The Education Gadfly Weekly

In 2014, NPR covered newly published research focusing on the impact of technology on kids. The UCLA study found that sixth graders who went five days without exposure to technology—a smartphone, television, or other digital screen—did “substantially better at reading human emotions” than sixth graders from the same school who spent hours looking at electronic devices each day. A senior author of the study, Patricia Greenfield, told NPR that “this study should be, and we want it to be, a wake-up call to schools. They have to make sure their students are getting enough face-to-face social interaction. That might mean reducing screen time.”

More than a decade later, schools are finally responding to that wake-up call. This spring, an article published by U.S. News & World Report noted that “after pouring billions of dollars into laptops, tablets and learning apps, many schools are facing a digital reckoning.” This summer, the nation’s second-largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, caused a stir by banning screen time for students in preschool through first grade and strictly limiting it for older students.

Ohio policymakers have also tried to rein in screen time. State law requires all public schools to have a policy that prohibits cell phone use by students during the instructional day. But cell phones aren’t the only devices kids use in school. In fact, results from a Fordham Institute survey of thousands of current and recent high schoolers across the country found that a whopping 62 percent said school-issued devices occupy a majority of their in-class time.

To be clear, not all screen time is created equal. There’s a difference between using a laptop to write an essay on Romeo and Juliet and mindlessly scrolling on social media. Devices aren’t inherently harmful. But adults need to ensure that kids have balance and that screens aren’t stunting childhood and adolescent development.

In Ohio, one way to create a better balance would be a new graduation component that requires all students to complete 250 hours[1] of real-world activities to earn a diploma. Students could complete their hours by working a part-time job, completing a work-based learning experience or registered apprenticeship, or volunteering in their local community. To ensure that all students are held to the same standards, the Department of Education and Workforce (DEW) could create a universal form that students must submit to their school. These forms would log hours, require a signature from the adult who directly oversees the student, and identify third-party documentation (like pay stubs) that could be used in place of a signature. Students could mix and match their options—for instance, 200 hours working during the summer, and 50 hours volunteering during the school year—but students must earn a minimum of 25 hours for an option to count toward their total.

For a teenager, 250 hours might sound like a lot of time. But remember, students would have four years to complete the requirement. A sophomore who volunteers for three hours on Saturdays would need roughly two years’ worth of Saturdays. A junior working part-time could meet the threshold in less than a year by working two three-hour shifts a week. A rising senior who spends her summer working 30 hours a week could complete her hours before the fall begins. The requirement is intentionally broad enough for students to pursue their unique interests and goals in a variety of ways because the objective isn’t to micromanage how students experience the real world. It’s just to incentivize them to do so.

For this incentive to work, though, Ohio leaders must ensure that all students have access to opportunities. A 2024 Labor Department study found that students from families with higher incomes are more likely to be employed during the summer than their peers from families that earn less. Issues like transportation, competition for jobs, or limited opportunities due to geographic location could make meeting this requirement harder for some kids than others.

But that’s a solvable problem. Schools could help students find part-time jobs by hosting job fairs or partnering with local organizations. They could collaborate with nearby nonprofits, local libraries, and community-based organizations to coordinate regular volunteering opportunities. They could also do a better job of publicizing available CTE pathways that are linked to work-based learning or apprenticeships. Leaders in urban areas could follow their peers in Boston and prioritize youth employment. Leaders in rural areas could help students access transportation on the weekends or provide in-house opportunities (like tutoring elementary students) at the end of the school day. State leaders, meanwhile, should continue investing in initiatives like the High School Tech Internship Program and explore how to establish additional opportunities.

If enacted, this new requirement would incentivize teenagers to step away from their screens and get some real-world experience. But that isn’t the only benefit. A requirement like this could also do the following:

Boost student outcomes. Experimental evidence from the Boston Summer Youth Employment Program found broad benefits for students who were selected to participate via the program’s lottery. Those benefits included an increased likelihood of graduating on time, improvements in school attendance and grade point average, and boosts to work habits, soft skills, and aspirations to attend college.

Give students an opportunity to build and sharpen their skills. Time management. Punctuality. Effective communication. Teamwork. Critical thinking and problem-solving. Dressing appropriately. Speaking professionally. Policymakers and advocates use a variety of umbrella terms to describe these capabilities (think soft skills or durable skills) but their importance is universal. These are the competencies students need to succeed in the workplace—and according to the Aspen Institute, 85 percent of employers say durable skills are developed through life and work experience, not instruction.

Connect students to a wider range of people and experiences. When students work or volunteer in their communities, they’re required to interact with community members of different ages, nationalities, religions, backgrounds, and beliefs. These kinds of experiences can help teenagers understand that the world is a diverse place and can help them develop the skills they need to navigate it.

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Whether it’s at school or at home, devices have become irrevocably embedded in students’ lives. To balance out all that screen time, adults must ensure that teenagers have plenty of opportunities to put their devices down and develop the skills they'll need as adults. Establishing a graduation requirement for real-world experience would help accomplish that. 

Four years ago, public school activists launched a full-scale attack on Ohio parents’ freedom to make educational choices on behalf of their children. In addition to an aggressive PR campaign, they filed litigation seeking to destroy Ohio’s flagship private-school-choice program, known as EdChoice. As of 2025–26, the program served 148,732 Ohio students. These students received scholarships worth an average of $5,497, or roughly one third of the $17,739 per-pupil spent by traditional school districts.

Led by plaintiff school districts, the EdChoice lawsuit was first filed in 2022. Last year, a Democratic Franklin County trial judge sided with the plaintiffs. The decision was appealed, and earlier this month, a three-member court (all Democrats) ruled again in favor of the districts. The panel “stayed” its decision, thus allowing the program to remain intact as the case heads to the Ohio Supreme Court.

The appellate court ruled that EdChoice offends the state constitution in two ways: 1) it “secures” a system of “uncommon schools” and 2) it “undermines” the “financial integrity” of public schools.

Here at Fordham, we’ve debunked the fiscal argument on many occasions. The most recent funding data continue to demonstrate its weakness.

• Over the past decade, school district spending has surged to record levels. In 2025–26, Ohio school districts spent $17,739 per pupil, or $25.5 billion.[1] This amount exceeds districts’ inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending in 2020–21 ($16,453) and 2015–16 ($15,877). It’s also far more than what districts spent during the 1990s when the DeRolph school funding case was working its way through Ohio’s courts.

• Of the $25.5 billion spent in 2025–26, the State of Ohio contributed $9.9 billion through direct state aid. Another $8.1 billion was generated by districts through a state-required 20-mill property tax.[2] Taken together, these two state funding mechanisms ensure that all Ohio districts have sufficient baseline aid to educate students.

• Looking at spending in the five named plaintiff districts, we find that Barberton spent $19,430 per pupil in 2025–26; Cleveland Heights-University Heights, $27,820 per pupil; Columbus, $25,095 per pupil; Lima, $18,977 per pupil; and Richmond Heights, $22,081 per pupil. If districts that spend this much are feeling financial pressure, it’s not because of inadequate revenue. It’s their own poor fiscal management.

The appellate court’s “uncommon schools” argument was not prominently featured in the trial court opinion, but its reasoning is flawed for the following reasons.

1. The Ohio Constitution and relevant case law do not forbid the General Assembly from supporting “uncommon” schools that operate independently from the public school system. In fact, there is even language in the Ohio Constitution that urges legislators to “encourage” schools that promote “religion, morality, and knowledge”—elements that are more prominent in the curricula and programs of Ohio’s private schools than in the modern public school system.[3]

2. There are strong policy reasons for supporting “uncommon schools” that cater to students’ individual needs. If children were widgets, a singular, one-size-fits-all public school system might make sense. But children are not widgets. Ohio parents and students deserve multiple educational options, so they can secure a school that aligns with their unique needs, beliefs, and values—exactly what the EdChoice program facilitates.  

3. Nevertheless, the appellate court accuses “uncommon” private schools of depriving parents of choice. They deliver this whopper of a line: “EdChoice schools are uncommon in the way that they actually end up depriving families of choice.” Huh? Tell that to the thousands of working-class Ohio families who rely on state scholarships to enroll their child in a private school.

4. The court goes on to fault private schools for “cherry picking” students. The judges offer no empirical evidence of systemic “cherry picking,” but it is true that some private schools have selective admissions. Yet if non-selective admissions were a requirement of a “common school,” Ohio’s suburban school districts would be suspect as they deny students based on residential addresses. So would public schools such as Walnut Hills in Cincinnati or Stivers in Dayton, which admit students based on their academic track record and auditions.

5. The appellate court further argues that private schools are “uncommon” because relatively few are located in rural Ohio. Private schools are certainly more plentiful in densely populated urban areas, but students from 594 of the state’s 607 school districts participated in EdChoice last year. In my neck of the woods (rural Wayne County), nearly 1,000 students attended private schools via scholarships. And if the concern with EdChoice is truly its geographic scope, there is a remedy at hand: Create grant programs that help seed private schools in less-served parts of Ohio.

6. Finally, the judges argue that private schools are “uncommon” because they face less oversight and accountability. The argument is flawed on various grounds. First, the EdChoice scholarship is—as noted at the top—worth just a fraction of the per-pupil funding districts receive. Their lightened regulatory load is consistent with smaller amounts of public funding. Second, scholarship-accepting private schools must administer state exams, or a state-approved alternative, with test results reported publicly (including growth data coming soon, as well). Third, accountability cannot be a constitutional requirement of a “common school,” as the public school system faces virtually no accountability of its own. For instance, chronically underperforming districts and district-run schools operate without serious state intervention or penalty. This is bad policy, of course, but is an accountability-free public school system unconstitutional under the appellate court’s theory? Fourth, private schools operate with more accountability to families. When parents are dissatisfied, they leave and take their scholarship and (if applicable) tuition with them. When students disenroll in a public school, there are no financial consequences. The district keeps all its local tax revenues while “guarantees” shield it from reductions in state aid.

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Ohioans provide more than $25 billion each year to support traditional school districts—a well-funded and constitutional system that ensures that every child across the state has at least one educational option. That singular option, however, may not work for every child. That’s precisely why Ohio lawmakers have promoted, supported, and expanded the educational options available to families. With any luck, the Ohio Supreme Court will soon put an end to the malicious lawfare against private schools—and the families who choose them.  

A few months ago, the nonpartisan research organization RAND released a report focused on career-connected learning in K–12 public schools. To determine how well schools are preparing students for what comes after graduation, researchers leveraged a trio of nationally representative surveys conducted during the 2025–26 school year. Survey questions focused on how district and school leaders structure career-connected learning and how high schoolers describe their experiences.

Although the RAND results aren’t Ohio-specific, they contain plenty of important lessons for policymakers and advocates who have been working toward improving career-connected learning in the Buckeye State. In this piece, we’ll take a closer look at the RAND report’s key takeaways from both educators and students. Then, we’ll examine the lessons Ohio should learn from these findings.

Career-connected learning from the perspective of an educator

Most district leaders reported that students have their first career-connected learning experiences in middle school. The most common opportunities were career exploration courses or electives, which were offered in 79 percent of districts. Rural locales were significantly more likely to offer these courses than their suburban and urban counterparts. A majority (67 percent) of district leaders said that some or all of their middle schools expect students to create written plans that identify their academic, career, and personal goals. Just over half reported that their middle schools administer career interest or aptitude assessments.

At the high school level, 96 percent of principals report that all students are required or have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with a counselor about college or career plans. Most schools also connect students with local employers, although there’s some variation in access: 63 percent offer employer connections to all students, while 21 percent reserve them for certain students.

District leaders were asked to report whether their schools provided career-connected learning in 14 industries. The most commonly identified industries were health care and human services; agriculture; digital technology; education; construction; and arts, entertainment, and design. CTE pathways and credit-bearing courses were the most common offerings. Nearly three-fourths of district leaders said that one or more of their schools offered at least one complete CTE pathway. A majority also reported offering other credit-bearing courses. Work-based learning opportunities were far less common. During the 2025–26 school year, only 37 percent of districts offered internships and 21 percent offered apprenticeships. Urban locales were more likely to offer these opportunities than their counterparts.

Career-connected learning from the perspective of a high school student

As noted above, the vast majority of principals report that all their students are offered the opportunity to meet one-on-one with a counselor about college or career plans. According to students, though, many of these meetings aren’t taking place until the end of high school. In the spring of the 2025–26 school year, just 23 percent of ninth graders reported meeting one-on-one with a counselor or advisor to talk about their options after high school. The share was higher in other grades—34 percent of tenth, 53 percent of eleventh, and 72 percent of twelfth graders reported meetings. But it’s concerning that so many students still hadn’t discussed their post-graduation options with a counselor by spring of their senior year.

The content of these meetings matters, too. Less than a fourth (22 percent) of surveyed high schoolers reported that the information they received from their schools about planning for their future “very much” matched their interests, compared to 71 percent that said the information “somewhat” matched. Roughly two-thirds of students reported “heavy emphasis on four-year college” while relatively few said there was an emphasis on other pathways like two-year community colleges or technical training.

There’s also a worrisome disconnect between students’ expectation of engaging in work-based learning and actual participation. Only 22 percent of high school seniors participated in an apprenticeship or internship despite 66 percent indicating that they had planned to do so. RAND notes that “student interest is not the limiting factor” in participation and that these findings “could reflect the level of supports that schools provide for these activities, the degree of commitment by students and families in following through on work-related learning plans, or some combination of both.”

Lessons for Ohio

The RAND report sheds some much-needed light on what career-connected learning looks like in schools across the nation. But what does it mean for Ohio, specifically? Here are four takeaways.

1. Ohio needs to do more for middle schoolers. RAND’s findings indicate that most districts nationwide offer career exploration courses in middle school and require middle school students to create plans that identify their academic, career, and personal goals (79 and 67 percent, respectively). There are districts in Ohio that already do these things. But there are also plenty that don’t, and that needs to change. Fortunately, a solution is already on the table. Senate Bill 328, which was passed unanimously by the Senate and is currently in the House, would require Ohio districts to provide career exploration instruction to middle schoolers and require students to create academic and career plans by the end of eighth grade. Lawmakers should pass it as soon as possible.

2. Students need more support throughout high school. RAND researchers found that by the spring of their junior year, more than 40 percent of students hadn’t discussed college or career plans with a guidance counselor or developed a post-high school plan. Ninth graders who create plans and receive support have more than three years to ensure their high school courses and activities align with their interests and future goals. Students approaching their senior year have just one. Ohio should do whatever it takes to boost the capacity of counselors and advisors to ensure that students are creating plans and receiving support as early as possible.

3. Ohio schools should give students information on all their options. According to RAND, students report “heavy emphasis” on four-year degrees. That’s understandable, given that the college wage premium is alive and well. Students who are both prepared for and interested in enrolling at a four-year college or university should be encouraged to do so. High-achieving, low-income students, in particular, deserve more opportunities and better support. But higher education isn’t the only meaningful path into a stable career, and sending students to college when they’re unprepared for the academic rigor increases the likelihood that they’ll drop out with student loan debt and no degree. Ohio schools should ensure that students are aware of all their options—including two-year community colleges and technical centers—and not just four-year institutions. Lawmakers, meanwhile, need to address the academic readiness issue by doubling down on reading and math improvement efforts.

4. Students need more opportunities to access work-based learning. Although a “substantial majority” of students planned to participate in work-based learning opportunities like internships and apprenticeships, many didn’t end up doing so. The RAND data suggest that “schools are not doing enough to encourage take-up of the opportunities that do exist and that many schools may lack the employer connections that are needed to expand those opportunities.” To tackle this problem in Ohio, lawmakers should champion initiatives that would improve awareness of CTE and increase access to work-based learning.

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Ohio leaders deserve credit for their efforts to expand and improve career-connected learning. But there’s still plenty of work to be done, and the RAND report offers several paths forward. Policymakers who are committed to ensuring every Ohio graduate is ready for life after high school would be wise to take a closer look at these findings.

The newest test data from NWEA MAP show several unmistakably positive signs of academic recovery from post-Covid lows. But they must be understood in context—between subjects, across grade levels, and among different groups of students—because not all the signs are good and much work remains to be done before pandemic education disruptions are fully remediated.

The latest trend analysis of MAP Growth assessment data extends through spring 2026 testing in grades K–8 in both reading and math. It includes test results for more than 20 million students attending 30,000 schools across the country. Not a nationally representative sample, but a very broad snapshot of students.

NWEA researchers report three key findings, focusing on one-year trends between spring 2025 and spring 2026. Here they are:

First, after a long period of post-Covid stagnation in reading test scores, MAP Growth reading data showed sizable improvements between 2025 and 2026 from kindergarten to eighth grade. In just that one year, about 15–33 percent of the remaining pandemic reading gap[1] was erased for those grade levels. The largest reading improvement was seen among eighth graders, as was also true in 2025. Kindergarten scores, which never showed the same steep post-Covid declines as other grades, continued a steady upward trend, landing at 0.05 standard deviations (SD) above their prepandemic mean as of spring 2026.

Second, historically underserved groups—such as Black and Hispanic students, as well as those attending high-poverty schools—showed some of the largest reading gains from 2025 to 2026. For example, the gap between Hispanic fifth graders and their White peers narrowed from -0.47 SDs in spring 2025 to -0.38 SDs in spring 2026, the most sizable improvement since 2021. Co-author Megan Kuhfeld also noted, in an Education Week piece covering the trend report, that reading scores for the lowest-performing students, those at the 10th percentile, improved as well.

Third, although math achievement in kindergarten through fifth grade continued to show incremental progress toward recovery, the middle-school grades have stagnated after several years of small but steady increases.

While highlighting the good news, the report does not hide the concerning data. Covid-era learning loss remains substantial in most grades. Other than the bright spot of kindergarten reading, test scores remain below prepandemic levels, and achievement gaps by race, ethnicity, and school poverty level are wide and persistent. The NWEA authors are also concerned that any positive news might encourage teachers and policymakers to take their foot off the gas rather than pushing forward with all of the interventions and supports that have been implemented in service of recovery. “The 2026 results are a promising sign that recovery is possible,” they conclude, “but continued progress will likely depend on whether states and districts can move from short-term rebound to durable, systemwide improvement.”

SOURCE: Megan Kuhfeld and Karyn Lewis, “Turning a corner in reading: MAP Growth data shows reading improvements after period of post-COVID stagnation,” NWEA Research (September 2026).

The Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) at the City University of New York (CUNY) is a much-studied intervention designed to help low-income community college students overcome barriers to degree completion. Fordham has looked at several previous analyses, both in New York City and its Ohio counterpart. But the New York program is back under the microscope again. The latest study examines ASAP’s impact on participants’ education and labor market outcomes 14 years after they first enrolled.

ASAP was launched at City University of New York (CUNY) campuses in 2007, aiming to help new students persist to graduation with a full suite of supports, including intensive advising, tutoring, and career development services; tuition gap coverage; free textbooks; and transportation assistance in the form of gasoline gift cards. MDRC began its investigation of ASAP in 2009, with a group of 900 students randomized into and out of the program. And while the final cohort entered the trial back in 2012, researchers have continued to follow and evaluate their educational and career paths ever since.

Among the previous findings: After three years, 40 percent of the ASAP students had earned a degree, compared to 22 percent in the control group. Meanwhile, 18 percent of ASAP students had transferred to four-year institutions to continue with their education, compared to 12 percent of the control group. After six years, ASAP students had a 10 percentage point advantage over their non-ASAP peers in degree attainment, still statistically significant. And after ten years, researchers found that students earning a terminal associate degree at a CUNY campus earned approximately $2,400 more per quarter (roughly $9,700 annually) than non-completers.

The latest analysis looks at 14 years of data for each cohort—a total of 896 individuals. Just over 57 percent of those offered ASAP earned a degree in that time, compared with 50 percent of those who were not offered ASAP, a large and statistically significant impact, while obviously a smaller difference than ever. However, ASAP actually produced a small—though not statistically significant—negative impact on annual earnings. Those offered ASAP earned approximately $36,000 per year, compared with approximately $38,000 per year for their control group peers. These results differ from findings from the ASAP replication in Ohio, where strong positive effects on earnings were observed for many years after treatment.

As part of their explanation for these puzzling data, the researchers note that their findings are limited to New York State only. Any participant who worked in another state registered earnings of $0. In the report, they also discuss a previously unexplained quirk of the original analytic model. Students entering several traditionally high-earning CUNY majors (Allied Health Sciences, Pre-Clinical Nursing, Forensic Science, and Engineering Science) were ineligible for ASAP because course requirements made graduating within three years difficult—because “on time graduation” was a primary impetus of the program. And while neither treatment nor control group students could be enrolled in these majors at the start of the program/analysis, students were free to switch to them later. However, doing so would remove ASAP supports, a fact that likely encouraged treatment group students to stay in traditionally lower-earning majors so as to remain in the program. Fascinating. “Most of ASAP’s impact on degree completion,” the analysts write, “came from students completing degrees in fields where employed CUNY graduates historically tend to have relatively low earnings (for example, an associate’s degree in liberal arts) among CUNY graduates.”

Beyond these analytical concerns, the researchers also believe their findings reflect the fact that earning power in the Empire State depends strongly on education level attained. ASAP, they conclude, increased the likelihood that students completed a degree, but degrees that mostly had low earning potential and low likelihood of transferring to bachelor’s degree programs. “Much of this gain [in degree earning via ASAP] came from moving students from the ‘no degree completed’ category into completing degrees that typically yield relatively low earnings among CUNY graduates.” Degree-completing ASAP students at the lowest income level outearned their non-completing ASAP peers by about $9,000 per year.

In a Hechinger Report article accompanying the report’s release, it is clear that the ASAP support program will continue at CUNY and beyond, no matter what this or future research findings reveals. The program has exploded since its inception, now serving more than 22,000 students. New York City’s budget for it at CUNY campuses alone is more than $76 million a year. We also learn that it has become more efficient, with the cost per student now $3,400 per year, compared to $6,000 back in 2010. Let’s hope the schools have also learned a few things from these important analyses about how to improve student outcomes.

SOURCE: Michael J. Weiss et al., “The 14-Year Effects of CUNY ASAP on Educational and Labor Market Outcomes,” MDRC (August 2026).