CHEERS
Teacher vacancies in Maryland are down 73 percent since the 2022–23 school year. State Superintendent Carey Wright credits “targeted investments and partnerships.” Those include the state’s Grow-Your-Own Educators grant, which helps non-licensed school staff become teachers and now prioritizes the recruitment and retention of male educators. It also seems possible that the end of federal ESSER dollars, plus declining enrollment, has shrunk the number of teachers needed. Plus, perhaps AI’s effect on early-career jobs is driving new college grads to the profession. That would be welcome!
JEERS
A team from NBC News set out to understand how students use YouTube at school. Tyler Kingkade reports on what they learned after analyzing the site histories of eleven children in grades two through 12:
In a first-of-its-kind analysis, reporters examined more than 17,000 videos through a mix of AI and manual review. More than 95 percent of the videos, which include ads, were not educational.
Five of the students viewed between 1,200 and 5,800 YouTube videos during school hours last academic year, and two others viewed more than 500 videos within just two months. (The actual figures are higher, but NBC News limited the analysis to videos that were still available to view on YouTube recently.) Hundreds of the videos contained profanity, sexually suggestive scenes or references to drugs and alcohol.
Editor's note: This was first published on Mike Petrilli's Substack, SCHOOLED, a free Substack and email newsletter restarting the education-reform conversation. Click here to subscribe for sharp analysis of the week’s biggest K–12 debates, curated commentary from across the ed-policy world, and lively discussion—including reader reactions and pushback.
