Author: Reporter

Join our zero2eight Substack community for more discussion about the latest news in early care and education. Sign up now. This story was originally reported by Lauren Nutall of The 19th. ARLINGTON, TEXAS — In early December, drilling resumed near Mother’s Heart Learning Center. Newly installed gas wells dot property at 2020 S. Watson Road, less than one mile from the day care. One day in December, the sound of fracking machinery was so cacophonous that children couldn’t play outdoors. For gas companies and stakeholders, the project is poised to be an economic windfall. But many Arlington residents and experts…

Artificial intelligence isn’t coming to education—it’s already here, reshaping how we work and what our students need to know. A friend recently asked me, “Vicki, how is vibe coding different from what we’ve always done?” It is very different but really exciting when we realize it is something all of us can do!In this show we talk about vibe coding, how I’m using Claude Cowork (agentic AI), and safety issues for the AI age. I also prompt a conversation about what students need to know in the AI age.As I talk to recent college grads who have lost their jobs…

Recent events suggest that university leaders may be falling into a troubling new pattern: firing tenure-line faculty first before settling with them later. While this approach may serve institutions’ short-term needs, it inflicts profound harm on the faculty who are affected—and it also promises to cause long-term damage to the universities themselves. In fall 2025, academics were among the many types of workers who discovered that their workplace speech rights were not what they had seemed to be when a number of professors (as many as 40, according to one estimate) lost their jobs for social media commentary discussing the…

Key points: District leaders across the country are grappling with a deepening crisis: Student mental and behavioral health needs are growing more complex. In a recent national survey, 58 percent of school-based providers reported that student mental health has worsened, a noticeable jump from the previous year (46 percent). With needs rising and staff stretched thin, many districts are struggling just to keep pace. Leaders looking to fix these issues are quickly met with the realization that no single program, person, or department can meet this moment alone. What students need most is consistency in the form of caring adults,…

The need to tighten purse strings and enrollment issues drove plans in March to cut hundreds of jobs and programs. Amid a confluence of challenges that include state and federal funding concerns, universities are also reviewing or cutting programs that have low enrollment. Several states have passed laws in recent years requiring colleges to slash programs that don’t meet certain enrollment thresholds. Here’s a look at campus job and program cuts announced or enacted last month. The New School Grappling with a projected $48 million budget deficit, the private university in New York City plans to cut up to 15 percent of…

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter For years, Wisconsin has held a troubling distinction in American education: the largest racial achievement gap in the nation. On the 2024 fourth-grade reading assessment from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the gap between white and African American students in Wisconsin was 45 points. The scale of the disparity has fueled intense debate. Some policymakers argue the gap is primarily the result of systemic racism or unequal school resources. But does the data back up this notion?  Recently, I conducted a deep dive to…

By: Alin Bennett Reality Meets Possibility On the second morning of an Education Reimagined Ecosystem Lab site visit to Colorado, our group gathered inside a small learning community called La Luz. What struck us immediately was the intentionality of the environment. The learning space was intimate, relational, and deeply connected to the identities and aspirations of the young people in the community. As we moved through learning experiences inside and beyond La Luz’s home base, we saw young people engaged not in isolated assignments but in real-world work—building projects, exploring community spaces, and learning alongside adults who functioned less like…

When we think of silence, we think of med­i­ta­tive stretch­es of calm: hikes through desert­ed for­est paths, an ear­ly morn­ing sun­set before the world awakes, a stay­ca­tion at home with a good book. But we know oth­er silences: awk­ward silences, omi­nous silences, and—in the case of John Cage’s infa­mous con­cep­tu­al piece 4’33”—a mys­ti­fy­ing silence that asks us to lis­ten, not to noth­ing, but to every­thing. Instead of focus­ing our aur­al atten­tion, Cage’s for­mal­ized exer­cise in lis­ten­ing dis­pers­es it, to the ner­vous coughs and squeak­ing shoes of a rest­less audi­ence, the cease­less ebb and flow of traf­fic and breath­ing, the ambi­ent white…

For a few years, we’ve been talking about marketing and communications needing a seat at the table discussing the product. That marketing needs to be involved earlier and operationalized into institutional decision-making. I am a big proponent of this idea. I’ve said the same thing myself. But lately, I’m thinking we are not addressing the root and we’re going about this the wrong way. Before we can ask for a seat at the table, we have to answer an essential question: What, exactly, is the product? For a consumer brand, the product is well defined. Take Nike as an easy…

Listen to the article 9 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.  There are people who fear that artificial intelligence will render human beings irrelevant in the workforce. Denise Kleinrichert is not one of those people. A management professor at San Francisco State University, Kleinrichert predicts that the use of AI will become as common as the use of cell phones, and that organizational departments to oversee AI’s use will become as ordinary as human resources departments.  “Is it going to completely replace all human beings? I can’t foresee that in our lifetime. Or…