EWA recognized the top education journalism in
the United States when it announced the finalists for the
2021 National Awards for Education Reporting on
May 18. More than six dozen judges named 51
finalists in 17 categories of competition. Judges also
selected
three finalists for the EGF Accelerator’s Eddie
Prize. Read the impactful work from these journalists.
Every journalist on this impressive #ewaAwards shortlist is already a winner in my book. Take some time to read, listen, and look. They’re my (collective) pick for this week’s @EdWriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/aBkOhiJWbO
Nicolette Solomon felt her mother’s words come through the phone
and settle, heavy, in her stomach.
It was January, and her mother was talking about a new bill, just
proposed in the Florida legislature, that would severely limit
how teachers could discuss gender identity and sexual orientation
with their students. Critics were already calling it the
“don’t say gay” bill. Her mother, a vocal supporter of LGBTQ
rights, sounded upset.
“When I got pregnant, I had to stop going to college.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Nell
Gluckman explores the many potential repercussions of
overturning the Roe v. Wade protections of abortion rights: women
who get pregnant may have to stop attending college; medical
schools may no longer be able to teach safe abortion training;
and higher education institutions in states that outlaw abortion
may have difficulty attracting faculty.
E-reader apps that became a lifeline for students during the
pandemic are now in the crossfire of a culture war raging over
books in schools and public libraries.
In several states, apps and the companies that run them have been
targeted by conservative parents who have pushed schools and
public libraries to shut down their digital programs, which let
users download and read books on their smartphones, tablets or
laptops.
Some parents want the apps banned for their children, or even for
all students. And they’re getting results.
A Supreme Court case known as Plyler v. Doe that protects the
education of undocumented students marked its 40th anniversary
this year.
Now, with the high court seemingly poised to overturn Roe v.
Wade, another long-standing precedent, one
prominent politician hopes Plyler is next.
“I think we will resurrect that case and challenge this issue
again, because the expenses are extraordinary and the times are
different than when Plyler v. Doe was issued many decades ago,”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said recently.
“Books that highlight our differences and teach others to respect
diversity are crucial.” Concerned by book censorship, a growing
number of students began fighting for the right to read, such as
students who created a “Banned Book Club” and those who sued
their school districts. The Washington Post’s
Hannah Natanson details how challenges to books
– mostly on Black characters and LGBTQ topics – have affected
students.
"I didn’t want little kids growing up in the district to feel as if African Americans don’t matter because our books are not on the shelves." Student voices front and center in this smart take by @hannah_natanson, my pick for @EdWriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/4G16N5m69I
Front and center are concerns about the age-appropriateness of
curriculum and instruction designed to introduce painful truths
about America’s origins and present-day injustices. Truths, which
some parents feel are at odds with a redeeming national
narrative, and which others say must be shared early if America
hopes to ever achieve racial reconciliation.
Amid a racial reckoning spurred by the 2020 murder of George
Floyd and a conservative backlash to subsequent anti-racist
protests, elementary schools have become ground zero for much of
the soul-searching.
Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that Texas would consider
challenging a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision
requiring states to offer free public education to all
children, including those of undocumented immigrants.
The remarks came days after a leaked draft of a forthcoming
U.S. Supreme Court opinion revealed that a majority of
justices are poised to revoke Roe v. Wade, the landmark case
establishing the right to abortion.
Jodi S. Cohen and Jennifer Smith RichardsProPublica and The Chicago Tribune
The nearly 30 students summoned to the Tazewell County Courthouse
that January morning were not facing criminal charges; they’d
received tickets for violating a municipal ordinance while at
school. Each was presented with a choice: agree to pay a fine or
challenge the ticket at a later hearing. Failing to pay, they
were told, could bring adult consequences, from losing their
driving privileges to harming their future credit scores.
“We’re leaving because it’s not worth it anymore.” A record
number of Texas teachers left their jobs mid-year before their
contracts expired, even though that means the state can cancel or
suspend their teaching certificate. School districts reported the
teachers who left their jobs early to state officials, who
received 471 reports about abandoned contracts, Brian
Lopez and Jason Beeferman report for
The Texas Tribune.
Talia Richman , Jenn Smith , Caroline Preston and Rebecca GriesbachSeattle Times, Dallas Morning News, AL.com and The Hechinger Report
Parents, politicians and activists flooded school board meetings
across the country in recent months, desperate to be heard.
In 60-second sound bites, they exploded over masks, books and
so-called critical race theory. Their voices often echoed across
social media and fueled viral news segments.
But hours after those tense meetings end, teachers and students
walked into schools, feeling the reverberations of the culture
wars that have consumed American education.
“Old fears about gay people are being combined with newer
concerns—and newly developed political tools.” Education
Week’s Stephen Sawchuk investigated
what’s driving anti-LGBTQ legislation across the U.S., providing
six insights he gleaned from conversations with political
scientists, historians, LGBTQ advocates, legal scholars, and
lawmakers.
Likely one reason why so much of the discourse over teaching about LGBTQ issues in schools has focused on a handful of local examples: Schools are all over the place in what they teach and what materials they choose, writes @Stephen_Sawchuk#tellEWA
Historically, when Florida school districts reevaluate which math
instructional materials they will use, they have had more
than one publisher to choose from.
Now, the only publisher approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the
Florida Department of Education for K-5
mathematics is Accelerate Learning, a company out of
Houston, Texas.
The coronavirus pandemic ushered in what may be the most rapid
rise in homeschooling the U.S. has ever seen. Two years later,
even after schools reopened and vaccines became widely available,
many parents have chosen to continue directing their children’s
educations themselves.
Homeschooling numbers this year dipped from last year’s all-time
high, but are still significantly above pre-pandemic levels,
according to data obtained and analyzed by The Associated Press.
It’s “impossible to tell whether high schools are complying with
the federal Title IX law unless someone complains,”
KQED’s Kara Newhouse found
during a months-long investigation for the Povich Center
for Sports Journalism and Howard Center for
Investigative Journalism. The U.S. Department of
Education often undercounts the sports opportunities for boys,
making it difficult for girls who believe they are being denied
equal opportunities.
Rutgers University’s Business School inflated its rankings by
creating fake jobs for its graduates, according to an accusation
leveled in a whistle-blower lawsuit filed on Friday.
Deidre White, the business school’s human-resources manager,
claims in her lawsuit that the university created bogus jobs to
show that the school’s graduates had no trouble finding
employment. But after she exposed the purported scheme and
refused to comply with it, White asserts, she faced illegal
harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.
On April 6, as author Jason Tharp prepared to read “It’s Okay to
Be a Unicorn!” to students the next day at an elementary school
in the Buckeye Valley Local School District, north of Columbus,
he got a call from the principal saying higher-ups didn’t want
him reading the book.
“I just straight up asked him, ‘Does somebody think I made a gay
book?’ ” Tharp said. “And he said, ‘Yes. … The concern is that
you’re coming with an agenda to recruit kids to become gay.’ ”
On April 6, as author Jason Tharp prepared to read “It’s Okay to
Be a Unicorn!” to students the next day at an elementary school
in the Buckeye Valley Local School District, north of Columbus,
he got a call from the principal saying higher-ups didn’t want
him reading the book.
“I just straight up asked him, ‘Does somebody think I made a gay
book?’ ” Tharp said. “And he said, ‘Yes. … The concern is that
you’re coming with an agenda to recruit kids to become gay.’ ”
More than one quarter of superintendents plan to leave their
posts “imminently” due to pandemic-era staffing challenges and
67-hour workweeks, a recent survey finds. Urban school districts,
serving predominantly students of color, will likely be impacted
the most, as superintendents leave these districts in higher
numbers than those at suburban or rural districts,
Marianna McMurdock reports for The
74.
Reporting on superintendent turnover? Bookmark this piece from @The74. Important new surveys, w/ good context (not overhype) on limitations of the data. These worrisome trends deserve close attention. @marimcmurdock is my pick for @EdWriters' #tellEWA. https://t.co/DeEs7oeTgi
The school year at MacArthur High in Irving, Texas, began last
fall with the administration scraping off rainbow stickers that
had been posted on campus, prompting hundreds of students to walk
out in protest. Seven months later, LGBTQ students say things
have deteriorated further.
“She was born this way, all of our trans kids were born this way,
and there is nothing wrong with them.” Oklahoma parents who have
embraced their transgender children’s journeys contemplate
leaving the state because of a wave of anti-transgender
bills, Ben Felder explains for The
Oklahoman.
""It is not easy living in a state that is actively using your child's identity as political fodder to score political points." @benfelder_okc looks at impact of Oklahoma legislation targeting transgender kids. He's my pick for @EdWriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/ouUVJH9v9z
Betsy Colton watched her daughter become angry and anxious about
deciding what to wear, struggle with outbursts and complain that
she didn’t feel beautiful.
Assigned a male at birth, Gracie, now 7 years old, had always
enjoyed playing with dolls, dressing up in girl’s clothing, and
emulating her older sister. Gracie’s parents allowed her to play
and dress how she wanted, as from an early age they could tell
she didn’t identify with the gender assigned at her birth.
A Fort Worth, Texas school district needs more dual-language
instructors to keep up with an increasingly diverse student
population. Bilingual teachers have larger workloads and teach
more students than English-language-only instructors. To address
these issues, the district is recruiting more Spanish-speaking
teachers and building a college student-to-educator pipeline,
Jacob Sanchez explains for the Fort
Worth Report.
The idea of optimizing school district property for
evening and weekend use isn’t new, but Buena Vista Horace Mann
K-8 Community School (BVHM, for short) in San Francisco appears
to be the first modern public elementary school to have hosted a
long-term, overnight family shelter.
Some objected: Shelter should not be the responsibility of a
school, they argued.
And yet, “We were the folks that were willing to do it,” said
Nick Chandler, the BVHM community school coordinator.
The fight for linguistic and cultural preservation predates
statehood, given the assimilatory nature of Western education
taught in New Mexico’s public schools. The struggle has been
ongoing and, despite a massive victory through acknowledgment in
a seminal court case, it continues through to today, an SFR
analysis of fairness in the state’s education system finds.
Teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was a crime in
1920s Kentucky, and back then, 20 other states also considered
anti-evolution measures. The New Yorker’s
Jill Lepore makes the connection between this
centuries-old battle over public education with today’s efforts
to restrict the way race is taught in public schools – showing
how history repeats itself.
"There’s a rock, and a hard place, and then there’s a classroom." (Amen.) Spend some time with Jill Lepore's history lesson for the @NewYorker, connecting Scopes Trial and current war over teaching about racism. She's my pick for @edwriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/VnFWEygnwh
In Bedford, teacher Andrea Campbell unseated a conservative
school board member, as town officials recorded a 36 percent
increase in turnout.
In Exeter, five left-leaning candidates held off challenges from
opponents on the right, many by slim margins.
And in Londonderry, voters opted against a warrant article that
would have stripped away the authority of school officials to
impose future mask mandates and made the wearing of masks
optional for children and families.
On San Antonio’s South Side, a handful of new buildings modeled
after the city’s historic Spanish missions dot a large plot of
land. Tan stone, arches and domes. It’s the home of San Antonio’s
newest university: Texas A&M-San Antonio. There’s a strong
argument that the existence of this campus could be a big part of
the solution to San Antonio’s Latino college gap. Twelve years
ago, it didn’t exist. And prior to that time, the only public
four-year institution in town was on San Antonio’s whiter — and
wealthier— North Side.
Pine Grove Area High School, located in a small town in eastern
Pennsylvania by the same name, closed its school building for the
pandemic on Friday the 13th back in March 2020. In the nearly two
years since, the social isolation, followed by the carousel of a
hybrid schedule and the jolt of returning fully to school in
person, has been hard on students’ mental health.
Five scholars who were denied tenure spoke to The
Chronicle of Higher Education’s reporters about the
aftermath, including their loss of identity and livelihood.
Switching to a non-tenure role isn’t always possible. Some higher
ed systems prevent professors from ever working at the university
in which they were denied tenure.
Denied tenure, can't afford to leave college town: “It’s sort of like getting divorced, and then living across the street from your ex-husband ... and everybody in the neighborhood loves him.” This @chronicle team effort is my pick for @edwriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/VX8uf4n1FZ
In a rarely seen display of opposition, the Indiana Senate voted
0-50 this week to kill a piece of legislation that would have
changed the way special education disputes between families and
schools are resolved.
Sen. Dennis Kruse (R-Auburn) sponsored the legislation but didn’t
plan to call it down for a vote on Tuesday because he knew it
would fail. But Kruse said he was urged by Senate colleagues to
bring House Bill 1107 to the floor. Some lawmakers
switched their “yes” votes to “no” votes until only one “yes”
remained: Kruse.
Amid a national spike in book challenges and bans, school
librarians across Tennessee are quickly becoming the target of
scorn and skepticism from Republican lawmakers and parents
pushing for more oversight on what materials are provided to
children.
“I don’t appreciate what’s going in our libraries, what’s being
put in front of our children and shame on you for putting it
there,” Republican Rep. Jerry Sexton told a group of librarians
during a Tuesday hearing.
Oakland’s Mills College is among the fewer than 40 women’s
colleges left in the U.S. That number will shrink further this
June when the 170-year-old college merges with Northeastern
University in Boston, illustrating the financial challenges
private colleges face and the shift to co-ed campuses,
Juhi Doshi reports for
CalMatters.
A fascinating look at high stakes for campus community in merger of Northeastern U. and Mills College. And I ❤️ seeing top-notch outlet @calmatters supporting talented student journalists like @juhidoshi_. She's is my pick for this week's @edwriters' #tellEWA. https://t.co/jknuM9Lk1s
Vanderbilt University researchers followed two groups of
low-income students from pre-K to sixth grade, tracking their
school readiness and performance on standardized tests. The
students who started in a free public pre-K program did worse in
school than those rejected from the program, resulting in bad
news for the researchers and childhood advocates, reports
Anya Kamenetz for NPR.
"One of the biases that I hadn't examined in myself is the idea that poor children need a different sort of preparation from children of higher-income families." @anya1anya talks w/ researcher raising big Qs on preschool's impact. It's my #tellEWA pick. https://t.co/vDwFfxcAWM
Maryland’s largest school district named its next superintendent,
the first woman in the role. The Montgomery County Public Schools
board voted unanimously in favor of Monifa McKnight, who received
a “no confidence” vote from the teachers’ union due to her
pandemic response, Caitlynn Peetz details for
Bethesda Magazine.
LGBTQ students and others from marginalized backgrounds read
school library books that reflect their lived experiences, but
now these books and libraries are under attack. Librarians fear
for their safety or punishment as Texas conservatives and parents
target hundreds of books on race, sexuality and gender for review
or removal, Mike Hixenbaugh details for
NBC News.
"I hate that we did this, because we didn’t go through the formal review ourselves. I think a lot of librarians are making decisions out of fear, and that puts us in a position of self-censorship." My @EdWriters#tellEWA pick this week: @Mike_Hixenbaugh. https://t.co/atViJ8V64Y
Educators connected with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona,
seeing him as “one of their own,” but Cardona’s department has
struggled with communicating to parents and responding to
COVID-19, Linda Jacobson evaluates for
The 74.
Catching up on the news I missed last week, and @lrj417 's takeout for @The74 on Miguel Cardona's first year as education secretary is loaded with perspective, data, and nuance. She's my pick for this week's @EdWriters#tellEWA. https://t.co/EcdFcmkBWb
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.
“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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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 (May 13-19)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
EWA recognized the top education journalism in the United States when it announced the finalists for the 2021 National Awards for Education Reporting on May 18. More than six dozen judges named 51 finalists in 17 categories of competition. Judges also selected three finalists for the EGF Accelerator’s Eddie Prize. Read the impactful work from these journalists.
A Florida Teacher Felt She Had To Quit Amid “Don’t Say Gay” Rhetoric
Nicolette Solomon felt her mother’s words come through the phone and settle, heavy, in her stomach.
It was January, and her mother was talking about a new bill, just proposed in the Florida legislature, that would severely limit how teachers could discuss gender identity and sexual orientation with their students. Critics were already calling it the “don’t say gay” bill. Her mother, a vocal supporter of LGBTQ rights, sounded upset.
#tellEWA Member Stories (May 6-12)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
“When I got pregnant, I had to stop going to college.” The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Nell Gluckman explores the many potential repercussions of overturning the Roe v. Wade protections of abortion rights: women who get pregnant may have to stop attending college; medical schools may no longer be able to teach safe abortion training; and higher education institutions in states that outlaw abortion may have difficulty attracting faculty.
Book Ban Efforts By Conservative Parents Take Aim At Library Apps
E-reader apps that became a lifeline for students during the pandemic are now in the crossfire of a culture war raging over books in schools and public libraries.
In several states, apps and the companies that run them have been targeted by conservative parents who have pushed schools and public libraries to shut down their digital programs, which let users download and read books on their smartphones, tablets or laptops.
Some parents want the apps banned for their children, or even for all students. And they’re getting results.
What You Should Know About The Plyler Case
A Supreme Court case known as Plyler v. Doe that protects the education of undocumented students marked its 40th anniversary this year.
Now, with the high court seemingly poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, another long-standing precedent, one prominent politician hopes Plyler is next.
“I think we will resurrect that case and challenge this issue again, because the expenses are extraordinary and the times are different than when Plyler v. Doe was issued many decades ago,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said recently.
#tellEWA Member Stories (April 29-May 5)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
“Books that highlight our differences and teach others to respect diversity are crucial.” Concerned by book censorship, a growing number of students began fighting for the right to read, such as students who created a “Banned Book Club” and those who sued their school districts. The Washington Post’s Hannah Natanson details how challenges to books – mostly on Black characters and LGBTQ topics – have affected students.
How The ‘Age-Appropriate’ Debate Is Altering Curriculum
Front and center are concerns about the age-appropriateness of curriculum and instruction designed to introduce painful truths about America’s origins and present-day injustices. Truths, which some parents feel are at odds with a redeeming national narrative, and which others say must be shared early if America hopes to ever achieve racial reconciliation.
Amid a racial reckoning spurred by the 2020 murder of George Floyd and a conservative backlash to subsequent anti-racist protests, elementary schools have become ground zero for much of the soul-searching.
Abbott: Texas May Challenge Requirement To Educate Undocumented Kids
Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that Texas would consider challenging a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring states to offer free public education to all children, including those of undocumented immigrants.
The remarks came days after a leaked draft of a forthcoming U.S. Supreme Court opinion revealed that a majority of justices are poised to revoke Roe v. Wade, the landmark case establishing the right to abortion.
Illinois Law Bans Schools From Fining Children With Tickets. So the Police Are Doing It for Them.
The nearly 30 students summoned to the Tazewell County Courthouse that January morning were not facing criminal charges; they’d received tickets for violating a municipal ordinance while at school. Each was presented with a choice: agree to pay a fine or challenge the ticket at a later hearing. Failing to pay, they were told, could bring adult consequences, from losing their driving privileges to harming their future credit scores.
#tellEWA Member Stories (April 22-28)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
“We’re leaving because it’s not worth it anymore.” A record number of Texas teachers left their jobs mid-year before their contracts expired, even though that means the state can cancel or suspend their teaching certificate. School districts reported the teachers who left their jobs early to state officials, who received 471 reports about abandoned contracts, Brian Lopez and Jason Beeferman report for The Texas Tribune.
Amid U.s. Culture Wars, Classrooms Become Brave Spaces For Honest Conversations
Parents, politicians and activists flooded school board meetings across the country in recent months, desperate to be heard.
In 60-second sound bites, they exploded over masks, books and so-called critical race theory. Their voices often echoed across social media and fueled viral news segments.
But hours after those tense meetings end, teachers and students walked into schools, feeling the reverberations of the culture wars that have consumed American education.
#tellEWA Member Stories (April 15-21)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
“Old fears about gay people are being combined with newer concerns—and newly developed political tools.” Education Week’s Stephen Sawchuk investigated what’s driving anti-LGBTQ legislation across the U.S., providing six insights he gleaned from conversations with political scientists, historians, LGBTQ advocates, legal scholars, and lawmakers.
DeSantis Rejects Textbooks, One Publisher Allowed For K-5 Math Classes
Historically, when Florida school districts reevaluate which math instructional materials they will use, they have had more than one publisher to choose from.
Now, the only publisher approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education for K-5 mathematics is Accelerate Learning, a company out of Houston, Texas.
Homeschooling Surge Continues Despite Schools Reopening
The coronavirus pandemic ushered in what may be the most rapid rise in homeschooling the U.S. has ever seen. Two years later, even after schools reopened and vaccines became widely available, many parents have chosen to continue directing their children’s educations themselves.
Homeschooling numbers this year dipped from last year’s all-time high, but are still significantly above pre-pandemic levels, according to data obtained and analyzed by The Associated Press.
#tellEWA Member Stories (April 8-14)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
It’s “impossible to tell whether high schools are complying with the federal Title IX law unless someone complains,” KQED’s Kara Newhouse found during a months-long investigation for the Povich Center for Sports Journalism and Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. The U.S. Department of Education often undercounts the sports opportunities for boys, making it difficult for girls who believe they are being denied equal opportunities.
Rutgers B-School Faked Jobs for Graduates to Inflate Its Rankings, Lawsuit Says
Rutgers University’s Business School inflated its rankings by creating fake jobs for its graduates, according to an accusation leveled in a whistle-blower lawsuit filed on Friday.
Deidre White, the business school’s human-resources manager, claims in her lawsuit that the university created bogus jobs to show that the school’s graduates had no trouble finding employment. But after she exposed the purported scheme and refused to comply with it, White asserts, she faced illegal harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.
Author Jason Tharp Banned From Reading ‘It’s Okay To Be A Unicorn’ At Ohio School
On April 6, as author Jason Tharp prepared to read “It’s Okay to Be a Unicorn!” to students the next day at an elementary school in the Buckeye Valley Local School District, north of Columbus, he got a call from the principal saying higher-ups didn’t want him reading the book.
“I just straight up asked him, ‘Does somebody think I made a gay book?’ ” Tharp said. “And he said, ‘Yes. … The concern is that you’re coming with an agenda to recruit kids to become gay.’ ”
Author Jason Tharp Banned From Reading ‘It’s Okay To Be A Unicorn’ At Ohio School
On April 6, as author Jason Tharp prepared to read “It’s Okay to Be a Unicorn!” to students the next day at an elementary school in the Buckeye Valley Local School District, north of Columbus, he got a call from the principal saying higher-ups didn’t want him reading the book.
“I just straight up asked him, ‘Does somebody think I made a gay book?’ ” Tharp said. “And he said, ‘Yes. … The concern is that you’re coming with an agenda to recruit kids to become gay.’ ”
#tellEWA Member Stories (April 1-7)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
More than one quarter of superintendents plan to leave their posts “imminently” due to pandemic-era staffing challenges and 67-hour workweeks, a recent survey finds. Urban school districts, serving predominantly students of color, will likely be impacted the most, as superintendents leave these districts in higher numbers than those at suburban or rural districts, Marianna McMurdock reports for The 74.
A Texas Teacher Faces Losing Her Job After Fighting For Gay Pride Symbols In School
The school year at MacArthur High in Irving, Texas, began last fall with the administration scraping off rainbow stickers that had been posted on campus, prompting hundreds of students to walk out in protest. Seven months later, LGBTQ students say things have deteriorated further.
#tellEWA Member Stories (March 25-31)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
“She was born this way, all of our trans kids were born this way, and there is nothing wrong with them.” Oklahoma parents who have embraced their transgender children’s journeys contemplate leaving the state because of a wave of anti-transgender bills, Ben Felder explains for The Oklahoman.
Bills Target Transgender Kids; Families Worry About Future In Oklahoma
Betsy Colton watched her daughter become angry and anxious about deciding what to wear, struggle with outbursts and complain that she didn’t feel beautiful.
Assigned a male at birth, Gracie, now 7 years old, had always enjoyed playing with dolls, dressing up in girl’s clothing, and emulating her older sister. Gracie’s parents allowed her to play and dress how she wanted, as from an early age they could tell she didn’t identify with the gender assigned at her birth.
#tellEWA Member Stories (March 18-24)
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A Fort Worth, Texas school district needs more dual-language instructors to keep up with an increasingly diverse student population. Bilingual teachers have larger workloads and teach more students than English-language-only instructors. To address these issues, the district is recruiting more Spanish-speaking teachers and building a college student-to-educator pipeline, Jacob Sanchez explains for the Fort Worth Report.
A School Created A Homeless Shelter In The Gym And It Paid Off In The Classroom
The idea of optimizing school district property for evening and weekend use isn’t new, but Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School (BVHM, for short) in San Francisco appears to be the first modern public elementary school to have hosted a long-term, overnight family shelter.
Some objected: Shelter should not be the responsibility of a school, they argued.
And yet, “We were the folks that were willing to do it,” said Nick Chandler, the BVHM community school coordinator.
Does Not Equal
The fight for linguistic and cultural preservation predates statehood, given the assimilatory nature of Western education taught in New Mexico’s public schools. The struggle has been ongoing and, despite a massive victory through acknowledgment in a seminal court case, it continues through to today, an SFR analysis of fairness in the state’s education system finds.
#tellEWA Member Stories (March 11-17)
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Teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was a crime in 1920s Kentucky, and back then, 20 other states also considered anti-evolution measures. The New Yorker’s Jill Lepore makes the connection between this centuries-old battle over public education with today’s efforts to restrict the way race is taught in public schools – showing how history repeats itself.
Progressive Candidates Prevail In School Board Elections Despite Passionate Campaigns On Right
In Bedford, teacher Andrea Campbell unseated a conservative school board member, as town officials recorded a 36 percent increase in turnout.
In Exeter, five left-leaning candidates held off challenges from opponents on the right, many by slim margins.
And in Londonderry, voters opted against a warrant article that would have stripped away the authority of school officials to impose future mask mandates and made the wearing of masks optional for children and families.
What Does It Mean To Build A College-Going Culture?
On San Antonio’s South Side, a handful of new buildings modeled after the city’s historic Spanish missions dot a large plot of land. Tan stone, arches and domes. It’s the home of San Antonio’s newest university: Texas A&M-San Antonio. There’s a strong argument that the existence of this campus could be a big part of the solution to San Antonio’s Latino college gap. Twelve years ago, it didn’t exist. And prior to that time, the only public four-year institution in town was on San Antonio’s whiter — and wealthier— North Side.
School Counselors and Psychologists Remain Scarce Even as Needs Rise
Pine Grove Area High School, located in a small town in eastern Pennsylvania by the same name, closed its school building for the pandemic on Friday the 13th back in March 2020. In the nearly two years since, the social isolation, followed by the carousel of a hybrid schedule and the jolt of returning fully to school in person, has been hard on students’ mental health.
#tellEWA Member Stories (February 25-March 3)
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Five scholars who were denied tenure spoke to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s reporters about the aftermath, including their loss of identity and livelihood. Switching to a non-tenure role isn’t always possible. Some higher ed systems prevent professors from ever working at the university in which they were denied tenure.
‘They Should Be Embarrassed’: Advocates Criticize Indiana Senate For 0-50 Vote On Special Education Bill
In a rarely seen display of opposition, the Indiana Senate voted 0-50 this week to kill a piece of legislation that would have changed the way special education disputes between families and schools are resolved.
Sen. Dennis Kruse (R-Auburn) sponsored the legislation but didn’t plan to call it down for a vote on Tuesday because he knew it would fail. But Kruse said he was urged by Senate colleagues to bring House Bill 1107 to the floor. Some lawmakers switched their “yes” votes to “no” votes until only one “yes” remained: Kruse.
School Librarians Face Criticism In Fight Over Book Scrutiny
Amid a national spike in book challenges and bans, school librarians across Tennessee are quickly becoming the target of scorn and skepticism from Republican lawmakers and parents pushing for more oversight on what materials are provided to children.
“I don’t appreciate what’s going in our libraries, what’s being put in front of our children and shame on you for putting it there,” Republican Rep. Jerry Sexton told a group of librarians during a Tuesday hearing.
#tellEWA Member Stories (Feb. 18-24)
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Oakland’s Mills College is among the fewer than 40 women’s colleges left in the U.S. That number will shrink further this June when the 170-year-old college merges with Northeastern University in Boston, illustrating the financial challenges private colleges face and the shift to co-ed campuses, Juhi Doshi reports for CalMatters.
#tellEWA Member Stories (Feb. 11-17)
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Vanderbilt University researchers followed two groups of low-income students from pre-K to sixth grade, tracking their school readiness and performance on standardized tests. The students who started in a free public pre-K program did worse in school than those rejected from the program, resulting in bad news for the researchers and childhood advocates, reports Anya Kamenetz for NPR.
#tellEWA Member Stories (Feb. 4-10)
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Maryland’s largest school district named its next superintendent, the first woman in the role. The Montgomery County Public Schools board voted unanimously in favor of Monifa McKnight, who received a “no confidence” vote from the teachers’ union due to her pandemic response, Caitlynn Peetz details for Bethesda Magazine.
#tellEWA Member Stories (January 28-February 3)
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LGBTQ students and others from marginalized backgrounds read school library books that reflect their lived experiences, but now these books and libraries are under attack. Librarians fear for their safety or punishment as Texas conservatives and parents target hundreds of books on race, sexuality and gender for review or removal, Mike Hixenbaugh details for NBC News.
#tellEWA Member Stories (January 21-27)
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Educators connected with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, seeing him as “one of their own,” but Cardona’s department has struggled with communicating to parents and responding to COVID-19, Linda Jacobson evaluates for The 74.
#tellEWA Member Stories (January 14-20)
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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.
#tellEWA Member Stories (January 7-13)
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“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)
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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.
#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.
#tellEWA Member Stories (December 17-22)
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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)
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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.
#tellEWA Member Stories (December 3-9)
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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.
#tellEWA Member Stories (November 24-December 2)
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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)
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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.
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.
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.