Innholdsfortegnelse for The 2025 Education Edition i The Goodnewspaper

In November 2024, residents in St. John’s County, Florida, overwhelmingly backed a property tax hike reserved for boosting teacher salaries, increasing school safety, and expanding student programs. The county’s teachers’ union estimated that it would generate $23.7 million specifically for better teacher pay. “It is huge for St. Johns County and we are thrilled and we are grateful,” Kate Dowdie, president of the St. Johns Education Association, told Action News Jax. The newly padded paychecks range based on teacher experience, from teachers with less than five years of experience receiving a $4,500 boost, to teachers with more than 21 years under their belt getting up to $8,888. Checks will be distributed over the course of 10 to 12 months, during the 2025-26 school year. For teachers in the county, that…

On June 7, 2025, the fifth annual Teach Truth Day sparked hundreds of events across all 50 states. The day, which included a march in Washington, D.C., united librarians, students, and educators in support of inclusive history lessons amidst record-high book bans. “When the government tries to erase the truth about racism, colonialism, LGBTQIA+ identity, and the climate crisis, they’re not just closing the door on the past — they are locking students out of the future,” Jesse Hagopian, the author of “Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education,” told the National Education Association. “This wave of book banning is not new, but now it’s being not only supported by the federal government, but the federal government is using it to threaten to withhold funds so it’s making it worse,”…

Last school year, Meridian, Idaho middle school teacher Sarah Inama put up a sign that read, “Everyone is welcome here,” with ten raised hands depicted beneath the letters, all ranging in skin tones. According to a 2022 policy from the Meridian school district, classroom displays, posters, and flags are required to be “content neutral.” Inama thought the message that everyone was welcome in her classroom fit that description — until the district demanded she take it down. She did, to appease them. Then her students asked where it went. “I literally felt like I had let them down,” she told NEA Today. “I was thinking, ‘I don’t agree with this.’ To me, it’s blatantly discriminatory, and it’s blatantly allowing people with exclusionary views to affect my classroom and my students,…

In total, approximately 43 million Americans owe $1.77 trillion in student loan debt, 42% more than they did just a decade earlier. With inconsistencies at the federal level causing uncertainty and confusion, many loans continue to accrue interest, highly educated workers face mounting financial challenges, young college graduates become even more disillusioned about higher education, and college still doesn’t get any cheaper. The one in four U.S. adults with student loan debt, as measured by the Pew Research Center, are still highly privileged — they are the ones who are able to attend costly colleges and universities in the first place. But even still, Pew reports that 35% of young college graduates with student loan debt say their education wasn’t worth the cost. While many advocates ultimately aim for broad…

Cow to Cone Ice Cream Making Class Pennsylvania State University In this weeklong workshop, students work hands-on with the university’s herd of dairy cows, harvesting milk, whipping up custom mixes, and freezing, flavoring, and hardening treats into ice cream, frozen yogurt, and other frozen concoctions. Star Trek and Philosophy Georgetown University This course swaps out dry philosophy textbooks for stories told from the command deck of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Using episodes from the beloved 1960s science fiction series, students ponder complex questions like: “What is free will?” and “Is time travel possible?” The class is a “bridge course” for students studying ethics. Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse Michigan State University A seven-week class that invites students to study past catastrophes and theorize how people, families, governments, civilizations, and “the Earth…

A new study from researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology uncovered an astounding truth: Every extra year of schooling — from primary school to university -lowers a person’s risk of mortality by roughly 2%, regardless of age, gender, or location. “Education is important in its own right, not just for its benefits to health, but now being able to quantify the magnitude of this benefit is a significant development,” Dr. Terje Andreas Eikemo, the study’s co-author, told The Guardian. The data solidified earlier findings from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. That study, which pulled data from 3,110 counties between 2000 and 2019, marked the first comprehensive look at life expectancy by education at a county level across the United States. Alarmingly, lead researcher Laura Dwyer-Lindgren…

GOOD Thank a teacher who’s made a difference in your life. A note or email can go a long way in showing appreciation, whether they taught you in college or kindergarten. teachingawards.com/about-us/thank-a-teacher BETTER Donate to the National Education Association Foundation to support public school educators and their districts as they face the unique teaching challenges of the day. neafoundation.org BEST Support public schools by standing up for everyone’s right to a public education. Advocacy groups like Public Funds For Public School have lots of resources and bill trackers to help you stay informed. pfps.org/advocacy…

GOOD Learn more about how gun violence affects schools across the U.S. and, more importantly, learn about which prevention strategies actually work to keep students safe. studentsdemandaction.org/school-safety-hub BETTER Support programs that make local schools, libraries, and youth centers safer by donating to Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit that conducts gun safety research and helps students thrive. sandyhookpromise.org/get-involved BEST Contact your elected officials and demand they support gun safety laws that protect schools and communities. Find policies to advocate for through Everytown For Gun Safety. everytown.org/actions…

According to the United Nations, more than two million girls around the world will endure female genital mutilation before their fifth birthday this year. Most women in the West African country of Sierra Leone are among them. Long seen as a traditional rite of passage, FGM consists of cutting parts of the female genitalia to “reduce sexual pleasure and therefore disincentivize sex before marriage,” the U.N. defines the practice. But as education rates improve across Western Africa, the taboo surrounding FGM is dwindling. “Education gave girls a vocabulary to name what was done to their bodies and a framework to say no before it could happen,” Sofia Barnett wrote for The New York Times. “It gave them access to biology, to human rights, to peers who shared their resistance. It…

In March 2025, Harvard University announced that the college would be free for students from families making $100,000 or less per year, covering all billed expenses, including tuition, food, housing, health insurance, and travel costs. The institution will also now waive tuition for students from families that make $200,000 or less annually. This is a significant expansion of the Ivy League’s financial aid offerings, aiming to make Harvard more affordable to more students, especially those from middleincome families. According to a press release from the university, the expansion enables 86% of U.S. families to qualify for Harvard’s financial aid, beginning in the 2025-26 school year. As of the fall of 2024, Harvard University’s endowment — built by thousands of philanthropic gifts from the college’s foundation and owned by the Harvard…

Since 2023, Staten Island bodega owner Wail Aleslwi — also known as “Wally” or “Island Ock” to the neighborhood he serves — has been cheering on local students through a program of his own making: “Grades for Grabs.” It began when Aleslwi struck a friendly bet with 12-year-old Zamier Davies: If he boosted his grades, he would earn a free Oreo milkshake. Davies’s average climbed from the high 80s to the honor roll, and Aleslwi held up his end of the bargain, documenting it in a TikTok that raked in millions of views. In more of Aleslwi’s TikTok videos, kids come in from all over to claim their rewards. One kid, a fourth grader named Maleek, traveled down from Pennsylvania with his report card reflecting a 97% grade average in…

A lot of parents are worried about the well-being of children across the United States. It’s not unfounded: Nearly three-quarters of students are not proficient in basic skills, and many struggle with the fundamentals of math and reading, this year’s annual KIDS COUNT survey found. Approximately one in five U.S. youth between the ages of 3 and 17 has been diagnosed with a mental health condition or behavioral disorder, according to the CDC. And smartphones are cause for mounting concerns, as parents, children, and researchers explore the relationship between screen time and decreased academic performance, wellness, and social skills. But one mom, Lenore Skenazy, thinks that kids need a bit more room to breathe. In 2008, Skenazy wrote a New York Sun column about letting her 9-year-old ride the subway…

From the classic country hit “Jolene,” to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, Dolly Parton has given the world a whole lot to be grateful for. But if you ask her father, her biggest accomplishment has been the Imagination Library. “Before he passed away, my Daddy told me the Imagination Library was probably the most important thing I had ever done,” Parton wrote in a letter for the organization, adding that she founded it as a tribute to her father. “He was the smartest man I have ever known, but I know in my heart his inability to read probably kept him from fulfilling all of his dreams,” she continued. Now 30 years since its inception, the organization — which is a project of The Dollywood Foundation — has grown enormously, echoing Parton’s…

Every year, Kristina Ulmer gives each of her ninth-grade students a $20 bill. They can spend it however they choose, with just a single stipulation: It must fund an act of kindness. It’s a tradition that the Pennsylvania English teacher has been keeping for nearly a decade, after she lost her 29-year-old sister Katie in a car accident. Katie had left behind a $100 waitressing tip in her wallet, and Ulmer wanted to use it for something special in her sister’s honor. So she matched the money with her own savings and distributed it to her students, challenging them to use it for good. “I want them to make connections to the people around them,” Ulmer told CBC News. “I wanted them to notice that, you know, people around them…

School shootings like the tragedies in Winder, Georgia, and Uvalde, Texas, are all too common. And every fall, students like Lesley Andujar at Danbury’s Broadview Middle School take what they see in the news and channel it into change through Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit that helps students, teachers, and parents recognize the warning signs of gun violence, funds critical research into gun safety, and advocates for stricter gun law policies. Andujar, a seventh grader who has seen sadness and frustration mirrored in her peers, believes the real issue is isolation. “Maybe … they just need somebody to talk to,” she told the CT Mirror. “They feel alone and they feel isolated.” This feeling of isolation is one that Sandy Hook Promise counselor Christine Miller has spent years helping children…

The traditional approach to college is inaccessible to billions across the globe, whether due to prohibitive costs or even physical safety. So, University of the People, the first nonprofit, tuition-free, accredited online university dedicated to broadening access to higher education worldwide, was created. Based in California, the online platform reaches 150,000 students in 200 countries and territories. About 20,000 students are in the U.S. The university offers accredited certificates, associate and bachelor’s degree programs in business administration, computer science, and health science, and more. There is no tuition involved in obtaining a degree, but a variety of fees are required that add up to about $5,000 for a bachelor’s degree. But that price point is still vastly more accessible than other options today. Plus, students have up to 10 years…

GOOD Read “Half the Sky” by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn to explore the challenges girls face in accessing education, as well as hear real-life success stories of how education can be a conduit for overcoming poverty worldwide. BETTER Donate to CAMFED, the Campaign for Female Education, a nonprofit that unlocks education for girls in rural African communities and offers them a network of mentors to help them thrive. camfed.org BEST Become a volunteer with the International Rescue Committee. Opportunities include and youth mentoring for high school-aged girls in refugee communities, both online and IRL. rescue.org/volunteer…

GOOD Enroll in a free course at Harvard! Anyone in the U.S. can access these classes online, which include topics like computer programming, world religions, public health, U.S. government, and more. pll.harvard.edu/catalog/free BETTER Donate to Believe In Students, a nonprofit that gets cash into the hands of college students to help them meet their immediate needs while they pursue their degree. believeinstudents.org BEST Volunteer to be a mentor with iMentor. The nonprofit matches graduating high schoolers — soon to be first-generation college students — with college-educated mentors to support them through school. imentor.org…

Every Fourth of July since 2006, the Carnegie Corporation of New York has commissioned comic books that feature the stories of real-life naturalized citizens and their extraordinary lives for a series titled “Great Immigrants, Great Americans.” On the first page, against a sky-blue backdrop dotted with cityscapes, the introduction reads: “In this comic book, naturalized U.S. citizens tell their immigrant stories in their own words: how they built careers, fled war zones, united with family, found belonging, created a new home, and made America a better place.” In June, Carnegie partnered with the National Council of Teachers of English to bring the comics into classrooms nationwide. The initiative kicked off with a summer cohort, where teachers met to create middle and high school classroom resources based on the comic book…

As President Donald Trump takes aim at countless public institutions and agencies in his second term — from national parks to national archives — one of his promises looms especially large: the attempted gutting of the Education Department. In July, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could carry out mass layoffs in the Education Department, on top of 1,300 federal employees already out of work. Trump was also quick to attack colleges and universities, cutting federal research funding from the institutions that did not comply with anti-diversity directives, deepening political tensions with Harvard, Columbia, and countless others, since the start of his second term. But behind these “shock and awe” headlines are real people. While the government makes sweeping decisions, members of the public scramble to understand what…

There’s no question that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the education of millions of children. According to the BBC, U.S. literacy rates dropped significantly following 2020, a trend that educators have been working hard to reverse. Despite efforts to continue classes through remote learning, school closures disproportionately affected the country’s most vulnerable students, including students in low-income families and non-English-speaking households. In Colorado, the issue is especially stark. A 2025 report found that over half of children in grades three through eight are reading below proficient levels. Alfred Tatum, Ph.D., is an executive director at Colorado’s Literacy Research Center and Clinic, which opened its doors to Aurora locals in February. He said that their mission is twofold. “The goal of this research center is to do what we can to ensure…