Closing schools is a civil rights problem – federal funding should be at stake
We are quickly approaching the one-year mark since Governor Wolf first closed schools back on March 13, 2020. Depending on where you live in the state, especially in low-income communities, your child still may not be attending school in-person. There are federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, […]
Pandemic Teacher Shortages Imperil In-Person Schooling
The nation’s schools need thousands of more teachers, full-time and substitute, to keep classrooms open during coronavirus outbreaks. As exposure to the coronavirus forced thousands of teachers across the United States to stay home and quarantine this winter, administrators in the Washoe County School District, which serves 62,000 students in western Nevada, pulled out all […]
A lost generation’: Surge of research reveals students sliding backward, most vulnerable worst affected
After the U.S. education system fractured into Zoom screens last spring, experts feared millions of children would fall behind. Hard evidence now shows they were right. A flood of new data — on the national, state and district levels — finds students began this academic year behind. Most of the research concludes students of color […]
Students At This Aurora School Are Learning To Teach Themselves New Skills
Spending most of 2020 attending school virtually, students at a small charter school in Aurora are enjoying a new kind of class where everyone chooses what to learn. “It’s kind of boring to sit on a Zoom screen all day,” 14-year-old Karinne Jones said. “It feels good to just work on something I’m passionate about.” […]
Virtual Instruction Isn’t Getting High Marks From Parents, But Many Still Prefer It
Parents whose children are learning in person full time are the most pleased with the quality of their child’s education. The hybrid on/off approach, meanwhile, isn’t providing much more academic benefit than purely virtual instruction, according to parents. And while parents of fully virtual students are less satisfied than parents of kids attending school in […]
We Consider This A First Victory’: Penn Professors See University Gift As An Important Step For Funding Philadelphia Schools
Professor Ann Farnsworth-Alvear hopes a $100 million donation over 10 years from the University of Pennsylvania to the city’s school district will only be the beginning of a longer conversation about how to properly fund schools. She along with other Penn professors and staff had pushed for months for their university to pay up to […]
Surges In Covid Cases Are Upending School Reopening Plans Across The U.s.
Rising COVID cases are derailing plans by school districts across the country to reopen their buildings and pushing some schools that had opened to close once again. Just this week, the Detroit school district suspended all in-person learning until January. Health officials ordered schools in Indianapolis to do the same. Philadelphia put its plans to bring young students back […]
High School Seniors Have Made No Progress In Math Or Reading On Closely Watched Federal Test
American high school seniors’ math scores didn’t improve between 2015 and 2019, while their reading scores fell, according to the latest round of federal test results. The scores highlight the country’s broader failure to boost student test scores over the last decade and the particular stubbornness of high school reading results, which have actually declined since the early 1990s. […]
The Pandemic Is Spotlighting Longstanding Issues With America’s School Buildings
The Government Accountability Office sounded a dire warning: One in three public school students — some 14 million — was learning in a building in need of extensive repair. In New Orleans, that meant rotting buildings with no air conditioning. In rural California, it meant difficult-to-maintain portable classrooms. America’s school facilities, one observer said, were […]
This School Year Will Be Messy. That’s Ok.
As the school year begins amid an ongoing pandemic and after a summer of racial reckoning, Social and Emotional Learning is going to hold special appeal to educators trying to help students heal from a range of painful losses. The idea behind this kind of learning, known as SEL, is that when students are calm, […]
How The History Of Race In America Is Taught In Schools
John Oliver takes a look at how the history of race in America is taught in schools, how we can make those teachings more accurate, and why it’s in everyone’s best interest to understand the most realistic version of the past.
Changing Education Paradigms – Divergent Thinking As An Essential Capacity For Creativity
