Talk of teacher strikes was a big education news story this week. In Los Angeles, administrators are trying desperately to keep schools open as more than 30,000 educators remain on the picket lines, reports Linda Jacobson for Education Dive.
Elsewhere in California, time is running out for the Oakland teachers union and school district officials to reach a deal to avoid a strike, writes Theresa Harrington for EdSource.
#TellEWA: #Oakland Unified looks to higher teacher pay to improve student learning and curb teacher turnover as educators threaten to strike, facing the realization that teacher turnover is related to low student achievement: https://t.co/fs9GHtpjsr@edsource
Malcolm Gay, Eric Moskowitz, and Meghan E. IronsThe Boston Globe
Over the past year, the Globe has tracked down 93 of the 113 valedictorians who appeared in the paper’s first three “Faces of Excellence” features from 2005 to 2007. We wanted to know, more than a decade later, how the stories of Boston’s best and brightest were turning out.
Furloughed federal employees packed a substitute teaching job fair for Fairfax Public Schools Jan. 11, and as the shutdown continues, more school districts in the Washington region are hosting events to draw in federal employees to fill staff positions.
In a highly anticipated move that for key organizers has been years in the making, more than 30,000 educators on Monday kicked off a strike that’s put regular K–12 classes on hiatus in the country’s second-largest public-school district.
The digital divide looks like Buffalo’s Broadway Market on a Friday afternoon: a dozen round tables thronged with lunchgoers – and nary a laptop or tablet among them.
Most households in this neighborhood don’t own such devices, new first-of-its-kind federal data show. And even fewer have the means to go online with them, either at the Broadway Market or in their own homes.
The question is no longer “should we arm teachers?” Now, it’s “how many armed teachers are already out there?” GQ flew down to Ohio to embed with the men and women behind FASTER Saves Lives, a group that has trained thousands of teachers from all across the country how to shoot to kill.
With the government shutdown in its third week, the chairman of the Senate education committee proposes a way out, reports Education Week’s Andrew Ujifusa.
Remember when Obama said getting #ESSA passed was a "Christmas miracle"? Could the same kind of miraculous negotiating help end the government shutdown?
Next year, the Common Application used by hundreds of colleges and universities will stop asking potential students about their criminal histories. Despite legislative efforts in Illinois, most campuses in the state continue to ask the question. Nationwide, roughly two-thirds of colleges and universities that completed a 2009 survey reported asking prospective students about their criminal histories.
Though New York City has tried to desegregate its schools in fits and starts since the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, the school system is now one of the most segregated in the nation. But rather than pushing for integration, some black parents in Bedford-Stuyvesant are choosing an alternative: schools explicitly designed for black children.
As the costs of college have climbed, some students have gone hungry. When they’ve voiced frustration, they’ve often been ridiculed: “Ramen is cheap,” or “Just eat cereal.”
The number of poor students enrolled in a particular school or living in a certain school district is one of the most important education data points that exists, and the stakes are high for getting the count right.
The figures are used to direct billions of dollars in federal and state aid, and they’re a pillar of K-12 accountability systems that ensure disadvantaged students are keeping up with their wealthier peers.
In a package of highly detailed proposals set to be released today, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos delivers on a promise to limit the authority and scope of higher education accreditors, the organizations that serve as gatekeepers for federal student aid.
Jennifer Medina and Dana GoldsteinThe New York Times
Teachers and other employees in the Los Angeles Unified School District are demanding higher pay, smaller class sizes and more support staff like counselors and librarians. But district officials say that they do not have the money to meet all of the demands and that the strike would do more damage to schools than good.
In one Pittsburgh elementary school classroom, students started the day in a circle, explaining how they were feeling as others listened intently. Some were happy, but others were sleepy or sad.
“Let’s remember those who said they’re tired or frustrated so we can help them out today,” the teacher said in closing.
On a bulletin board at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, a flier advertised a storytelling event for first-generation students to share their experience in their own words.
The event was part of a larger project headed by Senior Associate Dean of Students Luis Inoa. Inoa spent the summer working with a first-gen Skidmore student to research the best practices in first-gen student support at liberal arts colleges around the country. He discovered that storytelling, in particular, is very powerful.
West Virginia unveiled a campaign this year for 60 percent of adults ages 25 to 64 to have earned a degree or certificate by 2030. But in this county of fewer than 19,000 residents, just 38 percent of recent high school graduates sought more education, according to the latest available data from the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission. That’s well below the statewide rate of 55 percent. And in 2016 just 8 percent of McDowell County residents of working age held an associate degree or higher, compared to 31 percent statewide.
From San Francisco to Seattle to Denver to Los Angeles, some are spending four hours per day commuting, or have relied on charitable funding for mortgage assistance. And while several districts have tried to make it easier for teachers to live where they work, their efforts are not always welcomed by local homeowners, opening up new debates over gentrification and what obligations the expanding tech sector has to the cities that host its offices.
If there’s been one constant over the last decade in terms of teacher evaluation policies in the United States, it’s been change.
First, performance reviews incorporating student test scores became — mostly — the law of the land. Then, the academic standards that educators and their pupils are measured against — mostly — changed. And then, in many places, those standards changed again.
So, has the implementation of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which did away with mandates on how states measure teacher quality, calmed the roiling waters?
New insight into the misspending of $38 million at the University of Central Florida shows the university president was more involved in the controversy than previously thought, reports Annie Martin for the Orlando Sentinel.
ICYMI: Former UCF CFO says President Dale Whittaker, other university leaders, were involved in the decision to misspend $38 million to build Trevor Colbourn Hall. Whittaker still says he didn't know. #tellewa: https://t.co/0C3yOR5gNX
For The Hechinger Report, Peggy Barmore reports from rural West Virginia, where district officials hope home visits for high schoolers will boost college attendance.
Alabama state senator Trip Pittman had always sort of questioned whether nursery schools were worth the investment. Pittman, a conservative Republican, figured the kinds of things you’re supposed to learn before kindergarten—washing your hands, tying your shoes, minding your manners—might best be taught by parents and grandparents at home. Conservatives often argue that kids who attend preschool fare no better than those who don’t. So in 2013, when a proposal came before the Legislature to expand a state preschool program for four-year-olds, Pittman was on the fence.
Happy New Year! It’s 2019, which means that the Every Student Succeeds Act is more than three years old, and finally having an impact on school districts. President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have been on the job for almost two years, with no major school choice initiative in sight. And Democrats are about to take over the U.S. House of Representatives.
The numbers are staggeringly low: Only one college in Texas graduated more than 100 African American men in 2016.
It’s a grim statistic that punctuates glaring disparities across their educational journey.
Black males are more likely to get disciplined more harshly than their peers even as early as prekindergarten. They’re less likely to get tapped for talented and gifted programs that put them on track for college readiness and more likely to be placed in special education classes.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has rescinded guidance created by the Obama administration to ensure that students of color and students with disabilities aren’t disciplined more harshly than their peers.
To combat chronic absenteeism on this Native Indian reservation, educators ramp up expectations for students — and their families, reports The Arizona Republic’s Lily Altavena.
How a small school district on the Tohono O'odham went into overdrive to get kids to school - from patching up holes in the road themselves to making wake up calls to kids: https://t.co/Hniqdczjyl#TellEWA
Tennessee brought thousands of students to college by offering free tuition to community and technical college. But those students were often one unexpected expense away from dropping out.
So officials are looking to fill in some of the financial gaps.
Manaja Miller likes suspense and mystery novels. When she was a senior at Bogan High School in Chicago’s Ashburn neighborhood, she wanted to be a police detective like she saw on TV.
“You know when you come to the scene and you have to figure out what happened and you take the body to the lab?” Miller explained after she got off work one night in November. “That’s what I want to do.”
Wendy Ruderman, Barbara Laker and Dylan PurcellThe Inquirer and Daily News
After the successful cleanup of more than half a dozen schools, and with 38 more planned, the School District of Philadelphia is getting accolades for its aggressive, revamped efforts to protect students from lead paint.
Now, city lawmakers and advocates for healthy schools are urging district officials to apply the lessons learned from lead-paint remediation and tackle an equally pressing crisis: asbestos.
Georgie Silvarole and Justin MurphyRochester Democrat and Chronicle
In interviews over the last month by the Democrat and Chronicle, more than a dozen minority suburban students said they generally appreciate the opportunities their districts afford them. At the same time, they described recurring, insidious patterns of institutional and personal racism.
Several said counselors had actively discouraged them from taking advanced coursework. Others said some white teachers and students use the N-word freely, making them feel uncomfortable and unsafe. Conversations about slavery in history class can be excruciating.
Katie Gillespie and Dahlia BazzazThe Colombian and The Seattle Times
A joint analysis by The Seattle Times and The Columbian newspapersfound that even though the number of teachers of color is growing at a faster rate than that of white teachers, there are still few of them in classrooms. The newspapers looked at all 313 school districts, charter schools and educational service districts that sent teacher and student demographic information to the state. Last school year, nearly a quarter of Washington’s school districts had no teachers of color.
Missed warning signs. Conflicting responses. A lack of empathy. Education Week’s Benjamin Herold examines the deep rift between Parkland’s grieving community and its school district in the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
The Louisiana State Police have begun an investigation of T.M. Landry College Preparatory School, leading a coordinated law-enforcement response to allegations of physical abuse at a school that gained national attention for vaulting working-class black students to the nation’s most elite colleges and universities.
The Education Department is releasing a plan Sunday to help these teachers who have been wrongly hit with debts, sometimes totaling tens of thousands of dollars, because of a troubled federal grant program.
The move comes after an almost year-long NPR investigation that brought pressure on the department. In May, the Education Department launched a top-to-bottom review of the program. Amid continued reporting, 19 U.S. senators sent a letter, citing NPR, saying the problems should be fixed.
To outsiders, Oklahoma may seem like an odd place to look for a shining example of public education policy.
This deep-red state has seen numerous cuts to public education funding over the last 30 years; stagnant teacher salaries over the past decade; and most recently a heated election cycle dominated by the aftermath of a massive statewide teacher strike. But Oklahoma also happens to lead the country in one particular public-education initiative: state-funded universal pre-Kindergarten.
Houston ISD has spent millions of dollars on incentive pay and bonuses during the last two years to recruit and retain more high-quality teachers at it longest-struggling campuses.
President Trump’s school safety commission will recommend canceling an Obama-era initiative meant to reduce racial disparities in school discipline and will not recommend new gun restrictions, people familiar with the matter said.
On a sunny Saturday in October, about 500 prospective students and their families gathered on the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso for Orange and Blue Day. They met with representatives from financial aid, admissions, and various academic departments in a festival-like atmosphere spread across campus.
The university uses events like this to make college more inviting for families sending their first-ever student to college.
Scott Travis and John MainesSouth Florida Sun Sentinel
From rapes to arsons to guns, Florida’s school districts are hiding countless crimes that take place on campus, defying state laws and leaving parents with the false impression that children are safer than they are.
Many serious offenses — and even minor ones — are never reported to the state as required, an investigation by the South Florida Sun Sentinel found. A staggering number of schools report no incidents at all — no bullying, no trespassing, nothing.
The University of Virginia can seem like a textbook college campus: white columns and porticos, long lawns and statues of Thomas Jefferson and Homer.
In 2017, though, UVa’s Rotunda steps were transformed into a maelstrom as white supremacists carried torches and attacked protesters. For months, the school was roiled by protests and political soul-searching.
Shoulders hunched and a worried expression plastered on his face, Principal Brian Sparks walked briskly through the halls of Lamar Elementary toward the cafeteria.
For The New York Times, Erica Green and Katie Benner uncover the shocking truth of a private school lauded for vaulting its students to elite colleges.
The closing of a Detroit charter school earlier this year felt sudden to its students. In reality, as Chalkbeat’s Koby Levin reports, failure was practically inevitable.
Lame-duck lawmakers in Michigan are moving to shift some crucial decisions about education — such as closing schools, a letter grading system, and the creation of innovative districts — away from elected school officials.
In third grade, Natalia Otel Belan’s daughter was in a class at Patrick Henry Elementary School that encouraged students to befriend and work alongside classmates of different races and ethnicities.
[Arlington’s Patrick Henry Elementary named a National Blue Ribbon School]
Unionized teachers from one of the largest charter school networks in Chicago headed to the picket lines Tuesday. Acero teachers and support staff from 15 campuses with more than 7,000 students are going on strike after months of failed negotiations with charter network officials.
This is the first charter school teachers strike in the nation. The action is being taken by the United Educators for Justice, the union that represents Acero teachers and staff. The group joined forces with the Chicago Teachers Union earlier this year.
Before school principal Josh Peete led the caravan of teachers and staff around the police barricade, past the burned fire station, and to their smoke-stenched but still-standing classrooms, he issued a directive: Collect only what is needed to lead classes for a few weeks. Everything else must, for now, be left behind. The team nodded.
A week after the school massacre in Parkland, Fla., when grief-stricken students demanded action at the state Capitol, Rep. Kimberly Daniels took to the floor to promote a measure she said had been inspired by God, who she said spoke to her in a dream.
God “is the light. And our schools need light in them like never before,” the Jacksonville Democrat said Feb. 21. “It is not a secret that we have some gun issues that need to be addressed. But the real thing that needs to be addressed are issues of the heart.”
South Florida SunSentinel Brittany Wallman, Megan O'Matz and Paula McMahon
Immediately after 17 people were murdered inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the school district launched a persistent effort to keep people from finding out what went wrong.
For months, Broward schools delayed or withheld records, refused to publicly assess the role of employees, spread misinformation and even sought to jail reporters who published the truth.
At the first Friday football game in the first school year since the school district in this East Texas town had been declared racially integrated — nearly 50 years after a federal court order — thousands of spectators dressed in forest-green Lobos gear filled the stadium anticipating a win.
T.M. Landry, a school in small-town Louisiana, has garnered national attention for vaulting its underprivileged black students to elite colleges. But the school cut corners and doctored college applications.
Bryson Sassau’s application would inspire any college admissions officer.
Jan. 11 – Jan. 17
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
Talk of teacher strikes was a big education news story this week. In Los Angeles, administrators are trying desperately to keep schools open as more than 30,000 educators remain on the picket lines, reports Linda Jacobson for Education Dive.
Elsewhere in California, time is running out for the Oakland teachers union and school district officials to reach a deal to avoid a strike, writes Theresa Harrington for EdSource.
An Epidemic of Untapped Potential
Over the past year, the Globe has tracked down 93 of the 113 valedictorians who appeared in the paper’s first three “Faces of Excellence” features from 2005 to 2007. We wanted to know, more than a decade later, how the stories of Boston’s best and brightest were turning out.
Several School Districts Jump at the Chance to Hire Federal Employees
Furloughed federal employees packed a substitute teaching job fair for Fairfax Public Schools Jan. 11, and as the shutdown continues, more school districts in the Washington region are hosting events to draw in federal employees to fill staff positions.
Why the Los Angeles Teachers’ Strike Is Different
In a highly anticipated move that for key organizers has been years in the making, more than 30,000 educators on Monday kicked off a strike that’s put regular K–12 classes on hiatus in the country’s second-largest public-school district.
In Buffalo’s ‘Digital Deserts,’ More Than Half Of Households Lack Internet
The digital divide looks like Buffalo’s Broadway Market on a Friday afternoon: a dozen round tables thronged with lunchgoers – and nary a laptop or tablet among them.
Most households in this neighborhood don’t own such devices, new first-of-its-kind federal data show. And even fewer have the means to go online with them, either at the Broadway Market or in their own homes.
When You Give a Teacher a Gun
The question is no longer “should we arm teachers?” Now, it’s “how many armed teachers are already out there?” GQ flew down to Ohio to embed with the men and women behind FASTER Saves Lives, a group that has trained thousands of teachers from all across the country how to shoot to kill.
Jan. 4 – Jan. 10
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Michael Vasquez asks: Has Duke University really turned a corner on the issue of sexual assault?
With the government shutdown in its third week, the chairman of the Senate education committee proposes a way out, reports Education Week’s Andrew Ujifusa.
For The New York Times, Eliza Shapiro examines the growing popularity of Afrocentric schools.
Why Illinois Won’t ‘Ban The Box’ On College Applications
Next year, the Common Application used by hundreds of colleges and universities will stop asking potential students about their criminal histories. Despite legislative efforts in Illinois, most campuses in the state continue to ask the question. Nationwide, roughly two-thirds of colleges and universities that completed a 2009 survey reported asking prospective students about their criminal histories.
‘I Love My Skin!’ Why Black Parents Are Turning to Afrocentric Schools
Though New York City has tried to desegregate its schools in fits and starts since the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, the school system is now one of the most segregated in the nation. But rather than pushing for integration, some black parents in Bedford-Stuyvesant are choosing an alternative: schools explicitly designed for black children.
New GAO Report Highlights College-Student Hunger
As the costs of college have climbed, some students have gone hungry. When they’ve voiced frustration, they’ve often been ridiculed: “Ramen is cheap,” or “Just eat cereal.”
Why It’s Getting Harder to Count Poor Children in the Nation’s Schools
The number of poor students enrolled in a particular school or living in a certain school district is one of the most important education data points that exists, and the stakes are high for getting the count right.
The figures are used to direct billions of dollars in federal and state aid, and they’re a pillar of K-12 accountability systems that ensure disadvantaged students are keeping up with their wealthier peers.
Trump Administration Wants Flexibility for Accreditors and to Encourage Alternative Providers
In a package of highly detailed proposals set to be released today, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos delivers on a promise to limit the authority and scope of higher education accreditors, the organizations that serve as gatekeepers for federal student aid.
Los Angeles Braces for Major Teachers’ Strike
Teachers and other employees in the Los Angeles Unified School District are demanding higher pay, smaller class sizes and more support staff like counselors and librarians. But district officials say that they do not have the money to meet all of the demands and that the strike would do more damage to schools than good.
Major New Study Finds Restorative Justice Led to Safer Schools, but Hurt Black Students’ Test Scores
In one Pittsburgh elementary school classroom, students started the day in a circle, explaining how they were feeling as others listened intently. Some were happy, but others were sleepy or sad.
“Let’s remember those who said they’re tired or frustrated so we can help them out today,” the teacher said in closing.
Far From Home: Different Stories, With Common Threads
On a bulletin board at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, a flier advertised a storytelling event for first-generation students to share their experience in their own words.
The event was part of a larger project headed by Senior Associate Dean of Students Luis Inoa. Inoa spent the summer working with a first-gen Skidmore student to research the best practices in first-gen student support at liberal arts colleges around the country. He discovered that storytelling, in particular, is very powerful.
District Sends Teachers on Home Visits to Help Get More Students to College
West Virginia unveiled a campaign this year for 60 percent of adults ages 25 to 64 to have earned a degree or certificate by 2030. But in this county of fewer than 19,000 residents, just 38 percent of recent high school graduates sought more education, according to the latest available data from the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission. That’s well below the statewide rate of 55 percent. And in 2016 just 8 percent of McDowell County residents of working age held an associate degree or higher, compared to 31 percent statewide.
The Fight to Keep Teachers in Tech Hubs From Being Priced Out
From San Francisco to Seattle to Denver to Los Angeles, some are spending four hours per day commuting, or have relied on charitable funding for mortgage assistance. And while several districts have tried to make it easier for teachers to live where they work, their efforts are not always welcomed by local homeowners, opening up new debates over gentrification and what obligations the expanding tech sector has to the cities that host its offices.
Progress, Policy, and Protests: Teacher Evaluation Laws Evolving Faster Than Underlying Research That Proves Their Worth, Experts Say
If there’s been one constant over the last decade in terms of teacher evaluation policies in the United States, it’s been change.
First, performance reviews incorporating student test scores became — mostly — the law of the land. Then, the academic standards that educators and their pupils are measured against — mostly — changed. And then, in many places, those standards changed again.
So, has the implementation of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which did away with mandates on how states measure teacher quality, calmed the roiling waters?
Dec. 21 – Jan. 3
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
New insight into the misspending of $38 million at the University of Central Florida shows the university president was more involved in the controversy than previously thought, reports Annie Martin for the Orlando Sentinel.
For The Hechinger Report, Peggy Barmore reports from rural West Virginia, where district officials hope home visits for high schoolers will boost college attendance.
This Deep-Red State Decided to Make a Serious Investment in Preschools. It’s Paying Off Big-Time.
Alabama state senator Trip Pittman had always sort of questioned whether nursery schools were worth the investment. Pittman, a conservative Republican, figured the kinds of things you’re supposed to learn before kindergarten—washing your hands, tying your shoes, minding your manners—might best be taught by parents and grandparents at home. Conservatives often argue that kids who attend preschool fare no better than those who don’t. So in 2013, when a proposal came before the Legislature to expand a state preschool program for four-year-olds, Pittman was on the fence.
Trump, Congress, ESSA and More: Six Issues to Watch in 2019
Happy New Year! It’s 2019, which means that the Every Student Succeeds Act is more than three years old, and finally having an impact on school districts. President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have been on the job for almost two years, with no major school choice initiative in sight. And Democrats are about to take over the U.S. House of Representatives.
Too few black men are earning college degrees. Can Texas turn that around?
The numbers are staggeringly low: Only one college in Texas graduated more than 100 African American men in 2016.
It’s a grim statistic that punctuates glaring disparities across their educational journey.
Black males are more likely to get disciplined more harshly than their peers even as early as prekindergarten. They’re less likely to get tapped for talented and gifted programs that put them on track for college readiness and more likely to be placed in special education classes.
Betsy DeVos Revokes Obama Discipline Guidance Designed to Protect Students of Color
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has rescinded guidance created by the Obama administration to ensure that students of color and students with disabilities aren’t disciplined more harshly than their peers.
Dec. 14 – Dec. 20
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
To combat chronic absenteeism on this Native Indian reservation, educators ramp up expectations for students — and their families, reports The Arizona Republic’s Lily Altavena.
Larry Gordon of EdSource profiles low-income college students who are mentoring each other through the often-challenging first year of school.
Tennessee Already Gave Free College Tuition. Now It’s Turning To Students’ Flat Tires.
Tennessee brought thousands of students to college by offering free tuition to community and technical college. But those students were often one unexpected expense away from dropping out.
So officials are looking to fill in some of the financial gaps.
Illinois Universities Target Students Who Are Admitted but Don’t Go
Manaja Miller likes suspense and mystery novels. When she was a senior at Bogan High School in Chicago’s Ashburn neighborhood, she wanted to be a police detective like she saw on TV.
“You know when you come to the scene and you have to figure out what happened and you take the body to the lab?” Miller explained after she got off work one night in November. “That’s what I want to do.”
Despite Recent Cleanups, Philadelphia Schools Still Expose Kids And Teachers To Asbestos
After the successful cleanup of more than half a dozen schools, and with 38 more planned, the School District of Philadelphia is getting accolades for its aggressive, revamped efforts to protect students from lead paint.
Now, city lawmakers and advocates for healthy schools are urging district officials to apply the lessons learned from lead-paint remediation and tackle an equally pressing crisis: asbestos.
As Rochester Suburban Schools Diversify, Black Students Face Obstacles
In interviews over the last month by the Democrat and Chronicle, more than a dozen minority suburban students said they generally appreciate the opportunities their districts afford them. At the same time, they described recurring, insidious patterns of institutional and personal racism.
Several said counselors had actively discouraged them from taking advanced coursework. Others said some white teachers and students use the N-word freely, making them feel uncomfortable and unsafe. Conversations about slavery in history class can be excruciating.
The Color of Education
A joint analysis by The Seattle Times and The Columbian newspapersfound that even though the number of teachers of color is growing at a faster rate than that of white teachers, there are still few of them in classrooms. The newspapers looked at all 313 school districts, charter schools and educational service districts that sent teacher and student demographic information to the state. Last school year, nearly a quarter of Washington’s school districts had no teachers of color.
Dec. 7 – Dec. 13
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
Missed warning signs. Conflicting responses. A lack of empathy. Education Week’s Benjamin Herold examines the deep rift between Parkland’s grieving community and its school district in the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
Houston has little to show for the millions of dollars spent to improve teacher quality, writes Jacob Carpenter for The Houston Chronicle.
State Police Investigating Abuse at Celebrated Louisiana School
The Louisiana State Police have begun an investigation of T.M. Landry College Preparatory School, leading a coordinated law-enforcement response to allegations of physical abuse at a school that gained national attention for vaulting working-class black students to the nation’s most elite colleges and universities.
Education Department to Erase Debts of Teachers, Fix Troubled Grant Program
The Education Department is releasing a plan Sunday to help these teachers who have been wrongly hit with debts, sometimes totaling tens of thousands of dollars, because of a troubled federal grant program.
The move comes after an almost year-long NPR investigation that brought pressure on the department. In May, the Education Department launched a top-to-bottom review of the program. Amid continued reporting, 19 U.S. senators sent a letter, citing NPR, saying the problems should be fixed.
Philly Goes to School; Lessons in Inclusive, Universal Pre-K
To outsiders, Oklahoma may seem like an odd place to look for a shining example of public education policy.
This deep-red state has seen numerous cuts to public education funding over the last 30 years; stagnant teacher salaries over the past decade; and most recently a heated election cycle dominated by the aftermath of a massive statewide teacher strike. But Oklahoma also happens to lead the country in one particular public-education initiative: state-funded universal pre-Kindergarten.
Millions Spent on Incentives Failed to Get Better Teachers in High-need HISD Schools
Houston ISD has spent millions of dollars on incentive pay and bonuses during the last two years to recruit and retain more high-quality teachers at it longest-struggling campuses.
It has not worked.
Betsy Devos School Safety Panel Takes Aim at Obama’s Discipline Guidance
President Trump’s school safety commission will recommend canceling an Obama-era initiative meant to reduce racial disparities in school discipline and will not recommend new gun restrictions, people familiar with the matter said.
Far From Home: Demystifying the College Experience
On a sunny Saturday in October, about 500 prospective students and their families gathered on the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso for Orange and Blue Day. They met with representatives from financial aid, admissions, and various academic departments in a festival-like atmosphere spread across campus.
The university uses events like this to make college more inviting for families sending their first-ever student to college.
Florida Schools Cover Up Crimes: Rapes, Guns and More
From rapes to arsons to guns, Florida’s school districts are hiding countless crimes that take place on campus, defying state laws and leaving parents with the false impression that children are safer than they are.
Many serious offenses — and even minor ones — are never reported to the state as required, an investigation by the South Florida Sun Sentinel found. A staggering number of schools report no incidents at all — no bullying, no trespassing, nothing.
Rally Had Minor Impact on Admissions as UVa Addresses Financial Needs and Its Own History
The University of Virginia can seem like a textbook college campus: white columns and porticos, long lawns and statues of Thomas Jefferson and Homer.
In 2017, though, UVa’s Rotunda steps were transformed into a maelstrom as white supremacists carried torches and attacked protesters. For months, the school was roiled by protests and political soul-searching.
Does San Antonio ISD’s Integration Plan Leave Some Schools Behind?
Shoulders hunched and a worried expression plastered on his face, Principal Brian Sparks walked briskly through the halls of Lamar Elementary toward the cafeteria.
Nov. 29 – Dec. 6
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
For The New York Times, Erica Green and Katie Benner uncover the shocking truth of a private school lauded for vaulting its students to elite colleges.
The closing of a Detroit charter school earlier this year felt sudden to its students. In reality, as Chalkbeat’s Koby Levin reports, failure was practically inevitable.
GOP Power Grab or Path to Better Schools? Lame-Duck Votes Could Shift Some Mich. Education Powers
Lame-duck lawmakers in Michigan are moving to shift some crucial decisions about education — such as closing schools, a letter grading system, and the creation of innovative districts — away from elected school officials.
As Arlington Rezones Schools, Communities Fight To Stay Together
In third grade, Natalia Otel Belan’s daughter was in a class at Patrick Henry Elementary School that encouraged students to befriend and work alongside classmates of different races and ethnicities.
[Arlington’s Patrick Henry Elementary named a National Blue Ribbon School]
Teachers In Chicago Charter School Network Go On Strike
Unionized teachers from one of the largest charter school networks in Chicago headed to the picket lines Tuesday. Acero teachers and support staff from 15 campuses with more than 7,000 students are going on strike after months of failed negotiations with charter network officials.
This is the first charter school teachers strike in the nation. The action is being taken by the United Educators for Justice, the union that represents Acero teachers and staff. The group joined forces with the Chicago Teachers Union earlier this year.
Camp Fire Children Face Trauma of Climate Change At Home, School
Before school principal Josh Peete led the caravan of teachers and staff around the police barricade, past the burned fire station, and to their smoke-stenched but still-standing classrooms, he issued a directive: Collect only what is needed to lead classes for a few weeks. Everything else must, for now, be left behind. The team nodded.
Does ‘In God We Trust’ Belong In Schools? More And More States Say Yes.
A week after the school massacre in Parkland, Fla., when grief-stricken students demanded action at the state Capitol, Rep. Kimberly Daniels took to the floor to promote a measure she said had been inspired by God, who she said spoke to her in a dream.
God “is the light. And our schools need light in them like never before,” the Jacksonville Democrat said Feb. 21. “It is not a secret that we have some gun issues that need to be addressed. But the real thing that needs to be addressed are issues of the heart.”
Hide, deny, spin, threaten: How the school district tried to mask failures that led to Parkland shooting
Immediately after 17 people were murdered inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the school district launched a persistent effort to keep people from finding out what went wrong.
For months, Broward schools delayed or withheld records, refused to publicly assess the role of employees, spread misinformation and even sought to jail reporters who published the truth.
It took this Texas school district 48 years to desegregate. Now, some fear a return to the past.
At the first Friday football game in the first school year since the school district in this East Texas town had been declared racially integrated — nearly 50 years after a federal court order — thousands of spectators dressed in forest-green Lobos gear filled the stadium anticipating a win.
Louisiana School Made Headlines for Sending Black Kids to Elite Colleges. Here’s the Reality.
T.M. Landry, a school in small-town Louisiana, has garnered national attention for vaulting its underprivileged black students to elite colleges. But the school cut corners and doctored college applications.
Bryson Sassau’s application would inspire any college admissions officer.