Special Call-In: Teaching In 2026

0:28At NPR, there's a little something for everyone.

0:35For some of you, that sound is still a week away. For others, the doors are already open and it's back to school. Today, it's all about the teachers. You've seen yourselves on television, in movies, and memes every year. Anderson? Here. Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? You've been called heroes? You also have plenty of critics. You fought for better salaries and benefits. You've been asked to do more with less. You started GoFundMes to pay for your classroom supplies when the funding isn't there. Attention, I have a very important update regarding our school. Since there aren't enough second graders for two classes, Ms.

1:15Teague's will now have 40 students. I, for one, am excited to see if it will break her. It won't. It might. Last year, we asked you what excites you and what worries you about the year ahead. And we heard from so many of you nationwide. so we're back to ask you again, because the 2026-27 school year arrives as the country faces a lot. The Trump administration has proposed billions of dollars in cuts for federal education programs. Immigration enforcement near schools is still a concern in some districts, and AI is changing what happens inside classrooms faster than many teachers feel prepared for.

1:50I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A Podcast. For this show, we opened our phones and took calls from you and teachers across the nation. When we come back after this short break, we'll hear from them and our panel of guests. The phone lines are now closed, but you're welcome to still leave us a voicemail. Stay with us.

2:11Hi, it's Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air. As we mourn the loss of the great Dolly Parton, it feels good to listen back to her reflecting on her life and to hear some of her Dolly-isms. I always say that it's a good thing I was a woman, because if I'd have been a man, I would have been a drag queen, just because I'm so damn gaudy. We've dropped the Dolly Fresh Air interview on the NPR app and wherever you listen to podcasts. Waylon, it seems like everything is being called a recession indicator these days. Yeah, like the box of Hamburger Helper in my pantry. Or the new Apple Neo book. Or the resurgence of press on nails, or lipstick, or no lipstick.

2:48I've lost track. There is only one way to know if these are actual economic warning signs, though. Listen to the indicator from Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. It's back to school season. For this show, we opened our phones and took calls from listeners and teachers across the nation. You'll hear that conversation in a bit. But first, let's meet our guest panel, which includes two teachers we spoke to last year. Joining us from Dallas, Texas, is Lance Barish. He's a high school math teacher at Dallas Independent School District. Lance, welcome back.

3:23Thank you for having me. And joining us from Los Angeles is Jennifer Lopez. She's a high school social studies teacher at Los Angeles Unified School District. She's also taught elementary and middle school students. Jennifer, welcome. Thank you. Excited to be back here. And joining us again in studio in Washington is Lauren Lumpkin, national education reporter for The Washington Post. Lauren, welcome back. Hi, thank you. So Lance and Jennifer, I first want to hear from you two about being back at school. Lance, what are you looking forward to this year? I mean, just another school year always brings such a bright and exciting energy in the classroom, meeting new students, learning their names and their stories, and then trying to impart some great math concepts to them over the course of the next year.

4:05It's just an exciting time. Jennifer, what about you? Yeah, well, I'm already on week four, so I'm right in the nick of it. It's been just beautiful connecting with former students coming in from last year, like, hey, miss, how was your summer? Where did you travel to? What classes are you teaching? And I'm currently teaching a new AP psych class. So I'm telling, I'm trying to recruit my former students to take that class. And so it's the beauty of, like, reteaching them and making those student connections right now. Lance, what about your top concern this school year? What's the issue keeping you up at night?

4:36Oh, man, you named so many in the intro there. And I'm going to have to go with the teacher retention issue and teacher burnout. I think it's just a really strong time of all of these factors affecting our classrooms from both inside and outside forces, whether it's budget shortfalls, whether it's the distraction of technology in the classroom. All of those things are just making the job more and more challenging as teachers continue to rise to the occasion. Jennifer, and for you, the thing that's keeping you up at night? I would also say echo Lance's piece on work-life balance. It's just especially us taking on a new prep or a new class, just up late planning or after hours on weekends.

5:14In addition to cuts, there's a lot of things in the media right now with our district that there might be cuts next year. We saw cuts last year. And so that is something on my mind. Well, we mentioned the Trump administration's proposed cuts of more than$8 billion to federal K-12 education programs. Congress is still debating the final numbers. But supporters say those cuts would eliminate waste and restore local control. Critics say schools that depend on federal funding for English learners, mental health services, teacher training, those schools will feel the squeeze. Lauren, help us understand what these cuts would mean for schools around the country.

5:50Yeah, definitely something I'm following closely and trying to figure out what exactly the impact will be. But concerns I'm hearing, of course, it's kind of what's going to happen with these federal grants that districts really rely on. And a lot of people I talk to are encouraged because Title I, which is, you know, the biggest grant and the ones that particularly low-income schools depend on, that's going to be intact. That doesn't seem like it's going to change, but, you know, for mental health and for teacher preparation and English language acquisition, so many of those things, you know, if the federal grants are not there, then there's just not really any funding for it.

6:22Well, let's go to the phones. We've got Jacob calling from Maryland. Jacob, you're teaching 12th grade. What are you facing this school year that has you either really excited or really concerned? I am, thank you for taking my call. I work with ELL students, and our language learners rely heavily on the Internet. One of the challenges that I'm seeing is that with the budgetary cuts, the software that we used to be able to use to detect, you know, cheating has been taken away, basically, because of budgetary cuts. And so now we're faced with the dilemma of how can we know that the students' work is authentic, especially while AI has gotten even more savvy.

7:12I'm amazed at some of the questions that AI is able to answer. But that's my concern, just how we can assure that students are getting an authentic education. I mean, Jacob, how are you responding to artificial intelligence and the way students may be using it, especially if you don't have the tools available to you that you have before? Well, to be honest with you, shout out to HAPA, which is one of the programs that we have traditionally have paid for for us. I just reached out to them yesterday and said, hey, listen, we don't have the money to pay for this right now, but can you please just extend some grace?

7:53And so shout out to those guys. They've made their program available to us. The other things that we are doing is shifting to paper for a lot of our assignments that we're doing. And so I use a lot of iExcel, which has a monitoring system. And frankly, just having frank conversations with the students about their learning. And so I'd rather see them struggle than just have the correct answer. But that's what I've had to resort to, their own integrity. Okay. Thanks a lot for that call, Jacob. If you're a teacher, we want to know what you're thinking about as you're heading into this school year.

8:31The number is 855-236-1212. Maybe you're concerned about tech in the classroom or staffing cuts or student behavior. Call us, 855-236-1A1A. Lance, we've spoken about the use of AI in the classroom in previous conversations. How is that showing up in your district? That's a really great question and top of mind for so many parents. And it's showing up in Dallas ISD where I work with very scaffolded provided tools coming to us from the district. with guidance on how to use those tools for student learning, how to best support them, because these tools are not going away and students, as the caller mentioned, are accessing them.

9:16We need a little bit more of a combined effort on what are the best practices to use these tools responsibly, both from the student side and honestly on the teacher side, so that we can be on the same page and proactively be addressing this moment so that it doesn't get away from us, because it's not going away. Jennifer, what kinds of supports around the use of AI, either as a teacher or how students are using AI, what kind of support are you getting in your classroom? I know our district has been reducing screen time in elementary schools, and they brought that up to the high school level as well.

9:51But in terms of just training itself, that's something I can definitely use more from. And on our survey on Educators for Excellence, which will be released at the end of September called Voices of the Classroom. We found that only 24 % of teachers say they've gotten adequate AI training. And similar to the caller, I've leaned on paper-based, hand-based, interactive notebooks, projects, because I've seen the usage of AI. And it does go back to also having those conversations with students about integrity and your thinking and, you know, how to prepare for the real world and that balance. But like Glenn said, it's not going away.

10:24So how do we get trained properly to also help the students use it properly? Lauren, when we zoom out and look at the national picture, how is artificial intelligence shaping the conversation around education policy right now? It's huge. I feel like it's the only thing I've been talking about with a lot of policymakers and teachers and superintendents recently. But I think the national data that I've come across, Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation did a study and kind of mirrors what Jennifer just brought up. the fact that a lot of teachers are using, I think it's about six in 10 teachers are using AI, but relatively few, about 20%, 18 % are getting kind of formal instruction about it in schools and from their districts.

11:03And so obviously there's kind of like that gap in knowledge. And when you look at students, it's the same way. About 70 % of teenagers report using AI for schoolwork or for projects and things like that. But the kind of formal guidance is sometimes missing. We're speaking to Lauren Lumpkin. She's national education writer at The Washington Post. Also with us, Lance Barish. She teaches high school math in Dallas and Jennifer Lopez, who teaches high school social studies in Los Angeles. And we want to hear from teachers and other school workers about what's worrying you and energizing you as this school year begins.

11:40We heard from Ian. He taught high school science for 20 years. Ian says, There is so much to worry about at the start of a new school year, but I find myself excited and hopeful more than anything. Students crave relationships and genuine learning, even if they do mask it with behaviors. The more conversations we can have about the trajectory of education in this country and the framing of teachers as respected professionals, the better. Well, coming up, how are teachers coping with distraction and behavior problems in the classroom? And how are school districts trying to address the issue? And a reminder from Steve in Rochester who writes, No matter who you are and whether you are heading back to school or not, a lot of kids are and will be getting back on to buses.

12:22Please, people, heed the laws and slow down with yellow flashing lights and stop when the lights are red and the stop sign is out. Steve, great reminder for all of us. We'll be right back.

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13:20Our investigation has uncovered new evidence and witnesses who say they've never talked to police. Did police ever call you? Not once. Listen to We Keep Us Safe, a new true crime series on the Embedded Podcast from NPR. On Code Switch, we're asking, what do we owe the people who raised us? I think the public discourse makes us think that people who are strange don't care about the family or they're like selfish or individualistic. And that really wasn't what I found. I found actually they cared so much about the family that they really wanted good families. And they were trying their best to figure out a way to do that.

13:54Listen to Code Switch in the NPR app or wherever you get your pockets. Let's get back into the conversation. We're talking to teachers and other school staff today about what's on their minds as the new school year gets underway. Education Week surveyed more than 1 ,000 educators earlier this year, and the picture they paint is pretty clear. Student behavior and engagement are the top concerns. Budget uncertainty is close behind, and somewhere in the mix is artificial intelligence. It's showing up in classrooms whether teachers feel ready for it or not. Let's go back to the phones. We have Beverly on the line in Ithaca, New York.

14:30Now, Beverly, you are a school psychologist. You work primarily with preschool through sixth graders. What's on your mind? I just wanted to take time to give a huge shout out to all the teachers out there in the primary school, early elementary, who are going in and or, as some of your colleagues have said, already been working. The time, energy, and money that they put into setting up their classroom every year. Every June, they have to take it down, put it in boxes, but then they come back every year, open it back up, and create just such a nurturing environment. and open arms for all those loving, well, and not always loving children that come into their environment.

15:13And they are working with these kiddos and pouring their heart and soul for 180 days. And no salary can cover that. Well, Beverly, I'm curious to hear from you as well as a school psychologist. I mean, you're working with students, but also with teachers. What are your concerns or what are you excited about this school year? the concern has been increasingly the behavioral challenges. I've been doing this for 32 years now, and I just see a lot of things you've already talked about, the short attention span, um, the lack of respect for teachers. And that's why I wanted to make this comment is we've all been in school and whether we have baggage of good baggage or bad baggage from our teachers, letting that go.

16:07And if you have a child going into school, going in there as the parent, as the guardian, which is another issue, it's not always the parent anymore. And just saying, what can I do to help the teacher be successful with my child? I think so often the distractibility from IA and computers and screens, that impacts the child neurologically and they're battling that. But when they hear negativity about school and teachers from the adults in their lives, that's also a huge component. I see such a difference for children when their parents and the teachers work together. I can read that. Oh, no, no, no.

16:51I was just going to thank you for the call. And Jennifer and Lance, I want to come to you on this because this is something I've noticed in recent years. I have friends who are teachers or who have children who are now teachers, and there are these GoFundMes where it's like someone's trying to, you know, deck out their classroom for the year. Can you contribute? And how well resourced are you in your district? So that, I mean, I think about walking into my fifth grade classroom. This was many, many moons ago, but how exciting it was to see what the teacher had done in the room that year. I don't know how much was coming out of her pocket.

17:30I don't know if there were people in the community helping to support that work, but now it has become more of a crowdsourcing exercise. Jennifer, is that happening in your district? Yeah, it is. I actually put together a DonorsChoose this year, and I was able to get the$1 ,600 funded, which was great. I really pride myself as being a former elementary teacher. I think about your fifth grade. I was a former fifth grade teacher, and I loved it. It had like a sports theme, and so when I moved to high school, I'm like, I still want to keep this energy alive. You know, I'm in this room six, seven hours, and I want the students to also feel like welcoming.

18:02And I've noticed, I get a lot of compliments for kids like, miss, this just feels so homey, but it comes at a cost. You know what I mean? So, but I, you know, I want to do it because it's for the kids and it's their learning environment. And Lance, do you think there are certain assumptions still made about the responsibilities teachers have, sort of the hidden labor and the hidden cost of running a classroom and that, you know, all of these things happen. The room is decorated, but maybe the assumption is that the teacher is paying for that. And that's maybe the way it should be. Yeah, that is something that we have been dealing with for a long time.

18:44My entire career, two decades in the classroom now, I've often supplemented my own funds to make my classroom look as beautiful as Jennifer's does from the sounds of it. And it's just something that we've been navigating. Funds often come from different places that are Jenga together. For a little while, we were receiving some relief funds during the pandemic. And now that's kind of gone away. And so we're always kind of taking the funds and the supplies and the resources from where we can and doing the best that we can. And unfortunately, that frequently comes from our own pocket, and I don't see that changing in the near future.

19:19Well, let's go back to the phones. We have Andy on the line from Flagstaff, Arizona. Andy, you're a school psychologist. You're working on reservations in northern Arizona. What are you seeing around funding cuts in your district? Well, I think probably what is most notable to me is that those lack of access to resources, both for teachers, students and parents, has become more detrimental to us. Students don't have access to current textbooks or curriculum. Parents don't have access to workshops or other things that they can actually go to as parents and also as teachers. Um, piggybacking on what someone had said earlier, you know, a lot of those cuts actually have taken away those, um, those resources that we have to computer programs, um, access to things that may be more, um, accessible for other communities.

20:34As a Native American psychologist, um, it becomes harder, harder for us to kind of travel. We live in a very rural area. But you know what? I'll just say this. Our kids, our teachers, they are so excited every year when they come back to school. And it's such an inspiring thing to see, encouraging to see. So thank you. Thank you for calling, Andy. Let's go to Nora in New Mexico. Nora, you teach 7th through 12th grade. What's on your mind this school year? I think it's really important that if it is somewhat of an inevitability that AI is going to take over everything, And I'm not sure that I want to accept that.

21:14But if that is the general zeitgeist, it is really it's really important for teachers as well as parents and students and everybody in the community, in the advertising world, et cetera, corporate world, et cetera. We need to start understanding that AI is a tool. It is not a way of life. And it's time for us to go back. This might be a time we can embrace as going back to basics, learning handwriting, learning reading out loud, learning silence, learning able being able to listen. I think it's really important because kids are not just using AI in school. They're using AI chatbots to, you know, confirm their fears, to confirm their beliefs about things that haven't really actually been formed and tested in society.

21:57So it's really a community. We, you know, it really does take a village to raise a child. Nora, thank you so much for that call. I want to start with your responses on Andy's thoughts about cutting funding here, Lauren. Andy talks about living in a mostly rural area. Andy's working on reservations in northern Arizona, and he was describing how the cuts to their funding affects families in this more rural area. When we talk about cuts, we can talk about at the federal level and the state level, but how are the two connected? How does that policymaking at the federal level then affect what states are able to do?

22:36So at the federal level, I mean, really, the relationship between school districts and federal funding, a lot of it is kind of like these big grants, you know, multimillion dollar grants for, like I said earlier, teacher preparation, mental health support, services for low income families, things like that. But I mean, actually a lot of federal budgeting is, I mean, a lot of education budgeting is decided at the local level. And so, you know, when I talk to a lot of teachers about kind of budget constraints, they're often talking about these are local policies, you know, being made by state legislatures or, you know, by city council members.

23:09So that's definitely, you know, something that I've been hearing about a lot. But a lot of those conversations are honestly happening at the local level. And because those local level decisions are the ones leading to a lot of the cuts we're hearing about from teachers, is this about just tightening budgets at the state level, states having to make decisions about, you know, working with fewer resources? I think there's so many factors. Just everything is expensive right now. I mean, even, you know, to run a fleet of school buses is really expensive because gas is so expensive. Another thing that I've been following is just a lot of school districts are having really tough conversations about closing schools right now because there's just fewer students.

23:48And that's because of lower birth rates. People are leaving cities because it's gotten too expensive to live in big cities. We also have fewer students coming into the country. Immigration is a huge factor. And because schools' budgets are determined by the number of students who attend, if there's fewer students, It's just not, you know, it's not the same amount of money. However, you still have teachers that need to be paid and you still have administrators and, you know, running a school is expensive. And, you know, if there are not enough bodies, you're not enough students in the classroom, then there's just fewer resources to work with.

24:17Well, we want to hear from you. The number to call is 855-236-1212. That's 855-236-1A1A. If you're a teacher or you work in a school district in some capacity, what's top of mind for you this school year? What are you excited about? What are you worried about? We're here with Lauren Lumpkin. She's national education reporter at the Washington Post. Also with us, Lance Barrett. She teaches high school math in Dallas and Jennifer Lopez, who teaches high school social studies in Los Angeles. Let's go to Lauren in Cleveland, Ohio. Lauren, you're a professor and you're working with first year incoming students.

24:57What are you seeing around artificial intelligence and what they know about it, how to use it, some of the ethical questions about using it in their schoolwork? Hi. Yeah, I would say the biggest disconnect is really the difference between students that I've had or, you know, incoming students within the last couple of years versus, you know, pre-COVID is just like that academic like curiosity. And we've been seeing even as a department, we teach graphic design. And there is so much expectation on, okay, let me look up the answer. What is it? How do I do this? What's the best creative approach to take?