Melissa Manno

My Hearst fellowship is coming to an end, but I am excited to share that I am staying at the @ExpressNews as an education reporter. I love this beat and am thrilled to keep working in this immensely talented newsroom. Sorry, Texas…you’re not getting rid of me that easily! 🤠

Impossible to overstate the implications of this. Slowing—and adapting to—this trend will be a generational challenge for our schools and our city. (Projection from @NYC_SCA)

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie is MAD. "There's no deal," he tells reporters about the budget. "I said to her last night, I was comfortable with her saying to y'all, we're close. It is close. But this is what's wrong with this process... I'm never doing this again"

When Hochul unveiled her Back to Basics plan in 2024, she said NY was late to the game, calling it “embarrassing” that nearby states had already embraced the science of reading. Two years later, advocates say it has done little to make up for lost ground. nysfocus.com/2026/05/07/sci…

NEW: Gov. Hochul unveiled her signature literacy plan two years ago. But more than 130 school districts are still using reading curricula that has been discredited, a New York Focus analysis has found. nysfocus.com/2026/05/07/sci…

Michigan and California reviewed i-Ready and said it clearly: It does not meet the bar for a universal screener. Georgia found the same, but then our superintendent added it back because it’s widely used. That’s a big issue bc it: • Misses borderline students • Weak phonemic awareness measurement • Adaptive = can skip key skills Diagnostic ≠ screener. Popular ≠ effective. Read the full article: open.substack.com/pub/decodingmo…

Jessica Winter has been raising her children to detest A.I. Then her daughter’s public middle school began receiving Google Chromebooks, which came pre-installed with an all-ages version of Gemini, a suite of A.I. tools. “When my daughter, who is in sixth grade, begins writing an essay, she gets a prompt: ‘Help me write,’ ” Winter writes. “If she is starting work on a slide-show presentation, the prompt is ‘Help me visualize.’ She shoos away these interruptions, but they persist: ‘Help me edit.’ ‘Beautify this slide.’ ” Proponents of generative A.I. in elementary and middle schools argue that such early exposure will foster digital-media literacy, and prepare them for a future in which most professions are steeped in A.I. But the technology also poses significant cognitive and social-emotional risks to young people. Read Winter’s report about A.I.’s infiltration into schools—and what it could mean for young minds: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/NSWuBG

East Ramapo CSD has filed a lawsuit against the State Education Department over the rejection of its unanimous choice for superintendent. @nysfocus nysfocus.com/2026/04/30/eas…

HUGE NEWS for editors: the AP has changed its style guide. It's now "healthcare" (not "health care") and "childcare" (not "child care") apstylebook.com/ap_stylebook/h…

As homelessness rises among NYC kids, report finds most struggle to make it to school gothamist.com/news/as-homele…

On the campaign trail, Mamdani said complying with the state’s class size law “has too often been a negotiation.” Now, he’s trying to negotiate a delay. chalkbeat.org/newyork/2026/0…

NYC and 35 counties in the rest of the state have stopped enrolling eligible families into the child care voucher program amid a funding crisis. Read more: nysfocus.com/2026/03/31/chi…

My favorite article of the day, about an instructor having classes write essays on typewriters. Read it! The student quotes are priceless: "This might sound bad, but I was forced to actually think about the problem on my own instead of delegating to AI..." apnews.com/article/typewr…

Public school districts will be encouraged to limit elementary school student use of iPads and laptops in the classroom under a Missouri House bill approved in a 143-10 vote Monday. #moleg #mogov missouriindependent.com/briefs/new-gui…

More than half of NY counties have stopped enrolling eligible families in the state’s child care voucher program amid a funding crisis. In NYC alone, the voucher waitlist has surged from 1,500 families last July to over 17,000 this month. @nysfocus nysfocus.com/2026/03/31/chi…

NEW: More than half of New York counties have stopped enrolling eligible families in the state’s child care voucher program as of mid-March amid a funding crisis that has persisted for over a year, new data shows. nysfocus.com/2026/03/31/chi…

The $10M course overseen by the state teachers union "doesn’t reflect the latest research and in fact promotes a teaching strategy that’s been found ineffective and could actually impede students’ progress, literacy experts say." 😬 hechingerreport.org/new-york-ten-m…

I spent weeks looking at this elephant in the room: the impact of increased ICE enforcement on schools. Story on the front page today, will post online tomorrow.

I visited McPherson Middle School in Kansas to report on a new tech backlash spreading in education: Chromebook remorse. Some schools that once gave Google-powered laptops to each student to freely use at school and at home are curbing device use. nytimes.com/2026/03/29/tec…

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is announcing New York City's first free on-site child care center for city employees. It'll be full day for kids from 6 weeks to 3 years old at the David Dinkins municipal building near City Hall.

A Michigan superintendent learned that reading in K-5 had "almost vanished." Then, devices were banned "almost overnight" in @MesickSchools. @lilyalta reports. @JonHaidt gets mentions.