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An about-face on the integration of people with disabilities: For nearly 50 years, the federal government has said people with disabilities should live, work and learn in the most integrated setting possible rather than be segregated in institutions like nursing homes. NPR Ed’s Jonaki Mehta recently talked to siblings Kaleigh and Cody Brendle about how those protections have shaped their lives. But in late September, the Trump administration took its most concrete step yet to reverse that policy, Jonaki reports. A federal judge agreed to strip out mentions of "integration" from federal regulations tied to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, a landmark civil rights law that prohibits disability discrimination.
An NPR investigation shows kids with disabilities are the largest group of children who enter foster care. And they suffer the worst outcomes in that care — getting trapped in the system longer than kids without disabilities and dealing with lifelong harm, NPR’s Joseph Shapiro found. Among those children, the largest group have a behavioral health disability. They end up in child welfare in large numbers, often in the most institutional settings — including therapeutic group homes and residential treatment centers — because of "behaviors that are off-putting or scary," says Nancy Thaler. She leads a federally funded program to understand how to better care for "children with complex behavioral health conditions."
5 tips for parents worried about their kids' screen time and online safety: New research found that parental monitoring of kids' social media habits is largely effective in minimizing harms of screen time and social media, NPR’s Rhitu Chatterjee reports. She offers specific guidance distilled from experts about what to do, and not to do, in pursuit of kids’ well-being online. Extra credit: Kids can be, unsurprisingly, really creative online, even when they have very limited access to social media. Like by using the comments section of an NPR podcast as their group chat.
College sports bill clears the Senate. What’s in it? The legislation would codify the regulation of name, image and likeness deals that have transformed college athletics in recent years by allowing athletes to be paid — some of them as much as millions of dollars per season, NPR’s Becky Sullivan reports. Opponents of the bill — from labor groups to athlete organizations to the NAACP, along with the 22 senators who voted against it — say it unfairly places limits on athletes without allowing them an equal seat at the table alongside powerful institutions. It’s not clear if the House will take it up.
That’s a lotta dough: NPR Ed’s Elissa Nadworny told Morning Edition host Michel Martin that the kind of gift hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin gave to Carnegie Mellon, the largest ever to a single institution, remains rare. But overall, giving to colleges is up, totaling $78 billion in 2025. The big picture, Elissa said, is that these big donations signal a continued belief in higher education and in scientific discovery. Griffin acknowledged that higher ed and its funding streams, especially those coming from the federal government, have been at risk. A recent episode of 1A delved into that and other issues ailing higher education.
We listened to nearly 1,500 elementary, middle and high school student podcasts: What do Americans really know about their country? What do we mean when we think of "home"? When a father dies, what lessons does he leave for his son? And, was Andy Warhol a woman named Patricia? These questions — from fifth graders in Hewlett, N.Y., a high school student in Ann Arbor, Mich., an 11th grader in Cicero, Ill., and a middle schooler in Brooklyn — make up just a few of the many subjects that students around the country turned into audio stories and sent us this year. Their answers to those questions are among our 2026 honorees asthe best student podcasts in America. And here are the honorable mentions.
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Night school, with a twist |
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The sun has already started setting behind the towering peaks of central Lesotho when Kabelo Mohai and Lepeli Maapesa begin their long walk to school.
Wool blankets draped over their shoulders against the biting cold, the two young men scramble down rocky paths nearly 8,000 feet above sea level. The moon is high in the sky, an hour and a half later, when they finally spot the lights of the small town of Semonkong in the distance.
In the pitch darkness, dozens of similar blanket-clad silhouettes make their way down the mountainsides, singing and chatting excitedly as they approach a building illuminated by fluorescent lights: the Good Shepherd School, where more than 40 herders gather every evening for night classes.
NPR contributors Julie Bourdin and Tommy Trenchard write that Mohai and Lepeli are among tens of thousands of boys and young men working as shepherds in this small, mountainous southern African country. Driven by poverty and tradition, school-aged boys are often called to tend the flocks, spending months at a time herding alone in the mountains, cut off from society. For many, like Mohai, the work comes at the expense of schooling.
To give these "herd boys" a second chance at education, dozens of dedicated schools have emerged across the country. Mostly run by volunteers on shoestring budgets, they hold classes at night, once the flocks have been safely brought into their pens. The teaching is often basic — reading, writing, counting. And the schools constantly struggle financially to keep their doors open.
Yet for many, they offer the only chance to dream of a different future. |
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