National Hispanic Heritage Month, which takes place annually from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, is a catalyst for school districts and county offices of education to reflect on local trends and practices and employ strategies to best support students and their families.
An August report from Bellwether suggests that although less than 1 percent of K-12 schools closed in the U.S. in the 2023–24 academic year, school closures may become less rare in the near future as local educational agencies grapple with declining enrollment, budget constraints and other issues.
The 57th annual PDK Poll on the public’s attitudes toward public education found that 43 percent of Americans give their local schools an A or B grade (down from 54 percent in 2022), while just 13 percent feel the same about the nation’s public schools (a fall from 23 percent in 2022).
Recent research concluded that teachers do continue to improve professionally the more experienced they become. Think Again: Do the Returns to Teacher Experience Fizzle Out? explores the conditions needed to foster ongoing growth and how the field can retain more seasoned educators.
Though enrollment in K-12 private schools continued to climb for a fourth year, momentum is slowing, according to the Cato Institute’s July report Survey: Is the Private School Enrollment Boom Ending?, which highlights enrollment trends between the 2023–24 and 2024–25 academic years.
The article “Cumulative exposure to urban heat can affect the learning capacity of students and penalize the vulnerable and low-income young population: A systematic review,” which was recently published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLOS Climate, considered seven studies spanning 61 countries and roughly 14.5 million students on the subject as communities around the globe continue to face more extreme climate-related event.
A recent report from EdTrust that compiles related-resources on fostering an equitable approach to improving literacy, provides recommendations for state and local actions to address subpar literacy rates.
Sending personalized messages to families is a relatively affordable strategy that can aid in reducing the number of school days missed, according to the working paper “Lifting Up Attendance in Rural Districts: A Multi-Site Trial of a Personalized Messaging Campaign.”
A pair of recent fact sheets from the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) provide a national overview of teacher shortages in 2025 and insights into teacher shortages by subject area across states.
This spring, the San Mateo County Office of Education and nonprofit Ten Strands announced the launch of Seeds to Solutions — high-quality and free age-appropriate curriculum materials that educators can access to teach K-12 students about environmental literacy.
