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Teton School District 401 is taking a major step forward to support students and families through the Community School Strategy. This evidence-based approach transforms public schools into neighborhood hubs by integrating academics with social services, extended learning opportunities, and family and community engagement. It aims to address the root causes of learning barriers by leveraging community assets and partnerships to support the whole child. In the 2024-25 school year, the Education Foundation of Teton Valley provided funding for two district-level community coordinators, in a targeted effort to support students, staff and families in the transition to a four-day school week, as well as to better position the district in their effort to join a cohort of rural schools across Idaho adopting the Community School Strategy.
A Florida House committee sent to the House floor a bill that would define how school library materials may be “harmful to minors,” building on a controversial 2023 law that led to removal of library books from schools based on objections from the public. The House Education & Employment Committee approved HB 1119, its second […]
Jessica Winter on how Operation Metro Surge is upending the Columbia Heights school district, after a five-year-old boy and other young students were taken into federal custody.
While we may be most familiar with modern-day conspiracy theories about government intelligence, unidentified flying objects, anti-vaccination, COVID-19, and more, conspiracy theories have existed for centuries. In July of AD 64, the great fire of Rome destroyed two-thirds of the city-state—which had a population of around 2 million—resulting in widespread death and homelessness. Despite several contributing factors such as intense summer heat, dry winds, and the prevalence of wooden houses, various conspiracy theories emerged, ranging from Emperor Nero “deliberately” starting the fire to “blaming” the Christian community for it. When the fire began, Nero was in a different city altogether, leading to claims that he had conspired to bring about the catastrophe to rebuild Rome. Coincidentally, the Domus Aurea, an extravagant palatial project, was constructed on a portion of the ruins, which fueled conspiracy theories about his alleged involvement, despite evidence that he also supported relief efforts. In turn, Nero placed the blame on Christians, resulting in the crucifixion and burning alive of many from the religious community. There is also evidence that some Christians believed in prophecies about a forthcoming catastrophic fire in Rome at the time. While the actual cause of this infernal disaster remains unproven, it illustrates how conspiracy narratives can arise from social crises. Psychologically, fear and uncertainty can be strong motivators, and conspiracy theories empower people by filling a knowledge gap. Socially, tribalism and in-group/out-group tendencies may also contribute to the birth of such theories; a united front can foster a sense of control. These psychosocial explanations reveal that we want to feel in control, and information is power.
AI art history traces from early algorithmic experiments in the 1960s and Harold Cohen’s pioneering AI-driven software (1970s) to the deep learning revolution of the 2010s with Generative Adversarial Networks or GANs (2014) and diffusion models (2021–2022), leading to mainstream tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, transforming art creation, analysis, and museum engagement, raising questions about creativity and originality, and integration into contemporary art culture. Creative AI isn’t a new development. It’s a continuum that keeps on going, often changing slowly over time, or emerging quickly in mainstream culture. Computer art pioneers such as A. Michael Noll and H. Philip Peterson spent the last half of the 1960s developing computer languages that manipulated graphical data. They explored new and emerging forms of computer-generated art and examined various aspects of human pattern perception. I was exposed to this development at a young age. In the 1970s, my mother, who worked as a computer programmer/analyst, often sent me to school with prints of ASCII graphics she created on her computers (e.g. Peanuts characters). My teachers hung these banners on their walls.
Harvard’s lawsuit fighting the Trump administration’s freeze on research grants is one that every higher education institution should join.
President Emmanuel Macron has requested that the legislation be fast-tracked and it will now be discussed by the Senate in the coming weeks.
The Columbia Heights Public School district says federal agents have detained four of its students in four separate incidents over the last two weeks. One child is a 5-year-old boy who attends a district elementary school and was used as “bait” to draw family members out of their home. “Why detain a 5-year-old? You can’t tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal,” Zena Stenvik, the Columbia Heights superintendent, told reporters Wednesday. According to Stenvik, masked agents apprehended 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in his driveway on Tuesday as he returned home from school with his father. “Another adult living in the home was outside and begged the agents to let him take care of the small child, and was refused,” Stenvik said. “Instead,” she said, “the agent took the child out of the still-running car, led him to the door and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in in order to see if anyone else was home, essentially using a 5-year-old as bait.” Agents later took the father and child away in a vehicle and sent them to Texas.
Louisiana has long struggled with maternal and infant mortality. In New Orleans, free home visits by nurses help spot medical problems early. It's a reproductive health policy with bipartisan support.
MinneapoliMedia reports… There are moments in Minnesota when the cold does more than freeze lakes and stiffen breath. It interrupts the machinery of daily life. It closes schools, empties buses, quiets playgrounds, and turns the ordinary act of leaving home into a calculation of risk. Friday, January 23, 2026 is one of those days. Added…
The already struggling system faces more struggles from administration rule changes. On January 5, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would lead to the revocation of multiple child care rules featured in the 2024 Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF). Under the Biden administration, changes were made to the decades-old CCDF to help working families afford and access quality child care, while also improving payment methods for child care providers.
This comprehensive report sheds new light on the ongoing capitulation of major media, tech and telecom companies to the dictates of a bigoted and corrupt administration.
Pam Duran, the retired former director of Washington State University’s Intensive American Language Center, saw a major shift in the approach to foreign students during her career. She worked at the IALC from 1988 to 2021, helping students with weaker English skills reach a level of proficiency that would allow them to enter the university. The program worked well during her tenure, she told me, and often received transfer students from more commercialized programs that used what Duran described as “fast food” models. But over the course of her career, Duran saw finance become a bigger concern. Eventually, after she’d spent 16 years as director, the university switched over to a contracted commercial program. As she put it, the university said, “you’ve been operating like grandma’s kitchen: high touch, high personal contact, high individual attention...it’s time to think fast food.” It wasn’t a good fit for her and she was moved to another position; ultimately, the partnership between the IALC and the private company failed, but Duran was not involved in rebuilding the program.
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Forth Worth teacher Chanea Bond says sticking with pen and paper keeps generative artificial intelligence out of her American literature classes.
Young children would still be required to get vaccinated before entering a Florida school or day care, but it would be easier for parents and guardians to opt out of those vaccinations under a bill passed by the Senate Health Policy Committee Monday afternoon. In addition to addressing school vaccine requirements, SB 1756 would allow Florida […]
Introduction Terrorist attacks, whether by individuals or groups, are usually followed by attempts to explain the rationale and causes behind them. The core reasons, however, lie not in surface-level factors but in the deeper “machinery” of society: the values and worldviews that children absorb at home, in schools, and in their communities. This early socialization shapes the beliefs and perceptions that later guide adult behavior. Among the social mechanisms that can be changed to prevent such attacks in the future, education and community life are crucial. The definition of terrorism provided by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights states that “As a minimum, terrorism involves the intimidation or coercion of populations or governments through the threat or perpetration of violence, causing death, serious injury, or the taking of hostages.” However, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides a deeper understanding of terrorists:
he Annenberg School for Communication Library Archives (ASCLA) began a decade ago with the gift of the TV Guide Prime-Time Script Collection, including 29,000 scripts of TV series, specials, and movies, such as “Seinfeld” and Agnes Nixon soap operas including “One Life to Live” and “All My Children.” Lead archivist Samantha Dodd Summerbell says the number of scripts increases each year, and the archives have also grown to include memorabilia, research, and more. Researchers from around the world come to look at scripts, she says. Annenberg not only possesses these documents; it also played a role in the history of many. Annenberg founder Walter Annenberg founded TV Guide, and ASCLA holds issues published from 1953 to the mid-1990s. It also houses the papers of former dean George Gerbner, a pioneer in research on television’s impact on viewers’ perceptions of the world and the effects of violent media on children. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first public demonstration of television. Reflecting on this milestone, Penn Today took a look inside ASCLA’s collections. Here are a few TV-related highlights.
Wikipedia plans to use AI to assist editors and improve search experiences, while addressing criticism of bias and competition from rivals like Grokipedia.
As public confidence erodes and Trump-era funding cuts mount, colleges are launching ad campaigns and joint messaging to defend their value.
We create the conditions for higher education to be accessible and free from political interference. We champion a higher education system where all students can succeed. We protect the free exchange of ideas and ensure truth is grounded in facts, and knowledge is never criminalized. Our work spans thought leadership, cross-sector collaboration, policy, and leadership training. We speak as a collective voice for all post-secondary education, from community colleges to doctorate-degree granting institutions.
Some immigrants in Minneapolis have said they're scared to go out because of ICE agents across the city. When one 12-year-old needed to run an errand, it triggered a network of underground volunteers.
Some families aren't leaving their homes as aggressive ICE operations continue in Minnesota, leaving their children confined and stressed. Across the Twin Cities, kids are anxious and afraid.
Beneath the waves of Lake Huron lie clues to the region’s prehistoric past. Scientists are in the midst of a years-old research project on what many are calling the “Pompeii of the Great Lakes.” First found by a team at the University of Michigan back in the 2000s, evidence of hunting camps has been stunning experts around the world for nearly two decades now. Why? Because it’s all deep underwater. Archaeologists continue to unearth new pieces of this 10,000-year-old culture, filling in pieces of a story that goes back to the beginning of the Holocene, or the epoch in which humanity flourished for millennia. The “Pompeii of the Great Lakes,” unlike the frequent and heartbreaking shipwrecks discovered in the Great Lakes, offers a bright spot in the complex history of this famous body of water.
From seasonal cycles and reincarnation to cosmic destruction and rebirth, ancient Greek and Roman philosophers developed competing theories of how time repeats—and what that repetition means for human life. Recurrence—the idea that the universe will die and be reborn, time and time again—might have been new to physics, but it is not a new idea. Globally, it is found in a number of religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism. It was also the subject of philosophical speculation in the premodern world. In particular, in the works of Greek and Roman philosophers, attempts were made to distinguish between different kinds of recurrence. There is the first kind we have already met through modern physics: the idea that the universe as a whole will die and be reborn. But this idea, as it appears in Einstein and Friedmann, does not make any claims that particular events, objects, or people will recur. Rather, what the physicists were interested in was a reshuffling of the cosmos.
The Trump administration’s recent surge of more than 3,000 federal agents to Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, is creating ripple effects for students, teachers and parents that go well beyond ongoing protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. These protests escalated after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7, 2026. Some Twin Cities parents are arranging security patrols to look out for ICE agents, while others are keeping their kids home altogether. Several large Minneapolis-St. Paul school districts announced on Jan. 15 that they would offer remote learning so students could stay home. Amy Lieberman, The Conversation U.S. education editor, spoke with Carolyn-Sattin-Bajaj, a scholar of education and immigrant youth, to better understand what regulations restrict ICE’s presence at schools – and how schools can support students and parents concerned about the recent surge of immigrant arrests and deportations in Minnesota.
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