Demographics & Diversity
Demographics & Diversity
K-12 Education
The U.S. population is becoming more diverse than ever. In the fall of 2014, the country reached a demographic milestone: For the first time, black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American children made up the majority of the approximately 50,000 students in the nation’s public schools.
The number of non-white students is expected to grow even more over the next several years as a result of immigration and birth patterns among Hispanic and Asian populations. By 2023, students of color will represent nearly 55 percent of K-12 students in public schools, according to projections from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Meanwhile, the student population is changing in other ways, too. The share of students from low-income families is on the rise, as are students — including children born in the U.S. — who are learning English. (One in five school-age children were living in poverty in 2014, based on NCES data. About 9 percent of public school students were English language learners in 2013-14.)
The demographic changes have amplified challenges that U.S. schools have grappled with for decades — challenges such as preschool access, racial disparities in student discipline, and stark achievement gaps that show black and Hispanic students far behind their white and Asian peers. It’s also highlighted the issue of diversity in the teaching workforce, as more than 80 percent of teachers are white.
Racial and economic segregation have also emerged as major issues of concern for students of color. Research by the UCLA Civil Rights Project, the U.S. Government Accountability Office and other organizations has found that Latinos are the most segregated student group — even more so than blacks, though both groups tend to be enrolled in schools where poor children comprise the majority. These schools are more likely to employ inexperienced teachers and have higher discipline rates, and they are less likely to offer students access to gifted education programs or advanced-level courses. A 2016 GAO study finds a big jump from 2001 to 2014 in the share of public schools with mostly poor students who are Hispanic or black. The figure rose from 9 percent to 16 percent.
Today’s public schools also are grappling with issues related to other types of student diversity, including sexual orientation and gender identity. For example, high-profile debates have unfolded over bathroom access for transgender students. In addition, lesbian, gay and bisexual students experience substantially higher levels of physical and sexual violence and bullying at high schools, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2016.
Higher Education
Diversity and demographics are central to key debates in postsecondary education. How much should colleges and universities do to ensure their campuses are welcoming to students of color? Are these institutions enrolling and graduating enough students from lower-income backgrounds? What about the balance between male and female students, both on campuses overall and within specific departments? How inclusive is higher education with respect to sexual orientation and gender identity?
As the nation’s demographic makeup shifts and more people pursue education after high school, colleges and universities are confronting these questions and other challenges that come with change.
Enrollment of minority students in higher education institutions has gone up since the turn of the century. According to NCES data, of the 17.3 million undergraduate students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities in fall 2014, 7.7 million were students of color. Among Hispanic undergraduate students alone, enrollment has more than doubled since 2000 — from 1.4 million to 3 million. Black student enrollment also has seen a large boost, growing by 57 percent in 14 years.
But despite these increases, degree attainment for black and Latino students still lags behind their white and Asian peers. As of 2014, 15 percent of Hispanics and 22 percent of blacks between the ages of 25 and 29 had earned a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the Pew Research Center. By comparison, 41 percent of whites and 63 percent of Asians in the same age group had a bachelor’s degree.
There are many reasons for the gap. Black and Hispanic students are more likely to be first-generation college students — students whose parents did not attend college — and may require additional financial and academic supports during their college years. Hispanics are also more likely than other groups to attend community colleges. Meanwhile, blacks are overrepresented in for-profit colleges, which have much lower graduation rates than public and private colleges.
In addition, black and Latino students are underrepresented at more-selective institutions. Part of the reason, research indicates, is that high-achieving minority students often choose so-called “safety schools” that may be closer to home or schools that have large proportions of same-race students, such as minority-serving institutions.
Just a few generations after the majority of colleges and universities agreed to enroll female students, women now comprise the majority of all students enrolled in four-year colleges nationwide. But from campus to campus — within the student body, faculty, administration, and academic departments — issues of gender equity frequently surface.
Sexual orientation and gender identity also are garnering more attention in postsecondary education, as colleges and universities seek to ensure that LGBT members of their communities are supported. The public bathroom privileges of transgender individuals has been a recent issue, sometimes putting universities at odds with federal or state policies that affect their institutions’ access to public funding.
Lawsuit: Some 200 Immigrant Youth Excluded From Collier High Schools
Nehemy is one of an estimated 200 immigrant youth who have been told they can’t attend high school in Collier County, according to a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center that is headed to trial next year. Typically, state laws obligate schools to offer a free education to students through at least age 19.
DeVos Has Scuttled More Than 1, 200 Civil Rights Probes
Whether schoolchildren in DeSoto County, Mississippi, are paddled varies by their race. Black students are almost two and a half times more likely than whites to endure the corporal punishment permitted under school district policy for skipping class, insubordination, repeated tardiness, flagrant dress code violations, or other misbehavior: up to three “licks per incident on the buttocks with an appropriate instrument approved by the principal.”
June 15-June 21
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
Emmanuel Felton of The Hechinger Report investigates charter schools where the student population is significantly whiter than neighboring district schools.
A lawsuit alleges that school districts across the country are excluding immigrant students. Zoë Kirsch of The Teacher Project explores the issue for Naples Daily News.
Hispanic, Latino, Latinx: How to Cover the Fastest-growing Student Group
Hispanic students, who make up the second largest racial demographic in schools today, are entering college in record numbers. But they are also dropping out of college at a far higher rate than white students. That reality has important implications for our educational and economic systems and the reporters who cover them, according to a group of researchers and experts gathered at the 2018 Education Writers Association National Seminar.
‘It’s Like a Black and White Thing’: How Some Elite Charter Schools Exclude Minorities
Lake Oconee Academy is a charter school. Charters are public schools, ostensibly open to all. The idea behind charters was to loosen rules and regulations that might hinder innovation, allowing them to hire uncertified teachers for example. But dozens of charters have also used their greater flexibility to limit which kids make it through the schoolhouse doors — creating exclusive, disproportionately white schools.
From Words to Action on Newsroom Diversity
“Diversity is essential to the success of the news industry.” Those words, once so eloquently stated by award-winning journalist Gwen Ifill, capture the overarching message conveyed during a recent panel on diversity in the journalism workforce. The spirited talk was part of the Education Writers Association’s 2018 National Seminar in Los Angeles.
Harvard Rated Asian-American Applicants Lower on Personality Traits, Lawsuit Says
Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than any other race on personal traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected,” according to an analysis of more than 160,000 student records filed Friday in federal court in Boston by a group representing Asian-American students in a lawsuit against the university.
June 8-June 14
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
A school district in Florida failed to report crimes that occurred on its campuses, including at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, write Scott Travis, Megan O’Matz, and John Maines for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
In The Military Times, Natalie Gross reports on a significant drop in the number of veterans and dependents using the GI Bill at U.S. colleges.
Why Do Some of the Nation’s Wealthiest Districts Have the Worst Gender Gaps in Math and Reading?
It’s a truism of U.S. education: Boys tend to score better than girls on math tests, and girls outperform boys in reading. But those gender gaps aren’t universal. In fact, the most comprehensive study to date suggests the size and even the direction of gender gaps vary from one school district to another.
In a new study comparing gender gaps across nearly 10,000 districts nationwide, researchers from Stanford University and the Learning Policy Institute found no average gender gap in math, and a gap of nearly three-quarters of a grade level favoring girls in reading.
New Study: Multilingual Students Have Made Huge Progress on NAEP Since 2003
Research published today suggests that multilingual fourth and eighth graders have made huge strides over the past 15 years on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly referred to as “the nation’s report card.” Students who speak a language other than English have considerably narrowed the gap in both math and reading scores with those who speak only English, the study reports.
Where Boys Outperform Girls in Math: Rich, White and Suburban Districts
In much of the country, the stereotype that boys do better than girls at math isn’t true – on average, they perform about the same, at least through eighth grade. But there’s a notable exception. In school districts that are mostly rich, white and suburban, boys are much more likely to outperform girls in math, according to a new study from Stanford researchers, one of the most comprehensive looks at the gender gap in test scores at the school district level.
Gifted Classes Tied to High Scores in NC Bill
A year after a News & Observer and Charlotte Observer series showed that thousands of bright, low-income students were being excluded from advanced classes, state lawmakers took steps Wednesday to address the issue.
The state House voted 114-0 to back a bill that requires North Carolina public schools to place in advanced math classes any students who scored a Level 5 — the highest level on state end-of-grade or end-of-course math exams. Lawmakers pointed to the N&O and Observer’s “Counted Out” series for why the legislation is needed.
Asian Groups See Bias in Plan to Diversify New York’s Elite Schools
A new plan to change the way students are admitted to New York’s elite public high schools is infuriating members of some Asian communities who feel they will be pushed aside in the drive to admit more than a handful of black and Latino students.
Disability and Civil Rights Groups Sue DeVos Over Investigation Rollbacks
Three national civil rights organizations sued the Education Department on Thursday over new procedures that allow its Office for Civil Rights to dismiss complaints that it determines to be burdensome or a drain on the department’s resources.
Puerto Rico’s Schools Are in Tumult, and Not Just Because of Hurricane Maria
The closing of 167 public schools in Puerto Rico a year ago seemed drastic, a painful casualty of a deep and prolonged debt crisis. Then came Hurricane Maria.
Now Puerto Rico plans to shutter another 265 schools, an even harsher measure following a calamitous natural disaster that exacerbated the island’s financial woes. As hurricane season officially began again on Friday, Puerto Rico was set to finish the school year with the doors permanently locked on more than a third of its schools.
For Immigrant Students, a New Worry: A Call to ICE
As Dennis Rivera-Sarmiento sat in a detention center 80 miles away from his Texas home this past winter, clad in a blue inmate uniform, he could see his high school diploma slipping further from his reach. Graduation was in June, but a schoolyard scuffle with a girl who he said had called him a racial epithet had gotten him arrested by his high school’s police officer.
What’s Missing From Stories on Campus Free Speech?
Campus speech has become one of the hottest topics in higher education — especially in recent months, as clashes have turned violent and drawn the attention of President Donald Trump and the Justice Department.
Trump’s Crackdown on Students Who Overstay Visas Rattles Higher Education
The Trump administration plans to crack down on international students and visitors who overstay their visas, stoking fears in the higher education community that President Trump’s aggressive immigration policies will hinder university efforts to attract the brightest minds from overseas.
This Memphis Poetry Team Is the Best in the State. But They Will Scatter as Their School Closes.
MarQuita Henderson had a vision for how her senior year of high school at GRAD Academy Memphis was going to go.
The 11th-grader was going to continue leading her school’s award-winning poetry team, which she believes changed her life. She was going to graduate with her best friends. She was already working on a poem to perform at graduation.
Socioeconomic Mobility and the Future of College
The evidence is clear: A college degree is, in most cases, the key to more money and a more comfortable standard of living. But that pathway to higher earnings is more available to some than others: A lot of elite colleges do not enroll a lot of low-income students, and as a result they’re not boosting very many students from low-income households into the middle and upper classes.
May 18-May 24
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
Laura Isensee of Houston Public Media looks at a school safety approach using armed officers on campus.
Legal definitions can get murky when it comes to investigations of campus sexual assault, writes Eric Kelderman of The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Sally Ho ofthe Associated Press looks at the impact of education funding by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Why Race and Equity Matter in Education Reporting
Education journalists must think more critically about the ways in which race, ethnicity and gender play into the stories they tell, a panel of experts said at the first keynote session at the Education Writers Association’s national seminar in Los Angeles last week.
Despite Progress, Newsroom Diversity Remains A Big Challenge for Education Journalism in 2018
Last week in Los Angeles, the Education Writers Association (EWA) hosted an event for education journalists that – for the first time I’m aware – focused explicitly on newsroom diversity.
The #EWA18 “Room For All?” conference featured several panels focused on helping journalists understand the importance of diversity for journalism as well as for education.
Study: 2013 Chicago School Closings Failed To Help Students
Despite Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s promise that mass school closings in 2013 would lead to a “brighter future,” Chicago students didn’t benefit academically and on average their performance suffered, particularly in math, according to a University of Chicago Consortium on School Research study released on Tuesday.
The groundbreaking study goes on to report that for students and teachers, the transition was traumatic and chaotic.
Achieving Equity in Education: Journalists as Truth-Tellers and Teachers
Gathered for the 2018 Education Writers Association (EWA) National Seminar, hundreds of education journalists heard from education experts, thought leaders and other fellow journalists about ways to make their coverage of today’s education issues nuanced, culturally relevant and enlightening.
Immigrant Teens Pushed Into Miami-Dade Adult Education Programs
They come fleeing gang violence and repressive regimes. They come after hurricanes and earthquakes. They come in search of work and an education.
But in Miami-Dade County, a place built by the aspirations of newcomers, hundreds of immigrant teens will never graduate from high school.
May 4 – May 10
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
Education Week’s Andrew Ujifusa and Alex Harwin examine pronounced fluctuations in the number of desegregation cases reported by school districts.
In Charlotte, N.C., officials want more money to hire mental health workers because of increased demand in schools, Gwendolyn Glenn reports for WFAE.
‘I Never Want to Be in a Neighborhood Where I’m Shot at Again’
When Mario Martinez went to Liberty University, a private Christian college in Lynchburg, Virginia, the affluence astonished him. A student’s car would break down and she’d have a new one within a couple of weeks. “It was mind blowing,” he said. “To see that people can have so much.”
And Liberty — with a median family income of about $75,000 a year — isn’t even that rich compared to what you will find at America’s most prestigious private colleges, where incomes are closer to $200,000 a year or more.
Why Are New York’s Schools Segregated? It’s Not as Simple as Housing
When asked about school segregation in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that schools are segregated because neighborhoods are: “We cannot change the basic reality of housing in New York City.”
Now, as a debate about plans to integrate middle schools has engulfed one Manhattan district, a report released on Wednesday undermines that notion. It found that a full 40 percent of New York City kindergartners do not attend the nearby school to which they are assigned. That’s a vast stream of 27,000 5-year-olds funneling through the city each day.
April 27 – May 3
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
In suburban Illinois, vocational training is getting fresh attention — and funding, writes Rafael Guerrero of The Courier News.
Reporting for Colorado Public Radio, Jenny Brundin looks at allegations of misconduct and abuse against a teacher at a public school for the arts.
Three Black Teens Are Finalists In A NASA Competition. Hackers Spewing Racism Tried To Ruin Their Odds
The three D.C. students couldn’t believe the news. They’d developed a method to purify lead-contaminated water in school drinking fountains, and NASA announced last month that they were finalists in the agency’s prestigious high school competition — the only all-black, female team to make it that far.
The next stage of the science competition included public voting, and the Banneker High School students — Mikayla Sharrieff, India Skinner and Bria Snell, all 17-year-old high school juniors — turned to social media to promote their project.
April 20 – April 26
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
Denver Post reporter Danika Worthington explains why Colorado teachers are walking out of class and rallying at the state capitol.
In DeKalb County, Ga., a school bus driver sickout is drawing complaints — and sympathy — from parents, Marlon A. Walker reports for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Long, Difficult Journey to College
Feature Writing: Magazines and Weeklies
About the Entry
For promising students at one low-income high school, the road to college is marked by hope, frustration, and limited choices.
Naked Truth: Undocumented on Campus
Single-Topic News or Feature: Broadcast
About the Entry
Fusion explores the obstacles that young DREAMers face on college campuses, told through the experience of a first-year undocumented student from Mexico who is studying in Kansas.
Entry Credit
The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones
Single-Topic News or Feature: General News Outlets, Print and Online (Large Staff)
About the Entry
This profile by The Marshall Project for The New York Times explores how universities weighed an aspiring scholar’s potential against her past, raising questions about attitudes toward ex-inmates who have served their time.
Entry Credit
Hartford Schools: More Separate, Still Unequal
Investigative Reporting: General News Outlets, Print and Online
About the Entry
A team of journalists at the Hartford Courant in Connecticut take a close look at educational inequities in their city and the troubling legacy of a landmark court case that was intended to end segregation by creating a system of voluntary magnet schools.
Hard to Read: How American Schools Fail Kids With Dyslexia
Single-Topic News or Feature: Broadcast
About the Entry
There are proven ways to help people with dyslexia learn to read, and a federal law that’s supposed to ensure schools provide kids with help. But according to an audio documentary by Emily Hanford, public schools across the country are denying children proper treatment and often failing to identify them with dyslexia in the first place.
Can Schools Make the American Dream Real for Kids?
Single-Topic News or Feature: Broadcast
About the Entry
Public radio reporter Linda Lutton spends a year with a fourth-grade class in Chicago trying to answer a question: Can a public school overcome the challenges faced by children growing up in high-poverty neighborhoods?
Entry Credit
An Underground College for Undocumented Immigrants
Feature Writing: Magazines and Weeklies
About the Entry
After being turned away from universities due to their uncertain immigration status, determined students — aided by professors sympathetic to their plight — find another way to continue their educations.
Entry Credit
The Secession Movement in Education
Investigative Reporting: Magazines and Weeklies
About the Entry
As a growing number of predominantly white communities seek to form their own school districts, reporter Emmanuel Felton finds dwindling educational opportunities for students of color who remain at less-affluent campuses, raising questions about the federal role.
Shadow Class: College Dreamers in Trump’s America
The Edwin Gould Foundation Eddie Prize
About the Entry
This APM Reports documentary takes listeners into the lives of undocumented students facing prospects as uncertain as those of the embattled Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that has protected them.
Entry Credit
Counted Out
Investigative Reporting: General News Outlets, Print and Online
About the Entry
In a joint investigation, the Raleigh News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer looked at how — and why — thousands of qualified North Carolina students from low-income families were kept out of advanced classes.
Last Chance High
Single-Topic News or Feature: Broadcast
About the Entry
At Chicago’s Moses Montefiore Academy, the school’s staff works to improve the lives of some of the nation’s most at-risk students.
Entry Credit
Documenting Student Voices
Single-Topic News or Feature: Broadcast
About the Entry
Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Julia Schmaltz explores complex issues including race, class, and campus free speech in a series of short films.
Bill Zeeble of KERA News in Dallas
Beat Reporting: Broadcast
About the Entry
Reporting for the NPR affiliate in Dallas, Bill Zeeble looks at school accountability, a growing number of high-need college students, and a push to boost K-12 family engagement.
April 12 – April 19
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
In Michigan, a school’s efforts to help hungry students is broadening its reach, Lori Higgins reports for The Detroit Free Press.
Kathy A. Bolten details for the Des Moines Register how a college student is using social media to criticize campus administrators for their handling of sexual assault allegations.
The Palm Beach Post’s Andrew Marra digs into questionable expenditures by a charter school.
April 6 – April 11
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
Two students in a Holocaust history class were killed during the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. Now Holocaust Remembrance Day has a deeply personal meaning for their teacher and classmates, Mark Keierleber reports for The 74.
Justin Murphy details for the Democrat & Chronicle how the recent death of a teen with autism — who wandered away from school unnoticed — symbolizes a broader special education crisis.
A Fox in Socks but the Basis is Racist. Falling Out of Love With Dr. Seuss
Eighth-grader Beezus Murphy has always loved Dr. Seuss.
“I feel like he just kind of sees the world differently than other people, like the same way I do,” Murphy said. “Because he envisions a world filled with socks-wearing foxes, and elephants raising bird-children, and green eggs and ham.”
March 30 – April 5
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
Moriah Balingit of The Washington Post shows how low pay and ballooning class sizes have left Oklahoma teachers in dire straits, fueling current calls for a strike.
Laura Pappano profiles the “privileged poor”— low-income first-generation students at elite colleges who must navigate the rocky transition across class lines — in an article for The Hechinger Report.
Government Watchdog Finds Racial Bias in School Discipline
Black students continue to be disciplined at school more often and more harshly than their white peers, often for similar infractions, according to a new report by Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog agency, which counters claims fueling the Trump administration’s efforts to re-examine discipline policies of the Obama administration.
What The U.S. Could Learn from Canada about Integrating Immigrant Students
In Canadian public schools, the children of new immigrants do as well as native-born children within three years of arriving. There kids don’t just get language and academic support; their home cultures are celebrated as they are integrated into classes. And strong social services and healthy education funding help too. Special correspondent Kavitha Cardoza of Education Week reports.
Learning About Civil Rights History in Mississippi
Single-Topic News or Feature: General News Outlets, Print and Online (Medium Staff)
About the Entry
The Hechinger Report and Reveal uncovered many omissions in their examination of how, and what, Mississippi schools teach students about the state’s crucial role and murky legacy in the national movement for racial equity.
After 4 Years, Feds Close Civil Rights Probe of Cedar Rapids Schools
A four-year federal civil rights investigation into the Cedar Rapids school district has ended with investigators finding insufficient or no evidence of the district discriminating against African-American students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened the investigation in 2014 after receiving three related complaints that black students at Washington High School were subjected to harsher punishment than their white peers. The complaints spurred a federal probe of the entire district, where some 16,000 students are enrolled.
Kids Miss College Because Their Parents Won’t Apply for Financial Aid
At Downtown Magnets High School in Los Angeles, college counselor Lynda McGee talked about a “heartbreaking” case.
A senior at the school, a U.S. citizen with grades strong enough to get into college, couldn’t get her parents to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, before the March 2 deadline, said McGee. The FAFSA is the gateway to nearly all financial aid.
Ivy League Degree: Now What?
When Chantel Brown was a child in rural Morganton, N.C., she savored the illusion that she “could come off as middle class.” That doesn’t take much when one-quarter of the residents live in poverty. But Brown cleaved to the bling she had: her family’s one-story brick home in a one-street subdivision with a fancy name, River Hills.
Underneath that veneer of status, though, her extended family battled every cliché you’ve heard about rural life: low education levels, poverty and “an addiction to something.”
Black Marjory Stoneman Douglas Students Want The Movement to Include Their Voices Too
Eleven percent of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s 3,000 students are black, but you wouldn’t know it from the media coverage of the school’s horrific mass shooting in February or the gun control movement that sprung up in the aftermath.
Black students gathered in Parkland Wednesday said they felt overlooked and underrepresented by both the media and their peers leading the charge for more gun control. And some of the solutions meant to keep them safer in the wake of a gunman slaughtering 17 of their classmates leave them feeling more afraid than before.
Covering Teens: Lessons from the “Raising Kings” Journalists
Getting heartfelt, personally revealing comments from teenage boys is difficult enough for parents. So reporters Kavitha Cardoza and Cory Turner had to take a few creative risks to get good audio for their National Public Radio series on an all-boys public high school in Washington D.C. last year.
March 23 – March 29
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
Funds from a settled desegregation case have been supporting Mississippi’s HBCUs, but the money is about to run out, reports Adam Harris for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Lily Altavena of The Arizona Republic takes a look beyond the ‘D’ grade of a Mesa community school.
Race, Not Just Poverty, Shapes Who Graduates In America — And Other Education Lessons From a Big New Study
The study landed with a gut punch.
Black men earn significantly less than white men, even when they were raised in families making the same amount. Poor black boys tend to stay poor as adults, and wealthy black boys are more likely to be poor as adults than to stay wealthy.
“Black men raised in the top 1 percent — by millionaires — were as likely to be incarcerated as white men raised in households earning about $36,000,” explained a New York Times article, complete with graphics to let you follow different kids’ paths.
March 9 – March 15
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
As students mobilized for #NationalWalkoutDay, journalists joined them on the streets and in the schools. A highlight: Ray Routhier’s interview with student organizers in Maine for The Portland Press Herald.
Meanwhile, administrators at a California middle school tried to discourage discussion of gun policy in school-sanctioned memorials, reports Mackenzie Mays of The Fresno Bee.
March 2 – March 8
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
Sarah D. Sparks begins an Education Week series on teaching students behind bars with a visit to Wyoming Girls School, a remote juvenile correctional facility.
Dana Goldstein of The New York Times covers the end of the strike by West Virginia teachers–and their place in the larger history of teachers’ unions.
Word on the Beat: Chronic Absenteeism
What “chronic absenteeism” means: Researchers typically define chronic absenteeism as missing at least two days of school each month or 10 percent of all their classes. That amounts to about 18 days over the academic year in the average district. One out of every 10 students in public schools is chronically absent nationwide, according to the advocacy group AttendanceWorks.
Writing About DACA? Check Out These Tips for Smart News Coverage
For now, the early March deadline the Trump administration gave Congress to decide the fate of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is moot. Major parts of DACA, an Obama-era program created to provide temporarily shield from deportation some young immigrants brought illegally to the United States by their parents, will continue amid legal challenges to the program.
In Canada’s Public Schools, Immigrant Students Are Thriving
When 13-year-old André Cordeiro moved from rural Portugal to Toronto, the only English words he knew were, “hi,” “bye,” and “hot dog.” Four years later, he speaks English “way better” and credits the English-learner class he attends every morning at Islington Junior Middle School.
Feb. 23 – March 1
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
A teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School faces difficult emotions in returning to the classroom, reports Lisa Gartner at The Tampa Bay Times.
The Newtown community mourned in solidarity with Parkland victims and called for gun control reforms at a recent vigil, writes Eliza Hallabeck for The Newtown Bee.
What You Missed at EWA’s Seminar on Educating for Character & Citizenship
Dozens of journalists gathered in New Orleans this month to explore a dimension of education that often gets short shrift both in schools and in news coverage: developing students’ character and preparing them for active citizenship.
Reporters heard not only from educators, experts, and fellow journalists, but also students from New Orleans and beyond. Issues on tap included the moral education of young people, social and emotional learning, media literacy, and the rapid rise of ”restorative justice” as an alternative to traditional disciplinary practice.
Feb. 9 – Feb. 15
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
In this Des Moines Register feature, Kathy Bolten looks at the plight of parents who are mortgaging their future for their children’s higher education through federal parent loans.
Marta Jewson of The Lens reports that the last of the New Orleans’ traditional public schools are set to close or convert to charters.
Jan. 25 – Feb. 1
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
Andrew Ujifusa and colleagues from Education Week are reporting from Puerto Rico — and its schools — about ongoing efforts to recover from devastation Hurricane Maria wreaked four months ago.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, Megan Burks of KPBS examines San Diego Unified’s revamped sex ed. curriculum, which emphasizes consent and communication.
At High Tech High, Focus Goes Beyond the Classroom
Personalization, 'authentic' work, equity & collaboration billed as hallmarks
Walking onto a High Tech High campus is like entering a workshop. Our tour guide, sophomore Caroline Egler, pointed out classrooms that supposedly housed physics or humanities, but most students weren’t in those rooms. They were in the hallways working on projects, huddled around computers together, or even working at desks standing eight feet tall so they towered above the floor. It was chaotic, but not out of control.
Students seemed to be working with purpose, even if it was not immediately obvious what they were doing.
Word on the Beat: Career and Technical Education
“Word on the Beat” is a regular feature of The Educated Reporter, breaking down the buzzwords and helping you understand the issues of the day. Send your suggestions to erichmond@ewa.org
Word on the Beat: Career and technical education (CTE).
Jan. 19 – 25
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
Megan Raposa of the Argus Leader (a 2017 EWA New to the Beat rookie) takes a close look at the educational opportunities for students growing up on South Dakota’s Rosebud Indian Reservation.
Writing for The Atlantic, Melinda Anderson explores how hiring biases could be holding back efforts to improve the number of teachers of color.
How Does Your State Fare on the Education Week Report Card?
Nation overall gets 'C' grade; State leadership a factor in slow improvement, experts say (EWA Radio: Episode 155)
Education Week’s annual “Quality Counts” report offers a wealth of state-level data on students and schools, from academic indicators to equity in funding formulas. But how can reporters make the most of these numbers — and the state rankings — to tell compelling stories about their own local schools? Assistant director Sterling Lloyd and reporter Daarel Burnette join EWA Radio to discuss the national and state-by-state results. Which states made gains, which slipped behind, and why?
Pedal to the Metal: Speeding Up Stalled Records Requests
You file a freedom of information request with your local school district concerning financial data or a personnel investigation, but months later, there’s still no answer. What are the next steps, especially if your newsroom’s budget can’t stretch to cover the costs of suing for access? A veteran journalist and an expert on records requests offer strategies for success in making inquiries at the federal, state and local levels.
Jan. 12 – 18
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
Portland Public Schools has cut ties with a special education teacher who was on leave for alleged misconduct — two years after a district administrator declared him a danger to students and paid him to resign, reports Beth Slovic of the Portland Tribune.
Public Universities Aren’t Tracking Student Suicides. That’s a Problem.
Student mental health efforts would benefit from more data, experts say (EWA Radio: Episode 154)
More than half of the nation’s 100 largest public universities fail to track student suicides, a surprising discovery revealed in a new investigation by the Associated Press’ Collin Binkley. Among the schools not keeping these statistics are Arizona State University and the University of Wisconsin, which have both had recent student suicides, Binkley reported.
Word on the Beat: DACA
“Word on the Beat” is a regular feature of The Educated Reporter. Send your suggestions to erichmond@ewa.org
Word on the Beat: DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).
Jan. 4 – 11
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week.
Something crucial is missing when the academic year starts in some of America’s largest school systems — a full slate of full-time teachers. Chalkbeat’s Matt Barnum requested and examined data and explains what it all means for students.
Theresa Harrington of Ed Source explains a school’s push to boost the quality of students’ writing in an effort that spans every class, including P.E.
2018: What’s Ahead on the Education Beat
Betsy DeVos, Tax Reform, and DACA in the spotlight (EWA Radio: Episode 153)
Veteran education journalists Greg Toppo of USA Today and Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed offer predictions on the education beat for the coming year, as well as story ideas to help reporters cover emerging federal policies and trends that will impact students and educators at the state and local level. Top items on their watchlists include the effect of the so-called “Trump Effect on classrooms, and whether the revamped tax law will mean big hits to university endowments.
Highlights of 2017 (and Dec. 22-28)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
We asked journalists to share some of their favorite education stories of 2017. Here are some highlights.
Bethany Barnes of The Oregonian investigates allegations of sexual abuse against a Portland Public Schools educator that span decades.
Peggy Barmier of The Hechinger Report explores the budget cuts and uncertainties a West Virginia program faces under the Trump administration.
‘Evergreen’ Education Stories for the Holiday Week
Wish lists, good deeds, and challenging realities for K-12 and higher ed students
Even when school is out for winter break, education reporters are still on the hunt for smart stories. Here are few “evergreen” ideas that will age even better than that fruitcake you scored in the office gift swap:
71st EWA National Seminar
Los Angeles • May 16-18, 2018
EWA’s National Seminar is the largest annual gathering of journalists on the education beat. This multiday conference provides participants with top-notch training delivered through dozens of interactive sessions on covering education from early childhood through graduate school. Featuring prominent speakers, engaging campus visits, and plentiful networking opportunities, this must-attend conference provides participants with deeper understanding of the latest developments in education, a lengthy list of story ideas, and a toolbox of sharpened journalistic skills.
Beyond Academics: Covering Education for Character and Citizenship
The intensive focus in many public schools on basic academics has sparked concerns that the U.S. education system is neglecting a fundamental responsibility: to foster in young people the character traits and social-emotional skills needed to be successful students and engaged citizens. Empathy, collaboration, and self-efficacy, for instance, are essential in a democratic society. They also are important for success in a fast-changing job market.
College-Educated Latinos Are More Likely to Report Discrimination
Survey finds that Hispanic-Americans experience slurs and bias.
A new, large-scale survey on U.S. discrimination has found that more than three-quarters of Latinos believe there is discrimination against Latinos in the United States. And about a third say they’ve directly experienced some discrimination in the job market, or when shopping for a home.
‘Raising Kings’: A Portrait of an Urban High School for Young Men of Color
Education Week-NPR series features social-emotional learning and restorative justice at new D.C. campus
Can schools ever fully fill the gaps in students’ life experiences that often keep them from succeeding in school? Two reporters, Education Week’s Kavitha Cardoza and Cory Turner of NPR, spent hundreds of hours at Ron Brown College Prep, a new boys-only public high school in Washington, D.C. that primarily serves students of color.
Getting Latino Students To and Through College
Michele Siqueiros recalled the day she arrived on a college campus.
“I thought I had arrived on another planet,” she told a recent gathering of journalists who attended the Education Writers Association’s fourth annual convening for Spanish-language media. “There were very few Latinos.”
Siqueiros, now the president of The Campaign for College Opportunity, a California nonprofit organization, said she was a straight A student in high school, but in college “I felt for the first time I wasn’t prepared.”
As Latino Enrollment in Charters Grows, Debates Persist
Charter school advocates and skeptics speaking at a recent Education Writers Association convening for Spanish-language media agreed on little except this: Charter schools are having a big impact on Latino communities nationwide.
Do Affirmative Action Policies Harm Asian-American College Admissions?
The often secretive and arbitrary-seeming acceptance and rejection decisions by elite colleges have long sparked controversy and, thus, news stories.
But new complaints by high-achieving students of Asian descent are raising questions about a kind of racism that may well be surprising to most Americans, as well as challenges to long-standing affirmative action policies, according to a panel of admissions experts who spoke at the Education Writers Association’s Higher Education conference Oct. 2-3.
With New Research, Policy Shifts, Bilingual Education on Rise
Decades of restrictions on bilingual education in public schools across the country — and particularly in California — led to a dramatic reduction of bilingual teachers. Now that California voters have permitted bilingual education through Proposition 58, which passed in November 2016, the state faces a shortage of talent.
Girls Outscore Boys in the Middle East on Math and Science. But That’s Not the Whole Story.
Amanda Ripley, a New York Times bestselling author, discusses gender gaps and student motivation
When U.S. education experts look overseas for ideas and inspiration, they usually turn to places like Finland and Singapore. But journalist Amanda Ripley recently traveled instead to the Middle East to get underneath some surprising data about gender gaps in a recent story for The Atlantic. More specifically, why do girls in Jordan and Oman earn better grades and test scores than boys, even without the promise of lucrative jobs?
How to Report on Undocumented Students in the Time of Trump
As clock ticks on DACA, journalists must consider practical, legal, and ethical challenges in coverage
When the Trump administration announced plans in September to remove protections for some undocumented immigrants, Sasha Aslanian, a reporter with APM Reports, contacted an undocumented student to get a personal reaction to the news.
Having received a number of interview requests that day, the student told Aslanian: “I feel like I’m just trauma porn. People are leaving me messages saying, ‘I want to hear how you feel about this and I’m on deadline. Can you call me back within two hours?’”
Building Houston’s Super School
Follow Furr High School as they reimagine the high school experience, from hiring inventive teachers to preparing graduates for the rest of their lives.
Without Its Storied Principal, What’s the Future of Furr High?
This was supposed to be a banner year for Furr High School. It moved into a brand new building and was using a ten million dollar grant to reinvent high school. Even though Hurricane Harvey delayed the school year by two weeks, things seemed to be back to normal.
Longtime principal Bertie Simmons met with a mom who was trying to get her daughter into Furr.
School Vouchers: What Do Latino Parents Want?
President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos both say they want to expand school choice, including with public funding for private schools.
Recently, two parent activists on the front lines of the school voucher debate — one from Wisconsin, the other from Arizona — spoke to journalists attending the Education Writers Association’s convening for Spanish-language media.
When Covering Racial Conflict on Campus, Words Matter
Your editor has just assigned you a story — students at a local university are planning a demonstration calling for the removal of a Confederate statue. Do you know what to bring, who to talk to, and how to cover it in a way that is balanced and contextualized?
A Reporter’s Guide to Covering Campus Protests
Long the site of sit-ins, protests, and acts of civil disobedience, college campuses have, once again, become flash points for broader debates around race, free speech, and other highly-emotive issues.
Lisa Pemberton, an award-winning journalist and news team leader for The Olympian, knows well the challenges of covering protests, having spent much of her time recently covering racial tension and student protests at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
Show, Don’t Tell: The Power of Visualizing Data
In an era when data is more accessible than ever, how can journalists convey that information in a compelling way that gets beyond the numbers?
One strategy is to convert the data into visual representations that help to tell the story. Such visuals range from elaborate, interactive maps to a simple dot.
Minneapolis’ Black Families Lead Way in Fleeing to Other Schools
Once it was the biggest school district in the state. Now Minneapolis Public Schools is the biggest loser in Minnesota’s robust school-choice environment, surrendering more kids to charter schools and other public school options than any other district.
And unlike most other school districts in the state, most of the defections in Minneapolis are occurring among black families. The 9,000 departing black students make up more than half of the districtwide total, according to a Star Tribune analysis of state enrollment data.
School Choice Splits Twin Cities Suburbs Into Haves, Have-nots
The bus cruising through Eden Prairie neighborhoods in the morning looks like any other yellow school bus.
But some families in the community know it’s different. They’ve hired the driver to pick up their children and haul them to the adjoining school district in Minnetonka. For some, the trip is 30 minutes one way and requires a change of buses.
Eden Prairie schools are usually ranked among the best in the Minnesota, but parent Jane-Marie Bloomberg says it’s worth paying $700 a year to bus her children to Minnetonka, where class sizes are smaller.
At This One-of-a-Kind Boston Public High School, Students Learn Calculus in Spanish
When the Boston Public Schools opened the Margarita Muñiz Academy in 2012, it was a first-of-its kind dual-language high school meant to address issues faced by the city’s growing Hispanic population. At the time, Hispanic students were both the most likely to drop out of the city’s schools and the least likely to enroll in college when compared to black, white and Asian students. They still are, but as the academy enters its sixth full year, its student outcomes are drawing praise from a variety of sources, even while administrators note that steep challenges remain.
Trump Urged to Renew Advisory Panel on Improving Education for Hispanics
For nearly three decades, a White House commission created to help boost Hispanic student achievement has advised four presidents and their secretaries of education. The advisory panel, however, is set to expire on Sept. 30 unless President Donald Trump issues an executive order to keep it going, according to Patricia Gándara, a commission member who is rallying to preserve it.
Slight Gains for Hispanics on ACT, but Achievement Gap Persists
More Hispanic students are taking the ACT college-entrance exam, and in some states their scores inched up, new data show. But the achievement gap persists for the class of 2017, with many Hispanic students failing to meet benchmarks for university-level work.
Are the Feds Ignoring Segregated Schools?
EWA Radio: Episode 140
In a cover story for The Nation, Emmanuel Felton of The Hechinger Report argues that the federal government has substantially abandoned Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which struck down the doctrine of “separate but equal” education. Felton found nearly 200 school districts still under federal orders to desegregate, but many of them have failed to submit the requisite progress reports.
When Students Talk Back, These Teachers Listen
EWA Radio: Episode 139
What do teachers learn from their most challenging students — the interrupters, the ones who push back or whose difficult home lives spill over into the classroom? Sarah Carr, the editor of The Teacher Project at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, discusses a new podcast partnership with The Atlantic, featuring candid conversations with educators and students, as each recall pivotal moments in their relationships.
Covering Campus Conflict in the Time of Trump: Agenda
Atlanta • October 2–3, 2017
Monday, October 2, 2017
9:45– 11:30 a.m.: (Optional) Journalists’ Tour of CNN
CNN has graciously agreed to give 20 EWA members a journalists-only tour of their newsroom, and a chance to talk with members of CNN’s newsgathering, digital and data analysis teams to learn about their state-of-the art techniques of building traffic. The tour will start at 10 a.m. Monday, Oct. 2 at CNN’s Atlanta headquarters, located at One CNN Center, Atlanta, GA 30303. Please be at the entryway at 9:45 a.m. so you can go through security.
Biografías de los Presentadores
Speaker Biographies
How The Federal Government Abandoned The Brown V. Board Of Education Decision
It’s illegal to run schools designed to keep out black students, but the Department of Justice is letting districts get away with it.
The End of DACA?
EWA Radio: Episode 138
With the Trump administration’s announcement of plans to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), a key focus is on college students who fear deportation. But ending DACA, which offers protections to roughly 800,000 immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children, has significant repercussions for K-12 school communities as well.
Black men and teachers in rural areas are in especially short supply
APM Reports
Poor schools in urban and rural areas have something in common: Teachers are leaving, and it’s having a big impact on kids.
The Resegregation of Jefferson County
In 2013, a flier began making the rounds in Gardendale, Ala., a suburb of Birmingham.
Some Universities See Drop in International Applicants
College officials point to 'Trump effect'
For the first time since the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some top universities are seeing their international student application numbers slide.
What’s the Price of High-Quality Child Care for All Kids?
Taryn Morrissey recalls that when she had her first child several years ago, “I knew how expensive it was going to be.” Morrissey is, after all, an associate professor at American University who studies child-care policy. Then she started shopping for child-care centers and got hit with sticker shock.
“It’s REALLY expensive,” she said with a laugh.
University Leaders React to Potential Loss of DACA
With the White House expected to decide shortly on the fate of the DACA program, questions loom about future access to U.S. education by undocumented immigrants. And some education leaders are speaking out this week in favor of protecting the program.
Hurricane Harvey Takes Toll on Students, Schools
Hurricane Harvey has pummeled Texas, with the greatest concentration of flooding in the Houston area. Local school districts that had intended to kick off the new academic year this week are instead assessing the damages to campuses, and preparing to help students and families displaced by the storm.
Hispanics Now Nearly One-Quarter of U.S. Students, Data Reveal
New U.S. Census data show a dramatic increase in the number of Hispanics attending school, reaching nearly 18 million in 2016. The figure — which covers education at all levels — is double the total 20 years earlier.
“Hispanic students now make up 22.7 percent of all people enrolled in school,” said Kurt Bauman, the chief of Census Bureau’s Education and Social Stratification Branch, in a statement.
New Poll: Public Values Career Classes, Support Services at Schools
When it comes to judging a school’s quality, what matters most? A new poll suggests the American public puts a premium on offerings outside of traditional academics, including career-focused education, developing students’ interpersonal skills, and providing after-school programs and mental health care.
At the same time, even as local schools were generally viewed favorably in the national survey, parents said they would consider taking advantage of vouchers for private or religious schools if the price was right.
When Students Attend White-Supremacy Rallies, How Should Colleges Respond?
EWA Radio: Episode 136
In the aftermath of the white supremacy gathering in Charlottesville, Va., some universities are under pressure to take action against students who attend rallies organized by hate groups. Nick Roll of Inside Higher Ed discusses the situation and how postsecondary institutions are responding. How do universities balance respect for free speech with concerns about cultivating an inclusive campus environment?
New NAEP Data: Deep Rifts in Access to Arts Education
When it comes to arts education, geography matters. A student in the Northeast region of the United States is significantly more likely to attend a school with a full-time art teacher than a student in the West or Midwest.
On the Menu: Trump’s Proposed Budget Cuts and School Nutrition
EWA Radio: Episode 135
Tovin Lapan of The Hechinger Report visited Greenville, Miss., to examine how President Trump’s proposed budget cuts could impact rural school communities that depend heavily on federal aid for after-school and student nutrition programs. What does research show about the connections between connecting students’ eating habits and test scores?
‘Eddie Prize’ Winner Kelly Field: Reporting on Native American Students
EWA Radio: Episode 134
Journalist Kelly Field recently won a top honor at EWA’s National Seminar for her compelling series, “From the Reservation to College,” on the education of Native American students. Field’s coverage for The Chronicle of Higher Education — supported by an EWA Reporting Fellowship — follows several students from the Blackfeet Indian reservation in Montana. Their experiences highlight the significant educational challenges facing Native communities in the U.S. today.
More Efforts Proposed in Congress to Help Undocumented Youth
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — or DACA — continues to make headlines, with several bills introduced in Congress this month aimed at protecting undocumented young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children and providing them with a path to citizenship.
DACA provides recipients access to higher education, putting educators on the front lines of the debate over undocumented youth. Many colleges and universities have created special websites or designated personnel to help DACA students navigate college and feel safe on campus.
Parent Activists Flex Their Muscles in Education Policy Debates
From room mom to PTA president, parents have long played an important and active part in their children’s schools. But increasingly, parents are taking on a new, potentially powerful, role — activist.
In many states, parent groups have become a political force to be reckoned with — swarming city halls and state capitols and flooding the phone lines of elected officials to voice their opinions on issues such as the Common Core State Standards, standardized testing, and school choice.
Arizona State Steps Up Game on Studying Latinos’ Political Engagement
Arizona State University, in an effort to break new ground around the engagement of Latinos in the political process, has created a new chair on the topic and hired a top political scientist, Rodney Hero, to fill the post.
The new chair is just the latest move by ASU, which serves nearly 100,000 students, to enhance its Hispanic programs as its Latino enrollment has increased (to about 20 percent).
Finding — and Keeping — Teachers of Color
The nation’s public schools are serving increasingly diverse populations of students, yet the teachers in those schools are mostly white.
“It is absolutely right — we do not have parity,” said Richard Ingersoll, a professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, during the Education Writers Association’s annual conference in Washington, D.C.
He and other experts gathered for the EWA panel last month talked about a problem many school districts struggle with: How to recruit and retain teachers of color.
Trump Era Serves Up ‘Teachable Moments’ for Character Ed.
Days after Donald Trump won the White House, the Brookings Institution published an essay suggesting the 2016 presidential election should serve as a “Sputnik moment” for character education.
The campaign’s “extraordinary vitriol and divisiveness” offers a strong argument for a “renewed emphasis on schools’ role in developing children as caring, empathetic citizens,” wrote Brookings scholar Jon Valant.
News Roundup: Bilingual Ed. Town Hall; Separate and Unequal Sports?
School finance. A bilingual ed townhall meeting. Christian-oriented universities recruiting Hispanic students. Here’s a wrap-up of education stories published the week of July 3-9 involving or affecting Latino students.
What Keeps Public School Parents Awake at Night?
When it comes to their children’s education, what are parents’ biggest concerns? Paying for college is No. 1. After that, they worry about their children’s happiness and safety at school.
But academics? Not so much. Parents do care, but as long as their children are perceived to be happy and succeeding — especially if that’s what teachers are telling them – they figure everything is fine in that area.
Community College Challenges Explored at Civil Rights Conference
The ongoing issues Latino students face in community colleges was the focus of a town hall meeting held earlier this month Phoenix, Arizona, during the annual conference this week of the largest Latino civil right organization in the U.S.
While more Hispanic students are graduating high school and enrolling in college, many still need remediation or are taking longer than the standard two years to earn an associate’s degree.
New ‘Gates Scholarship’ to Offer Full Ride to 300 Students of Color
Starting July 15, high school seniors who are Hispanic, from low-income backgrounds and believe they have strong leadership credentials can apply for a private scholarship to cover virtually all college expenses.
Launched this year, the new program from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will award its first full scholarships to 300 students in 2018. The support will include not just tuition, but also cover fees, housing, books and other costs.
Beyond Boundaries: Deeper Reporting on School Attendance Zones
When Baltimore County school officials wanted to move boundary lines in 2015, some parents predicted declining property values and voiced fears of sending their children to school with “those kids.”
Liz Bowie, a reporter for The Baltimore Sun, pushed for clarity on the coded language. Doing so, she told a packed room at the Education Writers Association’s recent National Seminar, is crucial to news coverage of school boundaries and the often related issues of segregation, class bias, and equity.
Sourcing Stories: Getting Beyond the ‘Usual Suspects’
Tired of interviewing the same people?
Keith Woods, the vice president of newsroom training and diversity at NPR, has an antidote for you: Reach out beyond the familiar faces to more diverse sources.
Woods spoke at an EWA National Seminar session called “Untold Stories: Broadening Your Source Base,” or, as moderator Dakarai Aarons, the vice president of strategic communications at the Data Quality Campaign, dubbed it, “Ditching the Usual Suspects.”
The Fight for Fairmount Park Elementary
She applied her “listen-to-me lipstick,” a hot pink that commanded attention, and got into her Toyota 4Runner for the long drive to Fairmount Park Elementary. It was time for some frank talk with the teachers who were struggling in one of Pinellas County’s toughest schools.
Five Stories You Might Have Missed This Week
A wrap-up of education news this week involving or affecting Latino students:
Big step for SUNY Albany: Havidán Rodríguez, a higher education leader in Texas, is the first Hispanic president of the State University of New York at Albany. “I am honored and privileged to have been chosen to serve as the University at Albany’s next president,” Rodríguez said.
Strong Scores for Hispanic Students Helps NYC’s Success Academy Win Charter School Prize
Success Academy Charter Schools, a network of 41 schools in New York with a high Latino student enrollment, was awarded the 2017 Broad Prize for charter schools this month along with $250,000 in prize money.
The prize, awarded by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, recognizes a public charter school management organization that has demonstrated high academic achievement, particularly for low-income students and students of color. The foundation announced the award during the National Charter Schools Conference held in Washington, D.C.
Teachers Union Offers Support to Educators in Puerto Rico
Educators in Puerto Rico are getting support from the American Federation of Teachers in their efforts to thwart a plan to close schools as a way of helping the island deal with its financial crisis.
AFT president Randi Weingarten sent a letter in April to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico urging them “not to make devastating funding cuts to the education system that serves the 379,000 students in Puerto Rico.” The federal fiscal board is overseeing Puerto Rico’s efforts to deal with bankruptcy and resolve its debt.
Details, Data and Voices: K-12 Reporters Tell ‘How I Did the Story’
A teacher shortage in Oklahoma. Data-driven analysis of the Detroit School Board election. Teen suicide. The impact of an influx of Central American youths on a high-poverty Oakland school. Four of this year’s Education Writers Association award finalists recently shared their stories and took questions from a packed room at the EWA National Seminar on how they did their work.
Rocking the Beat
After-School Programs Might Help English-Language Learners Improve Reading Skills
With President Trump’s proposed federal budget calling for cuts in after-school programing, the nonprofit advocacy group Afterschool Alliance released an issue brief this month highlighting several programs they say are helping students who are learning English.
Covering Segregation Through Storytelling
Nationally, politicians and others frequently tout Hartford, Connecticut, and its magnet schools as a model of school integration. But in reality, the city has a system of haves and have nots, as Vanessa de la Torre and Matthew Kauffman, reporters at The Hartford Courant, revealed in their 2017 series, “Hartford Schools: More Separate, Still Unequal.”
D.C.’s ‘Opportunity Academies’ Aim to Get Students Back on Track
The rapid improvement over the past decade in Washington, D.C.’s district-run schools — as measured by rising test scores and graduation rates — has drawn national notice.
But officials with the District of Columbia Public Schools remain concerned that too many students still slip through the cracks, with 31 percent failing to graduate high school on time, based on the most recent DCPS data.
New Statistics for Hispanic Students Show Reasons for Both Celebration and Concern
The National Center for Education Statistics this month released a congressionally mandated annual report summarizing development and trends in education. The 2017 Condition of Education reports some of the latest data by race and ethnicity.
Here are a few highlights of the report:
P-TECH Ready to Put Partnerships to Test
When students from the Pathways in Technology Early College High School — or P-TECH in Brooklyn — graduate today with an associate degree as well as their high school diplomas, it will be much more than a formality, according to founding principal Rashid Davis.
“You are at the beginning of — I’m going to call it — an educational revolution,” Davis told some of the soon-to-be graduates at a celebration last week.
DeVos Won’t Be Speaking at EWA Seminar But Here’s What Other Education Secretaries Had to Say
When U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos declined EWA’s invitation to speak at its 70th National Seminar, it prompted coverage from The Associated Press, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, among others, in part because of her already limited press availability in the nearly four months since she was appointed to the cabinet post.
The Forgotten Students Behind Brown v. Board of Education
To commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on school segregation, here’s another look at my 2014 Q&A. with Justin Reid, then associate director of the Moton Museum.
Girls Get Fresh Start at All-Female Charter School
Ask the principal of any U.S. high school and they’ll likely tell you their goal is to graduate all of their students “college- or career-ready.” That is, students should be prepared to begin postsecondary education or enter the workforce and be successful.
Andrea Purcell, the principal of an all-girls charter school, is no different, despite the fact that her group of 120 or so high school-aged students are among the most at-risk for dropping out.
‘Bridging the Divide’ – Can Schools Break Down Racial Barriers?
EWA Radio: Episode 118
A recent Baltimore Sun series by reporters Liz Bowie and Erica Green offers a penetrating look at issues of race and segregation in Maryland public schools. The four-part project, supported by an EWA Reporting Fellowship, examines hurdles to school integration, community resistance to redrawing boundary lines, and how well-intentioned efforts to create more diverse campuses often fall short.
Hartford, Conn., Experiment Shows Challenges, Rewards of Diversity in Schools
Twenty years ago, public education in Baltimore and this New England capital had much in common.
Tens of thousands of minority students, living in pockets of poverty, attended schools that weren’t preparing them to graduate.
But after a lawsuit, Hartford took a different path. The city and state committed to take apart the system of de facto segregation in its public schools and institute voluntary integration.
Within Integrated Schools, De Facto Segregation Persists
They were classmates and best friends, and they both wanted to get into the 11th-grade Advanced Placement English class at Columbia’s Hammond High School.
Since meeting in summer school just before ninth grade, Mikey Peterson and Eli Sauerwalt had been through a lot together. They’d each battled depression, they’d failed classes, they’d encouraged each other to do better.
As 10th-graders in English, the teens were each hoping for a prized recommendation to the AP English class for their junior year.
Struggles of New East Baltimore School Show Challenges Of Integration
On the day that the Henderson-Hopkins school opened its doors to let children in, Crystal Jordan marveled at its light-filled rooms, curving stairs and interior play areas.
She couldn’t believe her family’s good fortune. In a city with so many struggling schools, her fifth-grade daughter was entering a new public school backed by some of the city’s most powerful institutions, and driven by a vision in which students of all socioeconomic backgrounds would learn together, and be held to high standards.
Bridging the Divide
The Struggle to Move Past Segregated Schools
Jeff Sanford went to the debate at the high school cafeteria with an open mind.
The boundary lines for 11 schools in the Catonsville area had to be redrawn to relieve overcrowding. But there was a chance to achieve something more, something that could help improve the lives of all children: integration.
Sanford, an African-American father of two boys, had volunteered to represent Johnnycake Elementary on the boundary committee that would recommend changes to the Baltimore County school board.
Struggles of New East Baltimore School Show Challenges of Integration
On the day that the Henderson-Hopkins school opened its doors to let children in, Crystal Jordan marveled at its light-filled rooms, curving stairs and interior play areas.
She couldn’t believe her family’s good fortune. In a city with so many struggling schools, her fifth-grade daughter was entering a new public school backed by some of the city’s most powerful institutions, and driven by a vision in which students of all socioeconomic backgrounds would learn together, and be held to high standards.
State Supreme Court: Kansas Shortchanging Schools, Students
When policymakers and advocates refer to education as “a civil rights issue,” fiscal equity is often framed as a piece of that equation. And in a landmark ruling, the Kansas Supreme Court has ordered the state to address significant shortfalls in how its public schools are funded, citing low academic achievement by black, Hispanic, and low-income students as among the deciding factors.
What Does Charter School Innovation Look Like?
At Summit Public Schools campuses, you won’t see PowerPoint lectures on “Antigone” in English class or witness lofty explanations of the Pythagorean theorem in geometry. Instead, you’ll hear a discussion about the morals and ethics in the ancient Greek tragedy tied to students’ own teenage identity formation and observe discussions on how real-life problem-solving skills can be applied to math.
How a ‘Day Without Immigrants’ Affected Schools
Schools across the country took a hit in attendance Thursday as immigrant children joined nationwide protests intended to demonstrate what life would be like without the nation’s more than 42 million immigrants in response to President Trump’s controversial immigration agenda.
Camino Nuevo Offers Families a Bilingual Choice
At 10 years old, Audrey Campos is the one who helps her 18-year-old cousin communicate with their grandparents. Unlike her cousin, Audrey speaks Spanish. That’s thanks, in part, to the public school she attends, part of the Camino Nuevo Charter Academy network.
Audrey was in the inaugural kindergarten class for the school’s bilingual program in 2011. She spent 80 percent of her day learning in Spanish that first year, though now Audrey speaks and hears mostly English in school.
“The View From Room 205”: Can Schools Conquer Poverty?
EWA Radio: Episode 109
Peabody Award-winning radio journalist Linda Lutton of WBEZ in Chicago discusses her new documentary following a class of fourth graders in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Is a “no excuses” school model a realistic approach for kids whose families are struggling to provide basics like shelter and food? How does Chicago Public Schools’ emphasis on high-stakes testing play out at William Penn Elementary? How can education reporters make the most of their access to classrooms, teachers, students, and families? And what lessons from “Room 205” could apply to the ongoing debate over how to best lift students out of poverty?
Pursuit of College Tied to Trust of Teachers in New Study
The level of trust that middle school students of color have for their teachers could have long-term impacts on whether or not they enroll in college, according to a new study published in the journal Child Development.
Report: Latino Kindergartners Trail White Peers in Math by 3 Months
Latino students in kindergarten trail their white peers in math by approximately three months’ worth of learning, a new study by Child Trends Hispanic Institute has found.
Researchers drew a nationally representative sample of students from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 who were followed through the end of their fifth-grade year. Sixty-two percent of the 2,199 Latino students studied had at least one foreign-born parent, and 45 percent spoke only Spanish or predominantly Spanish at home. Nearly half lived in poverty.
School Segregation: Are Charter Schools the Problem?
Kriste Dragon grew up in Atlanta, a mixed-race child in a segregated school system.
When it came time to find a school for her children in her new Hollywood home, Dragon was hopeful that the neighborhood’s highly diverse demographics would be reflected in its schools. But instead, she found a low-performing school system that was as segregated — or worse — as what she’d experienced growing up.
Education Deans Share Ideas for Recruiting, Retaining Latino Teachers
Last summer, the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics convened a meeting of education deans from Hispanic-serving institutions across the country to brainstorm ideas for getting more Latinos into the teaching profession. The group recently released a white paper with their recommendations — among them a challenge to recognize and remove implicit bias in education.
NYC Schools Expand Access to AP Courses As Latino Performance and Participation Rates Rise
The New York City Department of Education is investing $1.6 million to expand access to Advanced Placement courses for the city’s black and Latino students, the New York Daily News reported last week.
For Trump Pick DeVos, Confirmation Hearing Is a Bear
Tuesday’s confirmation hearing for billionaire school advocate Betsy DeVos — President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. secretary of education — was a doozy.
DeVos sought to present herself as ready to oversee the federal agency, but some of her remarks suggested a lack of familiarity with the federal laws governing the nation’s schools.
In her opening statement before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, DeVos said:
‘The Book of Isaias’: A Memphis DREAMer’s Uncertain Path
EWA Radio: Episode 106
Journalist Daniel Connolly spent a year embedded at a Memphis high school to learn first-hand about the educational experiences of Hispanic immigrants’ children. Connolly’s new book focuses on star student Isaias Ramos, “the hope of Kingsbury High.” The author explores how Isaias, born in the U.S., seeks to overcome obstacles to his plans for college. How did Connolly (The Memphis Commercial Appeal) gain such extraordinary access to the students, educators, and families of this school community? What does Isaias’ journey tell us about the hopes and aspirations of Hispanic immigrant families? And how are real world realities pressuring public schools to redefine expectations for student success?
Obama’s ‘My Brother’s Keeper’ Initiative Will Continue Under New Name
President Obama has renamed the My Brother’s Keeper initiative he created to close the opportunity gaps faced by black and Latino males, hoping the new moniker will more accurately reflect its mission and increase the chances of its longevity.
How Quickly Could Trump Change Public Education?
It’s shaping up to be a contentious year on the education beat, fueled in part by Donald Trump’s upset victory in the presidential election.
Broke: Why More California Families Are Becoming Homeless
California is failing to keep parents with young children from slipping into extreme poverty and, ultimately homelessness.
Despite federal and state money earmarked specifically to support children’s wellbeing, government programs are inadequate to meet the region’s rising housing costs and falling incomes, leaving the poorest families on the street.
Georgia Judge: DACA Students Can Pay In-State Tuition Rate
Undocumented immigrants in Georgia who came to the U.S. as children and have received temporary protection from deportation under the Obama administration will now be able to pay in-state tuition at the state’s colleges and universities, a judge ruled in the years-long court case Tuesday.
What’s Next for the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics?
A Q&A With Outgoing Executive Director Alejandra Ceja
Alejandra Ceja has been the executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics since 2013 — a position she’ll give up at noon on Jan. 19, the day before the presidential inauguration. I recently sat down with her at the U.S. Department of Education to talk about the state of Latino education, the Initiative’s first 25 years, and what we can expect from the Initiative under the next administration.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length.
UCLA Study Offers ‘Counter Narrative’ on Black, Latino Male Achievement
News stories often state that black and Latino males have lower test scores and graduation rates than their white and Asian peers, that they’re more likely to be disciplined in school and be incarcerated. UCLA professor Tyrone Howard decided to produce a report that offers a different perspective.
Linguistic Experts Point to Benefits of Teaching Children Multiple Languages
The ability to speak more than one language can enhance brain function, academic performance and business acumen, linguistic experts said at a U.S. House of Representatives briefing Tuesday, making the case for a greater emphasis on multilingual education in American schools.
New York City Council Takes on School Segregation
Calling racial segregation a violation of human rights, two New York City councilors proposed a bill last week that seeks to combat the widespread segregation in the city’s public school system.
States Weigh Changes to College Admission, Tuition for Undocumented Students
Two state universities in Georgia will now admit undocumented immigrants to their campuses, despite legal restrictions that have barred these students from the state’s most selective public universities since 2010.
More Low-Income Hispanic Kids Are Getting Early Start to Education
More low-income Hispanic families are enrolling their children in early childhood care and education services, narrowing long-standing racial gaps in participation of these programs, new research shows.
U.S. Students Competitive Internationally in Math and Science
The U.S. isn’t No. 1 but it’s in the top 10: According to a respected international measure of American student performance in math and science, the nation’s 4th and 8th graders, on average, scored higher than students in dozens of countries.
In K-12, Children of Undocumented Immigrants Are a Growing Share of Students
Children of undocumented immigrants represent a growing share of U.S. students in kindergarten through 12th grade, a Pew Research Center analysis of American Community Survey data shows.
L.A. Leaders Vow to Protect Undocumented Immigrants, But Students Still on Edge
In the two weeks since Republican Donald Trump won the presidency on a platform touting stricter immigration laws and mass deportations, Los Angeles leaders have taken steps to assure the immigrants within their borders that the city supports them.
‘Unprepared’ in Memphis: The Realities of College Readiness
EWA Radio: Episode 99
In a new series, Memphis Commercial Appeal reporter Jennifer Pignolet tells the story of Shelby County students working hard to make it to college — and to succeed once they arrive. And their challenges aren’t just financial: for some, like Darrius Isom of South Memphis, having reliable transportation to get to class on time is a game changer. And what are some of the in-school and extracurricular programs that students say are making a difference? Pignolet also looks at the the Tennessee Promise program, which provides free community college classes to qualified students, and assigns a mentor to help guide them.
THANKSGIVING BONUS: EWA journalist members share some of the things they’re grateful for this year.
Race, Immigrant Status Affect Parent-Teacher Communication, Study Finds
A child’s race, ethnicity, and immigrant status could determine whether a teacher reaches out to that student’s parents, a new study out of New York University has found.
Texas Education Board Rejects ‘Racist’ Textbook
After months of controversy surrounding a proposed Mexican-American studies textbook that critics called racist and inaccurate, the Texas State Board of Education voted this week to reject its adoption.
The board rejected the textbook on Wednesday 14-0, with one board member absent. A final vote will take place today, but even if the board votes “no” again, the text could still show up in Texas public school classrooms — just not on the board-approved list of instructional materials.
ACT Will Soon Offer English-Language Learners More Time and Other Support
Students who are learning English will have access to more supports when taking the ACT exam next year, the nonprofit organization that administers the test announced this week.
Schools Offer Counseling As Many Latino Students Face Bullying, Uncertainty After Trump Win
After more than a year of polarizing campaign rhetoric about immigrants that led to reports of increased school bullying across the country, many school districts have begun offering additional counseling and support services for students who fear for their futures under the next presidential administration.
A Vote ‘Yes’ for Bilingual Education in California
Advocates of bilingual education got a big win in California Tuesday, when an overwhelming majority of the electorate voted to end the state’s longstanding English-only approach to educating English-language learners.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
How Will Education Fare Under President Trump?
The long, strange election cycle came to an end Tuesday with the election of Donald Trump as the next president. And while his campaign platform was scarce on education policy details, there’s no question his administration will have a significant impact, from early childhood to K-12 and higher education.
Latino Students, Charter Schools and the Massachusetts Ballot Question
This Election Day, Massachusetts voters will decide whether to lift the cap on the number of charter schools in the state — a hotly contested ballot measure that’s drawn more than $34 million in fundraising among the two sides and garnered national attention, with parents of students of color and advocates for minority students on both sides of the issue.
What Is Motivating Young Latinos to Vote?
I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen headlines this election season about polarizing campaign rhetoric being used to bully and harass Latino students.
Changes in Income-Based Gaps in Parent Activities with Young Children from 1988-2012
American Educational Research Association
Numerous studies show large differences between economically advantaged and disadvantaged parents in the quality and quantity of their engagement in young children’s development. This “parenting gap” may account for a substantial portion of the gap in children’s early cognitive skills. However, researchers know little about whether the socioeconomic gap in parenting has increased over time. The present study investigates this question, focusing on income- (and education) based gaps in parents’ engagement in cognitively stimulating activities with preschool-aged children.
Feds: ‘E’ in ESSA Stands for ‘Equity’
Here’s a secret about federal laws: Even after Congress passes them and the president signs them, federal agencies can take actions –through writing regulations — that change their impact considerably. That worry is on full display almost a year after Congress overhauled the nation’s main K-12 education law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
A Push for More Latino College Graduates in Texas, but Not by ‘Business as Usual’
Latino children will “pretty much determine the fate of Texas” during the 21st century, the state’s Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes said in his annual address this week.
That’s why the state will need to get more creative in educating Latinos and ensuring they graduate from college. “Doing business as usual,” won’t work, he said, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
As Feds Turn Focus on English-Language Learners, Teachers Struggle to Find Quality Materials
Craig Brock teaches high school science in Amarillo, Texas, where his freshman biology students are currently learning about the parts of a cell. But since many of them are refugee children who have only recently arrived in the U.S. and speak little or no English, Brock often has to get creative.
Usually that means creating PowerPoint presentations full of pictures and “just kind of pulling from here and there,” he said — the Internet, a third grade textbook or a preschool homeschool curriculum from Sam’s Club, for example.
L.A.’s First Education News Website in Spanish
The LA School Report, an online news publication covering the intersection of politics and education in Los Angeles, is expanding its reach in the City of Angels by adding a partner website with education news in Spanish. It’s the first (and only) Spanish-language education news site dedicated to the Los Angeles Latino community, according to the outlet.
Why Appalachian Colleges Want More Latino Students
EWA Radio: Episode 95
Timothy Pratt of The Hechinger Report discusses why liberal arts colleges in Appalachia are making Latino student recruiting a top priority. A 2016 EWA Reporting Fellow, Pratt recently completed an in-depth reporting project on the implications of this shift for private colleges — many of which are struggling to keep enrollment counts up.
UW-Milwaukee Goes After State’s 1st ‘Hispanic-Serving Institution’ Title
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has its eye on becoming the first school in the state to earn federal recognition as a Hispanic-serving institution. But first, it must more than double the number of Hispanic students it enrolls.
Will Californians Vote to Overturn Ban on Bilingual Education?
The fate of the U.S. presidency isn’t the only thing hanging in the balance on Election Day 2016.
Come Nov. 8, dual-language education could either get strengthened or further suppressed in the state with the highest percentage of English-language learners, as voters in California face a decision about overturning the state’s longstanding ban on a bilingual approach to educating these students.