Friday News Roundup

Here’s your Friday News Roundup:

Shut Out: Inequitable Access to After School Programs Grows (The 74)

Wait! I thought “equity” was a bad word now, something we shouldn’t concern ourselves with in the public education system.

Well for those who want us to stop focusing on “equity inside the classroom,” good news when it comes to after school program accessibility.

The 74 reported this week that,

“The America After 3PM found in a survey of more than 30,500 parents earlier this year about 77% who want to enroll their children in after school programs can’t – most citing cost, accessibility and availability as the main issues.”

“The ‘unmet demand’ of after school programs affects about 22.6 million children and is expected to worsen unless states take action, according to the report, as President Donald Trump’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 eliminates more than $1.3 billion in federal funds dedicated to these programs.

When I worked in a public school district, you could always tell people’s priorities by how they spent, or didn’t spend, money. We’ve said it before, but it needs to be said again –

Donald Trump doesn’t care about giving kids – especially those black, brown, and poor – the opportunity to become smarter and stronger.

Why Most Principals Say Cellphone Bans Improve School Climate (EducationWeek)

According to EducationWeek,

“Nearly 3 in 4 principals believe banning cellphones has big upsides for school climate, according to a report published this month by the research think tank RAND Corp.”

“’Principals overwhelmingly felt that those cellphone bans had safety-related benefits,’ said Melissa Kay Dliiberti, an associate policy research at RAND who worked on the report. And it appears most school leaders believe that ‘the benefits of the bans outweigh the trade-offs.’”

Henry Ford is said to have uttered this phrase when his Model T his the streets:

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

And that’s what is going to happen with the decision to ban cellphones. 100 years from now people will look back and judge those who have disallowed kids from learning to learn through device technology as backward and senseless.

Today’s decision-makers would have chosen the horse instead of the Model T.

In New Role, Ryan Walters Takes His Anti-Union Message National (The 74)

Ryan Walters, the ex-state school superintendent who quit leading Oklahoma’s K-12 system to form a non-profit designed to eliminate teacher unions, has taken his work to the national level.

But his early work for the Teacher Freedom Alliance has met with, at best, mixed results.

In 2018, the Supreme Court decided in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that teachers and other public sector employees can opt out of paying fees to unions they don’t want to join. But teacher votes across the country seem to suggest that they want to stay with their unions.

Recently, 83% of United Teachers of Dade (Florida) voted to stay with their union.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called the Foundation’s post-Janus efforts a ‘dismal failure.’

I’m not a big fan of unions but thinking that a nut job like Ryan Walters is the right guy to take on two of the most powerful unions in the country is just stupid.

Health Care Premiums Set to Rise by 7% for School Employees Next Year (Vermont Public)

This is a recipe for disaster, not just for Vermont’s K-12 system, but for states across the nation.

Health care premiums are set to rise by 7% for Vermont school employees next year, while the state approved a 3% pay increase for the 2026-27 school year.

Now I’m not a math whiz, but even I know 7 is greater than 3, and if this type of trend continues, no one will be able to afford to teach in America’s classrooms any longer.

Dubbed Tutoring’s ‘Patient Zero,’ Boston’s Match High School Weathers Trump Cuts (The 74)

“Founded in 2000 as the uppercase MATCH: Media and Technology Charter High School, after 25 years remains stubbornly small and intensely personalized, offering a stunning contrast to how many other charter organizations have developed: Each morning, just 266 students from all over Boston – many of whom ride the bus or subway for more than an hour – crowd into the trim three-story edifice.”

Say what?

266 students.

That’s it?

Why do we continue to pay attention of small schools like MATCH that, although they demonstrate great success with the kids they teach, choose to remain so small as to invite criticism for not making a difference.

Now, if MATCH was willing to scale their model and create 100 schools of 266 each, and ensure the success demonstrated over the 25 years, then one might get excited. That would impact ½ the number of kids currently enrolled in the Boston Public Schools, 26,600 compared to BPS’s enrollment of 54,000.

But until that happens, who really cares?

Happy Halloween. Til Monday. SVB