Plus, early childhood educator apprenticeships offer an answer to child care shortagesView in browser [link removed]

**Weekly Update**

**A newsletter from The Hechinger Report**

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**In this week's edition:** While most schools wait until middle school to transition students from one class to another, some do so starting at age 6 or 7 as part of a strategy known as departmentalizing [link removed]. States, cities and even a trade union in Washington state are investing in training programs to fill the gap in child care [link removed]. Plus, an analysis of NAEP data shows achievement differs little by family structure for low-income students [link removed].

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Children at Baton Rouge Center for Visual and Performing Arts line up to switch classrooms for math and English classes on Dec. 9, 2025, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Credit: Annie Flanagan for The Hechinger Report

**The schools where even young children change classes **

About two dozen second graders sat on the carpet at the front of Jacquelyn Anthony’s classroom, reviewing how to make tens. “Two needs eight!” the students yelled out together. “Six needs four!” 

“The numbers may get a little trickier,” Anthony told them next. “But remember, the numbers we need to make 10 are still there.” The students then turned confidently to bigger calculations: Forty-six needs four ones to make a new number divisible by 10; 128 needs two to make 13 tens. 

At the end of the hour, the second graders slung on their backpacks, gathered their Chromebooks and lined up at the door before heading to English and social studies class across the hall. While most schools wait until middle school to transition students from one class to another, kids at Louisiana’s Baton Rouge Center for Visual and Performing Arts do so starting at age 6 or 7. It’s part of a strategy known as departmentalizing, or platooning. 

Anthony, rather than teaching all four core subjects, specializes in math. The school’s new facility, built in 2025, was designed with departmentalizing in mind: The classrooms have huge glass windows, so teachers can see their next class preparing to line up in the hallway.

“Teaching today is so different than it was a long time ago, and there are so many demands on them. And the demand to be an expert in your content area is very high,” said Sydney Hebert, magnet site coordinator for the art-focused public school in the East Baton Rouge Parish school district. “We want to make sure that our teachers are experts in what they’re teaching so that they can do a good job of teaching it to the kids.”

As schools contend with a decades-long slump in math scores — exacerbated by the pandemic — some are turning to this classroom strategy even for very young students. In recent years, more elementary schools have opted to departmentalize some grade levels in an attempt to boost academic achievement.

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****Early childhood educator apprenticeships offer an answer to child care shortages****

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About six years ago, an apprentice training to be a machinist in Washington state told her supervisor she would probably have to drop out of the training program after having her baby: She couldn’t find child care that accommodated her shift.

It was one of the first challenges Shana Peschek was tasked with solving when she became executive director of the Machinists Institute, which trains workers for jobs in the aerospace, manufacturing and automotive industries all over the state. 

Peschek knew it was essential to do something for workers with young children.

“That worst shift, the new hires are going to get it. The new hires are generally younger people. They have little kids or they are going to want a little kid,” Peschek said.

“It’s beyond the cost of child care,” she said. “If they can’t find anywhere, we’re going to lose them.” 

As Peschek worked on a way to address the situation, she also wondered how she could include apprenticeship in the solution. The answer: incorporating early educator apprenticeships into a custom-built child care center tailored to the trade union’s needs.

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**Conservatives see married parents as a solution to low student achievement. It’s not that simple**

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NAEP data suggests that family structure affects student performance mostly in wealthier households.    

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Fourth- and eighth-grade students from low-income households score at roughly the same level whether they live with both parents or with only one parent.  [link removed]

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****Reading list****

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OPINION: Colleges must start treating immigration-based targeting as a serious threat to student safety and belonging [link removed]

Along with studying together, some students are now policing one another and turning in their classmates

Tracking Trump: His actions on education [link removed]

The president is working to eliminate the Education Department and fighting ‘woke’ ideology in schools. A week-by-week look at what he’s done

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