Author: Nola Jones

Around 10 p.m. on a Tuesday, a specific type of parental anxiety begins to manifest. Even after finishing the homework and placing the backpack by the door, something is bothering me. You launch a browser, enter mystudent.nyc, and begin scrolling through your child’s test results, attendance record, and grades in search of something, though you’re not always sure what. Hundreds of thousands of families in New York City now engage in that silent, nearly obsessive ritual. The city’s online student information portal, MyStudent NYC, was created to provide parents and guardians with more insight into their children’s academic lives. Theoretically,…

Every August, a well-known ritual takes place on college campuses: students consider whether to purchase a new laptop before classes begin, browse through sales, and ask older siblings how much they paid. The Apple Education Store, a dedicated online storefront that offers discounted prices on Macs, iPads, Apple Watches, and certain accessories, is something Apple has discreetly created just for this occasion. Most people are aware of its existence. Fewer truly know how to use it effectively. Even though the discounts aren’t very noticeable, they are real. Those who qualify can save about $200 on a MacBook Pro. The MacBook…

In 2026, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust has become an unsettling symbol of what can happen when warning signs are disregarded for years on end when people discuss the NHS—its overburdened resources, its postcode lotteries, its moments of brilliance, and its profound failures. One of the biggest acute teaching trusts in England is this one. It employs over 16,000 people and serves about 2.5 million people across its two main campuses, Queen’s Medical Center and City Hospital. It has the authority and standing of a reputable organization on paper. The image is now much more difficult to view from the…

A certain type of school district shapes hundreds of thousands of lives over generations, but it never quite makes national headlines. Situated in the center of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Arlington Independent School District is precisely that kind of place. With about 54,750 students spread across 75 schools, it is among the eleventh largest in the state, but it lacks the name recognition of some larger Texas districts. Even though the national education discourse frequently ignores it, that is not a minor issue. You get the impression that Arlington, Texas, has more diversity than its topography suggests when you stroll…

Entering a program and discovering that it might truly fulfill its promises has a subtle electrifying quality. The pre-college fashion program at Vogue Summer School, which is administered by Vogue College of Fashion in New York City, has the feeling that there is real weight behind the brand name. It goes beyond the logo alone. Students are touring Vogue headquarters, perusing the fashion closet and observing editors select pieces for future issues. One former pupil said she still finds it hard to believe she saw Anna Wintour’s office. It’s not advertising copy. A teenager standing in a room she used…

Watching a Grammy-winning rapper lose her cool over a four-year-old wearing a tiny graduation cap has a certain quality that makes the entire scene seem genuine. As her son Wave Set Cephus crossed a small stage to pick up his preschool diploma on June 25, Cardi B, whose real name is Belcalis Almánzar and is well-known throughout the world for her voice that commands arenas, stood at The Goddard School in New Jersey and quietly broke down in the best way possible. She had on a beige pantsuit. As usual, flawless. However, the poise behind it was eroding. Her voice…

Every college football fan is familiar with a particular moment. It’s late August, the season is just a few weeks away, and everything seems exciting: rivalries are being rehashed for the hundredth time, rosters are being analyzed, and predictions are flying. On July 9, EA Sports College Football 27 will arrive with the same level of excitement, and this year, there’s a good reason to believe that it merits it. It’s noteworthy how much the series has developed in a short period of time, as this is the third edition since the game returned after a ten-year hiatus. It was…

Jennifer Aniston was a young child in Manhattan navigating the unique, subtly harsh world of performing arts education long before Rachel Green entered Central Perk. Given the magazine covers, the awards shelf, and the career that has managed to remain relevant over three decades, it’s easy to forget that Aniston’s journey began in a classroom. Specifically, a drama classroom in one of the most rigorous public high schools in New York City. Aniston was raised in a home that valued art. John Aniston, her father, was a professional actor. Nancy Dow, her mother, had her own film credits. Strangely enough,…

Pedro Pascal’s journey through formal education, which took him from Chile to California and then California to New York, was neither glamorous nor quick. In retrospect, however, it seems almost inevitable that a child who spent his early years traveling between nations, languages, and identities would eventually settle into a drama school. Pascal’s family fled Chile when he was nine months old in order to escape the Pinochet dictatorship. Pascal was born in Santiago in 1975. A person is shaped by that kind of early displacement in ways that no classroom could. He was eleven years old and had more…

Growing up, Patrick Mahomes lived in Whitehouse, Texas, a small town east of Tyler where high school football still takes place on Friday nights and everyone knows one another. It’s the type of place where an athlete gradually builds their reputation through practices, seasons, and little moments that don’t often make the highlight reel. For Mahomes, those years at Whitehouse High School were subtly pivotal, not only in terms of athletics but also in every aspect of a young person’s development prior to the public eye. Mahomes was more than just a quarterback at Whitehouse. He also played basketball and…