• School Cell Phone Bans: Listen to Researchers and Stakeholders

    In my few years of teaching, I saw more than enough evidence to support phones being banned in schools. My students were regularly sharing photos of completed homework with friends, playing phone games under their desk, and claiming that their “mom” was calling them every single class. I also spoke to many students who wanted to be present in class but were plagued by the ringing and lighting up of their screens. They expressed anxiety at not being able to check notifications, which distracted their thinking during lessons. Without a regulated phone policy at my school, my route was to build trust in the classroom environment and encourage students one on one to cut down on distractions. This was, frankly, a time-consuming and discouraging endeavor. I felt like I was constantly fighting the distractions—not just phones, but school devices too—with students who already found “buying in” to the material difficult. It’s safe to say that my attempts at getting middle schoolers away from their phones were not always successful.

    That teachers support school phone bans is not surprising. What’s more surprising is how sudden the nationwide focus toward phone banning policy occurred, and how parents are reacting to the change. Within the last year, school phone bans have exploded in state education policy. As of 2025, 26 states have implemented a complete, or bell-to-bell, ban on phones in schools and 4 more have mandated some regulation on their use. 

    This widespread trend began in 2023 with Florida's HB 379, which calls attention to how quickly this trend has found its way into most state’s laws. What makes this abrupt trend even more confounding is the time between the game-changing iPhone‘s release in 2007, and lawmakers’ choice to get involved: a gap of 16 years. This is time in which teachers, parents, and administrators were on their own to figure out how to navigate this new world of cell phone usage in schools.

  • The Mindsets We Bring to Understanding Reading Laws

    Earlier this summer, we published a piece clarifying common misunderstandings about reading legislation. We sought to distinguish what truly is—and is not—in the laws we've been tracking and cataloguing for the past three years. Our primary concern is that oversimplifications and selective portrayals of the legislation often divert attention from constructive push back that could genuinely improve reading policy. Still, mischaracterizations persist – not solely because of incomplete or inaccurate readings of the laws themselves, but also due to the deep-seated beliefs and assumptions we all bring into these discussions. Put simply, our pre-existing views inevitably shape our sense making of what’s in these laws.
     
    Supporters of reading legislation generally concur that: (a) U.S. students performance on reading tests is concerningly low; (b) instruction, though not the sole determinant, remains a significant factor in shaping student reading outcomes; (c) many instructional practices and materials currently in use are poorly aligned with the established research consensus on how children learn to read; and (d) aligning these practices and materials more closely with the strongest available evidence would increase reading success for more students.
     
    In contrast, critics often contend that: (a) the purported reading crisis is overstated; (b) external factors such as poverty, the chronic underfunding of schools, or increasing chronic absenteeism to name a few factors, largely shape reading outcomes; (c) many educators already use evidence-based methods and materials; and (d) increased alignment of instruction and materials to the established research base is not guaranteed to meaningfully improve outcomes.
      

  • A Dispatch from the Department of People Who Work for a Living

    Our guest author is Bernie Burnham, President of the Minnesota AFL-CIO.

    Labor Day is upon us, once again, the day set aside to celebrate and honor our labor movement. Our labor movement, where the contributions of working people are recognized as valuable participants in the development and achievements of these United States.

    In recent weeks, our AFL-CIO has been on a bus tour traversing the country to remind Americans that “It’s Better in a Union.” Across this nation, union members are standing up and speaking out against the current federal administration and its attacks on labor. 

    Since he took office, Donald Trump has taken the unprecedented action of illegally cancelling collective bargaining agreements and refusing to recognize workers’ unions at six different federal agencies. 

    The attacks by this administration on the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) are outrageous, and we must stand strong as workers and be in solidarity to fight back.

  • Revisiting the Great Divergence in State Education Spending

    A few years ago, we took a quick look at the difference in K-12 education spending between the higher- and lower-spending states, and whether that “spread” has changed since the early 1990s. We found, in short, a substantial increase in that variation, one which really started in the long wake of the 2007-09 recession. 

    Let’s update that simple descriptive analysis with a few additional years of data, and discuss why it’s potentially troubling. 

    In the graph below, each teal circle is an individual state, and each “column” of circles represents the spread of states in a given year; the red diamond is the unweighted national average. On the vertical axis, we have predicted per-pupil current spending in a district with a 10 percent Census child poverty rate (roughly the average rate), controlling for labor costs, population density, and enrollment. This measure comes from our SFID state dataset (note that the plot excludes Alaska and Vermont). 

  • When Teachers Teach Teachers, Teachers Learn

    Our guest author is Kata Solow, executive director of the Goyen Foundation, where she led its multi-year transformation process and created the Goyen Literacy Fellowship to recognize exceptional reading teachers. 

    Elementary school teachers across the country are asking for help. 

    Go on Facebook, browse Twitter, and you’ll hear a common refrain: “We want to change how we teach reading, but we don’t know where to begin. We need to see what it looks like. Give us models and examples of excellent literacy instruction.” 

    Why is this happening? For these teachers, their world has just changed. Over the last five years, as reading-related legislation has swept the country, hundreds of thousands of elementary school teachers are being required to change the way they teach reading. This is a really big deal: changing how you teach reading is a hard thing to do.

    States are trying to help teachers make these changes. Most of the newly-passed laws support professional development for in-service teachers. However, the most common PD programs like LETRS are highly theoretical. While they provide educators with a strong foundation in the components of structured literacy and the research that underlies it, they do not address what these components look like in a real classroom.    

    At the Goyen Foundation, we think that we have started to build a model that bridges this research-to-practice gap by providing teachers with concrete examples of great literacy instruction. This piece is about how you can do it in your school or district.   

  • Celebrating 20 Years of AFT Collaboration with PBS Public Television Station WETA on Colorín Colorado!

    Guest author AFT Educational Issues Director Giselle Lundy-Ponce has been working in the field of PreK-12 education policy, research and advocacy for the last thirty-two years. In 2004 she initiated the partnership with the public television station WETA’s Learning Media Department to develop Colorín Colorado. Now with so much attention to the Congressional threat to defund public television, the story of 20 years of a successful partnership between AFT and public television station WETA -— to better meet the literacy needs of English language learners, their families, and their teachers -— is more important to tell than ever.

    In 2005, the AFT announced that it was launching Colorín Colorado, an online resource hub, to provide educators of English language learners (ELLs) with evidence-based resources, best practices, and information to help their students read and succeed. At the time of the launch, we recorded 400 visitors to the site, and we were pleased because we were reassured that we were meeting a need. Fast forward to today, we are thrilled beyond words that the initial 400 visitors have grown to over 3.5 million. When Colorín Colorado was launched, it was limited: We were almost exclusively a PK-3 website focused on literacy instruction, and the target audience was primarily educators and families of Spanish-speaking ELLs.

    Now we offer resources that span the PK-12 range, and the content of the website is applicable to ELLs from all language backgrounds. While many of the website’s resources are still available in Spanish, and we refer to the website as bilingual, we have added family literacy tip sheets in sixteen languages. Every year, we have kept growing and expanding beyond the literacy scope and are now the main clearinghouse for what works for ELLs in content areas across all academic subjects, social-emotional development, how to address trauma in the classroom, and a whole host of other topics on ELL instruction and ELL well-being.

  • The Citizen’s Republic: Power From the People

    Our guest author Erica McPheeters works with the Human Rights Campaign as a consultant and social advocate, focusing on equity, LGBTQ+ rights, and community empowerment.

    The Great Rejection

    Almost two hundred fifty years ago, the original American colonies decided to pursue the right to freedom. Before freedom came the king. This decision has not only changed the trajectory of human governance, but has influenced every aspect of American ideals for almost two hundred fifty years. By denying the proposed divine right of kings and embracing one of the most important concepts of the United States: democracy. This decision embedded certain principles into the legacy of this country. Power derives from the people and cannot be substituted with birthright or conquests. The United States’ shift from a monarchy to a democracy redesigned the future of the entire world while creating a new reality between the government and citizens.

    At the inception of our democracy, colonists were not only displeased with a monarchy government, but }"
    they were concerned with addressing the greater system that subjected individual citizens to a lack of rights, privileges, and freedoms. Absolute power implies the exclusive role of leaders in making decisions for the masses. Where there is a king, there are only subjects, not citizens. When the thirteen colonies declared independence, it represented the reclamation of all freedoms that humans deserve. They broke away from a deep-rooted history of accepting the inevitable rulership of kings. The Founders of the United States saw something greater for the future of this country. They pictured a republic where power can be held accountable. In this democracy, power is the responsibility of us all. It is now the responsibility of Americans to preserve and protect the democracy the Founders and colonists curated for us. 

    The Path from Subjects to Citizens

    The transformation from colonial subjects to democratic citizens was a relentless fight. Through decades of struggle, compromise, and refinement, the United States was able to form and assert our guiding values— life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These democratic ideals forged through historic events included the Boston Tea Party, the Continental Congress, and the fierce revisions of the Constitution. In these critical moments, Americans consistently chose self-governance over a king.

    However, democracy requires more than the absence of a king. The framers of the Constitution understood this well and formulated institutional safeguards against the concentration of power. The checks and balances, branches of government, and federalism system creates a division between any individual or group from gaining control of this democracy. In fact, the Bill of Rights aims to ensure these safeguards by protecting individual freedoms from the reach of the government, despite political pressure or opinion.

  • Science of Reading Laws: Let’s Begin with the Facts

    In the past five years, virtually every state has enacted legislation aimed at improving reading instruction—a wave of reform the Shanker Institute has been (and still is) following closely. The legislation is far from perfect. Some laws lack clarity or feel clunky — somewhat misaligned with the complexity of teaching and learning to read. Others are overly rigid, and have unenforceable mandates that do little to inspire educators' trust. 

    These are all valid critiques—ones we at the Institute have raised ourselves. But because we’ve taken the time to read and code these laws, we also take issue with how some of the criticisms are framed. Often, sweeping generalizations dominate the public conversation, misrepresenting both the content and intent of these laws. In this commentary, we address several of the most common misconceptions.

    But before jumping in, here is some context: a total of 118 laws in 23 states and the District of Columbia use the expression “science of reading” in at least one piece of legislation passed between 2019 and 2024. By contrast, language invoking the use of "evidence" and "research" appears in virtually all states. As we noted in our 2023 report, states vary significantly in how they define “science of reading” – a topic we may tackle separately. 

  • Howard University School of Law Presidential Charge to the Class of 2025

    Our guest author is Jaden Alexander Cody, a 2025 graduate of Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. and the 70th Student Bar Association President of Howard University

    Good afternoon everyone, it is a delight to share this space and this air with you all today. To President Vinson, to Provost Wutoh, to Dean Fairfax, Senator Alsobrooks, faculty, staff, esteemed alumni and guests, families and loved ones, I bring you greetings, but most importantly to the reason we are all here today, the class of 2025! Good afternoon, to you!

    My name is Jaden Alexander Cody, I am a graduating Third-Year Law student here at the University from Atlanta, Georgia and I have had the esteemed privilege of serving as the 70th Student Bar Association President of Howard University and thus Student Body President of Howard University School of Law.

    Before I continue, I want to just take a moment and class if you would join me I’m gonna need you… Because as much as we like to think it’s us and our brilliance, hard work and grit that got us to this seat, I’m sure those who filled the seats around us and online would disagree. All of us are here because someone or a lot of someones ensured that we had what we needed to graduate today, whether it be prayers, calls, textbooks, outlines, food, a roof over our head and or money, we are here because of a village behind us, so I want us to thank the villages that have convened here today for their part in ensuring that JD is about to follow our names. Lets thank the fathers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, friends, spouses, children, linebrothers and linesisters. And of course, because our celebration shares a weekend with a special day, the mothers and mother-like figures that have impacted us, class, if you would join me in thanking them for all they have done for us.

    While today we are ending a chapter as students of Howard University School of Law, we are entering a time of urgency, a time that scholars are noting already feels eerily similar to what many of us have learned about during our educational careers. We are standing in the days in which our children and their children will look back and either view our actions fondly, speaking our names proudly or question our complicity as we do those in Germany in the 30s, South Africa in the ’40s, 50s, and 60s or honestly, how we view peoples inaction in the face of injustice at any other point in American history. How will people be able to answer where you, where we, where the HUSL class of 2025 stood in history, how did we impact this field, that is so rapidly changing? How are we living out the mission of our University? How are we making the lives of minorities everywhere better? That is what I am here to welcome you to, welcome to a lifelong commitment to service, a lifelong commitment to justice, a lifelong commitment to equity, even when it makes some feel uncomfortable. That is what is expected of a Howard University School of Law lawyer.

  • Public Funds to Private Schools Will Leave Students with Disabilities Behind

    Our guest authors are the National Center for Learning Disabilities, The Arc of the United States, the Council for Exceptional Children, and the Center for Learner Equity.

    Just 50 years ago, in 1975, Congress enacted the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in order to ensure that students with disabilities have the opportunity to a free and appropriate education, like all children deserve. Thanks to generations of advocates the US House and US Senate passed IDEA and President Gerald Ford signed it into law.

    Last week the US House Ways & Means Committee marked up a budget reconciliation bill that will include a $20 billion proposal diverting public funds to private schools via the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA). While the bill includes new language about so-called “protections” for students with disabilities, it is insufficient in providing meaningful, enforceable protections for students with disabilities and their families. As the nation’s leading student advocacy organizations, the National Center for Learning Disabilities, along with the Council for Exceptional Children, the Center for Learner Equity, and The Arc of the United States, are staunchly opposed to this bill. 

    Consider this math: ECCA is estimated to fund private school tuition for about 1 million children for $5 billion a year (averaging $5000 per child). By contrast, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) currently serves 7.5 million children and receives $14.6 billion in federal funding a year, averaging less than $2000 per child. This funding level is about 10% of the average per-pupil expenditures. Instead of fully funding IDEA, a promise Congress has never fulfilled, this Congress chooses to fund vouchers, which ultimately benefit the wealthy instead of investing in educating students with disabilities, the overwhelming majority of whom attend public schools.