The FAFSA — the federal form that gates nearly all college aid — now opens each October for the following fall, but the 2024 redesign delayed aid offers by months, and families should plan around the confusion it left behind.
The study methods most kids choose — rereading and highlighting — rank among the least effective in published learning research, and two boring-sounding replacements work measurably better.
Federal law caps a 15-year-old's school week at 18 hours and stops capping hours entirely at 16 - but state rules, work permits, and a 20-hour research marker all shape what a first job should look like.
From a parent's first written request to the annual review meeting, an Individualized Education Program follows a federally defined sequence — here's what happens at each stage under IDEA.
About six in ten high school graduates enroll in college right away — which means every path, including that one, needs a plan.
Summer slide is real but uneven — math slips more than reading, and the losses pile onto the students with the fewest resources.
The average American kid now gets a first smartphone around age 11 — and the first thirty days of ownership set the rules for years.
Only 14 percent of 13-year-olds read for fun almost every day — the decline has a schedule, a cause list, and a few fixes that work.
Decades of cognitive-science research point to two study habits that actually work — and they're not the ones most students already use.
A record share of students are missing enough school to fall behind academically — here is what the data shows and what a family can do before it becomes a pattern.
More than 40 states now run public preschool programs, but reach and quality vary so widely that "universal" means very different things in different zip codes.
The free checklists cover ages 2 months through 5 years and are built to start a conversation with a pediatrician, not to deliver a diagnosis on their own.
Most planners die by October because they are used as a diary of intentions — the fix is one daily review habit and a page small enough to finish.
Speaking anxiety peaks exactly when class presentations begin — and short, repeated, low-stakes reps in middle school shrink it for life.
A first resume is one honest page — experience is anything you did regularly, and action verbs plus real numbers do the persuading.
Math is learned by retrieval and spacing — worked problems redone from scratch on separate days — not by rereading notes the night before.
A school morning that works is designed the night before and paid for with sleep — not powered by louder wake-ups in September.
A good college visit plan spreads a few trips across junior and senior year and treats the student, not the campus, as the unit of study.
Effective screen time rules target sleep, meals, and content — not a single guilt number — and they survive because the adults follow them too.
A report card is a snapshot, not a verdict — here is how to decode grades, standards-based marks, and comments into one useful next step.
A federal law hands most control over school records to students the day they turn 18 or start college — with a few exceptions families should know before that happens.
Missed school days spiked during the pandemic and have come down since — but national data show the decline stalling well above pre-pandemic levels, and researchers are still working out why.
Federal rules require a reentry plan with an education piece before a young person leaves a juvenile justice facility, but how well it works still depends on which adult stays on top of it.
Roughly one in four US public school students was chronically absent in 2023-24 — missing 10 percent or more of school days — nearly double the pre-pandemic rate, per analyses of federal data.
Federal law caps how many hours 14- and 15-year-olds can work and keeps everyone under 18 out of hazardous jobs, but states can set tighter limits, and more young people are working this summer than a year ago.
A meta-analysis of 96 randomized trials found tutoring produces some of the largest learning gains ever measured — but only when the dosage, timing, and tutor are right.
CTE has outgrown its old shop-class reputation: federal transcript studies show about three in four high school students now take at least one career and technical course.
Guaranteed-admission agreements, block transfer of credits, and statewide pathways are slowly fixing a system that used to quietly discard a third of a transfer student's work.