School Decision

California sends early math screening bill to governor, modeled on literacy law

SB 1067 would require all public schools to assess K-2 students in math starting 2028-29 and provide interventions, mirroring the state's 2023 reading screening law. The governor has until September 30 to act.

A bill that would require California public schools to screen all students in kindergarten through second grade for foundational math skills and provide interventions to those who fall behind has reached the governor's desk. Senate Bill 1067, authored by Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-La Mesa), passed the Senate unanimously 39-0 and is now awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom's signature or veto by the September 30 deadline, according to the Assembly Education Committee analysis and CalMatters.

TEA manual rescoring of STAAR text-entry items improves scores for 27,200 students, raises A-F ratings for 11 districts and campuses

Texas regraded brief typed answers on reading exams, finding 1.7% of reviewed responses deserved more credit. The error rate affected accountability ratings for 11 schools and districts.

The Texas Education Agency announced September 4, 2026, that a manual rescoring of short typed answers on STAAR reading exams gave additional credit to about 27,200 students and raised the A-F accountability ratings for 11 districts and campuses. The review covered roughly 1.6 million exams, and about 1.7 percent of them saw score improvements, though not every increase changed a school's rating, TEA reported.

Ohio expands testing anomaly probe from two Columbus schools to 52 buildings statewide

State review flags statistical patterns at 37 charter and 15 traditional public schools spanning at least 16 counties. Schools must respond by September 18.

APA report urges schools to treat extreme heat as a threat to learning with new policies

The American Psychological Association's inaugural report synthesizes evidence that rising classroom temperatures impair cognition and recommends heat thresholds, monitoring, and a shift in scheduling.

The American Psychological Association and the Network for Resilient PK-12 Schools released their first joint report on extreme heat in schools in August 2026, calling on districts to treat high temperatures as a disruption to cognition equivalent to a snow day. The report, "Schools, Climate, and Health: Responding to Extreme Heat," synthesizes peer-reviewed studies that document how rising classroom temperatures affect students' attention, memory, test scores, and mental health.

Philadelphia's internal report finds phonics gaps, teacher buy-in challenges in $25M reading overhaul

A district-commissioned Year 1 evaluation of Philadelphia's K-8 EL Education curriculum found widespread concerns about phonics instruction, teacher preparedness, and support for struggling readers, while state test scores fell. The district has made adjustments; second-year results remain pending.

The School District of Philadelphia released its Year 1 evaluation of the EL Education K-8 reading curriculum on August 28, 2026. The $25 million overhaul, funded partly by $19.4 million in federal pandemic aid, aimed to align instruction with the science of reading. But the report, based on surveys and focus groups with more than 100 educators, found that nearly all K-2 teachers and principals reported the curriculum's phonics lessons were not direct or explicit enough for the youngest students and that genuine teacher buy-in remained a challenge because of insufficient training and mixed messages about compliance, according to the district's Office of Research and Evaluation.

Michigan third-grade reading hits 12-year low on 2026 M-STEP, ahead of full literacy reform rollout

Just 38.2% of third-graders scored proficient in ELA, the lowest in the exam's history. The state has passed major literacy and dyslexia laws, but officials say their effects are not yet in the test scores.