This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.
Most-clicked story of the week:
The U.S. Department of Treasury on Oct. 1 released its long-awaited proposed rule for the Education Freedom Tax Credit, the first federal school choice program available nationwide. The proposed rule’s release marks a major development for the groundbreaking and controversial program, which was approved in 2025’s One Big Beautiful Bill and has been promoted by the Trump administration.
Number of the week:
13
The number of states that use additional pay to incentivize teachers who work in hard-to-staff schools, according to a Sept. 29 report from the National Council on Teacher Quality. Some 17 states offer additional pay to teachers who work in hard-to-staff subject areas, while only 10 states require districts to consider teacher performance in salary decisions.
New federal policies and guidance
- According to a Sept. 28 memo, the U.S. Department of Education will require all grant recipients to provide written justification for drawing down pre-approved funding beginning Nov. 1. The “defend the spend” push comes from President Donald Trump’s February 2025 executive order for the “Department of Government Efficiency” Cost Efficiency Initiative. Some education administrative organizations have raised concerns that the process could create delays in getting resources to schools, districts and states.
- The Education Department formally unraveled the Biden administration’s 2024 Title IX regulations, which had interpreted the federal anti-sex discrimination law’s protections to extend to LGBTQ+ students and school employees. The Biden-era regulations had been held up by legal challenges and made moot when the Trump administration reverted to its 2020 Title IX rule.
- The Education Department and U.S. Department of Justice recently issued joint guidance to help K-12 schools and higher education institutions prepare and protect themselves from swatting incidents, or false reports of a violent crime in progress intended to bring a heavy law enforcement response to a specific location. Swatting, the agencies said, is a “crisis” that causes significant disruption and trauma to school communities, along with the loss of millions of taxpayer dollars for personnel and equipment, disrupted learning time and property damage.
Curriculum corner
- The high school class of 2026 outperformed the previous year’s graduates on the SAT by 16 points with a mean total score of 1045, according to results released Sept. 29 by College Board. Scores were up across all student demographic groups, and average scores increased in both the reading and writing section and in the math section.
- Some 25% of 8th graders appear ready to take algebra, but roughly a quarter of those students still don’t end up taking the course even when their schools offer it, according to research released by NWEA. The study was based on data from 55,000 students, and just 42% of the schools represented offer algebra in 8th grade. Students in the top half of math achievement overall have been found to perform better when they take algebra earlier rather than later, the study said.
- Elementary school educators are still working to build in time for students to express themselves creatively through in-class journaling, despite the slew of other district and state curricular requirements they’re expected to meet. “It really is important for students to still have that time and autonomy to write about themselves, about their life, about their culture and identity,” said Victoria Dotson, 5th grade teacher at John W. Garvy Elementary School in Chicago and a member of the National Council of Teachers of English Elementary Teacher Cohort. “I want to make sure I give them the opportunity to be authors of their own work.”
