Author: Nelson Rosario

Something really strange happened in American higher education on July 1, 2023. Twelve different community colleges in Connecticut stopped being twelve and became one. Most people now just call it “CT State.” When Connecticut State Community College opened, it wasn’t with a ribbon-cutting ceremony or a viral video. Instead, it was with paperwork, letters of accreditation, and the kind of institutional change that you can’t fully feel for years. The main office of the new college is at 185 Main Street in New Britain. This is a pretty ordinary address for the largest community college in New England. From Enfield…

There was a bad change in Mina Aganagic’s calculus classes. A math teacher at UC Berkeley noticed that some of his students couldn’t do basic multiplication, which is something most kids learn by the fourth grade. These weren’t students who were having trouble with difficult theorems. They were having trouble with math. That kind of information isn’t included in statistics on admissions. It shows up in a lecture hall with several hundred students when a teacher realizes she can’t teach calculus to people who don’t understand what they’ve already learned. As part of the open letter that thousands of UC…

There’s something slightly annoying about going to your student loan account and seeing a balance that, according to the rules, shouldn’t be there. Like a lot of people across the country, these people got official letters from the U.S. Department of Education saying their loans were approved for automatic discharge, but when they checked their accounts, the numbers hadn’t changed. The Department of Education has been asked to give answers but has been unwilling to do so because of a lawsuit filed by the Project on Predatory Student Lending. It’s not new forgiveness that’s being asked for. It’s records. The…

Something about seeing a legal settlement that took years to reach just not be honored is quietly frustrating. That’s where things stand now with Sweet v. McMahon, the federal lawsuit that sought to discharge student loans and gave real hope to thousands of scammed borrowers. It was told to do something by the Department of Education. There were due dates. Then, the due dates for more than a thousand people who were still waiting for loan cancellations and refunds just went by without being met. More than 1,000 people in the Sweet class are still sitting there with unresolved stress.…

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…