Author: Jerry Leger

Henley-on-Thames has a certain charm in May. The college on Deanfield Avenue is moving through the rhythms of the summer term, with students wandering between buildings, mock results returning, and conversations shifting to what comes next. The river is bustling with crews getting ready for the regatta, and the cafés on the high street fill up early. Because it’s a small town, everyone knows someone who knows someone. This helps explain why the past week’s events have felt so weighty. Meningococcal disease claimed the life of Henley College student Lewis Waters. Lewis’s father, Sean, posted on social media that the…

The announcement seems almost archaic. A private university with one of the biggest endowments in the nation determines that who enters a Hyde Park classroom shouldn’t be determined by the cost of attendance. This week, UChicago announced that families making less than $250,000 annually will pay no tuition beginning in the fall of 2027. Housing, meals, and fees will not be covered by those making less than $125,000. It’s a broad move that may be overdue or strategically timed, depending on who you ask. You can sense the calm buzz of a place that takes itself seriously if you stroll…

Once again, it’s that peculiar time of year. The one where parents’ group chats suddenly erupt with screenshots of rejection letters after being silent for a week. A mother in a suburban area of Ohio told me, almost laughing, that her son had three years of varsity tennis, two AP research projects, a 4.0, a 1510 SAT, and a waitlist at a school she thought was a “safety.” She didn’t sound particularly irate. She sounded perplexed. More than anything else, that uncertainty has come to define admissions in 2026. Families used a sort of folk math for many years. A…

Even though McMasters Elementary’s hallways still smell like crayons and floor polish, something seems strange if you stroll through them in the late afternoon. Echo is more prevalent than it was previously. There were fewer backpacks in line. fewer voices. For years, Pasadena teachers have been observing it in that subdued, somewhat superstitious manner: first, a class section has been reduced, then a kindergarten room has been converted into a storage area, and finally, a well-known name has retired and never been replaced. The district has now expressed what no one wanted to say aloud: some of these schools might…

Like most legal anniversaries, this year’s anniversary fell quietly on a Sunday. Seventy-two years have passed since nine justices signed a ruling that altered the nation’s moral framework, and the atmosphere surrounding it has changed. less joyous. more vigilant. Walking past a university bulletin board that is still covered in notices about diversity programming from the previous semester gives the impression that the document that everyone keeps bringing up is being carefully and slowly placed on a shelf. The desks were never the main issue in Brown v. Board of Education. It concerned who was allowed to sit at them…

When the money stops coming in, a certain kind of silence descends upon a public institution. It is evident in the language used by administrators, which is cautious and almost apologetic, as well as in the way people speak when they are aware that their next sentence will be poorly received. It’s becoming more difficult to ignore the tone that currently permeates the California State University system. The biggest public four-year university network in the country, Cal State, claims to be $2.3 billion short. This week’s bimonthly Board of Trustees meeting produced the number, which is not an isolated incident.…

You shouldn’t expect anything horrible to happen on the Mayfield High School track. It’s a typical suburban sports complex, the kind of place where parents watch their children compete on Saturdays while leaning against fences and sipping cold coffee. However, an Eastlake North High School pole vaulter went up into the air, came down, and didn’t get up the way he was supposed to at some point during a recent meet. That fleeting moment, which was probably nearly invisible to those who weren’t paying close attention, has now grown into something much more. The student was taken to Cleveland Clinic…

The signs, which were hand-painted in the kind of neat lettering that suggests a parent who once worked in graphic design, were first placed on the lawns of a lush neighborhood outside of Cleveland. “Save Our Schools.” “Vote No on Cuts.” “Where Did the Money Go?” Cul-de-sacs from suburban New Jersey to the outer rings of Denver, Minneapolis, and Atlanta began to exhibit similar signs by spring. Though it’s still unclear if this is a movement or just the same old PTA energy with a sharper edge, there’s a feeling that something has changed. For many years, urban districts—such as…

Before the coffee shops on Henry Street have even opened their doors, a line forms outside the school office on a soggy Tuesday morning in Brooklyn Heights. Silently, parents in puffer jackets wait, some clutching printed-out emails, others holding toddlers. Everyone seems to be thinking the same thing, and nobody wants to be the first to ask it. Will my child be able to enter? By now, the numbers sound almost theatrical. One Brooklyn public elementary school has about 1,200 families waiting on a list; this number has increased so rapidly that even seasoned parent coordinators characterize it as unfamiliar…

The parking lots of some Arizona school district offices have an odd silence. The buildings themselves are unremarkable, with low rooflines, beige stucco, and flagpoles that have been slightly bent by the desert wind. However, the individuals in charge of them are earning salaries that are comparable to those of a mid-sized tech company. When you pass one of these buildings, it’s easy to assume that the woman locking up at six is going home to a sensible sedan and a teacher’s pension. The truth is frequently more akin to a private retirement fund that no one was supposed to…