Author: Nelson Rosario

There is a certain kind of ambition that doesn’t make itself known. The noise level is low enough that it doesn’t bother people in the hallway or at family gatherings. It works slowly and quietly for four years, until it crosses a stage at the Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall and everyone in the state knows about it. That’s pretty much how Vaibhav Bhaskar would put it, though he might not include the dramatic frame. On May 24, 2026, Bhaskar graduated from Steinbrenner High School as valedictorian. He had the highest grade point average (GPA) ever recorded in Florida history,…

A certain type of document quietly shows up, is passed around ministerial offices, and eventually becomes the thing that everyone talks about without being able to say where it came from. The 2026 Global Education Monitoring Report seems to be just that kind of document. It was shaped in large part by the frameworks and advocacy priorities that groups like OMEP have pushed for decades. It began at the end of March at UNESCO’s main office in Paris. People who were there say that the room was full of education ministers, policy researchers, and development partners. It was the kind…

People who are paying the most attention stop asking “should we adapt?” and start asking “how fast can we move?” at a certain point in any big change. In terms of education and AI, that time feels like right now. And it looks like researchers at the University of Cambridge are the only ones willing to fully ask the question that no one else is: what is the point of an exam if a chatbot can already pass the tests we use to see how much students have learned? It’s a really unsettling question. It’s not because the answer is…

In the middle of every big mistake made by an institution, the tide slowly turns. Nothing is said about it. There are a few votes by the school board here, a petition from parents there, and then the district quietly puts carts full of iPads back in storage. For American school technology, that time is now. It was thought that more technology would help students learn better in U.S. public schools for about ten years. Kids in kindergarten took laptops home with them. Textbooks were replaced by apps. A lot of the time, districts signed contracts worth hundreds of millions…

When you ask a childcare director about staffing, they look very angry. It’s not really panic. Not quite that. It’s more of the look of someone who has been living with a slow leak for years without a proper wrench to hand. It’s not news that there aren’t enough qualified early childhood educators. It’s been slowly growing for more than ten years, caused by low wages, high turnover, and a path to credentials that most working adults can’t afford to take. What is getting people’s attention, though, is a possible way through. It looks a lot like a model that…

It’s not very big in here. One wall is full of crayon drawings. There is a woman named Ms. Denise kneeling next to a three-year-old who just threw a block across the room. This is something she has done for eleven years. She’s not yelling. As she talks softly and slowly, she pulls the child back from the edge of a meltdown. This is the job. Not flashy, quiet, or important in a big way. Early care and education providers are, in a real sense, the first people young children meet who work in systems that are meant to help…

A group of thirteen-year-olds once watched a video of a young child having an asthma attack in a classroom somewhere in central London. There was no health class for them. Design and Technology was where they were. They made drawings, prototypes, and child-friendly inhaler packs next, which turned out to say something much bigger about how creativity works than anyone had thought at first. Following a year-long study at the University of Cambridge, led by researchers Bill Nicholl and Ian Hosking, some very strong results have been found. In one London school, students followed the normal D&T lessons. The students…

Sometime between the third and fourth time you see a student put on a VR headset for the first time, you know that something has changed. The usual restlessness in the classroom goes away, like moving chairs around, checking phones, and slowly losing focus. The pupil stays still. After that, they try to touch something that isn’t there. No matter how quiet it is, that moment says more about where education is going than any policy paper ever could. Virtual reality has been around in the education world for a long time. Early on, the promise was strong and loud.…

When you look at a student slouched in their chair, you don’t know if they’re bored, tired, or about to die. This is something that teachers always say. That split-second uncertainty used to be a small bother. Today, fentanyl is being passed around high schools in the form of pills that look like candy, vitamins, and pressed tablets. This makes it one of the scariest choices anyone can make on a Tuesday afternoon. English teachers, more than anyone else, live in that moment all the time now. It’s possible that no one planned for this to happen. There was no…

It’s a little unsettling when a number looks like progress but doesn’t feel like it. The 2026 UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report starts with a number that should give you confidence: There are now 1.4 billion students in school around the world, which is 30% more than in 2000. This includes both primary and secondary school students. The number of kids in pre-primary school has grown by 45%. It’s amazing that post-secondary has grown by 161%. That looks like a society that cares about its children on paper. But OMEP, which stands for the World Organization for Early Childhood Education,…