When the Walton Family Foundation announced in 2013 that it was donating $20 million to Teach For America to recruit and train nearly 4,000 teachers for low-income schools, its press release did not reveal the unusual terms for the grant.
The influx of poor immigrant families brought a flood of resources as the school’s official poverty rate rose above 90 percent: an after-school program, three interpreters and a steady infusion of federal funding.
But in recent years, as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown began to reverberate through the nation’s public schools, the students who had been such a fiscal asset have turned into a budgetary liability.
A plan to close a predominantly black high school in Michigan is unfolding as the first crisis of Gretchen Whitmer’s governorship, writes Jennifer Chambers for The Detroit News.
The classroom is becoming the battleground in the war against drug addiction where the next generation will be saved or lost in Ohio, which in 2017 had the second highest rate of opioid overdose deaths in the country.
If American taxpayers were to fork out a couple billion more on top of the $650 billion they annually spend on public schools, would academic outcomes improve?
Donations — many of them anything but charitable — are at the heart of the admissions scandal. Using a sham foundation, parents paid off coaches, in part with donations to their programs. Then the donors’ sons and daughters ended up on lists of recruited athletes, easing their admission to competitive colleges. Everything was fake. The foundation was a tool for money laundering.
The anticipated undercount of people and poverty, driven by the reluctance of immigrant communities and Hispanic households to complete the census if the citizenship question is included, is expected to have a devastating impact on federal K-12 funding for school districts that serve the most vulnerable students.
Ahead of the high court’s decision, educators across the country are bracing themselves for billions of dollars in critical resources that could be lost and they’re scrambling to develop ways to minimize the undercount.
Ma’kayla Hill rocks on her pink and white sneakers as she presents her poster. On one side, her stick-figure cartoons depict the way people often see Baltimore: A man shoots a boy who owes him money; the victim’s sister runs to get their mother; her speech bubble reads, “OMG My Son.” “But my perspective of Baltimore City is everyone having fun … at our friend’s house or at a playground,” the eighth-grader says, pointing to the other side, with drawings of kids on swings. “Baltimore can be a wonderful place once we all come together.”
The presidential-election cycle has barely begun but one thing is already clear: The Democratic candidates want to talk about student debt. No surprise there; the trillion-dollar student-loan bubble has captured the national imagination in ways few higher-education issues have, and candidates are essentially obligated to have a plan to address it.
Rutgers University’s daily student paper lost its financial backing last month, after a conservative group that called the paper “fake news” led a two-year campaign to defund it. Now a major campus civil liberties organization is calling the defunding unconstitutional.
Washington has remained one of just a dozen states that require students to pass high-stakes exams to earn a high-school diploma. That’s about to change: Starting with the class of 2020, high schoolers will no longer have to clear the standardized tests to graduate on time.
This report explores the critical importance of “teacher mindsets,” or teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and practices, in fortifying students’ investment in learning. We profile several schools in the forefront of that work, schools that have begun to use the new findings on teacher mindsets to shift adult belief and behaviors in ways that strengthen students’ view of themselves as learners and their motivation to learn.
Giacomo Bologna and Bracey HarrisMississippi Clarion Ledger
As Mississippi lawmakers struggle to fund public pre-K programs, they have funneled nearly a million dollars of state education money to a preschool in Oxford that charges about $6,000 a year in tuition.
Wealthy parents illegally paying bribes so their kids could get extra time to take the SAT or ACT exam is a central part of the college admissions scandal. And while what Caplan and other accused parents did is illegal, higher education analysts say students living in affluent, suburban towns like Greenwich are much more likely to get extra time — legally. In 2011, The College Board, the nonprofit that runs the SAT, received 80,000 requests for extended time. Five years later, that number doubled to 160,000.
When Education Secretary Betsy DeVos reinstated a controversial accrediting agency in April 2018, she threw a lifeline to Virginia College, a chain of for-profit schools that some higher education experts said should have closed.
Black students in charter schools are more likely to have black teachers than their peers in traditional public schools, which can lead to academic gains in math, a new study shows.
The study published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning think tank that also authorizes charter schools in Ohio, examined data from grades 3 to 5 in North Carolina’s traditional and charter public schools, from 2006-07 through 2012-13.
At IU Northwest in 2017, Latinx students like Perez had a six-year graduation rate of just 28 percent, while the graduation rate for white students was 35 percent. Those numbers reflect a nationwide gap: Latinx are half as likely as non-Hispanic whites to hold a bachelor’s degree, and the gulf has widened since the early 2000s.
ELIZA SHAPIRO and K.K. REBECCA LAIThe New York Times
In interviews, more than a dozen black and Hispanic students who graduated from New York City’s specialized high schools from 1975 to 1995 described the schools as oases for smart children from troubled neighborhoods.
School districts across the country struggle to hire staff that reflect changing student demographics. But could the answer to that ongoing problem lie in developing a strategy to hire more principals of color?
A working paper by Jason Grissom, an associate professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University, and Brendan Bartanen, a doctoral student at the university, strongly suggests yes.
In an investigation for the Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica, Jacqueline Rabe Thomas examines how some of the state’s richest towns fight to maintain housing segregation, and the implications for schools.
In southwest Connecticut, it costs 3.5 times more to live near high-scoring elementary schools than the struggling schools. #tellewa Here is why:https://t.co/MW2zcS6gUh
— Jacki Rabe Thomas (@jacquelinerabe) May 29, 2019
A Texas school district’s sex education curriculum could be in jeopardy as the state looks to limit business with Planned Parenthood, reports Melissa Taboada for the Austin American-Statesman.
Twenty-six percent, or about 600 students, at Oroville Union High School District were chronically absent during the 2017-18 school year, according to an EdSource analysis of California Department of Education data.
Statewide, more than 700,000 students, or about 11 percent, were chronically absent. About 10 percent of the 1,000 districts statewide had rates near the level of Oroville Union High’s or significantly higher. Most of those districts were in rural areas, the analysis found:
Renaissance Charter Schools grew into Palm Beach County’s largest charter school chain with seven years of promises about cutting-edge classrooms and innovative teaching.
But as the schools market themselves to parents with personalized lessons and extended school days, their classrooms are staffed with an extraordinary number of temporary and uncertified teachers, a Palm Beach Post investigation found.
For years, students have filed sexual assault complaints under pseudonyms, which allow them to seek justice without shame or fear of being targeted. Universities have generally accepted the practice.
But in two recent lawsuits — a case against Florida A&M University and a suit by nine women against Dartmouth College — the schools have demanded that students publicly reveal their identities, going against longstanding legal practice intended to protect plaintiffs in sensitive disputes.
For Houston Public Media, Laura Isensee tells the story of one teenager’s slow struggle to rebuild her life after a school shooter nearly took it from her.
Thousands of Jefferson County students went to classes this year without their schools ever knowing if they were vaccinated against measles or other highly contagious diseases.
A Courier Journal analysis of vaccination reports found that more than 4,300 students attending Jefferson County Public Schools had no record as of March that they received their shots for measles, mumps and rubella.
That’s despite a state law requiring students to hand in those records within two weeks of enrollment.
A teacher’s aide recently caught on secret recordings berating autistic children at a Pembroke Pines elementary school has gotten in trouble before for her treatment of a student.
Five years ago, Joyce Latricia Bradley, was accused of striking and bruising a 10-year-old autistic boy with a marker after he misbehaved in class. Months after her arrest for misdemeanor battery in September 2014, Broward prosecutors dropped the case, acknowledging something many South Florida parents don’t realize.
If you’re not from Buffalo, Texas, you probably won’t end up there.
That’s how Greg Kennedy sees it from his vantage point as junior high principal in a building that used to be his high school and was his uncle’s high school before that. Once bustling with eager oil field workers, the sparsely populated town halfway between Houston and Dallas counts Buffalo Independent School District as one of its main employers.
Douglas Belkin, Jennifer Levitz and Melissa KornThe Wall Street Journal
At Scarsdale High School north of New York City, one in five students is eligible for extra time or another accommodation such as a separate room for taking the SAT or ACT college entrance exam.
At Weston High School in Connecticut, it is one in four. At Newton North High School outside Boston, it’s one in three.
That’s how Victor Orduna describes his life as a teenager in southwest Chicago’s Gage Park neighborhood. And he isn’t talking about partying with friends or other high-school high-jinks.
Orduna is referring to his schedule. The now 19-year old would wake up around 6:30 a.m., head to his high school until the late afternoon, and then clock in for his job at a local supermarket, where he’d bag groceries until 10:30 p.m. Some weekends, Orduna worked the late shift at a pizzeria, slinging pizzas and cooking burgers until 1:30 a.m.
There’s not much Barack Obama and Betsy DeVos see eye-to-eye on.
But the 44th president of the United States and the Trump administration’s controversial education secretary have found some common ground.
Obama and DeVos — as well as many local, state and federal politicians — have heralded the idea of students taking college courses and earning college credits while still in high school.
It was a hot, sticky morning in Atlanta on Sunday when billionaire investor and philanthropist Robert F. Smith stood atop an outdoor stage on the campus of Morehouse College and started delivering a speech that the nearly 400 graduates probably thought would be the usual commencement fare.
Jenn Abelson, Amy Brittain and Sarah LarimerThe Washington Post
It had been six days since Olivia Shea Paregol walked out of the University of Maryland health center without an answer for why she felt so awful.
Now, the 18-year-old freshman was curled up in the fetal position on the floor of her dorm room at Elkton Hall in College Park, her brown hair resting on the shaggy white rug. She warned her friends, Sarah Hauk and Riley Whelan, to stay away from a plastic bag where she had just vomited.
Nearly half of the students in Montgomery County Public Schools underperformed on reading exams last year.
Sarah and Jay Friedman’s daughter was among them. But unlike many of the other 78,000 underperforming students, Friedman’s daughter wasn’t just missing benchmarks on tests — she had severe dyslexia that had gone undiagnosed for years.
Sharon Braat is glad she’s going to college in the Netherlands and not the U.S.
It’s not just the nearly-free tuition her country offers. It’s the practical and hands-on classes aimed at her career. In her case, it also includes real work for actual businesses while in school.
Going into debt to expand out of state could put the brakes on Basis Charter Schools Inc. growing in Arizona as the high-performing academic chain lost $11.6 million in fiscal 2018.
Rio Lacanlale and Amelia Pak-HarveyLas Vegas Review-Journal
Thousands of records examined by the Las Vegas Review-Journal show a yearslong history of abuse and neglect allegations at Northwest Academy, a private boarding school for at-risk youth.
In the months before the shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch, some parents raised concerns about bullying and inadequate security, reports Jenny Brundin for Colorado Public Radio.
STORY: "There was really no sense of security.” / "A perfect storm."/ "The safety and well-being of our students and staff is our highest priority.” STEM School Parents Warned The District Of Their Security Concerns Months Before Shooting https://t.co/MSR4ZUWmTK#TellEWA#edcolopic.twitter.com/lOynOI7Y1p
The two school shootings in as many weeks have prompted officials to discuss the risk of students confronting active shooters, writes Tawnell Hobbs for The Wall Street Journal.
Should schools keep teaching students to confront shooters? “They can sit there and become victims, or they can do something and become a hero,” said one provider of active-shooter training. #schoolsafety#tellewahttps://t.co/MDL2z7VAF0
By the time the last student walked past the open casket, hundreds of notes were piled inside, bits of pain the mourners hoped to bury.
The casket was real, but the funeral was symbolic, staged at a west-side Atlanta high school surrounded by poverty. It began with gospel music blasting through the gym. A pastor preached redemption and self-worth. Grieving mothers remembered their teenage sons, whose real funerals were just last year.
Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro on Monday unveiled an education plan that joins other 2020 candidates in calling for tuition-free higher education, universal prekindergarten and raising teacher pay.
Nausea had consumed her as her attacker pinned her arms down at a park, forced her first kiss upon her, and tried to take off her pants at the tender age of 14, and nausea resurfaced every time she saw him in the hallways of her high school.
Top lawmakers carve out millions of dollars for handpicked education vendors and pet projects each year, bypassing state bid laws and steering money to companies that know the right people or hire the right lobbyists.
A Clarion Ledger analysis of education appropriations for the last four years uncovered millions of dollars in earmarks for select vendors — most of them represented by three lobbying firms. In at least four cases, key lawmakers received campaign contributions from vendors who received those earmarks.
Detroit Free Press higher education reporter David Jesse was honored as the top education reporter in the country for 2018 by the Education Writers Association.
Jesse was recognized for his coverage of the Larry Nassar scandal at Michigan State University and work he did with Free Press investigative reporter Matthew Dolan on the University of Michigan’s endowment.
EWA — made up of the nation’s education journalists — presented Jesse with the award at its annual conference earlier this week.
Betsy DeVos hinted Monday that should President Donald Trump get re-elected in 2020 that she might not serve as education secretary during his second term.
“I’m not sure my husband would be OK with that,” said DeVos of her husband, Dick DeVos, a former Michigan gubernatorial candidate, after hesitating before delivering her response.
Leaky roofs. Corroded pipes. Faulty fire alarm systems. Detroit’s school buildings are broken, but the district lacks the resources to fix them, reports Jennifer Chambers for The Detroit News.
Continuing the wave of teacher activism that began last year, Oregon educators are poised to walk out of their classrooms next week, writes Natalie Pate for the Statesman Journal in Salem.
It’s rare for the parents of students with disabilities to prevail in legal battles against Maryland school districts. In the past five years, they’ve lost more than 85 percent of the time, state education department documents show, even after investing tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours in pursuit of a better education for their children.
Advocates, families and attorneys say the trend is alarming and discourages people from fighting for the rights kids are guaranteed under federal law.
How Teach for America Evolved Into an Arm of the Charter School Movement
When the Walton Family Foundation announced in 2013 that it was donating $20 million to Teach For America to recruit and train nearly 4,000 teachers for low-income schools, its press release did not reveal the unusual terms for the grant.
Immigrants Brought Riches to Urban Schools. Now They’re in the Shadows.
The influx of poor immigrant families brought a flood of resources as the school’s official poverty rate rose above 90 percent: an after-school program, three interpreters and a steady infusion of federal funding.
But in recent years, as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown began to reverberate through the nation’s public schools, the students who had been such a fiscal asset have turned into a budgetary liability.
June 7 – June 13
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
A plan to close a predominantly black high school in Michigan is unfolding as the first crisis of Gretchen Whitmer’s governorship, writes Jennifer Chambers for The Detroit News.
The Rivard Report’s Emily Donaldson examines how a lack of paid maternity leave can create challenges for Texas teachers planning a family.
Inside the Elementary School Where Drug Addiction Sets the Curriculum
The classroom is becoming the battleground in the war against drug addiction where the next generation will be saved or lost in Ohio, which in 2017 had the second highest rate of opioid overdose deaths in the country.
Student Outcomes: Does More Money Really Matter?
If American taxpayers were to fork out a couple billion more on top of the $650 billion they annually spend on public schools, would academic outcomes improve?
Senator Offers Legislation to Respond to Admissions Scandal
Donations — many of them anything but charitable — are at the heart of the admissions scandal. Using a sham foundation, parents paid off coaches, in part with donations to their programs. Then the donors’ sons and daughters ended up on lists of recruited athletes, easing their admission to competitive colleges. Everything was fake. The foundation was a tool for money laundering.
Educators Worry a Census Citizenship Question Would Lead to Less Funding
The anticipated undercount of people and poverty, driven by the reluctance of immigrant communities and Hispanic households to complete the census if the citizenship question is included, is expected to have a devastating impact on federal K-12 funding for school districts that serve the most vulnerable students.
Ahead of the high court’s decision, educators across the country are bracing themselves for billions of dollars in critical resources that could be lost and they’re scrambling to develop ways to minimize the undercount.
May 31 – June 6
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
Despite privacy concerns, America’s schools are increasingly monitoring students’ online lives, reports Education Week’s Benjamin Herold.
WAMU’s Jenny Abamu continues exploring schools’ use of restraint and seclusion, and why it often goes unreported.
For USA Today, Erin Richards and Matt Wynn examine how teachers’ salaries stack up to the cost of living in cities across the country.
Baltimore Redux: Students Bring Positive Perspective To City’s Story
Ma’kayla Hill rocks on her pink and white sneakers as she presents her poster. On one side, her stick-figure cartoons depict the way people often see Baltimore: A man shoots a boy who owes him money; the victim’s sister runs to get their mother; her speech bubble reads, “OMG My Son.” “But my perspective of Baltimore City is everyone having fun … at our friend’s house or at a playground,” the eighth-grader says, pointing to the other side, with drawings of kids on swings. “Baltimore can be a wonderful place once we all come together.”
How Democrats Got Radical on the Cost of College
The presidential-election cycle has barely begun but one thing is already clear: The Democratic candidates want to talk about student debt. No surprise there; the trillion-dollar student-loan bubble has captured the national imagination in ways few higher-education issues have, and candidates are essentially obligated to have a plan to address it.
Rutgers Defunded Daily Targum Paper After It Called Out White Supremacist Propaganda
Rutgers University’s daily student paper lost its financial backing last month, after a conservative group that called the paper “fake news” led a two-year campaign to defund it. Now a major campus civil liberties organization is calling the defunding unconstitutional.
Washington Was One Of The Last States To Require High School-exit Exams. Now Seniors Can Apply For A Waiver To Graduate On Time.
Washington has remained one of just a dozen states that require students to pass high-stakes exams to earn a high-school diploma. That’s about to change: Starting with the class of 2020, high schoolers will no longer have to clear the standardized tests to graduate on time.
Report: Teacher Mindsets: How Educators’ Perspectives Shape Student Success
This report explores the critical importance of “teacher mindsets,” or teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and practices, in fortifying students’ investment in learning. We profile several schools in the forefront of that work, schools that have begun to use the new findings on teacher mindsets to shift adult belief and behaviors in ways that strengthen students’ view of themselves as learners and their motivation to learn.
Ole Miss Preschool Got $850K From Mississippi Legislature
As Mississippi lawmakers struggle to fund public pre-K programs, they have funneled nearly a million dollars of state education money to a preschool in Oxford that charges about $6,000 a year in tuition.
Another Way Wealthy Parents Game College Admissions: Extra Time On The SAT and ACT
Wealthy parents illegally paying bribes so their kids could get extra time to take the SAT or ACT exam is a central part of the college admissions scandal. And while what Caplan and other accused parents did is illegal, higher education analysts say students living in affluent, suburban towns like Greenwich are much more likely to get extra time — legally. In 2011, The College Board, the nonprofit that runs the SAT, received 80,000 requests for extended time. Five years later, that number doubled to 160,000.
Virginia College Students Sue DeVos For Reinstating Controversial For-Profit College Accreditor
When Education Secretary Betsy DeVos reinstated a controversial accrediting agency in April 2018, she threw a lifeline to Virginia College, a chain of for-profit schools that some higher education experts said should have closed.
Black Students in Charter Schools Are More Likely to Have Black Teachers
Black students in charter schools are more likely to have black teachers than their peers in traditional public schools, which can lead to academic gains in math, a new study shows.
The study published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning think tank that also authorizes charter schools in Ohio, examined data from grades 3 to 5 in North Carolina’s traditional and charter public schools, from 2006-07 through 2012-13.
A Sharp Rise of Latinx In Higher Education— But Support For Them Is Lagging
At IU Northwest in 2017, Latinx students like Perez had a six-year graduation rate of just 28 percent, while the graduation rate for white students was 35 percent. Those numbers reflect a nationwide gap: Latinx are half as likely as non-Hispanic whites to hold a bachelor’s degree, and the gulf has widened since the early 2000s.
How New York’s Elite Public Schools Lost Their Black and Hispanic Students
In interviews, more than a dozen black and Hispanic students who graduated from New York City’s specialized high schools from 1975 to 1995 described the schools as oases for smart children from troubled neighborhoods.
Updated College Scorecard Puts Spotlight On Graduate Student Borrowing
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is betting big on transparency as a solution for high student debt burdens.
Districts Struggle to Hire Black Teachers. Is the Solution Hiring More Black Principals?
School districts across the country struggle to hire staff that reflect changing student demographics. But could the answer to that ongoing problem lie in developing a strategy to hire more principals of color?
A working paper by Jason Grissom, an associate professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University, and Brendan Bartanen, a doctoral student at the university, strongly suggests yes.
May 24 – May 30
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
In an investigation for the Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica, Jacqueline Rabe Thomas examines how some of the state’s richest towns fight to maintain housing segregation, and the implications for schools.
A Texas school district’s sex education curriculum could be in jeopardy as the state looks to limit business with Planned Parenthood, reports Melissa Taboada for the Austin American-Statesman.
Lost Days: Poverty, Isolation Drive Students Away From School In California’s Rural Districts
Twenty-six percent, or about 600 students, at Oroville Union High School District were chronically absent during the 2017-18 school year, according to an EdSource analysis of California Department of Education data.
Statewide, more than 700,000 students, or about 11 percent, were chronically absent. About 10 percent of the 1,000 districts statewide had rates near the level of Oroville Union High’s or significantly higher. Most of those districts were in rural areas, the analysis found:
Underpaid, Undertrained, Unlicensed: In Palm Beach County’s Largest Charter School Chain, 1 In 5 Teachers Weren’t Certified To Teach
Renaissance Charter Schools grew into Palm Beach County’s largest charter school chain with seven years of promises about cutting-edge classrooms and innovative teaching.
But as the schools market themselves to parents with personalized lessons and extended school days, their classrooms are staffed with an extraordinary number of temporary and uncertified teachers, a Palm Beach Post investigation found.
Colleges Challenge a Common Protection in Sexual Assault Lawsuits: Anonymity
For years, students have filed sexual assault complaints under pseudonyms, which allow them to seek justice without shame or fear of being targeted. Universities have generally accepted the practice.
But in two recent lawsuits — a case against Florida A&M University and a suit by nine women against Dartmouth College — the schools have demanded that students publicly reveal their identities, going against longstanding legal practice intended to protect plaintiffs in sensitive disputes.
May 17 – May 23
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
For Houston Public Media, Laura Isensee tells the story of one teenager’s slow struggle to rebuild her life after a school shooter nearly took it from her.
The nation’s student loan forgiveness program for public servants is a disaster, writes Kimberly Hefling for Politico.
In a growing number of cities, taxpayers are choosing to foot the bill for high-quality public pre-K, writes Brenda Iasevoli for The Hechinger Report.
Louisville Students Lack Proof Of Vaccination, Risking A Measles Outbreak
Thousands of Jefferson County students went to classes this year without their schools ever knowing if they were vaccinated against measles or other highly contagious diseases.
A Courier Journal analysis of vaccination reports found that more than 4,300 students attending Jefferson County Public Schools had no record as of March that they received their shots for measles, mumps and rubella.
That’s despite a state law requiring students to hand in those records within two weeks of enrollment.
Aide Hit Autistic Pupil In Past But Allowed Back Into Classroom
A teacher’s aide recently caught on secret recordings berating autistic children at a Pembroke Pines elementary school has gotten in trouble before for her treatment of a student.
Five years ago, Joyce Latricia Bradley, was accused of striking and bruising a 10-year-old autistic boy with a marker after he misbehaved in class. Months after her arrest for misdemeanor battery in September 2014, Broward prosecutors dropped the case, acknowledging something many South Florida parents don’t realize.
Can Pay Raises Help Rural Texas Districts Like Buffalo Retain Teachers?
If you’re not from Buffalo, Texas, you probably won’t end up there.
That’s how Greg Kennedy sees it from his vantage point as junior high principal in a building that used to be his high school and was his uncle’s high school before that. Once bustling with eager oil field workers, the sparsely populated town halfway between Houston and Dallas counts Buffalo Independent School District as one of its main employers.
Many More Students, Especially the Affluent, Get Extra Time to Take the SAT
At Scarsdale High School north of New York City, one in five students is eligible for extra time or another accommodation such as a separate room for taking the SAT or ACT college entrance exam.
At Weston High School in Connecticut, it is one in four. At Newton North High School outside Boston, it’s one in three.
More High-School Students Are Using This Hack to Get a Head-Start on College — but the Poorest Students Are Being Left Behind
“That was wild.”
That’s how Victor Orduna describes his life as a teenager in southwest Chicago’s Gage Park neighborhood. And he isn’t talking about partying with friends or other high-school high-jinks.
Orduna is referring to his schedule. The now 19-year old would wake up around 6:30 a.m., head to his high school until the late afternoon, and then clock in for his job at a local supermarket, where he’d bag groceries until 10:30 p.m. Some weekends, Orduna worked the late shift at a pizzeria, slinging pizzas and cooking burgers until 1:30 a.m.
Inside the Nationwide Effort to Tackle the $1.5 Trillion Student-Debt Crisis — With the Help of High-School Students
There’s not much Barack Obama and Betsy DeVos see eye-to-eye on.
But the 44th president of the United States and the Trump administration’s controversial education secretary have found some common ground.
Obama and DeVos — as well as many local, state and federal politicians — have heralded the idea of students taking college courses and earning college credits while still in high school.
Billionaire Robert F. Smith Pledges to Pay off Morehouse College Class of 2019′S Student Loans
It was a hot, sticky morning in Atlanta on Sunday when billionaire investor and philanthropist Robert F. Smith stood atop an outdoor stage on the campus of Morehouse College and started delivering a speech that the nearly 400 graduates probably thought would be the usual commencement fare.
Adenovirus at the University of Maryland: Officials Waited 18 Days to Inform Students of the Threat
It had been six days since Olivia Shea Paregol walked out of the University of Maryland health center without an answer for why she felt so awful.
Now, the 18-year-old freshman was curled up in the fetal position on the floor of her dorm room at Elkton Hall in College Park, her brown hair resting on the shaggy white rug. She warned her friends, Sarah Hauk and Riley Whelan, to stay away from a plastic bag where she had just vomited.
Many School Districts Hesitate to Say Students Have Dyslexia. That Can Lead to Problems.
Nearly half of the students in Montgomery County Public Schools underperformed on reading exams last year.
Sarah and Jay Friedman’s daughter was among them. But unlike many of the other 78,000 underperforming students, Friedman’s daughter wasn’t just missing benchmarks on tests — she had severe dyslexia that had gone undiagnosed for years.
Pathways to Prosperity: Cleveland Can Learn From European Approach to Education, Training
Sharon Braat is glad she’s going to college in the Netherlands and not the U.S.
It’s not just the nearly-free tuition her country offers. It’s the practical and hands-on classes aimed at her career. In her case, it also includes real work for actual businesses while in school.
Basis Charter Schools Tells Lenders It Could Tap Parents’ Donations to Pay Mounting Debt
Going into debt to expand out of state could put the brakes on Basis Charter Schools Inc. growing in Arizona as the high-performing academic chain lost $11.6 million in fiscal 2018.
Deserted in the Desert
Thousands of records examined by the Las Vegas Review-Journal show a yearslong history of abuse and neglect allegations at Northwest Academy, a private boarding school for at-risk youth.
May 3 – May 16
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
In the months before the shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch, some parents raised concerns about bullying and inadequate security, reports Jenny Brundin for Colorado Public Radio.
The two school shootings in as many weeks have prompted officials to discuss the risk of students confronting active shooters, writes Tawnell Hobbs for The Wall Street Journal.
A Mock Funeral Aims to Help Students Bury Their Pain
By the time the last student walked past the open casket, hundreds of notes were piled inside, bits of pain the mourners hoped to bury.
The casket was real, but the funeral was symbolic, staged at a west-side Atlanta high school surrounded by poverty. It began with gospel music blasting through the gym. A pastor preached redemption and self-worth. Grieving mothers remembered their teenage sons, whose real funerals were just last year.
My Education Secretary Will Be a Former Public School Teacher, Elizabeth Warren Pledges
A Democratic candidate for president has made a promise: My pick to replace Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will have experience in public schools.
Julián Castro Makes Universal Pre-K Focus of Education Plan
Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro on Monday unveiled an education plan that joins other 2020 candidates in calling for tuition-free higher education, universal prekindergarten and raising teacher pay.
‘It’s Like the Wild West’: Sexual Assault Victims Struggle in K-12 Schools
Nausea had consumed her as her attacker pinned her arms down at a park, forced her first kiss upon her, and tried to take off her pants at the tender age of 14, and nausea resurfaced every time she saw him in the hallways of her high school.
Mississippi Education: Lawmakers Funnel Millions to Connected Companies
Top lawmakers carve out millions of dollars for handpicked education vendors and pet projects each year, bypassing state bid laws and steering money to companies that know the right people or hire the right lobbyists.
A Clarion Ledger analysis of education appropriations for the last four years uncovered millions of dollars in earmarks for select vendors — most of them represented by three lobbying firms. In at least four cases, key lawmakers received campaign contributions from vendors who received those earmarks.
Free Press Reporter David Jesse Named Top Education Reporter in U.S.
Detroit Free Press higher education reporter David Jesse was honored as the top education reporter in the country for 2018 by the Education Writers Association.
Jesse was recognized for his coverage of the Larry Nassar scandal at Michigan State University and work he did with Free Press investigative reporter Matthew Dolan on the University of Michigan’s endowment.
EWA — made up of the nation’s education journalists — presented Jesse with the award at its annual conference earlier this week.
DeVos Might Not Serve as Ed. Secretary If Trump Re-elected
Betsy DeVos hinted Monday that should President Donald Trump get re-elected in 2020 that she might not serve as education secretary during his second term.
“I’m not sure my husband would be OK with that,” said DeVos of her husband, Dick DeVos, a former Michigan gubernatorial candidate, after hesitating before delivering her response.
April 26 – May 2
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week
Leaky roofs. Corroded pipes. Faulty fire alarm systems. Detroit’s school buildings are broken, but the district lacks the resources to fix them, reports Jennifer Chambers for The Detroit News.
Continuing the wave of teacher activism that began last year, Oregon educators are poised to walk out of their classrooms next week, writes Natalie Pate for the Statesman Journal in Salem.
‘Why Would We Even Try?’ Parents Of Disabled Students Almost Never Win In Fights Against Maryland Districts
It’s rare for the parents of students with disabilities to prevail in legal battles against Maryland school districts. In the past five years, they’ve lost more than 85 percent of the time, state education department documents show, even after investing tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours in pursuit of a better education for their children.
Advocates, families and attorneys say the trend is alarming and discourages people from fighting for the rights kids are guaranteed under federal law.