Black parents say their voices were ignored during the debate
over critical race theory in Loudoun County, Virginia. Their
experiences go back to recent and decades of systemic racism and
discrimination in schools and overall society, Melinda D.
Anderson investigates for HuffPost.
“Think how uncomfortable Black and other people of color have been in this country for years and years. What we experience is nothing compared to your child’s discomfort about learning a sensitive topic.” Via @mdawriter, my pick for @EdWriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/2YBIUWcgdP
The authors of a disproven – but still widely used – set of
reading instruction materials for elementary schools broke their
long silence and tried to defend their approach, Emily
Hanford and Christopher Peak outline
for APM Reports.
Nine-year-old Landen Sapien started off fourth grade this year
with a lot of hope—at first, anyway. His school was one of few in
Florida with a mask mandate, after the Hillsborough County School
Board defied the Governor’s order that there would be no masking
in schools. But amid Supreme Court battles as the first few weeks
of school unfolded, his classmates stopped wearing them.
Landen says he was disappointed, because no masks meant it would
be unsafe for him to go to school, which makes him feel
frustrated and sad.
Child care doesn’t work like a normal business. Looking after
young children comes with a litany of regulations to ensure the
programs are safe. There are square footage requirements, zoning
restrictions, earthquake preparedness plans, fire safety codes,
CPR certifications, nutritional guidelines, rules about parking
and outdoor space, liability insurance.
Librarians across the country are resisting political pressure to
remove schoolbooks by Black and LGBTQ authors. They ignored
lawmakers’ requests to compile books, defended their book
collection policies; and resigned in protest, explains
Nadra Nittle for The
19th.
I'm beyond thrilled that @19thnews saw importance of having a dedicated education beat! @NadraKareem is off to roaring start with timely, deep look at school librarians battling censorship. She's my pick for this week's @EdWriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/v74owvb9q1
The Detroit school district is moving to remote instruction for
three Fridays in December in an effort to slow the spread of
COVID and give the staff time to deep clean schools. The move was
announced Wednesday on the district’s web site. It comes as the
state is leading the nation in new COVID cases.
Sarah Caswell is stressed about her job every day. The science
and special-education teacher in Philadelphia sees things going
wrong everywhere she looks. Her high school students have been
falling behind during the COVID-19 pandemic, the students and
even the teachers in her school rarely wear masks, and a shooting
just outside her school in October left a bystander dead and a
16-year-old student in the hospital with critical injuries.
She’s unhappy. But her solution isn’t to quit — it’s to get more
involved. “We need to double down,” Caswell said.
Kids have long struggled with learning to read. And then the
pandemic hit — disrupting classes, pushing lessons online and
ushering in an era of masks, all of which makes it even more
difficult to acquire the sounds and syllables that build up
language.
The pandemic put learning gaps in the spotlight, as teachers,
families and policymakers debated whether the disruption of the
last two years will set kids back long term and widen gaps. But
even before COVID-19, our schools were in crisis over how to
teach students how to read.
NPR’s Anya Kamenetz and LA
Johnson partnered to illustrate the more than 200-year
history of schools requiring vaccines to reduce deaths and
eliminate contagious diseases, such as polio and measles. Schools
are likely to follow suit with COVID-19 vaccinations.
A Minnesota science teacher introduced her sixth-grade students
to engineering, asking them to build wooden tombstones as part of
a special Halloween project, writes Adelle
Whitefoot for the Duluth News Tribune.
The University of Florida is prohibiting three
professors from providing expert testimony in a lawsuit
challenging a new law that critics claim restricts voting rights,
saying it goes against the school’s interest by conflicting with
the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Chicago Public Schools enrollment has dropped again, this time to
330,411 students, about 10,000 fewer kids than last year,
according to numbers the district released Wednesday.
“When I was in CPS my first year, in
2003, we were just under 440,000 students. Even then I was
seeing declines of about 3,000 students or so. I would have never
imagined seeing this steep of a decline,” new CPS CEO Pedro
Martinez told reporters.
Hannah Dreyfus reports for
ProPublica on Liberty University’s mishandling
of sexual assault cases. Staffers discouraged and blamed female
students, who said they were sexually assaulted, by punishing
them for breaking the college’s ‘moral code.’
“I feel like Liberty bullied me into silence after what happened to me. I’ve always regretted that I never got my day in court. But at least now I can stand up and say, ‘Yeah, that happened to me.’” Breathtaking work by @Hannah_Dreyfus. She's my pick for @EdWriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/XAz6nb1XWj
After the pandemic shut down schools across the country, the
federal government provided about $190 billion in aid
to help them reopen and respond to the effects of the pandemic.
In the year and a half since millions of children were sent home,
the Education Department has done only limited tracking of how
the money has been spent. That has left officials in Washington
largely in the dark about how effective the aid has been in
helping students, especially those whose schools and communities
were among the hardest hit by the pandemic.
Dan Bauman and Eric HooverThe Chronicle of Higher Education
A new financial filing from the nonprofit that runs one of
America’s most prominent standardized tests paints a grim picture
of the organization’s finances.
The revenues generated by ACT Inc. from educational assessment
and work-force development — a category that includes the ACT
exam — declined by nearly $100 million during just the fiscal
year that ended on August 31, 2020.
Part of a national trend, Black families in Birmingham, Alabama
are homeschooling their children due to concerns about
educational racism, such as schools disproportionately punishing
Black students, Kyra Miles reports for
WBHM.
“I want to have time to cultivate my children’s African-American, their Nigerian history and culture in them first before anybody tries to tell them who they are." Excellent history, context by @wbhm's @hey_kyramae. It's my pick for @edwriters' #tellEWA. https://t.co/OfQhGA8wOc
Math and reading scores for 9-year-old students in the U.S. are
flat since 2012, while those of 13-year-olds declined
dramatically – representing the first major drops in the subjects
since the National Assessment of Educational Progress began
tracking long-term academic achievement trends in the 1970s.
Emmett Jafari, 67, and his teenage granddaughter, Mariam
Jafari-Nassali, both take pride in the education they received in
a building at the corner of Leigh and Lombardy streets named for
a Richmond civil rights pioneer.
But their experiences, separated by five decades that saw a
thriving Black school shuttered after integration and then
effectively resegregated as a predominantly white school for
gifted children, could not have been more different.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the high-performing district on
the Eastern Shore of Maryland had closed out the year with much
to be proud of. But like the rest of the country, Dr. Kane said,
the community had another crisis to confront.
“Racism is alive in our country, our state, in Queen Anne’s
County, and our schools,” she wrote in the letter, emailed to the
parents of all 7,700 students in the district.
Congress didn’t impose many rules or restrictions on how schools
can spend more than $157 billion in pandemic relief funding. The
result: some school districts have chosen to fund athletic
projects rather than provide supports for disadvantaged
students, write Collin Binkley and
Ryan J. Foley write for the Associated
Press.
Your high school need a new turf sports field? The feds have you (unintentionally) covered. @cbinkley's @AP investigation finds districts skirting spirit of the federal Covid relief dollars. He's my pick for this week's @edwriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/5PG5A47yp1
The stories of cruel, seemingly irrational and sometimes-violent
conflicts over coronavirus regulations have become lingering
symptoms of the pandemic as it drags through its second year. Two
men on a Mesa-to-Provo flight got into a cross-aisle
fight after one refused to wear a mask. A Tennessee teenager
asking his school board to impose a mask mandate in honor of his
grandmother who died of COVID-19 got jeered by the crowd.
New York’s requirement that
virtually everyone who works in the city’s public schools be
vaccinated against the coronavirus compelled thousands of
Department of Education employees to get at least one dose of a
vaccine in the past week, leading to extremely high vaccination
rates among educators, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.
Linda K. Wertheimer of The Boston
Globe follows efforts by non-binary and transgender
students to use their own pronouns, often despite opposition from
school leaders and elected officials.
As a California county deadline to provide proof of vaccination
approaches, school district administrators make efforts to
increase accessibility for weekly COVID testing for unvaccinated
students, volunteers, and staff, Kaylee Tornay
reports for The Press Democrat.
The @CaliforniaDep11 deadline for school staff, volunteers and contractors to present proof of vaccination isn't for another 3 week (Oct. 15). In Sonoma County, it's today. Here's my piece on what it took to get there and what happens now #TellEWAhttps://t.co/WSw9WGMDHr
Charlotte West and Monica BraineColorado Public Radio
After the pandemic sabotaged her senior year of high school
lacrosse, Nina Polk was determined not to miss another season.
Although her mom was hesitant to let her go away to college, the
family piled into their car in August 2020 to make the 20-plus
hour drive from their home in Shakopee, Minnesota, to Durango,
Colorado, where Polk had been recruited to play women’s lacrosse
at Fort Lewis College.
The United States has struggled with Covid testing since the
earliest days of the pandemic. Now, nearly two years in — and
weeks into another Covid-disrupted school year — school systems
across the nation are struggling with the role of testing in
keeping children safe and in class.
LAist compiles a survival guide with resources
and helpful tips for California students considering higher
education, including public and private colleges, trade schools
and online institutions.
This is a terrific roadmap from @KPCC to help California's students navigate the complex path to #highered. Informative, thoughtful, and visually engaging, it's my pick for this week's #tellEWA. https://t.co/ZrhdUau1Ih
Jessica Votipka of The Grand Island Independent
reports on a Nebraska-based school-to-work program that helps
students with disabilities explore various careers and transition
into the workforce.
Last summer, protest after protest made waves across the nation.
It was no different in Texas, and Whitfield, who had weeks
earlier been named the first Black principal at Colleyville
Heritage High School, couldn’t just sit back. He said he felt
like he had a platform that other Black Americans didn’t have and
he wouldn’t let that go to waste.
At 4:30 a.m., he wrote a letter to the school community declaring
that systemic racism is “alive and well” and that they needed to
work together to achieve “conciliation for our nation.”
Hiring and retaining good workers has been tough in the
child-care industry for years, but it is escalating into a
crisis. Pandemic-fueled staffing challenges threaten to hold back
the recovery, as the staffing problems at day cares have a ripple
effect across the economy. Without enough employees, day cares
are turning away children, leaving parents — especially mothers —
unable to return to work.
Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, Jim HaddadinConnecticut Public Radio
Staff shortages have perplexed high-poverty districts throughout
Connecticut for years. That’s because districts like Bridgeport
struggle to keep their teachers from leaving for suburban
districts, where the pay is often higher and class sizes smaller.
Almost a month into this school year, Bridgeport still has 16
special education teaching positions it needs to fill. Statewide,
between 95 and 250 teaching positions go unfilled each
year. Most are in high-poverty districts.
An Education Week team presents the Big Ideas
report, composed of 10 essays focusing on education during the
pandemic, challenges, and tough questions.
If you're an @EdWriters journo looking for inspiration, @educationweek's 'Big Ideas' is essential. They cover everything from educator mental health to student homelessness to framing schools' role in society. (Great art, too!) It's my pick for #tellEWA. https://t.co/eae94GVDW8
As Tennessee schools battle over whether parents can opt their
children out of mask mandates, Memphis reached a grim milestone –
20,000 students tested positive for COVID-19 since March 2020,
reports Samantha West for Chalkbeat
Tennessee.
I can't stop thinking about the grim milestone Shelby County reached earlier this week: 20,000 school-age children have tested positive for COVID since the pandemic began. A month after the school year began, TN is now the nation's top hotspot. #TellEWAhttps://t.co/IVSHWY0Ycq
Welcome to the start of a new school year and the 2021 edition of
our Big Ideas report.
While returning children to school buildings safely and making
the year as normal as possible is driving you and your work, we
understand how much more complex your job has become.
The cover of this year’s report and the 10 essays inside reflect
this complicated moment and the constellation of emotions we know
you’re experiencing: hope, excitement, grief, urgency,
trepidation, and determination.
Harvey Ellington was 7 the first time someone told him the state
of Mississippi considered Holmes County Consolidated School
District a failing district. Holmes had earned a D or an F
almost every year since then, and Ellington felt hollowed out
with embarrassment every time someone rattled off the ranking.
Technically, the grade measured how well, or how poorly,
Ellington and his classmates performed on the state’s
standardized tests, but he knew it could have applied to any
number of assessments.
A little-known New York law has allowed the state to sue nearly
16,000 students who owe college tuition, library fines and unpaid
parking tickets. Many cases end in default because of a
requirement that defendants appear for a hearing in only one
location – Albany, reports The Hechinger Report’s
Meredith Kolodner.
What might have served New York better in long run? Suing a college student for $3,705 in unpaid tuition, or helping her craft plan to earn the THREE CREDITS she needed to graduate? Fine work by @hechingerreport's @merkolodner. She's my pick for #tellEWA. https://t.co/uYbaN80S5f
Damage from Hurricane Ida caused school closures across
Louisiana, affecting 250,000 students who haven’t attended class
in more than a week, Marta Jewson writes for
The Lens.
An Oregon school board is facing backlash from some parents and
students for firing a superintendent who followed a
state-required mask mandate for K-12 schools, though he
personally opposed the mandate, Liliana Frankel
reports for the Malheur Enterprise.
This @MalheurNews story by @EdWriters' New to the Beat rookie @frillyankle is rightfully getting lots of attention. It's deeply reported, loaded with voices, and explains painful domino effect of anti-mask protests. She's my pick for this week's #tellEWA. https://t.co/egb2RT04yv
Six newsrooms across the country produced an eight-part
solutions-focused series that explores practices schools are
employing for getting students back on track.
Come for @edwriters Reporting Fellow @jillbarshay's smart look at research on what works for high-need students, stay for collaborative effort by six (6!) newsrooms on next steps for schools in COVID-19 era. The superb project is my pick for this week's #tellEWA. h/t @soljournohttps://t.co/10bEUrSOIH
After two dozen school districts defied a soon-to-be in effect
Arizona law banning mask mandates in K-12 public schools, the
governor launched an incentive program to get districts to
comply, offering additional funding per student, writes
Rocio Hernandez for KJZZ.
Schools nationwide are struggling with staff and supply
shortages, which are affecting the start of the new school year,
reports Abha Bhattarai for TheWashington Post.
A California school district became one of the first in the state
to require COVID-19 vaccines and weekly testing for students in
addition to staff, Diana Lambert and Ali Tadayon
report for EdSource.
After hearing 70 people speak during an eight-hour period, the
Virginia Beach school board voted to require masks for students
and staff, reports Sara Gregory for The
Virginian-Pilot.
One more #tellEWA shoutout for the week from me: Kudos to ALL the @EdWriters journos covering marathon school board meetings (and the chaos in the parking lots) these days. Pace yourselves, stay hydrated, and keep those phones charged. https://t.co/589zu77fAe
California State University adopted a vaccination mandate for
students, but the deadline comes long after the start of fall
classes, Mikhail Zinshteyn reports for
CalMatters.
By me: The Cal State University system reversed course and set a vaccine mandate by Sept. 30 or sooner.
But at most CSU campuses, in-person classes begin by late August. That gap means unvaccinated students could be on campus for a month. #tellewahttps://t.co/vQg5IryQKF
Colleges lost millions in revenue after international student
enrollment dropped 72% due to the pandemic, visa restrictions and
more, reports Karin Fischer and Sasha
Aslanian for The Chronicle of Higher
Education and APM Reports.
Really interesting and important look at the rise and decline of foreign students studying in the U.S., including what factors are slowing it down and what the impact will be from @chronicle and @apmreports. #TellEWAhttps://t.co/sUOmR9sTwK
Rather than implement a mandate, several California community
colleges are offering money and free textbooks to students who
get vaccinated for COVID-19, reports Emma Hall
and Matthew Reagan for Cal
Matters.
After the pandemic reduced college enrollment in 2020, New Jersey
colleges and universities hope in-person classes and activities
will increase student enrollment this year, reports
Claire Lowe for The Press of Atlantic
City.
Because a governor’s order prohibits vaccine mandates at Idaho
colleges, education leaders are encouraging students to get
vaccinated, appealing to their sense of community, Kevin
Richert writes for Idaho Education
News.
Colorado educators reflected on challenges they faced during the
past school year, with the goal of helping improve K-12
education, reports Jenny Brundin for
Colorado Public Radio.
Texas school leaders are seeking ways to support first-year
educators who lost student-teaching opportunities and other
training due to the pandemic, reports Silas
Allen for Fort-Worth Star-Telegram.
Student teaching was disrupted last year along with everything else. How will Fort Worth schools support their first-year teachers? https://t.co/MIG4asZoEg#tellewa
A records request showed only two people emailed the Alabama
superintendent about critical race theory, yet he drafted a
resolution targeting the teachings of the academic framework in
K-12 schools, Trisha Powell Crain reports for
AL.com.
This is how you do it: @Trish_Crain used #FOIA to determine only 2 (!) people contacted Alabama state superintendent w/ concerns about critical race theory. (He pushed resolution slamming it, anyway.) She's my pick for this week's @EdWriters' #tellEWA. https://t.co/yTVjSB1DFc
Talia Richman of The Dallas Morning
News covers Texas educators’ concerns about a new bill
that would require them to disclose their lessons and activities
online.
Two Boston Globe reporters separately
highlighted the lack of educators of color in leadership and
Boston Public Schools’ alleged coverup of racially charged text
messages from former employees.
California colleges intend to address learning loss by offering
tutoring and academic counseling for incoming freshmen this fall,
Larry Gordon reports for
EdSource.
Michigan health officials recommended continued mask-wearing and
other COVID-19 safety measures for the upcoming school year,
reports Jennifer Chambers and Craig
Mauger for the Detroit News.
The pandemic’s effects highlighted inequities for migrant
students who were already prone to learning loss, explains
Janine Zeitlin for USA TODAY
Network-Florida.
'We had to work twice as hard.' How the pandemic magnified inequities for Florida's migrant students. A deep look at enrollment, attendance data w/first-person narratives from students, parents. #tellewa@EdWritershttps://t.co/Jvy4oysK65
Olivia Krauth live-tweeted the first protest
against critical race theory at Kentucky’s largest school
district for the Courier Journal, showing how
misinformation was widespread among the crowd.
Special education services slowed or stopped after the pandemic
began, “devastating” families who watched their children’s skills
backslide, reports Cory Turner and
Rebecca Klein for NPR.
"I just watched my child not learning and going backwards. I'm just sad for her." Superb teamwork by @NPRCoryTurner & @rklein90 on students missing vital special ed services amid pandemic. The dynamic duo are my pick for this week's @EdWriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/zJu3WlMtbo
After nearly 100 anti-maskers packed a school board meeting,
forcing the meeting to shut down, a Georgia school district is
bringing in more security, writes Alia Malik for
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
An anti-mask crowd shut down a Georgia school board meeting for 40 minutes last month, leading to an increase in security for tomorrow's meeting #tellEWAhttps://t.co/VEaS6dFwX1
A plan to give California’s community college system $170 million
for faculty is dividing finance officials and professors,
explains Mikhail Zinshteyn for Cal
Matters.
Interesting and context-loaded explainer from @mzinshteyn on why proposed $170 million for new community college faculty isn't being cheered by all. (Also bonus points for using the verb "grouse.") He's my pick for this week's #tellEWA. https://t.co/RcB2AEuY00
Education leaders are scrambling to recruit teachers after North
Carolina lawmakers required districts to offer summer school,
reports Ann Doss Helms of WFAE.
#tellEWA North Carolina has lots of students who need extra help, lots of teachers who are exhausted from the past year, millions in federal COVID relief money and a mandate to do summer school. The result? Bidding wars for teachers.https://t.co/7kw7jamych
In 2017, as many as 4.5 million young people—or 11.5 percent of
young adults ages 16 to 24—were neither in school nor working,
according to the nonprofit Measure of America. By the summer of
2020, the organization estimated, the ranks of these
“disconnected” young adults had swelled to 6 million.
#tellEWA Member Stories (November 24-December 2)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
Black parents say their voices were ignored during the debate over critical race theory in Loudoun County, Virginia. Their experiences go back to recent and decades of systemic racism and discrimination in schools and overall society, Melinda D. Anderson investigates for HuffPost.
#tellEWA Member Stories (November 19-23)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
The authors of a disproven – but still widely used – set of reading instruction materials for elementary schools broke their long silence and tried to defend their approach, Emily Hanford and Christopher Peak outline for APM Reports.
The ‘Terrible Trickle Down’ Of School COVID Protocols
Nine-year-old Landen Sapien started off fourth grade this year with a lot of hope—at first, anyway. His school was one of few in Florida with a mask mandate, after the Hillsborough County School Board defied the Governor’s order that there would be no masking in schools. But amid Supreme Court battles as the first few weeks of school unfolded, his classmates stopped wearing them. Landen says he was disappointed, because no masks meant it would be unsafe for him to go to school, which makes him feel frustrated and sad.
How Child Care Became the Most Broken Business in America
Child care doesn’t work like a normal business. Looking after young children comes with a litany of regulations to ensure the programs are safe. There are square footage requirements, zoning restrictions, earthquake preparedness plans, fire safety codes, CPR certifications, nutritional guidelines, rules about parking and outdoor space, liability insurance.
#tellEWA Member Stories (November 12-18)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
Librarians across the country are resisting political pressure to remove schoolbooks by Black and LGBTQ authors. They ignored lawmakers’ requests to compile books, defended their book collection policies; and resigned in protest, explains Nadra Nittle for The 19th.
Classes to Go Remote on December Fridays in Detroit schools
The Detroit school district is moving to remote instruction for three Fridays in December in an effort to slow the spread of COVID and give the staff time to deep clean schools. The move was announced Wednesday on the district’s web site. It comes as the state is leading the nation in new COVID cases.
Why There Hasn’t Been A Mass Exodus Of Teachers
Sarah Caswell is stressed about her job every day. The science and special-education teacher in Philadelphia sees things going wrong everywhere she looks. Her high school students have been falling behind during the COVID-19 pandemic, the students and even the teachers in her school rarely wear masks, and a shooting just outside her school in October left a bystander dead and a 16-year-old student in the hospital with critical injuries.
She’s unhappy. But her solution isn’t to quit — it’s to get more involved. “We need to double down,” Caswell said.
How do We Help America’s Children Get Back on Track in Reading After Pandemic Setbacks?
Kids have long struggled with learning to read. And then the pandemic hit — disrupting classes, pushing lessons online and ushering in an era of masks, all of which makes it even more difficult to acquire the sounds and syllables that build up language.
The pandemic put learning gaps in the spotlight, as teachers, families and policymakers debated whether the disruption of the last two years will set kids back long term and widen gaps. But even before COVID-19, our schools were in crisis over how to teach students how to read.
#tellEWA Member Stories (November 5-11)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
NPR’s Anya Kamenetz and LA Johnson partnered to illustrate the more than 200-year history of schools requiring vaccines to reduce deaths and eliminate contagious diseases, such as polio and measles. Schools are likely to follow suit with COVID-19 vaccinations.
#tellEWA Member Stories (October 29-November 4)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
A Minnesota science teacher introduced her sixth-grade students to engineering, asking them to build wooden tombstones as part of a special Halloween project, writes Adelle Whitefoot for the Duluth News Tribune.
University of Florida Professors Prohibited from Testifying in Voting Rights Lawsuit
The University of Florida is prohibiting three professors from providing expert testimony in a lawsuit challenging a new law that critics claim restricts voting rights, saying it goes against the school’s interest by conflicting with the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
CPS Enrollment Continues to Plummet: ‘I would have Never Imagined Seeing this Steep of a Decline’
Chicago Public Schools enrollment has dropped again, this time to 330,411 students, about 10,000 fewer kids than last year, according to numbers the district released Wednesday.
“When I was in CPS my first year, in 2003, we were just under 440,000 students. Even then I was seeing declines of about 3,000 students or so. I would have never imagined seeing this steep of a decline,” new CPS CEO Pedro Martinez told reporters.
#tellEWA Member Stories (October 22-28)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
Hannah Dreyfus reports for ProPublica on Liberty University’s mishandling of sexual assault cases. Staffers discouraged and blamed female students, who said they were sexually assaulted, by punishing them for breaking the college’s ‘moral code.’
Pittsburgh Public Schools Sent 952 Students To Truancy Court During COVID
Last fall, the 21,000 students in Pittsburgh Public Schools faced back-to-back challenges while settling into a year of remote learning.
The Federal Government Gave Billions to America’s Schools for COVID-19 Relief. Where Did the Money Go?
After the pandemic shut down schools across the country, the federal government provided about $190 billion in aid to help them reopen and respond to the effects of the pandemic. In the year and a half since millions of children were sent home, the Education Department has done only limited tracking of how the money has been spent. That has left officials in Washington largely in the dark about how effective the aid has been in helping students, especially those whose schools and communities were among the hardest hit by the pandemic.
America’s Standardized-Testing Giants Are Losing Money Fast
A new financial filing from the nonprofit that runs one of America’s most prominent standardized tests paints a grim picture of the organization’s finances.
The revenues generated by ACT Inc. from educational assessment and work-force development — a category that includes the ACT exam — declined by nearly $100 million during just the fiscal year that ended on August 31, 2020.
Read the full article here.
#tellEWA Member Stories (October 15-21)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
Part of a national trend, Black families in Birmingham, Alabama are homeschooling their children due to concerns about educational racism, such as schools disproportionately punishing Black students, Kyra Miles reports for WBHM.
America’s Kids Earn Disappointing Grades on Nation’s Report Card
Math and reading scores for 9-year-old students in the U.S. are flat since 2012, while those of 13-year-olds declined dramatically – representing the first major drops in the subjects since the National Assessment of Educational Progress began tracking long-term academic achievement trends in the 1970s.
One Building, Two Schools: The Legacy of Segregation at Maggie Walker
Emmett Jafari, 67, and his teenage granddaughter, Mariam Jafari-Nassali, both take pride in the education they received in a building at the corner of Leigh and Lombardy streets named for a Richmond civil rights pioneer.
But their experiences, separated by five decades that saw a thriving Black school shuttered after integration and then effectively resegregated as a predominantly white school for gifted children, could not have been more different.
Educator’s Black Lives Matter Email Upends Her District
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the high-performing district on the Eastern Shore of Maryland had closed out the year with much to be proud of. But like the rest of the country, Dr. Kane said, the community had another crisis to confront.
“Racism is alive in our country, our state, in Queen Anne’s County, and our schools,” she wrote in the letter, emailed to the parents of all 7,700 students in the district.
#tellEWA Member Stories (October 1- 6)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
Congress didn’t impose many rules or restrictions on how schools can spend more than $157 billion in pandemic relief funding. The result: some school districts have chosen to fund athletic projects rather than provide supports for disadvantaged students, write Collin Binkley and Ryan J. Foley write for the Associated Press.
We’re Losing Our Humanity, and the Pandemic Is to Blame
The stories of cruel, seemingly irrational and sometimes-violent conflicts over coronavirus regulations have become lingering symptoms of the pandemic as it drags through its second year. Two men on a Mesa-to-Provo flight got into a cross-aisle fight after one refused to wear a mask. A Tennessee teenager asking his school board to impose a mask mandate in honor of his grandmother who died of COVID-19 got jeered by the crowd.
N.Y.C.’s Teacher Vaccine Mandate Prompts Thousands of Last-Minute Shots
New York’s requirement that virtually everyone who works in the city’s public schools be vaccinated against the coronavirus compelled thousands of Department of Education employees to get at least one dose of a vaccine in the past week, leading to extremely high vaccination rates among educators, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.
#tellEWA Member Stories (September 24-30)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
Linda K. Wertheimer of The Boston Globe follows efforts by non-binary and transgender students to use their own pronouns, often despite opposition from school leaders and elected officials.
As a California county deadline to provide proof of vaccination approaches, school district administrators make efforts to increase accessibility for weekly COVID testing for unvaccinated students, volunteers, and staff, Kaylee Tornay reports for The Press Democrat.
For One Native Student At Fort Lewis College, Lacrosse And Family Were A Lifeline As The Pandemic Disrupted Classes
After the pandemic sabotaged her senior year of high school lacrosse, Nina Polk was determined not to miss another season.
Although her mom was hesitant to let her go away to college, the family piled into their car in August 2020 to make the 20-plus hour drive from their home in Shakopee, Minnesota, to Durango, Colorado, where Polk had been recruited to play women’s lacrosse at Fort Lewis College.
How Across America, Schools Cram for Their Covid-19 Tests
The United States has struggled with Covid testing since the earliest days of the pandemic. Now, nearly two years in — and weeks into another Covid-disrupted school year — school systems across the nation are struggling with the role of testing in keeping children safe and in class.
#tellEWA Member Stories (September 17-23)
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LAist compiles a survival guide with resources and helpful tips for California students considering higher education, including public and private colleges, trade schools and online institutions.
Jessica Votipka of The Grand Island Independent reports on a Nebraska-based school-to-work program that helps students with disabilities explore various careers and transition into the workforce.
Colleyville, Texas Principal Put on Leave Amid Critical Race Theory Debate
Last summer, protest after protest made waves across the nation. It was no different in Texas, and Whitfield, who had weeks earlier been named the first Black principal at Colleyville Heritage High School, couldn’t just sit back. He said he felt like he had a platform that other Black Americans didn’t have and he wouldn’t let that go to waste.
At 4:30 a.m., he wrote a letter to the school community declaring that systemic racism is “alive and well” and that they needed to work together to achieve “conciliation for our nation.”
Child-Care Workers are Quitting Rapidly, a Red Flag for the Economy
Hiring and retaining good workers has been tough in the child-care industry for years, but it is escalating into a crisis. Pandemic-fueled staffing challenges threaten to hold back the recovery, as the staffing problems at day cares have a ripple effect across the economy. Without enough employees, day cares are turning away children, leaving parents — especially mothers — unable to return to work.
Read and listen to the full story here.
State Finds Half Of Bridgeport Schools Don’t Have Enough Special Education Teachers; We Found Other Districts With The Same Issue
Staff shortages have perplexed high-poverty districts throughout Connecticut for years. That’s because districts like Bridgeport struggle to keep their teachers from leaving for suburban districts, where the pay is often higher and class sizes smaller.
Almost a month into this school year, Bridgeport still has 16 special education teaching positions it needs to fill. Statewide, between 95 and 250 teaching positions go unfilled each year. Most are in high-poverty districts.
#tellEWA Member Stories (September 10-16)
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An Education Week team presents the Big Ideas report, composed of 10 essays focusing on education during the pandemic, challenges, and tough questions.
As Tennessee schools battle over whether parents can opt their children out of mask mandates, Memphis reached a grim milestone – 20,000 students tested positive for COVID-19 since March 2020, reports Samantha West for Chalkbeat Tennessee.
Big Ideas for Education’s Urgent Challenges
Welcome to the start of a new school year and the 2021 edition of our Big Ideas report.
While returning children to school buildings safely and making the year as normal as possible is driving you and your work, we understand how much more complex your job has become.
The cover of this year’s report and the 10 essays inside reflect this complicated moment and the constellation of emotions we know you’re experiencing: hope, excitement, grief, urgency, trepidation, and determination.
The Tragedy of America’s Rural Schools
Harvey Ellington was 7 the first time someone told him the state of Mississippi considered Holmes County Consolidated School District a failing district. Holmes had earned a D or an F almost every year since then, and Ellington felt hollowed out with embarrassment every time someone rattled off the ranking. Technically, the grade measured how well, or how poorly, Ellington and his classmates performed on the state’s standardized tests, but he knew it could have applied to any number of assessments.
#tellEWA Member Stories (September 3-9)
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A little-known New York law has allowed the state to sue nearly 16,000 students who owe college tuition, library fines and unpaid parking tickets. Many cases end in default because of a requirement that defendants appear for a hearing in only one location – Albany, reports The Hechinger Report’s Meredith Kolodner.
Damage from Hurricane Ida caused school closures across Louisiana, affecting 250,000 students who haven’t attended class in more than a week, Marta Jewson writes for The Lens.
#tellEWA Member Stories (August 27-September 2)
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An Oregon school board is facing backlash from some parents and students for firing a superintendent who followed a state-required mask mandate for K-12 schools, though he personally opposed the mandate, Liliana Frankel reports for the Malheur Enterprise.
#tellEWA Member Stories (August 20-26)
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Six newsrooms across the country produced an eight-part solutions-focused series that explores practices schools are employing for getting students back on track.
After two dozen school districts defied a soon-to-be in effect Arizona law banning mask mandates in K-12 public schools, the governor launched an incentive program to get districts to comply, offering additional funding per student, writes Rocio Hernandez for KJZZ.
#tellEWA Member Stories (August 13-19)
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Schools nationwide are struggling with staff and supply shortages, which are affecting the start of the new school year, reports Abha Bhattarai for The Washington Post.
A California school district became one of the first in the state to require COVID-19 vaccines and weekly testing for students in addition to staff, Diana Lambert and Ali Tadayon report for EdSource.
#tellEWA Member Stories (August 6-12)
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After hearing 70 people speak during an eight-hour period, the Virginia Beach school board voted to require masks for students and staff, reports Sara Gregory for The Virginian-Pilot.
California State University adopted a vaccination mandate for students, but the deadline comes long after the start of fall classes, Mikhail Zinshteyn reports for CalMatters.
#tellEWA Member Stories (July 30- August 5)
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Colleges lost millions in revenue after international student enrollment dropped 72% due to the pandemic, visa restrictions and more, reports Karin Fischer and Sasha Aslanian for The Chronicle of Higher Education and APM Reports.
Rather than implement a mandate, several California community colleges are offering money and free textbooks to students who get vaccinated for COVID-19, reports Emma Hall and Matthew Reagan for Cal Matters.
#tellEWA Member Stories (July 23-29)
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After the pandemic reduced college enrollment in 2020, New Jersey colleges and universities hope in-person classes and activities will increase student enrollment this year, reports Claire Lowe for The Press of Atlantic City.
Because a governor’s order prohibits vaccine mandates at Idaho colleges, education leaders are encouraging students to get vaccinated, appealing to their sense of community, Kevin Richert writes for Idaho Education News.
#tellEWA Member Stories (July 16-22)
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Colorado educators reflected on challenges they faced during the past school year, with the goal of helping improve K-12 education, reports Jenny Brundin for Colorado Public Radio.
Texas school leaders are seeking ways to support first-year educators who lost student-teaching opportunities and other training due to the pandemic, reports Silas Allen for Fort-Worth Star-Telegram.
#tellEWA Member Stories (July 9-15)
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A records request showed only two people emailed the Alabama superintendent about critical race theory, yet he drafted a resolution targeting the teachings of the academic framework in K-12 schools, Trisha Powell Crain reports for AL.com.
Talia Richman of The Dallas Morning News covers Texas educators’ concerns about a new bill that would require them to disclose their lessons and activities online.
#tellEWA Member Stories (July 2-8)
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Two Boston Globe reporters separately highlighted the lack of educators of color in leadership and Boston Public Schools’ alleged coverup of racially charged text messages from former employees.
California colleges intend to address learning loss by offering tutoring and academic counseling for incoming freshmen this fall, Larry Gordon reports for EdSource.
#tellEWA Member Stories (June 25-July 1)
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Michigan health officials recommended continued mask-wearing and other COVID-19 safety measures for the upcoming school year, reports Jennifer Chambers and Craig Mauger for the Detroit News.
The pandemic’s effects highlighted inequities for migrant students who were already prone to learning loss, explains Janine Zeitlin for USA TODAY Network-Florida.
#tellEWA Member Stories (June 18-24)
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A high schooler was vindicated after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a student’s right to free speech, explains Emily Tate of Ed Surge.
Olivia Krauth live-tweeted the first protest against critical race theory at Kentucky’s largest school district for the Courier Journal, showing how misinformation was widespread among the crowd.
#tellEWA Member Stories (June 11-17)
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Special education services slowed or stopped after the pandemic began, “devastating” families who watched their children’s skills backslide, reports Cory Turner and Rebecca Klein for NPR.
After nearly 100 anti-maskers packed a school board meeting, forcing the meeting to shut down, a Georgia school district is bringing in more security, writes Alia Malik for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
#tellEWA Member Stories (June 4-10)
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A plan to give California’s community college system $170 million for faculty is dividing finance officials and professors, explains Mikhail Zinshteyn for Cal Matters.
Education leaders are scrambling to recruit teachers after North Carolina lawmakers required districts to offer summer school, reports Ann Doss Helms of WFAE.
Out of School, Out of Work
In 2017, as many as 4.5 million young people—or 11.5 percent of young adults ages 16 to 24—were neither in school nor working, according to the nonprofit Measure of America. By the summer of 2020, the organization estimated, the ranks of these “disconnected” young adults had swelled to 6 million.
Read the full story here.