clear Creek students led to a commitment of at least $150,000 to mitigate the water issues.

In each of these communities, career-connected learning is giving students a say in what, where, and how they learn. IDEA Round Rock, Brooklyn STEAM, Intrinsic, and Clear Creek are refusing to accept the limitations of a school model designed over a century ago, with students batched by age, curriculum standardized, and uniformity prized. Instead, these schools are elevating student voices and re-designing their education offerings to meet the needs of modern youth. 

Importantly, all of these schools arrived at their career-focused innovations through 鈥�,鈥� a process that starts by listening to students and engages the whole school community to reshape school to meet student needs. When we listen to students, they tell us they want to grow new skills, explore new opportunities, and build their own futures鈥攕tarting in K-12. 

These schools aren鈥檛 anomalies. Career-connected learning can take root in any community鈥攔ed or blue, urban or rural, coastal or heartland鈥攚illing to come together to design learning that responds to the demands and opportunities of the 21st century. Our students are spelling out what they want from school today. It鈥檚 up to educators to  listen to them and create schools that make their 15,000 hours count. 

Keynote speakers this year include of Harlem Children鈥檚 Zone, of Stanford University, who popularized the idea of 鈥済rowth mindset,鈥� and actor , who starred on Broadway as George Washington in Hamilton. Jackson, who has a child on the autism spectrum, will discuss how doctors, parents and advocates are working together to change the ways neurodivergent kids communicate and learn.

But one issue that looms larger than most in the imaginations of educators is artificial intelligence. This year, South by Southwest EDU is offering dozens of sessions exploring AI鈥檚 potential and pitfalls. To help guide the way, we鈥檝e scoured the schedule to highlight 18 of the most significant presenters, topics and panels: 

Monday, March 4:

: The New School鈥檚 Maya Georgieva looks at how AI is ushering in a new era of immersive experiences. Her talk explores worlds that blur the lines between the virtual and real, where human ingenuity converges with intelligent machines. Georgieva will spotlight the next generation of creators shaping immersive realities, sharing emerging practices and projects from her students as well as her innovation labs and design jams. .

: Educators have long sought a better way to demonstrate learning, adapt instruction and build student confidence. Now, advancements in machine learning, natural language processing and data analytics are creating new possibilities for finding out what students know. This session will explore the ways in which AI is rendering assessments invisible, reducing stress and anxiety for students while improving objectivity and generating actionable insights for educators. .

: Many high-pressure professions 鈥� pilots, doctors and professional athletes among others 鈥� have access to high-quality simulators to help them learn and improve their skills. Could teachers benefit from hours in a simulator before setting foot in a classroom? In this session featuring presenters from the Relay Graduate School of Education and Wharton Interactive at the University of Pennsylvania, panelists will discuss virtual classrooms they鈥檙e piloting. They鈥檒l also address the challenges, successes and possibilities of developing an AI-driven teaching simulator. .

: In just the first half of 2023, venture capital investors poured more than $40 billion into AI startups. Yet big questions loom about how these technologies may impact education and the world of work. How are education and workforce investors separating wheat from chaff? Hear from a trio of venture capital and impact investors as they share the trends they鈥檙e watching. .

: This session will look at the profound transformations in teaching taking place in classrooms that blend AI with tailored, competency-focused education. Laura Jeanne Penrod of Southwest Career and Technical Academy and Nevada鈥檚 2024 will explore AI’s role in enhancing rather than supplanting quality teaching 鈥� and what happens when schools embrace the human touch and educators鈥� emotional intelligence. .

: In this interactive workshop led by women leaders from the University of Texas at Austin and the Waco (Texas) Independent School District, participants will learn how to design effective lesson plans and syllabi that incorporate AI tools such as ChatGPT and DALL-E to help prepare students to address society鈥檚 most pressing needs. .

: If we get AI in education right, it has the power to revolutionize how children learn. But if we get it wrong and fail to nourish children鈥檚 creativity 鈥� their ability to innovate, think critically and problem solve 鈥� we risk leaving them unprepared for a changing world. Creativity is the durable skill that AI cannot replace. And this panel, comprising educators and industry leaders, will explore the role we play in nurturing children鈥檚 innate creativity. .

: This panel, featuring early AI-in-education pioneers such as Amanda Bickerstaff, founder of AI for Education, Charles Foster, an AI researcher at Finetune Learning, and Ben Kornell,  co-founder of Edtech Insiders, will explore their journeys and what they consider the most exciting future opportunities 鈥� and important challenges 鈥� in this emerging space. .

Tuesday, March 5:

: AI鈥檚 continued adoption in schools raises concerns about bias, especially toward students of color. This session, hosted by Common Sense Education鈥檚 Jamie Nunez, will highlight practical ways AI tools impact engagement for students from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. It will also address ethical concerns such as plagiarism and issues with facial recognition tools. And it will feature positive student experiences with AI and practical ways to ensure it remains inclusive. .

: In 2024, what defines “AI literacy”? And how can we promote it effectively in schools? Marc Cicchino, innovation director for the Northern Valley Regional High School District in northeastern New Jersey, shares insights on fostering AI literacy through tailored learning experiences and initiatives like the NJ AI Literacy Summit. As part of the session, Cicchino guides attendees through organizing their own summit. . 

: Come watch a live recording of The Cusp, a new podcast hosted by Work Shift鈥檚 Paul Fain, exploring AI鈥檚 potential to not only enhance how we develop skills and improve job quality but exacerbate inequalities in our education and workforce systems. Leaders from Learning Collider, MDRC and Burning Glass Institute will share their perspectives on how AI can reach learners and workers in innovative ways, bridging the gap to economic opportunity. .

: While a few school districts have embraced artificial intelligence, neither the technology companies creating the AI nor the governments regulating it have provided guidance on how to integrate the new tech into classrooms. This has left districts wondering how to integrate AI safely, ethically and equitably. This panel of TeachAI.org founders and advisory members will discuss why government and education leaders must align standards with the needs of an increasingly AI-driven world. The panel features Khan Academy鈥檚 Kristen DiCerbo, Kara McWilliams of ETS, Code.org and ISTE鈥檚 Joseph South. .

Wednesday, March 6:

: Just as artificial intelligence is gaining momentum in education, the early childhood education workforce is experiencing record levels of burnout. A recent survey found many educators say they鈥檙e more likely to remain in their roles if they have access to better support, including high-quality classroom tools and flexible professional development. Could we harness AI to empower our early childhood workforce? This panel, led by the National Association for the Education of Young Children鈥檚 Stanford Accelerator for Learning, will explore the possibilities and challenges of AI in early childhood education. .

Perhaps no one in education needs to adapt more to AI than principals. This discussion with a principal and consultants from IDEO, The Leadership Academy and the Aspen Institute will explore how principals can lead during this time of swift change. Participants will come away with tangible suggestions for fostering innovation, adaptability and self-awareness. .

: This interactive session will give educators an opportunity to explore how they might use AI to advance their work, regardless of their background or technical expertise. 鈥婰ed by project managers and leadership development specialists with Teach For America, it will help participants create their own AI tools, build a deeper understanding of generative AI and develop a better sense of its promises and risks. .

Thursday, March 7: 

: This panel discussion, led by The Education Trust鈥檚 Dia Bryant and Khan Academy鈥檚 Kristen DiCerbo, will look at whether emerging uses of AI in schools could create a new digital divide. It will explore the intersection of AI and education equity and AI鈥檚 impact on students of color, as well as those from low-income backgrounds. The session will offer steps that educators and policymakers can take to ensure that schools factor in the culture and neurodiversity of students. . 

: This session, led by Alex Tsado of Alliance4ai, will explore what鈥檚 required to engage diverse learners to become emerging AI leaders. It鈥檒l also explore how educators can help them build tech and leadership skills and promote an 鈥淎I-for-good鈥� worldview. And it鈥檒l examine the challenges that Black communities face in AI development 鈥� and propose research and solutions that can be scaled easily. .

: This panel brings together of the U.S. Department of Education鈥檚 Office of Educational Technology and Jeremy of Digital Promise for an interactive conversation about generative AI that will integrate two distinctive and powerful vantage points 鈥� policy and research. They鈥檒l reflect on the listening sessions they鈥檝e conducted, talk about policy and share insights from major research initiatives that address the efficacy, equity and ethics of generative AI. .

Texas transplant Elon Musk is planning to start a university in Austin, according first reported by Bloomberg News.

The charity, called The Foundation, plans to use a $100 million gift from Musk to create and launch a primary and secondary school in Austin focused on teaching science, technology, engineering and math. Once it is fully operational, the filing states, the school will focus on creating a university. The school intends to seek accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, a necessary first step to launch the school.

According to the filing, the university would teach students in person 鈥渁s well as using distance education technologies.鈥� It expects to start enrollment with 50 students and scale up over time. The school would fund its activities through donations and tuition fees, though the filing also states that if a student cannot pay tuition or fees, the school could provide financial aid. It is currently hiring an executive director, teachers and administrators, the filing states.

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Musk鈥檚 plan to start a new university in Austin 鈥� already home to the flagship University of Texas at Austin and multiple other private universities 鈥� comes just as another new private school in the city plans to officially open to students in fall 2024.

The University of Austin was launched two years ago by a group of higher education critics in response to their belief that U.S. college campuses were no longer a place where students and faculty can openly exchange ideas.

University of Austin President Pano Kanelos said he hopes the school can be a champion for free speech and open inquiry.

鈥淲e’re just living in a moment where things seem to be coming apart, where people seem to be pulled away from each other, where institutions seem to be shaking in their foundations,鈥� Kanelos said. 鈥淭he best response is to build new things.鈥�

Musk鈥檚 new university does not yet have a name. The Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Foundation鈥檚 trustees include Jared Birchall, head of Musk鈥檚 family office; Steven Chidester, a tax attorney at Withersworldwide; and Ronald Gong and Teresa Holland, who work at Catalyst Family Office in California, according to Bloomberg.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete .

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Daniel Brinks, who chairs the government department at the University of Texas at Austin, doesn鈥檛 usually have a tough time recruiting professors. After all, UT is one of the best research universities in the country, located in a high-tech boomtown with a thriving music scene, a warm climate and first-rate enchiladas.

But this year, in 鈥渁 pretty significant change,鈥� Brinks said, eight candidates turned down job offers. Several of them cited events transpiring a few blocks south of campus, at the Texas Capitol, where some Republican lawmakers were pushing to eliminate tenure at state colleges and universities.

Anti-tenure Republicans in Texas 鈥� and in other states including , , , ,  and  鈥� have said they want to rein in unaccountable professors who are pushing a liberal agenda in the classroom.

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Supporters of tenure, which professors typically must earn after years of teaching and publishing original research, argue that it protects academic freedom. Without it, they say, professors might be wary of taking on controversial topics for fear of being fired.

鈥淎merican higher education is the envy of the world because of the current system,鈥� Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, told Stateline. 鈥淭hese bills that weaken tenure or limit tenure are bills that will undermine the quality of education in the state.鈥�

But defenders of tenure 鈥� a practice adopted in its current form in 1940 鈥� have deployed another argument that goes beyond academic freedom: Attacks on tenure are a threat to state economies. That argument, used by Brinks in Texas and others elsewhere, has figured prominently in debates over tenure in several states.

鈥淚f you no longer can attract the top researchers, you no longer have people developing cutting-edge technologies, cutting-edge medical innovations,鈥� Brinks told Stateline, echoing testimony he delivered to Texas legislators.

The top teachers and researchers receive federal grants, Brinks noted, 鈥渁nd if you don鈥檛 have the top researchers in the various fields here, then that source of funds, which is millions and millions of dollars, it just goes away.鈥�

Despite such concerns, the Texas Senate in April approved legislation that would have prohibited public colleges and universities from granting tenure to faculty members, starting in 2024.

鈥淭enured university professors are the only people in our society that have the guarantee of a job,鈥� Texas Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, . 鈥淭hese professors claim 鈥榓cademic freedom鈥� and hide behind their tenure to continue blatantly advancing their agenda of societal division.鈥�

But the Texas House last month approved a much milder version, allowing schools to fire tenured faculty for 鈥減rofessional incompetence鈥� or 鈥渃onduct involving moral turpitude.鈥� is the one the legislature sent to the desk of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to .

State Rep. John Kuempel, the Republican who authored the House version, it would 鈥減rovide accountability while maintaining an environment that is conducive to recruiting and retaining the best faculty and researchers in the state and nation.鈥�

The economic argument also has surfaced in Ohio, where the state Senate a sweeping that aims to promote 鈥渋ntellectual diversity鈥� on campuses. The measure would mandate a yearly performance review for faculty, including those with tenure.

Shortly before the vote, state Sen. Jerry Cirino, the Republican sponsor of the bill, argued that the legislation would attract more students and faculty to Ohio. The bill is still .

鈥淲hen all is said and done here, our universities are going to be better,鈥� Cirino said. 鈥淲e are going to attract more people who have been turned away because of the liberal bias that is incontrovertible in our institutions in Ohio.鈥�

But Democratic state Rep. Joe Miller argued the opposite, citing released last month which found that Ohio鈥檚 14 public universities had a $68.9 billion impact on the state鈥檚 economy in fiscal year 2021-2022 鈥� 8.8% of Ohio鈥檚 total gross state product. The study also found that the universities and their students supported nearly 867,000 jobs, 1 in 8 in Ohio.

The legislation would 鈥渕ake it extremely difficult to attract students and faculty to Ohio, which will be extraordinarily damaging to our economy, financially impacting cities from Akron, to Athens, Kent and Columbus,鈥� Miller .

Economic concerns over curbing tenure also have been raised in and .

鈥淲e鈥檙e one of the few states, particularly of our size, to have two tier-one research institutions, so doing things to damage their reputation has broad implications,鈥� Dustin Miller, executive director of the Iowa Chamber Alliance,  in explaining his group鈥檚 opposition to anti-tenure bills in his state.

There is little doubt that research universities are economic engines.

In a recent review of relevant research, the Brookings Institution think tank showing that higher state spending on universities to more patents and entrepreneurship; that each new patent outside the university in the local economy; and that regions that to a land grant university over a century ago have stronger economies than regions without one.

Joshua Drucker, a University of Illinois Chicago associate professor who about the economic impact of research institutions, said the millions of dollars that top researchers bring into their universities are 鈥減ure addition to a region,鈥� and that curbing tenure could diminish that flow.

鈥淲hat I expect to happen if tenure is severely weakened, but only in some places, [is that] those places would then have to spend a lot more to get top talent or they will lose the top talent,鈥� he said.

Brinks, a top expert in his field who has secured funding from the National Science Foundation and worked with researchers around the world, said he always thought the University of Texas 鈥渨as the perfect place for me.鈥�

鈥淚 really like the mission of a public university in a place like Texas. I think we do something that鈥檚 really important to the state,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut to the extent that this atmosphere of questioning and even hostility to our mission and what we do continues, then it does occasionally raise questions about going to a private university or going out of state.

鈥淚t鈥檚 dispiriting to find that you鈥檙e the object of suspicion when you think what you鈥檙e doing is really important and valuable.鈥�

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on and .

Like so many of her peers returning to classes after two years of pandemic isolation, Crockett High School senior Klyrissa Porter often feels overwhelmed.

But the Austin, Texas, teen noticed when she would reach out to her friends to share that her mental health was suffering, the replies she received were not exactly what she鈥檇 hoped for. 

鈥淭hey鈥檇 just be like, 鈥楲OL, same,鈥欌�� Porter said.

The hallways are full of teens struggling, she said, but no one seems to be able to help anyone else move forward. 鈥淓veryone is going through a lot, and because of that we鈥檝e forgotten how to be friends,鈥� she said, 鈥溾�o be there for each other, support each other, love each other.鈥�

That鈥檚 particularly difficult for Porter who has been part of Students Organizing for Anti-Racism (SOAR) since her freshman year to help confront the systemic racism at school. But confronting such large troubling issues on campus requires stamina people seems to have lost during the pandemic, said students in SOAR, which meets as a regular class at Crockett. 

To honor diverse perspectives, they first have to relearn how to hear and see beyond themselves. 

鈥淭here is not a person in the world who doesn鈥檛 have something they鈥檙e going through,鈥� Porter鈥檚 classmate, senior Lilly Swearingen said. 

Now, the same skills they use to ground their anti-racist work are helping the SOAR students rebuild the basic social skills and healthy relationships they lost during the pandemic. 

Specifically, they said, have helped them repair their relationships and see themselves in the context of community again. 

When the students in Crockett High School in Austin gather to address conflict or deepen their connection to each other, they usually gather in a circle and pass a talking piece from student to student while answering a question or responding to a prompt. 

These circles, familiar fixtures in social and emotional learning and restorative discipline, have sacred roots, said Iztac Arteaga, the restorative practices specialist at Crockett. Circles have been healing and grounding for Indigneous communities for centuries, and their power is more vital than ever in the middle of a nationwide teen mental health crisis.  

鈥淲hen people feel held and seen and valued as humans, there鈥檚 just so much more that can be done as you鈥檙e navigating difficult situations,鈥� Ateaga said. 

Difficult situations abound.

As Arteaga teaches students and teachers how to participate in and eventually facilitate circles, she is adamant that the practice not become perfunctory or sloppy. While it鈥檚 tempting  to just, for instance, grab a dry-erase marker to serve as a talking piece, she said, for a circle to be most effective, it also has to be, in some sense, sacred.

鈥淚f we knew the history and how indigneous people literally died and lost their lives to maintain these practices we鈥檇 probably treat it with a little more respect,鈥� Arteaga said. 

Instead of a dry-erase marker for a talking piece, the group should choose something to convey respect, and remind them of their shared values. Same with the centerpiece, where students can rest their eyes if looking at each other becomes uncomfortable or painful. 

In her position, Arteaga facilitates and teaches 鈥渃ommunity-building鈥� circles, which start out light, giving people the opportunity to know each other. Cross-talk and phones are not allowed. She also does trauma-informed 鈥渕ediation鈥� circles when a conflict has occurred between students or between students and teachers. 

When they returned to school, the first emotion Porter noticed was anger. Fights broke out, people lost their tempers daily. 鈥淚t got to the point that we were scared to come to school,鈥� she said, as other students nodded along with her. 

Circles at Crockett are uniquely suited for these complicated dynamics. While punitive discipline might address the behavior, restorative practices like those students learn in SOAR, speak to the pain behind the outbursts. 

鈥淪OAR gives us a place to express ourselves, and a space where everyone can just say what they need to say,鈥� said junior Daniella de Guzman. 

Community circles gather students to address harm done and feelings hurt, but instead of doling out punishments according to a policy handbook, each member of the circle can say what they need. Even the offending party gets the chance to express the unmet needs or pain that led to their hurtful actions. Addressing the pain keeps them in the community, and accountable to it. 

Arteaga knows the power of circles to sustain community, not just as a facilitator in schools, but as a participant.  As an Indigenous person whose ancestors were colonized out of their home and identity, ceremony is critical to her understanding of her own heritage. She participates in circles with the broader Indigenous community in Austin, and confers with the people there about how to best facilitate the practice in schools. 

It鈥檚 a careful balance, she said. Some aspects of ceremony need to be exclusive to Indigenous communities, because of the long history of cultural appropriation. 

Circles are a sacred part of the governance, community preservation, and identity of Indigenous groups, Arteaga explained, and were part of the religious and cultural practices outlawed for most of the history of the United States until the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act.

While she recognizes the circles happening at school will be inherently less authentic to Indigenous culture鈥攖he circles in the SOAR class are named after the houses in the Harry Potter series鈥擜rteaga wants them to be respectful of it as they gather around a centerpiece鈥攐ften a fire鈥攁nd designating a talking piece to pass from person to person.

鈥淚f we knew the history and how Indigenous people literally lost their lives to maintain these practices, we probably would treat it with a little more respect,鈥� Arteaga said.  

While she sometimes has to educate students and teachers simultaneously, the teacher for the SOAR class had the kids well-versed and acclimated to circles, Arteaga said. With the additional grounding in history and tradition, the SOAR students have been able to facilitate on their own. Her goal is for more students and adults on campus to be able to do the same, so that circles become a regular and reliable resource. Skilled listeners and communicators can strengthen the entire support network of the school.

Freshman Will Haskell actually did learn a lot about himself during the pandemic, he said, and he knew that what he鈥檇 learned about his own mental health would help his friends, but after two years online, starting the conversation in person is challenging. 鈥淪OAR has helped me to be able to actually talk about it,鈥� Haskell said. 

Knowing how to offer help is one skill the kids are developing, so is asking for help. Circles teach them the importance of asking for consent in both roles.

A lot of kids seemed totally dissociated鈥� disconnected from their thoughts, feelings, and emotions, Swearingen said. They shove the feelings down to make it through the day, and some then overshare with their friends online. She calls it 鈥渢rauma-dumping鈥� and says it鈥檚 almost a trend now. 

When one person posts about a mental health challenge, she said, their comments will often fill with others echoing the complaint, or even seeming to 鈥渙ne-up鈥� the severity of the original poster鈥檚 distress. 鈥淚f we can at least tone it down a little bit, it would help a lot.鈥�

Even when it鈥檚 not competitive, she said, rarely do teens ask for consent before sharing their burdens via social media or direct messages. They don鈥檛 check to see if the recipient is in the right place to receive the extra weight. For two years students were isolated from each other in real life, she said, but grew accustomed to constant, around-the-clock access to one another on social media.

鈥淚t鈥檚 an expectation that has been set and it鈥檚 very uncomfortable,鈥� Swearingen said.

Circles provide a structured way for students to listen, to see that others are going through their own struggles, without immediately hopping on board to trauma-dump. When the talking piece moves to their hands, they will have a turn. 

That predictable, structured place to safely share is critical, especially for students who want to take on society鈥檚 bigger challenges, Swearingen said. 鈥淚t puts us in a spot where we can be vulnerable with each other, and because we can be vulnerable together we can be productive.鈥�

鈥淭he information we received didn鈥檛 communicate at all how serious or deadly it was,鈥� he said, adding that he hoped it would be resolved quickly.

Rep. Harold Dutton Jr, a Democrat and chair of the committee, allowed testimony to proceed until it became clear that the shooting at Robb Elementary 鈥� 19 children and two teachers dead 鈥� was far worse than initial reports. 

鈥淎t that point, I just couldn鈥檛 take it anymore. I thought 鈥楬ere we are again,鈥� 鈥� said Dutton, who ended the hearing when he looked out at the faces of the superintendents and other educators in the room. 鈥淭hey weren鈥檛 focused on this hearing anymore. They were focused on things back home.鈥�

It wasn鈥檛 long before the painful irony hit him: As the shooting unfolded, he was leading a hearing on the troubling state of student mental health in the Lone Star state.

鈥淧eople had mental issues before. They had access to guns. But they didn鈥檛 do what we鈥檙e seeing now with those guns,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e have created a culture, an environment that says having a firearm will provide an answer to every problem you鈥檝e got.鈥�

The hearing was a chance for officials from the Texas Education Agency, mental health professionals and educators to brief lawmakers on the state of services available in schools and how coordination was faring with health providers. In response to devastating hurricanes and the 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School, near Galveston, in which 10 people died, the state expanded school-based mental health support for students. But at least one expert said services remained insufficient. 

鈥淥n a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst, where would you rate the mental health of Texas students?鈥� Dutton asked Dr. David Lakey, chief medical officer and vice chancellor for health affairs at The University of Texas System. 

鈥淎t a surface level, you can say we’re at the very bottom,鈥� Lakey said.

He nonetheless thanked lawmakers for increasing spending in recent years, including support for the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium, which includes telemedicine services to schools. 鈥淚 think we’re on the right path, and I think you’re seeing that investment in schools.鈥�

But the needs in schools are growing, said Hani Talebi, a psychologist with the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, a nonprofit.

鈥淭here’s a significant increase in mental health provider referrals,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e’ve seen aggression, anxiety, depression, PTSD, grief and loss, and in some instances, severe disciplinary infractions.鈥� 

Although the link between school shootings and mental illness is widely debated, the alleged shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was reportedly dealing with complex issues. He suffered from a speech impediment, was bullied as a child and had conflicts with his mother, according to . Students who knew him said he had recently grown more troubled and violent.

But some community members who registered to speak at the committee hearing, including parents and conservative advocates, said schools should steer clear of such issues. They described mental health services in schools, as well as surveys of students about their well-being, as government 鈥渙verreach.鈥�

鈥淚 want you to lead in education, not in solving mental health,鈥� said Mary Lowe, chair of the Tarrant County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a national network of politically active groups opposing social-emotional learning and discussion of race and gender in the classroom. 鈥淚 want you to respect parents and get back in your lane.鈥� 

Dutton dismissed some of the opponents of school mental health services as 鈥淥zzie and Harriett types.鈥�

Bernal, also a Democrat, said mental health services and gun restrictions need to 鈥渨ork in tandem,鈥� but Republicans, he added, aren鈥檛 willing to negotiate on limiting access to guns. Following the shooting, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for allowing educators in schools to carry weapons. The state has a school and last year expanded it to allow educators trained as marshals to carry weapons. 

鈥淲hen it comes to protecting the lives of children, everything should be on the table,鈥� Bernal said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 see how you start those conversations with literally half of your policy options removed.鈥�

Kevin Brown, executive director of the Texas Association of School Administrators, also attended the hearing and described the witnesses鈥� assessment of students鈥� well-being as 鈥済rim.鈥�

鈥淲e have an epidemic right now of children that are in crisis and the demands that are present often exceed our capacity鈥� to handle it, he said. 鈥淓ven when you have all the resources that you need, it鈥檚 still very difficult to kind of navigate what’s the right thing for individual students.鈥�

But for those at the hearing, it wasn鈥檛 long before news of the carnage at Robb Elementary School brought thoughts closer to home. Bernal left before the meeting adjourned to pick up his daughter, Xan Rosa, from pre-K.

鈥淕etting your kid earlier made you feel better,鈥� he said.

As teenage boys in Austin, Texas, returned to school last fall after more than a year learning remotely at home, counselors were alarmed to see how many were talking about suicide. 

鈥淲e鈥檝e definitely seen an increase in suicidal ideation,鈥� said Roxie Frederick, a counselor at Austin Independent School District鈥檚 Alternative Learning Center who often meets the boys after their emotions have boiled over into an angry confrontation resulting in disciplinary action. 

The teens are then sent to the alternative campus after a disciplinary incident, where Frederick gets them talking about what鈥檚 really going on 鈥� and it鈥檚 not always easy to get them beyond the monosyllabic answers.

But once she does, Frederick discovers just how many of them are losing hope 鈥� like many youth across the country who are battling mental health issues after two years of isolation, fear, and struggle.

 鈥淵oung males who seem tough are opening up about it,.鈥� she said, adding it often means the teenage boys are pretty far into crisis.

The teen boys in Austin are part of a larger and terrifying trend. In 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children鈥檚 Hospital Association issued a joint statement declaring children鈥檚 mental health, especially children of color, a ; and a Centers for Disease Control survey found 20 percent of teens had contemplated suicide, and nearly 10 percent had attempted it. 

But that same offered a solution: Students who felt more connected to their peers had better mental health, and were less likely to report contemplating or attempting suicide. 

So even though the desperation at the heart of the mental health crisis is largely beyond Frederick and her colleagues鈥� control鈥攖hey can鈥檛 bring back family members who died during the pandemic, loss of parents鈥� jobs, or social confidence鈥� they are committed to making sure the young men can keep talking. To share their fears and frustrations before they either lash out and end up expelled, or worse, succumb to hopelessness.

A lot of the problems start in middle school, and this year鈥檚 12-14 year-olds are in a particular bind.

The 7th grade boys from Covington Middle School missed a critical transition year, and they鈥檝e felt it. It鈥檚 always been tempting to act tough instead of asking for help, the boys said, but the pandemic worked against them from several directions. It made them feel distant from their classmates, it deepened their anxiety and frustration, and it created a sense that the entire world was too fragile to handle whatever burdens they were carrying. 

Parents worried about jobs and health didn鈥檛 always have the bandwidth for the emotions of a kid missing their friends, or struggling with school. Friends were accessible online, but the crises in their homes often kept them from having much to offer by way of support.

鈥淔rom the pandemic, you know, we forgot how to talk to people,鈥� said Tremain Purnell, one of the kids in the Project MALES group.   

Frederick knows the reality: there鈥檚 not always a licensed counselor around when a boy is in crisis, especially for families who cannot afford a private therapist. Schools rarely have the student to counselor ratio they would need to meet the demand. Knowing that mental health resources will be hardest to access for young men of color, who disproportionately experience poverty and underfunded schools, she often connects them with Project MALES (Mentoring to Achieve Latino Educational Success), a mentoring program primarily for Black and Latino young men.

The group setting makes it seem normal to talk about tough feelings. It gives them language to describe their struggles. And when the boys are done with their stint at the alternative center, usually just a couple of weeks, there鈥檚 likely already a Project MALES group on their home campus where they can continue getting that support. 

Serving around 200 boys on 13 Austin campuses, Project MALES is preventative as much as it is responsive. The mentors want to help as many boys as possible before something happens that would land them in alternative school, disrupting their academic progress. They do that by helping them understand the social and emotional challenges at the heart of their behavior. 

After two years of pandemic pressure kids need someone to talk to about challenging emotions more than ever. But it鈥檚 not easy to tell people how you feel, admitted Jordan Kennedy, a seventh grader at Covington Middle School in Austin. Vulnerability and seeking support can be the opposite of the tough, unaffected personas young men are trying to project.

鈥嬧�嬧�淚t鈥檚 honestly kind of hard, and sometimes we try to hide our feelings,鈥� Kennedy said. Though he says he鈥檚 naturally pretty outgoing and jovial, 鈥渢here is a kind of pressure, I鈥檓 not gonna lie. 2020 and 2021 has been a lot.鈥�

It鈥檚 different when he goes to Project MALES. There Kennedy and seven other boys gather to talk through the ups and downs of their week, and practice both asking for and offering support to each other. Their mentor, a student at the University of Texas, offers support based on over a decade of research on improving academic and life outcomes for Black and Latinx young men.

鈥淲e want to provide space and opportunity for men to have these conversations they may not be able to have anywhere else,鈥� said Emmet Campos, the director of Project MALES and the Texas Education Consortium for Male Students of Color. Sessions often start with the boys sharing their 鈥渉appies and crappies鈥� from the week, he said, and using those experiences to work on social and emotional skills. These 鈥減ower skills鈥� have always been necessary, he said, but the pandemic made it even more so. Whatever challenges they had were exacerbated by isolation. 

But staying connected over Zoom was almost impossible, the boys at Covington said, especially as they started middle school with a bunch of kids they had not met before. 

鈥淚 would barely talk. I don鈥檛 really like to talk over computers,鈥� Purnell said. 

 Most kids, sick of online learning, weren鈥檛 as engaged with online mentoring, Campos said. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 replace the in person engagement for young men鈥� 

A year online didn鈥檛 give them much to build on when they came back this year, either. 

鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 be able to know people over the computer, because I might not know what they looked like,鈥� Kennedy said. Since they鈥檝e been back,鈥渢here has been some kind of awkwardness.鈥� 

The Project MALES group has helped ease that awkwardness, especially for the members who were the most uncomfortable coming back, he said. 鈥淲hen I joined the group there were more people to talk to, more team work things, more collaboration.鈥�

It鈥檚 also a place where talking about your feelings isn鈥檛 just allowed, but encouraged and modeled by the mentor, Purnell said. It makes it easy to follow suit. 鈥淚f someone鈥檚 feeling down, you can ask them 鈥榳hat鈥檚 up, how you doing?鈥欌��

It feels natural and casual, but the Project MALES mentorship is heavily intentional. Housed in the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, the mentorship is one pillar of a larger intercollegiate initiative to study the experiences of young men of color in educational settings. As they researched outcomes, particularly for Latinx males, Campos said, the founders of the initiative saw the value in mentorship, and decided to put their research into practice accordingly.

鈥淢entoring is a powerful intervention strategy,鈥� Campos said, 鈥淓verybody can point to a mentor in their life that has made a difference.鈥� 

The Project MALES staff is made up of paid doctoral students and undergraduate volunteers who receive stipends and take a two-semester class to prepare them to mentor the middle school and high school boys. The mentorship is aligned with Austin Independent School District鈥檚 social and emotional learning curriculum, and uses what Campos calls 鈥渃ritical mentoring鈥� and restorative justice. The boys chosen to be in the program are often those who need a mid-level behavioral intervention, Campos explained. Instead of punishment, a has allowed Austin ISD to expand its restorative justice efforts with programs like Project MALES. 

For those students who do end up at the Alternative Learning Center after an expulsion, Austin ISD has not given up restorative and therapeutic discipline, said Frederick. 

Having groups like Project MALES on the campus at ALC allows the licensed professional counselors to focus on individual needs, she said. For some kids this will be their first and last access to professional mental health services. 鈥淭here鈥檚 definitely a shortage of therapists in Austin.鈥� 

Many would benefit from more focused therapy, but a lot can be done if those students are willing to talk to a caring adult and peers about their feelings. 鈥淚f I can just show you that it鈥檚 okay to talk about your feelings,鈥� Frederick said, she can connect them with support, often Project MALES or Communities in Schools, on their home campus.

Given the prevalence of the crisis, she added, every school would benefit from a full time presence to be there when the need arises, whether that鈥檚 school staff, mentors, or nonprofit case managers from Communities in Schools. A scheduled check in with a counselor or mentor is great, she said, but kids can鈥檛 always schedule their crises around adults鈥� availability. The biggest impact will be in the moment, she said. 鈥淭he real work happens when they slam the door and walk out of class.鈥�

If you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

Updated Nov. 15

The Howdy Bots robotics team raised $75,000 at their annual telethon 鈥� well above the usual $40,000 the event usually brings in. 鈥淲e suffered a setback when thieves stole tools and electronics from the team,鈥� said coach Evan Marchman. 鈥淔inancially, this was something the team was unprepared to handle. Thanks to the tremendous outpouring of support from the community, the team raised more than $75,000… We are now able to replace the stolen items and made great progress towards fully funding our annual operating costs. Now we can focus on providing this high-quality STEM education program to more students.鈥� 

When thieves stole $10,000 worth of equipment from the , Texas, they were stealing from kids 鈥� whether they knew it or not. 

All the things that make a robotics team function 鈥� laptops, cordless power tools, and electric crimpers  鈥� were among the items taken in October from the shop of the 18-member team.

鈥淭hat is a pretty hard hit for us,鈥� said coach Evan Marchman.

The team is looking to their annual 鈥淗owdython鈥� fundraiser this weekend not just to raise money to attend competitions: The Howdy Bots will be working hard raising money to replace what was stolen.

鈥淲e need tools,鈥� said 16-year-old team member Clay Tomaszewski. 鈥淧articularly like drills and other hand tools to actually assemble our robot. Without a drill, how do I make a hole in something that I need a certain size screw to fit in?”

Howdy Bots stands out in the ultra-competitive world of robotics. 

“Some teams prefer to have the smartest, most skilled students and will have tryouts for their programs,鈥� said Marchman, 鈥渂ut we accept students regardless of ability or disability, both physical or learning.鈥�

鈥淎 core value of Howdy Bots is inclusion,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e do not turn away students based on grades, skill, lack of experience or school affiliation. Our team meets the student where they are and make any necessary accommodations with the ultimate goals of seeing them make progress in gaining skills and maturity.

鈥淥ur only requirements are engagement and commitment on the part of the student.鈥�

Howdy Bot team members are not affiliated with any one school and may be home-schooled or don鈥檛 have a team at their school. 

Marchman said the team works to be diverse, and currently includes LGBTQ teens. The team is also about equal in its make-up of girls and boys.

Marchman said the focus of Howdy Bots is exposing students who might not otherwise have access to technology at home. Scholarships are offered for low-income students.

The team, which competes  across Texas and the world and includes students ages 13-18 in grades 9 through 12, design, program and build 120-pound robots in six weeks, during January and February each year. Competitions take place in March and April. 

In addition to robotics, the students also complete programming, computer-aided design, video editing, business and marketing tasks. The team meets all year, with students averaging more than 400 hours of STEM learning during the busiest four months of the year.

They are also introduced to industry veterans, as most of the mentors are engineers or programmers by day.

And it鈥檚 not just the tools that are needed: Rishisk Boddeti, 15, noted the team members doing marketing and programming need laptops. 

鈥淭he fundraiser is going to be very important to us this year,鈥� Tomaszewski said.

The event will run from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time on Saturday. for more information and a direct link to Howdy Bots鈥� fundraiser live stream.

The state is poised to resettle approximately 4,500 Afghan refugees, second in the nation behind California. 

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鈥淭hese students are resilient,鈥� said Salimah Shamsuddin, Refugee Family Support Coordinator for the Austin Independent School District where about 50 refugee students from Afghanistan have recently been resettled. 

鈥淭hey’ve been through something so traumatic, and they’re coming to a new country, learning a new language, and it all can be challenging, but even so, they do pick up English a lot faster when they’re in the classroom.鈥�

Still, she said educators are keeping in mind the hardships they have faced and the worry they feel about those left behind in Afghanistan.  

鈥淲e do have to consider that they’re still really concerned for the well being of their family back at home,鈥� she said. “So even though they’re here, it’s still a challenging time.鈥� 

The students, who join about 350 refugee students from Afghanistan who had previously been resettled in the area over the past few years, are arriving with limited English-language skills, so teachers use imagery as much as possible, she added.

Using images or drawings can help students express what they know conceptually before they have the words, Shamsuddin said, adding visual cue cards are used with words like 鈥渓ine up,鈥� 鈥渟top鈥� and 鈥渢ake turns.鈥� 

The cue cards are currently being translated into Dari/English and Pashto/English, Dari and Pashto are the most widely spoken languages in Afghanistan. 

ESL teachers are equipped to teach second-language acquisition skills, said Cody Fernandez, director of Secondary Multilingual Education at Austin ISD. 

Austin ISD uses counselors and may also refer students to outside providers as well who understand different cultures, Shamsuddin said.

She said that for many, especially those who arrived in August and September — when the Taliban took over and there was heightened instability — there were concerns about families still in Afghanistan. Some may have experienced trauma,  depression, anxiety, PTSD and other challenges.

Shamsuddin and her team have conducted training for educators so they can be aware of cultural differences, including body language and communication style differences.

 In western societies, people are individualistic and value the promotion of personal goals, while in non-western societies, there is more of a focus on group goals and the social unit, she said. In the school system, there is also a peer-support program that pairs a newcomer with an established student to better equip both with learning about the other person. 

Shamsuddin noted that Austin ISD is used to new students arriving and that interpreters are available for families.

鈥淪o often, an interpreter is not used for things,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd if we really want to be truly equitable, then it’s important that we’re communicating to parents in their preferred language.鈥�

Meanwhile, at Dallas Independent School District, the district considers not only the time needed for a newcomer to learn the language but also the new cultural and social environment, said Zeljka Ravlija, program coordinator for the Refugee School Impact Program.

Ravlija is currently conducting orientation lessons via Zoom using a PowerPoint presentation to prepare the schools and educators for the newcomers. 

鈥淭hese orientations are teaching on the cultural background of Afghans,鈥� she said, including   lessons on ethnicities, the various regional languages spoken, and religious values in the country.

Educators are also being taught basic phrases such as 鈥渉ello鈥� and 鈥渢hank you,鈥� what holidays are important to the students in their home countries, gender roles, and name pronunciations, among other topics

Ravlija noted the challenges that many refugee students experience before their arrival in Texas, which may include poverty, war, trauma and other unstable factors. They often spend time in a refugee camp before resettlement.

From the very beginning of the pandemic, the economy responded to COVID-19 in a way that defied conventional wisdom. Many markers typically used to predict how severe a recession will be, and how to confront it, were completely out of whack.

Unemployment immediately shot up to levels far higher than those seen in the worst of the Great Recession of 2008. Small businesses closed at a precipitous rate, with little certainty about whether they would reopen. Many low-income workers were laid off, while others, forced to keep reporting to work despite spiking rates of viral transmission, lost child care as schools shuttered. But at the same time, stock portfolios swelled and affluent consumers flooded delivery services with orders for luxury goods to make homes that now doubled as offices ever more comfortable. For the well-off, the recession was over within weeks 鈥� if it was even felt at all.

Even small changes in the way money circulates within a city or neighborhood ripple through the local economy. This one was a shockwave. Wealthy Americans ordered fancy meal kits online and signed up for wine tastings on Zoom rather than spending at the neighborhood restaurants, nail salons, yoga studios and dry cleaners that had kept their less affluent neighbors employed.

John Friedman and Raj Chetty realized they were seeing something unusual. Co-founders of , a team at Harvard University that researches education鈥檚 potential to lift children out of poverty, they feared the pandemic had worsened already long odds.

The economists took the unprecedented step of asking credit card companies, payroll processors and other businesses that track money as it moves through the economy in real time to turn over what are essentially trade secrets. Using that information, the researchers built a nationwide online pandemic tracker capable of providing a down-to-the-day snapshot of who is spending and who is struggling, by income level, city, state and county and, in some instances, by zip code.

The data quickly revealed stunning implications on virtually every front.

In place of a typical recession鈥檚 V shape, in which people across the socioeconomic spectrum experience both the downturn and the subsequent recovery together, the economists saw a K. Affluent Americans at the top of the K bounced back right away 鈥� much more quickly than in a typical recession. Low-income families on the bottom, by contrast, were disproportionately impacted: more likely to be unemployed, quarantined in overcrowded multi-generational housing and experiencing higher rates of infection and death.

The inequities on display were not new, but for many people, the awareness of how profound and widespread they are is. Over the last year and a half, prosperous Americans who can afford iPads, reliable internet and tutors have woken up to headlines showing children forced to log into virtual classes from parking lots 鈥� or wherever they could find a Wi-Fi signal 鈥� skipping school to work at their own jobs and isolated, alone in COVID鈥檚 mental health crisis.

The Opportunity Insights tracker contains one academic dataset: student participation and progress on the math app Zearn, which one-fourth of the nation鈥檚 K-5 students have access to. Immediately after schools closed, use of the app among low-income students “completely dropped off,” notes Zearn CEO Shalinee Sharma. As they started logging on again, a yawning gap became apparent. A year into the pandemic, these students鈥� progress was behind where it should have been, while their wealthier peers were ahead 28 percent.

Because it is widely understood that economic disadvantages show up in schools, 麻豆精品 saw an opportunity in Friedman and Chetty’s work. Could their data predict long-lasting effects in the classroom years after COVID-19 has passed? And were there clues as to how educators could address them?

Just as Friedman鈥檚 and Chetty鈥檚 research holds key insights as to how policymakers could target relief, we knew their economic recovery tracker offered valuable information as schools seek to help the most disadvantaged children recover.

鈥淲e already had this deep inequality in American education. And the pandemic has just made it so much worse,鈥� Friedman, a professor of economics at Brown University and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, noted in an interview with 麻豆精品. 鈥淭he pandemic has taken children and set them even further back. Without some really dedicated effort to get these students caught up, what we’ve seen from broader data is that the types of educational gaps that arise in childhood can persist, they create lower college enrollment rates, lower college graduation rates, students earn less when they get out in the labor market. These things can have really large effects down the line.鈥�

Using Opportunity Insights鈥� data as a starting point, “COVID’s K-Shaped Recession and the Looming Classroom Crisis” is a series of stories probing how the pandemic鈥檚 impact on income inequality has shown up in schools in five communities 鈥� Delaware; Washington, D.C.; Austin, Texas; Reno, Nevada; and Colorado Springs. Each demonstrates a different aspect of how the K-shaped recession has played out in neighborhoods and schools; and several offer hints as to how educators and policymakers can help students recover lost learning and regain the opportunity to secure a prosperous future.

This article is part of a series examining COVID’s K-shaped recession and what it means for America鈥檚 schools. Read the full series here.

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative provide financial support to Opportunity Insights and 麻豆精品.

Not for one second did the pandemic slow the red-hot housing market in Austin, Texas. Indeed, as COVID-19 untethered white-collar workers from offices in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York and other places with stratospheric costs of living, the city鈥檚 population swelled.

In January 2021, the city experienced the largest net influx of residents of any major metropolitan area in the country, according to real estate brokerage Redfin.com, which reported that shoppers in other states conducted 45 percent of Austin home searches, up from 32.6 percent a year earlier.

Is this good news, or bad? 

In terms of traditional indicators, it means the economy was thrumming along, coronavirus notwithstanding. In 2020, at least 35 companies relocated to Austin, creating a record . Austinites new and old were flush with cash: As of March 14, a year into the pandemic, consumer spending was up more than 31 percent over January 2020. 

But not everywhere.

Because Austin鈥檚 new transplants were not spending their disposable income at the small businesses that are major employers of low-income workers, revenue was down 43 percent. Employment dropped 13 percent overall and 26 percent among the lowest earners, while rising 0.5 percent among those at the top.

At the same time, rents rose to the point where a minimum-wage earner would have to work a 125-hour week to afford a one-bedroom apartment; last year, the number of people sleeping on Austin鈥檚 streets increased 45 percent, the sort of crisis that puts homeless students even further behind academically than their low-income peers who have a roof over their heads.

Even Austinites with the wherewithal to buy a home found themselves priced out of the market. Outsiders鈥� house-shopping budgets were nearly 33 percent higher than locals鈥�, averaging more than $850,000, versus less than $650,000. In some zip codes, housing prices are up as much as 46 percent, putting home ownership 鈥� a typical first down payment on intergenerational wealth and the security it affords 鈥� further out of reach. And, by extension, the possibility of moving into the neighborhoods with the most sought-after schools.

鈥淗ousing has become a luxury good,鈥� told the Wall Street Journal. 鈥淭he economy seems to have officially split in two. There is so much hardship in one part, and then there鈥檚 just an absolute mad dash to buy houses in the other part.鈥�

This is emblematic of what economists are calling the K-shaped recession. When the pandemic struck, economists John Friedman and Raj Chetty realized it looked different from previous downturns: While even small changes in the way money changes hands create ripples, COVID was a shockwave. The co-founders of 鈥� a team at Harvard University that researches income inequality and education鈥檚 potential to lift children out of poverty 鈥� persuaded credit card companies, payroll processors and other businesses that track money as it moves through the economy in real time to turn over what are essentially trade secrets.  Using that information, the researchers built a nationwide online pandemic tracker capable of providing a down-to-the-day snapshot of who is spending and who is struggling, by income level, city, state and county and, in some instances, by zip code.

The data quickly revealed stunning implications on virtually every front.

Rather than a typical recession鈥檚 V shape, in which people across the socioeconomic spectrum experience both the downturn and the subsequent recovery together, the economists saw a K. Affluent Americans at the top of the K bounced back right away 鈥� much more quickly than in a typical recession. But their new spending patterns 鈥� buying fancy meal kits online rather than ordering in from neighborhood restaurants, giving up Uber rides and manicures 鈥� crippled the businesses that supported their lower-income neighbors; those impoverished families on the bottom continue to struggle disproportionately on every front, beset by challenges long proven to be detrimental to children’s ability to learn in school.

(Friedman and Chetty update the tracker as the underlying information changes. The data in this story was downloaded June 29, 2021.)

The Opportunity Insights tracker contains one academic dataset: student participation and progress on the math app Zearn, which one-fourth of the nation鈥檚 K-5 students have access to. Immediately after schools closed, use of the app among low-income students “completely dropped off,” notes Zearn CEO Shalinee Sharma. As they started logging on again, a yawning gap became apparent. A year into the pandemic, these students鈥� progress was behind where it should have been, while their wealthier peers were ahead 28 percent.

New studies . and the nonprofit assessment concern found wide disparities between white/affluent students and their low-income peers/children of color. Depending on grade and subject, low-income students ended the 2020-21 school year with up to seven months of unfinished learning.

Researchers, Friedman told 麻豆精品, fear the losses 鈥� of jobs, of loved ones to COVID, of mental health supports and reliable food supplies 鈥� may have even more devastating impacts for children that schools were already failing to serve, with education鈥檚 potential for lifting a family out of poverty moving further out of reach. In Austin, add to this list of barriers to classroom success an increase in homeless students and the exodus of families priced out of their homes, whose children tend to fall in the middle of their classes academically.

Even before the pandemic, a single classroom likely contained students who achieved at seven different grade levels 鈥� both behind and ahead. But because COVID has put the most disadvantaged students even further behind while hollowing out the middle, the span of academic mastery in individual classrooms is likely to be bigger. Pre-COVID, researchers at four universities used data from the 2016 NWEA MAP assessments, formerly known as the Measures of Academic Progress, to establish that in an average fifth-grade classroom, one-third of students perform at or below a third-grade level in math, a third at fourth grade, one-fourth at fifth and the remainder above grade level.

“The lockstep we鈥檝e moved at for generations is just not going to work.鈥� 鈥擫ars Esdal, Education Evolving

In June 2020, the researchers layered NWEA estimates of pandemic learning losses on top of that study to predict that the array of student needs in individual classrooms would widen further 鈥� spanning up to nine grade levels. The scholars predicted that post-pandemic, 24 percent of students in the average classroom would be on grade level and 33 percent each one and two grades behind, with small percentages of students one to four or more grades ahead. 

Reaching students at varying levels of academic proficiency was already a major challenge for educators before the pandemic. In COVID鈥檚 wake, determining what skills each child might have missed during the crisis and figuring out how to fill the gaps presents a daunting challenge. A number of researchers have suggested that it鈥檚 time to consider shifting away from the traditional practice of moving students from grade to grade in age-based groupings, regardless of each pupil鈥檚 level of need. 

鈥淕iven the data we鈥檙e seeing both about the level of variation that existed pre-pandemic and the level at which that variation is expected to increase, the lockstep we鈥檝e moved at for generations is just not going to work,鈥� says Lars Esdal, executive director of Education Evolving, a think tank that advocates for competency-based learning. 

Five years ago, Austin鈥檚 NYOS Charter School 鈥� the acronym stands for 鈥淣ot Your Ordinary School鈥� 鈥� decided to confront the seeming impossibility of serving students who show up achieving at a wide array of grade levels. The school, which was founded 20 years ago by dissatisfied parents and admits children across the economic spectrum by lottery, had already gained a reputation for accommodating what Vice Principal Samantha Gladwell calls 鈥渂ookend students.” These are both children who struggle in a conventional setting and those who learn very quickly. But school officials realized they would never be able to meet such divergent needs if they clung to the traditional calendar-based model.

The strategy NYOS鈥檚 educators chose 鈥� reconfiguring the way time and space are used so students can move through academic material at their own pace with classmates who are learning the same skills 鈥� worked better than they dared hope. In the 2018-19 school year, every grade in both reading and math students met or exceeded state averages, as well as scores in the Austin school district 鈥� sometimes dramatically.

NYOS earned an A on Texas鈥檚 2018-19 state report card, while Austin Independent School District overall got a B. NYOS earned 96 of 100 possible points for student achievement and all 100 for closing achievement gaps. Neighboring district schools earned 88 points on both measures.

As a result, even before the pandemic struck, NYOS was looking to expand its model, known as competency-based education, and lengthen its school year. As it turns out, these are key strategies researchers are counseling as schools contemplate how to address yawning academic disparities when students return to class.      

An ‘overwhelming’ job of catch-up

As real estate brokers and buyers alike are keenly aware, in most places, a neighborhood’s desirability is tightly tied to perceptions of its schools. Less known is that for the Austin Independent School District, it鈥檚 a two-way street: Administrators use real estate data 鈥� closings and construction starts 鈥� to determine, at the individual school level, where enrollment shifts are likely to take place. Coupled with demographic information, the data predicts steep ongoing enrollment losses even beyond the pandemic, continuing a trend the district has experienced over the last decade.

Since the 2012-13 academic year, the student population in Austin ISD has fallen from 86,500 to 75,000, as families have left for more affordable suburbs, as well as charter and private schools. The number of Black students fell from 6,266 in the 2016-17 school year to 4,975 in 2020-21. During the same period, Latino enrollment fell from 48,203 to 41,290. The low-income student population fell from 44,180 to 35,612. 

The influx of new, wealthy Austinites isn’t likely to stanch the flow. In its most recent demographic report, Austin ISD noted that of the more than 41,000 new housing units slated for construction over the next five years, only some 6,000 are single-family homes. The district estimates enrollment of three or four pupils for every 10 single-family homes, but for every 10 condos and apartments 鈥� which make up the lion’s share of new construction 鈥� only one or two.

Financially, the district has held it together 鈥� so far. In 2019, Texas changed its school funding system, boosting per-pupil spending in the 2020-21 school year to an average of $12,000. That increase, plus federal stimulus funding and the state鈥檚 decision to continue to reimburse schools for students who never showed up, has shored up the bottom line for Austin schools. But with the district expected to lose some 5,600 more students by 2025, a fiscal cliff looms when pandemic relief funding runs out.

When Opportunity Insights analyzed student progress seven weeks after schools first shut down nationwide, students in wealthy communities had progressed in math by 37 percent, while impoverished ones had regressed more than 11 percent. As the first anniversary of the closures loomed, low-income students had made up ground, but their affluent peers were still ahead 鈥� by more than 30 percent. 

In the 2020-21 school year, the number of Austin ISD students failing one or more courses more than doubled over the year before, from 3,300 to 7,600. On the , 60 percent of students scored at grade level in reading, down from 73 percent in 2019. Less than half 鈥� 48 percent 鈥� met math standards in 2021, compared with 74 percent the last time the exams were given.

NYOS has used a variety of assessments to get an early snapshot of students’ academic progress during the pandemic. In broad strokes, while its students are still faring better than their peers throughout the state, the number of early-grades students who were flagging in math and reading grew between fall 2020 and spring 2021. Older students were holding their own and in some cases making big learning gains. 

In December, the education advocacy group Families Empowered surveyed 100,000 mostly low-income Texas families about their pandemic-schooling experience. Among Austin families canvassed, 56 percent said their children were not ready for the next grade. Four-fifths said their child needed support, with almost half calling the amount of catch-up 鈥渙verwhelming.鈥� The organization followed up with phone calls to a number of respondents to gather details. Asked what it would take to get their kids back on track, a third of parents said access to tutoring or other intensive support. 

To ensure that schools can afford these more intensive services, Congress has mandated they spend at least 20 percent of their American Rescue Plan dollars on specific academic recovery efforts. But some experts say that doesn鈥檛 go far enough. Among other, more fundamental changes, some are asking whether it鈥檚 time to consider shifting to a model where students progress through academic material not according to their age or the school calendar, but their individual needs.    

‘Diverse by demand’

NYOS enrolls a representative cross-section of the very different neighborhoods that stretch out on either side of Interstate 35, the unofficial moat that separates Austin鈥檚 affluent and historically white west side from its gentrifying east side. One-third of the 1,000 K-12 students are low-income, 40 percent are white, 36 percent are Latino and 14 percent Black. The school draws from a broad geographic area, so students go home to an array of housing and economic circumstances.

In contrast to integrated schools that describe themselves as 鈥渄iverse by design,鈥� NYOS leaders like to say their school is 鈥渄iverse by demand.鈥� It admits students by blind lottery but tends to attract applicants who want to learn at an accelerated pace, or are struggling to keep up, or don鈥檛 flourish in a conventional setting.

And there is demand. Over the summer, NYOS moved into a new, state-of-the-art building that will allow the school to begin drawing down its 3,000-student waitlist. It will add a few hundred pupils a year for a total enrollment of 2,000.

To judge by the architect鈥檚 rendering, NYOS鈥檚 new campus looks more like a WeWork than a traditional school. Sun-drenched atriums are furnished with tables of different sizes and shapes. There are chairs at long countertops and a broad staircase leading to a second floor that can be used as seating for an assembly. Halls are expansive, flanked by small, breakout-style workrooms and alcoves. 

Students will start their days in classrooms with kids in the same grade, but from there will disperse into small, flexible groups with other pupils working on the same material. Because they advance as they demonstrate that they have acquired a skill or understand a concept, students progress academically as often as needed. They can advance at an accelerated pace in one subject while requiring extra support in another. 

鈥淭he classroom won鈥檛 be the space where you spend your day,鈥� says NYOS Elementary Principal Terry Berkenhoff. 鈥淚t will be a place where you get situated.鈥�

NYOS started the shift to what鈥檚 commonly referred to as competency-based education five years ago, as an outgrowth of the vision of the parents who founded the school in 1998 to keep student needs at the center of all decisions. 

As the school became known for success with kids who had struggled elsewhere, its educators realized that small groups were better than standard, whole-class instruction for teaching large numbers of students with vastly differing academic achievement levels. Teachers already routinely assessed individual pupils鈥� proficiency to identify missing skills or concepts; using that data to enable students to move at their own pace was a natural extension. They could cover the precise material a handful of kids were ready for at the right moment 鈥� a strategy some believe can accelerate learning. And they would avoid the potentially damaging signal that gets sent when a student is pulled out of class for remediation. 

Altering instruction turned out to be a much smaller challenge than changing the way adults’ time was organized. Teachers were accustomed to pacing material that鈥檚 supposed to be covered in a particular grade over a fixed number of days. Very quickly, kids started letting teachers know when they were ready for the next skill or concept. So the adults had to shift away from planning daily lessons to having materials prepared for students at a variety of levels.

鈥淵ou have kids who are done with your week-long lesson plan yesterday and some who need a whole 鈥榥other week,鈥� says Gladwell.

Teachers 鈥渓oop,鈥� staying with a group of students for several years. The familiarity this affords helps teachers understand each student鈥檚 needs. 

The kids still take Texas鈥檚 mandated end-of-year STARR assessments, but it鈥檚 not a big deal. 鈥淭he kids don鈥檛 worry about it, they don鈥檛 talk about it,鈥� says Berkenhoff. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just one experience in their whole learning career.鈥� 

In May 2020, Educators for Excellence and found strong support for grouping students by skill level and looping as strategies to help catch students up. Fifty-eight percent said they support small-group instruction, while 54 percent favored keeping students with the same teacher in the coming academic year. 

Education Evolving鈥檚 Esdal says there are numerous reasons why schools should be considering the approach as they plan for what comes after COVID-19. For students at the bottom of the K, the economic crisis has caused problems that won鈥檛 be addressed by pouring on more conventional schooling, he notes. Children uprooted by homelessness or other disruptions don鈥檛 get any benefit from simply repeating a class.

A competency-based approach is 鈥渁n absolute shift from using time as the constant and learning as the variable to learning as the constant,鈥� says Esdal. 鈥淭he biggest barrier is this involves changing the way we鈥檝e always done things.

鈥淲e need to see this period as a pivot point,鈥� he adds. 鈥淲e have this system we鈥檝e seen as 鈥楾he Way鈥� for so long, and it just doesn鈥檛 work for many students.鈥�

Rebooting for the fall

As progressive as NYOS鈥檚 approach is, competency-based learning will not be enough to make up for the pandemic’s academic losses, says Kathleen Zimmermann, the school’s executive director. Students will need more time in class, and many will need several years to recover. This is particularly true for those who already faced challenges and for very young pupils who have struggled in distance learning to acquire basic skills like reading.

Two years ago, the Texas Legislature passed a school finance reform bill that offered a carrot for lengthening the academic year. Under the new law, a school that offers 180 instructional days 鈥� the equivalent of 40 weeks 鈥� is eligible for an additional 30 half-days of funding. (Thirty states require 180-day school years, while 11 allow fewer. The average in Texas has been 173 days.) Pre-pandemic, NYOS had qualified for the money, which Zimmermann says may be used to start the next few school years early, or to run camps or intersessions during breaks.

This puts NYOS ahead of many schools around the country in addressing both the dizzying array of unmet student needs it will confront this fall and the special challenge of supporting children whose families have endured multiple impacts from the pandemic and the recession it sparked.

鈥淲e have to be really cognizant of what鈥檚 going on all over our community,鈥� says Gladwell.

When COVID-19 hit, the school was about six months from the ultimate phase of transitioning to competency-based learning. Implementing both fluid student groupings and remote classes proved too difficult 鈥� at least, at first.

鈥淚n the crisis, we had to ask teachers to go back to doing one-size-fits-all,鈥� says Gladwell. 鈥淭o go back to everyone gets the same thing was just heart-crushing. We were so close to being able to keep it rolling.鈥�

To rebooting its almost-complete competency-based model, add one more challenge NYOS teachers will confront in the fall: It is expecting upward of 300 new students, the first cohort to move off the waitlist.

It鈥檚 a good bet the newcomers will be unaccustomed to being accountable for themselves, say Berkenhoff and Gladwell. Accordingly, they are doubling down on teaching time management, critical thinking and self-regulation, among other things. 

鈥淲e are going to have to be really on top of our processes for pinpointing what they need on day one,鈥� says Gladwell. 鈥淚t takes a ton of upfront work, but it鈥檚 so worth it when you see the child take ownership.鈥�

This article is part of a series examining COVID’s K-shaped recession and what it means for America鈥檚 schools. Read the full series here.

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative provide financial support to Opportunity Insights and 麻豆精品.

Lead images: 1 and 4. Emmeline Zhao; 2 and 6. Getty Images

According to recent polls, adults who were born between 1981 and 1996 tend to think favorably about charter schools, vouchers, and other types of education options for parents and students. That could be because millennials were raised in an era saturated with choices, from ride-sharing apps to online shopping retailers to music streaming services.

That was the theory posed by a panel discussion Wednesday at South by Southwest Education called聽 The panel was presented by the nonprofit advocacy group EdChoice and moderated by 麻豆精品 Senior Editor Emmeline Zhao, and it included panelists Mendell Grinter of the Campaign for School Equity, Lalla Morris of Families Empowered, and Evy Valencia Jackson of EVJ Consulting.

According to a , nearly three-quarters of millennials across ethnicities support school vouchers 鈥� public money that pays for students to attend private school 鈥� for low-income children, and about two-thirds support this option for all students. African Americans are the most likely group to support charter schools 鈥� which are independently run and publicly funded 鈥� with 65 percent in favor. Whites were the least likely, with 55 percent supporting charters. Another聽poll, from the American Federation for Children, found that 75 percent of millennials support choice, compared with 64 percent of baby boomers. But not everyone is a fan of school choice: Support often depends on how a question is phrased. For example, when a 2016 Education Next poll tried to test support for vouchers, it found that 45 percent of respondents were in favor when the question was framed around giving people choice, but only 29 percent were in favor when it was framed around using public money to fund the program.

While the internet is full of memes that love to hate on how millennials are changing the world (), the conversation becomes more serious when looking at the effect of this demographic on the labor market and government. Zhao noted that these young adults represent the largest segment of the U.S. labor force, with 56 million workers. While millennials made up only 1 percent of the members of the House of Representatives in 2017, that number jumped to .

The panelists argued that without widely available school options, choice is afforded only to those with resources to select which neighborhood they want to live in or the private school they want to send their children to.

鈥淚f you are financially constrained, there are lots of choices people make every day that you never have the opportunity to make,鈥� Morris said.

She recalled how her family sent her to several different schools in Texas before she ended up at a middle school where she had access to rigorous academic courses 鈥� something not available to many other students of color in her neighborhood. This set her up to attend a prestigious magnet high school in Houston, where she was also one of the few students of color on the Advanced Placement track. This made Morris realize how the choices her parents were able to make set her up for success in ways that many of her black peers without these resources were not.

The U.S. has nearly 7,000 charter schools, enrolling 3.2 million students in 43 states and Washington, D.C. About 500,000 students take advantage of private school choice options such as vouchers or tax-credit scholarships, which exist in 26 states. These numbers are still small compared with the number of K-12 students in public and private schools: 56 million.

The freedom afforded to charter schools gives opportunities for innovation and allows students to focus on topics outside the scope of traditional schools. Panelists praised the creativity of school leaders who they鈥檝e seen start schools framed around everything from farming to fine arts to financial literacy.

鈥淭he purpose of education is to create an informed and engaged citizenry that can live independently, live a dignified life, and also be engaged in our community,鈥� Morris said.

Although nationwide, charter schools have produced mixed results for students, Grinter said parents consider many factors in addition to academics and graduation rates when selecting a school. 鈥淲hat defines a good school for a lot of parents is its safety,鈥� he said.

Some members on the panel pointed out that while charters and vouchers remain controversial, some government-funded programs 鈥� such as Pell Grants 鈥� that provide students money and choice in education do not receive that kind of criticism.

An audience member pointed out that many millennials also support teacher unions, which often butt heads with school choice advocates. A GenForward from 2018 found that three-quarters of millennials say strengthening teacher unions would improve education.

Grinter said that more work could be done to reach out to teachers and have conversations about where their views intersected or differed.

鈥淚t鈥檚 just talking to them, like, 鈥楬ey, you have a kid, you want to exercise choice, why is that not OK?鈥欌�� he said.

But Valencia Jackson disagreed.

鈥淪ome of these folks are just not interested in a conversation and haven鈥檛 been interested in a while, and that鈥檚 OK,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think we have to be willing to move on and build new supporters elsewhere that want to be focused on kids.鈥�

Though many leaders in the education reform world are older than millennials, Valencia Jackson encouraged the audience to collaborate across generations so that her peers could also have a voice in the conversations around school choice. 鈥淐all me, beep me!鈥� Valencia Jackson said. 鈥淎nyone?鈥�

A few people in the room got the . You would have too, if you were a millennial.