May 24, 2026

Mary Acebu, a special education teacher at Riverview Middle School in Bay Point, Calif., works with a student during a math lesson. She says using AI to help with the paperwork part of her job allows her to spend more time interacting with her students in a meaningful way.
Talia Herman for NPR

Hiya! It’s Jonaki, the NPR education reporter covering learning disabilities and differences.

I want to tell you about a quiet revolution happening in the back of classrooms, during prep periods and over hasty teacher lunches: According to a recent survey, more than half of special ed teachers around the country are turning to AI to help them do the important but time-consuming paperwork required for their jobs.

It might sound scary to think about special education being shaped by some AI bot. But through my reporting, I learned this is actually a place where AI, when used safely, has become a real help for teachers.

A big chunk of the paperwork special ed teachers have to do under federal law includes writing IEPs (individualized education programs). These are written plans tailored to the unique learning needs of each child in special education. The goals have to be aligned with academic standards and should make each child’s progress their north star.

“The key term is ‘individualized.’ No two kids are the same,” Mary Acebu, a special ed teacher in northern California, told me. She says that means each IEP can take hours to write and be dozens of pages long. So, AI has become a natural partner for her and many other teachers. She says after lots of training, she’s found that AI can give her more time actually working, hands-on, with her kiddos.

Here’s the other thing Mary points out: Part of the job description for special ed teachers is to know their students’ learning styles intimately and understand complicated education law. So, she says they’re typically pretty well-equipped to look at what AI spits out and make sure it’s actually quality stuff. Plus, she says, even before AI, teachers were already using shortcuts to get the paperwork done, like finding IEP goals from online “goal banks” which, in some ways, could be worse at the individualization part of the IEP than going back and forth with an AI chatbot.

This story gets into the risks of using AI for this work, ways to use it safely and what teachers — and students — stand to gain.

Read and listen to the story

— Jonaki Mehta, Education Correspondent, NPR

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In other news...

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— Cory Turner, NPR education correspondent

High school students learn historic building techniques. Young people aren't joining the historic trades workforce nearly as fast as tradespeople are retiring. That means the owners of historic buildings might have to wait years to get something fixed. To build the preservation workforce, a New Hampshire training program is open to not only construction and carpentry students, but also people who are new to the building industry entirely

— Jackie Harris, New Hampshire Public Radio

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— Cory Turner, NPR education correspondent

Advice for 2026 commencement speakers: Don't bring up AI. Commencement speakers who have brought up the sweeping changes that artificial intelligence is driving are also facing boos from the Class of 2026.

— Jude Joffe-Block and Michelle Aslam, NPR

Harvard faculty pass a new cap on number of As they can give to students. At Harvard, more than half of all grades awarded to undergraduates last year were As, up from a quarter two decades ago. Now, the number of A grades in any given course will be limited to around the top 20% of students, plus four additional As per class at the professor's discretion.

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And here's something to make you smile...

Hacky sack is the latest trend, but its increased popularity is causing a shortage.

It’s hard to say exactly why so many kids started kicking hacky sacks a few weeks ago. Some speculate it was a trend from East Coast prep schools, or a hacky sack cameo in the movie Project Hail Mary, or just the natural result of kids looking for something to do when schools ban cellphones.

From Colorado to Kansas City, middle and high school teachers report groups of kids playing hacky sack before sports games, and in the hallway between classes. Kids are also uploading TikToks and reels with their moves, which then spread to more schools.

According to the latest Google trends report, searches for hacky sack went up over 5,000% in the past month. TikTok reports a 7,000% increase in year-to-date searches over last year. And they say the trend only just started at the end of last month.

The popularity has led some stores to run through a half a year’s supply in just a few short weeks. Footbags need to have the right weight and flexibility for a good hack. And they have to stand up to being kicked. So even the cheaper hacky sacks are usually hand-made — either crocheted in Guatemala, or hand-sewn in Pakistan or the U.S. Which means it's not that easy to just ramp up production.

As long as you're having fun — and not using your hands — there isn't really a wrong way to hacky sack. As long as you can find one.

— Deena Prichep for NPR

As always, thank you for reading and listening!

— The NPR Education Team

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