YouScience’s 2025 report on post-graduation readiness offers a glimpse at students’ paths as they exit the K-12 system and provides insights on how educators can more effectively support young adults as they embark on their respective journeys. Life beyond high school: How students are rethinking college, career, and success is based on the findings of a recent national survey of more than 500 graduates from 2021 through 2024 as well as trends between 2019 and 2024.

Board President Linda Darling-Hammond noted that budget trailer bill language “charges the State Board to take a more comprehensive look at the performance criteria for differentiated assistance for local educational agencies, taking into consideration the recommendations from the state-funded WestEd evaluation of differentiated assistance and the need to appropriately focus our resources and supports where the demonstrated needs are the greatest.”

It is important for underlying challenges with reading to be identified and addressed as early as possible. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, “students who don’t read proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to leave high school without a diploma than proficient readers.” In an effort to detect underlying issues that may hinder a student’s ability to read fluently, such as dyslexia, SB 114 requires all students in grades K-2 to be screened for reading difficulties. Screening of students will better enable local educational agencies to identify students at risk for reading difficulties early in their education, allowing for timely intervention and support.

Roughly two-thirds of its 14,000 students lived in evacuation zones and 50 percent of its 2,739 employees evacuated. As of May, 987 families and 120 employees had reported losing their residences during the Eaton Fire, which sparked on Jan. 7 and burned for 24 days. Countless others were displaced, and five school sites were either destroyed or significantly damaged.

“Disproportionate impact magnified: Rural America’s Children and Families as Collateral Damage?” brought together rural education advocates from around the country to discuss how current cuts are already affecting children in rural schools and how further cuts in fiscal year 2026–27 might affect rural education.