Los Angeles families are divided along racial lines and income
levels over how well the Los Angeles Unified School District
handled remote learning and other issues during the pandemic, a
new poll shows.
The annual poll by Great Public Schools Now of 500 Los
Angeles families found 43 percent of low income and 27 percent of
families of color did not believe the quality of remote learning
was good; while just 7 percent of higher income and 27 percent of
white families experienced similar problems during the 2020-21
school year.
Cases of COVID-19 on college campuses are on the rise across the
country. In the first week of spring semester, the University of
Georgia reported nearly
1,000 positive cases, more than any week so far in the
pandemic.
Several Historically Black Colleges and Universities received
millions in donations from anonymous donors last fall.
The recipients of these unprecedented gifts plan to create
scholarships for students with financial need, Mirtha
Donastorg explains for The Plug.
Minneapolis Public Schools will go virtual for two weeks due to a
“significant reduction” in school staff available to work because
of COVID-19, district officials said Wednesday afternoon.
Students will begin learning virtually on Friday and return to
classrooms Jan. 31.
In-person after-school programs will go on hiatus during the
break while varsity athletics practices will continue as planned.
Junior varsity, b-squad and middle school sports have been
canceled.
“All the books with Black protagonists were history or misery:”
Jerry Craft wrote “New Kid” to give Black children the book he
never had as a child, but his book got banned after a white mom
involved in local Texas politics falsely labeled the book
critical race theory. This American Life’s
Chana Joffe-Walt interviews Craft, who based the
book largely on his real-life experiences.
Public schools are struggling to retain teachers of color, and
the problem is expected to worsen, survey data shows. Black and
Latino educators are most at-risk for departures due to “racially
hostile school environments,” racial stress fatigue and poor
working conditions, Sarah Carr reports for
The Hechinger Report.
Idaho school districts have never had this much money.
Three rounds of congressional coronavirus relief have injected
some $680 million into K-12 coffers across the state in less than
two years — good for about a third of Idaho’s annual public
schools budget.
Most of that one-time money, intended to help students
most affected by the pandemic recover academically and
emotionally, has not yet been spent. Though, all of it is now
available.
What happens when the schools superintendent and a local
comedian share the exact same name? Hijinks ensue, reported
Olivia Krauth of The Louisville
Courier-Journal.
For the favorite story of 2021 edition of #TellEWA, I humbly submit an epic tale of how there are two men named Marty Pollio in Louisville.
The moment had finally come for Kiana Portillo, a senior at
Downtown Magnets High School in Los Angeles. She had worked so
hard and overcome so much to get to this point: an abrupt move
from Honduras to Los Angeles as a fifth-grader, merciless teasing
over her limited English and heavy Spanish accent, financial
hardship and the emotional void left by an absent father.
For Amna Omar, who recently graduated from San Diego State
University, the worst moment came in her freshman year, when a
classroom discussion about religion turned to Islam. One student
singled out Omar, telling her she was “oppressed” because of her
jilbab, or full-body covering. Far from being concerned about her
oppression, the student told Omar, she said, to “go back home”
because her attire was not mainstream.
Hoping to benefit from the state’s historic $7.7 billion budget
surplus, the University of Minnesota will ask the Legislature for
nearly $1 billion in funding next year.
The U’s sizeable state funding request of $935 million includes
about $473 million to upgrade aging infrastructure at its five
campuses, $185 million for improving campus security and
sustainability, and $65 million to expand scholarship
opportunities for students, among other proposals. It’s an
unusually large ask that is already being met with skepticism by
some state lawmakers.
Chalkbeat Chicago’s Samantha Smylie reports on
Illinois students who chronically missed school due to
pandemic-caused problems, such as the death of loved ones,
quarantines, and the school bus driver shortage.
School board members gathered Facebook posts and records on
an Arizona school district’s staff and parents, who unwittingly
stumbled across the hundreds of files. Right-leaning media and
politicians saw an opportunity to spur outrage after the “secret
dossier” became public, reports Rachel Monroe
for The New Yorker.
Is there a lot going on in @rachmonroe's @NewYorker takeout on the district drama in Scottsdale? Yes. Does it shed light on the surging political battles over school boards nationally? Yes again. It's my pick for this week's @edwriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/zW6FhRZvy8
Anya Kamenetz, Cory Turner and Mansee KhuranaNPR Ed
The troubling enrollment losses that school districts reported
last year have in many places continued this fall, as the
COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt public education across
the country, an NPR investigation has found.
We compiled the latest headcount data directly from more than 600
districts in 23 states and Washington, D.C., including statewide
data from Massachusetts, Georgia and Alabama. We found that very
few districts, especially larger ones, have returned to
pre-pandemic numbers. Most are now posting a second straight year
of declines.
For Rufus del Valle, high school had been a scary place, where he
felt powerless. All four years had been marred by seemingly
unchecked sexually inappropriate behavior from both students and
teachers.
Back then, he hadn’t spoken up, afraid of retaliation. But during
his first semester of college, he had become increasingly certain
that what he experienced at Blake High School in Tampa shouldn’t
be normal. What if he could get someone in charge to listen now?
Lisa Phillips calls the last 18 months a “shockwave.”
As the state’s coordinator for the education of homeless children
and youth, it’s her job to work with hundreds of liaisons across
North Carolina to identify and serve students experiencing
homelessness. During the last school year, when many students
were learning remotely, some slipped through the cracks.
When Courtland Hardy saw a thick red packet in the mail, he knew
he had been accepted to North Carolina State University.
Growing up in a mobile home in rural North Carolina, he recalled
being told that he would never be able to make anything of
himself. Determined to prove those people wrong, he threw himself
into school, burying his nose in books and consistently getting
perfect attendance and honor roll grades.
Freelancer Allie Gross documented on Twitter the
support Michiganders gave the family of Justin Shilling, a teen
killed in the Oxford High School shooting. Community members
silently stood under a hospital skywalk as the parents prepared
to donate their son’s organs.
The @Freep's @Allie_Elisabeth captures one of the saddest and most beautiful moments I've ever seen. ALL of the essential and hardworking Detroit-area journalists covering Oxford High shooting are my collective pick for @EdWriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/VTcK5kCr7i
The White House’s proposal to create universal prekindergarten
would face enormous implementation challenges, as GOP lawmakers
in at least a half-dozen states are already balking and others
are likely to follow.
The plan, which is included in the social spending package that
recently passed the House and is now before the Senate, would
provide $110 billion in federal funding for states to offer free
prekindergarten for millions of 3- and 4-year-olds across the
United States.
Matthew Hawn checked his phone to see if the wait was finally
over. It had been five months since he was fired for teaching
about White privilege at a high school in rural Tennessee.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
L.A. Parents Express 5 Concerns about how LAUSD Handled Remote Learning and Other Issues During the Pandemic
Los Angeles families are divided along racial lines and income levels over how well the Los Angeles Unified School District handled remote learning and other issues during the pandemic, a new poll shows.
The annual poll by Great Public Schools Now of 500 Los Angeles families found 43 percent of low income and 27 percent of families of color did not believe the quality of remote learning was good; while just 7 percent of higher income and 27 percent of white families experienced similar problems during the 2020-21 school year.
How Colleges are Dealing with High COVID Case Counts on Campus
Cases of COVID-19 on college campuses are on the rise across the country. In the first week of spring semester, the University of Georgia reported nearly 1,000 positive cases, more than any week so far in the pandemic.
#tellEWA Member Stories (January 14-20)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
Several Historically Black Colleges and Universities received millions in donations from anonymous donors last fall. The recipients of these unprecedented gifts plan to create scholarships for students with financial need, Mirtha Donastorg explains for The Plug.
Schools Will Go Virtual For Two Weeks
Minneapolis Public Schools will go virtual for two weeks due to a “significant reduction” in school staff available to work because of COVID-19, district officials said Wednesday afternoon.
Students will begin learning virtually on Friday and return to classrooms Jan. 31.
In-person after-school programs will go on hiatus during the break while varsity athletics practices will continue as planned. Junior varsity, b-squad and middle school sports have been canceled.
#tellEWA Member Stories (January 7-13)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
“All the books with Black protagonists were history or misery:” Jerry Craft wrote “New Kid” to give Black children the book he never had as a child, but his book got banned after a white mom involved in local Texas politics falsely labeled the book critical race theory. This American Life’s Chana Joffe-Walt interviews Craft, who based the book largely on his real-life experiences.
#tellEWA Member Stories (December 31-January 6)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
Public schools are struggling to retain teachers of color, and the problem is expected to worsen, survey data shows. Black and Latino educators are most at-risk for departures due to “racially hostile school environments,” racial stress fatigue and poor working conditions, Sarah Carr reports for The Hechinger Report.
Technology, Tutors And T-shirts: How Idaho Schools Will Spend a $440 Million Federal Windfall
Idaho school districts have never had this much money.
Three rounds of congressional coronavirus relief have injected some $680 million into K-12 coffers across the state in less than two years — good for about a third of Idaho’s annual public schools budget.
Most of that one-time money, intended to help students most affected by the pandemic recover academically and emotionally, has not yet been spent. Though, all of it is now available.
#tellEWA Member Stories (December 23-30)
Some of EWA members' favorite stories of 2021:
Bethany Barnes investigated one high school’s problematic handling of allegations of sexual misconduct for the Tampa Bay Times.
What happens when the schools superintendent and a local comedian share the exact same name? Hijinks ensue, reported Olivia Krauth of The Louisville Courier-Journal.
California’s Unentitled Generation Of College Applicants
The moment had finally come for Kiana Portillo, a senior at Downtown Magnets High School in Los Angeles. She had worked so hard and overcome so much to get to this point: an abrupt move from Honduras to Los Angeles as a fifth-grader, merciless teasing over her limited English and heavy Spanish accent, financial hardship and the emotional void left by an absent father.
How Anti-muslim Bias On Campus Harms Students’ Education
For Amna Omar, who recently graduated from San Diego State University, the worst moment came in her freshman year, when a classroom discussion about religion turned to Islam. One student singled out Omar, telling her she was “oppressed” because of her jilbab, or full-body covering. Far from being concerned about her oppression, the student told Omar, she said, to “go back home” because her attire was not mainstream.
University of Minnesota Seeks Nearly $1 Billion in State Funding School Enrollment
Hoping to benefit from the state’s historic $7.7 billion budget surplus, the University of Minnesota will ask the Legislature for nearly $1 billion in funding next year.
The U’s sizeable state funding request of $935 million includes about $473 million to upgrade aging infrastructure at its five campuses, $185 million for improving campus security and sustainability, and $65 million to expand scholarship opportunities for students, among other proposals. It’s an unusually large ask that is already being met with skepticism by some state lawmakers.
#tellEWA Member Stories (December 17-22)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
Chalkbeat Chicago’s Samantha Smylie reports on Illinois students who chronically missed school due to pandemic-caused problems, such as the death of loved ones, quarantines, and the school bus driver shortage.
#tellEWA Member Stories (December 10-16)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
School board members gathered Facebook posts and records on an Arizona school district’s staff and parents, who unwittingly stumbled across the hundreds of files. Right-leaning media and politicians saw an opportunity to spur outrage after the “secret dossier” became public, reports Rachel Monroe for The New Yorker.
School Enrollment Drops Again As Covid Disruption Continues
The troubling enrollment losses that school districts reported last year have in many places continued this fall, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt public education across the country, an NPR investigation has found.
We compiled the latest headcount data directly from more than 600 districts in 23 states and Washington, D.C., including statewide data from Massachusetts, Georgia and Alabama. We found that very few districts, especially larger ones, have returned to pre-pandemic numbers. Most are now posting a second straight year of declines.
Tampa Teens Wanted Their School to Protect Them. Instead, They Say, It Got Worse.
For Rufus del Valle, high school had been a scary place, where he felt powerless. All four years had been marred by seemingly unchecked sexually inappropriate behavior from both students and teachers.
Back then, he hadn’t spoken up, afraid of retaliation. But during his first semester of college, he had become increasingly certain that what he experienced at Blake High School in Tampa shouldn’t be normal. What if he could get someone in charge to listen now?
How Educators Working With Homeless Students Adapted During COVID-19
Lisa Phillips calls the last 18 months a “shockwave.”
As the state’s coordinator for the education of homeless children and youth, it’s her job to work with hundreds of liaisons across North Carolina to identify and serve students experiencing homelessness. During the last school year, when many students were learning remotely, some slipped through the cracks.
Read the full EdNC story
How Advocates at One University Are Addressing Student Homelessness
When Courtland Hardy saw a thick red packet in the mail, he knew he had been accepted to North Carolina State University.
Growing up in a mobile home in rural North Carolina, he recalled being told that he would never be able to make anything of himself. Determined to prove those people wrong, he threw himself into school, burying his nose in books and consistently getting perfect attendance and honor roll grades.
Read the full EdNC story
#tellEWA Member Stories (December 3-9)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
Freelancer Allie Gross documented on Twitter the support Michiganders gave the family of Justin Shilling, a teen killed in the Oxford High School shooting. Community members silently stood under a hospital skywalk as the parents prepared to donate their son’s organs.
Biden’s Universal Pre-Kindergarten Plan Threatened By Republican Resistance
The White House’s proposal to create universal prekindergarten would face enormous implementation challenges, as GOP lawmakers in at least a half-dozen states are already balking and others are likely to follow.
The plan, which is included in the social spending package that recently passed the House and is now before the Senate, would provide $110 billion in federal funding for states to offer free prekindergarten for millions of 3- and 4-year-olds across the United States.
Tennessee teacher Matt Hawn fired for White privilege lessons
Matthew Hawn checked his phone to see if the wait was finally over. It had been five months since he was fired for teaching about White privilege at a high school in rural Tennessee.
#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)
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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)
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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)
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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.
#tellEWA Member Stories (October 15-21)
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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.
#tellEWA Member Stories (October 1- 6)
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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.
#tellEWA Member Stories (September 24-30)
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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.
#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.
#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.
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.