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Homeless youth say they need more from schools, social services
Twenty-year-old Mikayla Foreman knows her experience is meaningful. Dealing with homelessness since 18 and currently living in a shelter, Foreman has managed to continue her academic journey, studying for exams this month in hopes of attaining a nursing degree. But Foreman believes there were intervention points that couldâve prevented her from experiencing homelessness in the […]
With homelessness rising, new federal rules could benefit states that take tougher approaches
As the housing shortage pushes more Americans into homelessness for the first time, the Trump administration wants to focus federal housing aid on mental health treatment and enforcement against street homelessness, rather than on finding people permanent homes as quickly as possible. The administrationâs new plan to tie federal housing aid to work requirements and […]
4-day school weeks are growing in popularity, despite a lack of data on the effects
Northeast of the capital city of Des Moines in central Iowa, the 400-student Collins-Maxwell Community School District is one of many across the state shifting to a four-day school week. Like many rural K-12 schools, the district has struggled to find teachers, and it sees the four-day week as a useful recruiting tool. It also […]
Corporate investment in residential housing may be another hurdle for first-time buyers
As corporate ownership of residential property across the country rises nationwide, researchers from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Center for Geospatial Solutions, which is housed at the institute, warn this rising trend has complicated the housing market for first-time buyers. According to a joint âWho Owns Americaâ report, nearly 9% of residential […]
Accreditation of colleges, once low key, has gotten political
When six Southern public university systems this summer formed a new accreditation agency, the move shook the national evaluation model that higher education has relied on for decades. The news wasnât unexpected: It arrived a few months after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in April overhauling the nationâs accreditation system by, among other […]
National school bus driver shortage persists, despite recent gains
School districts have made some progress in addressing the national shortage of school bus drivers, but there still arenât as many drivers as there were in 2019, according to a new study. The number of drivers has increased by 2,300, or 1.1%, since last year, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group. […]
âIt is a crisisâ: Mayors share how grappling with housing has shaped their jobs
In U.S. cities big and small, mayors are finding their tenures shaped by housing shortages, and efforts to build more homes, so that people of any income can afford a place to live. In a series of conversations, mayors of big cities such as Atlanta and Seattle, as well as of midsize Midwest cities like […]
Can states, and a little bit of faith, convert church land into affordable housing?
Growing up in a religious family, Florida Republican state Sen. Alexis Calatayud has seen how many church communities are no longer anchored to a single building in the way they used to be. Her small prayer groups take place over chats these days, not necessarily in person or sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in pews. With churches in […]
School ride-hailing services may be nudging aside traditional buses
As a middle-school student in 1980s Philadelphia, Shelley Hunter remembers getting to and from school pretty easily thanks to the cityâs public transit service, SEPTA, which had bus and train routes near her home and her school. Sometimes, she even felt comfortable enough to take a city cab. Now, Hunter is a single mother of […]
Illinois, Michigan see union membership gains after state policy changes
While union membership dips nationally, a new report by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois says two states that have strengthened laws on collective bargaining rights in recent years are seeing union membership increase. In 2022, Illinois voters approved a constitutional amendment protecting bargaining rights. […]
More states guarantee students the right to school-day religious instruction off campus
In the past month or so, federal courts have dealt a string of blows to conservativesâ push for the biblical Ten Commandments to be posted in public schools. Yet as states lose over required religious displays, many are working on another route to faith-based education by allowing kids to attend off-campus religious instruction. This year, […]
Microschools are growing in popularity, but state regulations haven’t caught up
When Siri Fiske founded the Mysa Microschool in Washington, D.C., in 2016, there wasnât a widely accepted term for her small, one-room schoolhouse model. Now, the school is referred to on its website as one of the first microschools in the nation, and Fiske has seen a growing microschool movement since the COVID-19 pandemic. In […]
