EdSource reported on May 18 that a new SRI International study found Los Angeles Unified students who completed a career and technical education pathway graduated at higher rates than their peers and were also more likely to complete a college-preparatory course sequence and enroll in college. Miya Warner, the report's lead author, said the findings puncture the long-standing assumption that CTE serves mostly students who have no plans to attend college. Ben Gertner, who directs Linked Learning at LAUSD, told EdSource the district raised its CTE pathway completion rate from about 18% to nearly 25% between 2022 and 2025, while expanding the number of Linked Learning pathways from 43 to 100.
The assumption Warner's data undercuts is a specific one: that a counselor steering a student toward welding or culinary arts is steering them away from a four-year degree. LAUSD's own numbers say the opposite is happening at scale, and the expansion from 43 to 100 pathways means the effect is not a fluke of one well-run program. For a business or CTE teacher, the practical takeaway is that your course is not competing with the college-prep track. The data says it is feeding it.
New York State United Teachers' 82-member board of directors passed a resolution calling for developmentally appropriate limits on screen time and AI in New York schools, NYSUT announced on May 31. The resolution bars one-to-one screen or device use, including online assessments, for pre-kindergarten through second grade except to support documented needs such as translation or special education services, and it bars student-facing AI for that same age band entirely. It bars non-educationally based AI for grades three through eight, requires that AI use in any grade be supervised and educator-led, and bans "social companion" chatbots that simulate human relationships for children under 16. NYSUT President Melinda Person framed the position directly: "Educators are not anti-technology. We are pro-child." The resolution builds on New York's existing bell-to-bell cellphone ban and follows AFT President Randi Weingarten's "devices-down, eyes-up, hands-on" framework for the AI era, which Person said NYSUT is "proud to stand behind."
A resolution from an 82-member board is not law, and NYSUT is explicit that the fight is over who decides, educators and families or the companies selling the tools. What makes this version specific enough to act on is the grade-band detail: a flat bar on student-facing AI through second grade, a narrower "non-educationally based" standard for grades three through eight, and a supervised, educator-led requirement above that. If your district's current AI policy is vaguer than that, this resolution is the language a building or district committee will likely borrow first, because it already exists and a major union has put its name on it.
The Illinois State Board of Education formally adopted the Illinois Comprehensive Numeracy Plan, which NPR Illinois reporter Peter Hancock described on June 11 as "first-of-its-kind" in the state. The 192-page document gives classroom teachers and district officials concrete guidance on improving math instruction, and it opens by defining the term it is built around: numeracy is "the ability for all students to confidently understand, interpret, and apply mathematical concepts across all domains of mathematics in a variety of real-world and academic contexts." A state board choosing to define that term in writing, rather than leaving it to individual districts, is itself the news.
Every math teacher already has a working definition of what it means for a student to "get it." The Illinois plan replaces individual judgment with a single state-level standard, which means a non-math teacher, an administrator building a rubric, or a parent reading a report card now has language to ask what numeracy means at your school and expect a specific answer instead of a shrug. If your district is in Illinois, expect this definition to show up in evaluation rubrics and PD agendas within the year. If you teach elsewhere, the document is worth reading anyway, since a state board has already done the work of writing the definition down.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on June 15 that the United Kingdom will ban social media use for anyone under 16, calling it "a big step for our country" in a recorded video message. "Social media is making our children unhappy and unsafe, and as a parent, as much as a Prime Minister, I just can't let that go on anymore," Starmer said. The ban covers Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X, while messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal are excluded. Starmer said he expects Parliament to take up the legislation before Christmas, with implementation in early 2027, and the government is also considering overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for users under 18. The decision follows a public comment period that drew 116,000 responses from parents, the tech industry, and children, more than 90% of whom favored an under-16 ban.
A UK law will not bind an American classroom, but it resets what counts as a serious policy response. NYSUT's resolution this same week asks educators and families to set the limits; Starmer's plan removes the question by setting an age gate in law. Your students will hear about both, and the comparison, a union resolution versus a national ban, is likely to come up in any parent or school-board conversation about phones and apps this fall. Knowing the UK plan has a name, a timeline, and a 90% public-support figure behind it gives you something concrete to point to if that conversation reaches your building.