Author: Sequoia Carrillo

Mural by Warren Montoya, on the wall of Santa Fe Indian School. Esha Chiocchio for NPR hide caption toggle caption Esha Chiocchio for NPR The Santa Fe Indian School sits off a short road in the middle of the New Mexico city. Its half dozen stucco buildings blend into the flat, dusty landscape around it. “We were established in 1890 as a Native American boarding school,” Kyle Shutiva, a junior at the school, says. “It’s still a boarding school, but not how people would expect.” For more than a century federal Indian boarding schools worked to break tribal bonds by…

For more than a century, federal boarding schools worked to forcibly assimilate Native American children into white culture. We visit one school that has rewritten its legacy. AYESHA RASCOE, HOST: And now to one of the many scenes from across the country that illustrate American life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It’s part of a series we’re calling America in Pursuit, as we mark this year’s 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Today, a story that starts but doesn’t end in a dark chapter of American history. For more than a century, federal boarding schools worked…

Average reading and math scores for 9-year-old students rose from 2022 to 2025, according to the newest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images New federal test scores show younger students are making gains in reading and math — after years of declines. “I think this is an optimistic release,” Matthew Soldner, acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, told NPR. Results from the long-term trend (LTT) report, released Wednesday, provide a national look at progress in reading and math for 9- and…

A first-of-its-kind national study looks at the impacts of cell phone bans in schools. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: More students than ever are going to schools where cellphones aren’t allowed. More than two-thirds of states now have some restrictions, but are kids more focused? Are they learning more? A year ago, the National Bureau of Economic Research brought together academics from top universities to study these bans and highlight possible steps forward. This week, they issued their report. NPR’s Sequoia Carrillo has been covering this and is with us now to tell us more about it. Good morning, Sequoia.SEQUOIA CARRILLO, BYLINE:…

When Lila Byock’s oldest son was 11, she began to worry about how much time he spent on his school-issued iPad. It seemed as if he wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without it. “To the point that he was one day penalized for not having his iPad with him during PE class,” she recalls. She asked his school in central Los Angeles to explain why there was so much digital learning, even years after the COVID-19 pandemic: “There was no justification for why it was better,” she said. “It was just sort of, ‘Well, we got these things during COVID…

Kim Freudenberg, a longtime teacher in San Francisco, knew that raising two boys meant a lot of hard conversations. She warned them about all the usual dangers: drugs, alcohol, sex, social media, riding a bike without a helmet. “Never once did I even think that I needed to say ‘gambling,'” she recalls. One day, when her oldest son was 11, he was watching someone play video games on a livestream and clicked on a link in the comments. It took him to an offshore online casino. There, he got sucked in — to blackjack, poker, roulette. He could use items…

Madelyn Whitt (left) and Quani’e Lanier read in the school library at the Academy @ Shawnee, a magnet middle and high school in Louisville, Kentucky. With cellphones banned at their school, students find other ways to pass time. Lydia Schweickart for NPR hide caption toggle caption Lydia Schweickart for NPR How do you get teenagers to put their phones away for hours at a time? That is the question many schools are trying to solve as bans on cellphones sweep the U.S. — more than 30 states so far now restrict their use during the school day. One of those…

More students than ever went to class without their cell phones in 2025. Researchers, teachers and students look back on attempts to build phone-free learning spaces this year. Sequoia Carrillo 2025-12-31 09:43:29 Source link

Student test scores in the U.S. are down from where they were a decade ago. The trend is one that education researchers accept but took most of the decade to identify. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, “it was not yet obvious that there was a significant downward trend for most students,” says Martin West, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “[But] if you look at the data over the long term, it’s very clear.” West looks at a lot of student data, so when he started to see the decline, dating to the years after 2010, he…

The Trump administration will resume garnishing wages from student loan borrowers in default in early 2026, the U.S. Education Department confirmed to NPR. The move comes after a years-long pause in wage garnishment due to the pandemic. “We expect the first notices to be sent to approximately 1,000 defaulted borrowers the week of January 7,” a department spokesperson told NPR. The spokesperson said wage garnishment notices are expected to increase on a monthly basis throughout the year. A borrower is in default when they have not made loan payments in more than 270 days. Once that happens, the federal government…