schools

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

Schools’ Going Back To ‘Normal’ Won’t Work For Students Of Color, Here’s Why

National test results released in September 2022 show unprecedented losses in math and reading scores since the pandemic disrupted schooling for millions of children. In response, educational leaders and policymakers across the country are eager to reverse these trends and catch these students back up to where they would have been. But this renewed concern seems to overlook a crucial fact: Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools were failing to adequately serve children of color. As a scholar of racial equity in K-12 education, I see an opportunity to go beyond getting students caught up. Rather than focus only on trying to close pandemic-related gaps, schools could seek to more substantially improve the quality of education they offer, particularly for students of color, if they...

Among Black Youths At Racially Segregated Schools – Alcohol Use More Likely

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION, HEALTH & WELLNESS

Among Black Youths At Racially Segregated Schools – Alcohol Use More Likely

Black youths who attend racially segregated schools are more likely to have drinking and behavior problems during childhood than Black youths in less segregated schools. This is according to a new study we conducted using national survey data from 1997 to 2014. School segregation, defined as the physical separation of students in schools based on their race, was ruled unconstitutional in 1954 as part of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. Consequently, about 1,000 districts nationwide were under court orders to desegregate. However, school segregation has increased since 1991, when the first of a series of court decisions allowed districts to be released from court-ordered desegregation. Highly segregated schools – where less than 10% of students are white – in...

Could Surveillance Of Students In Schools Via Laptops Do More Harm Than Good

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION, TECHNOLOGY

Could Surveillance Of Students In Schools Via Laptops Do More Harm Than Good

Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro Ever since the start of the pandemic, more and more public school students are using laptops, tablets or similar devices issued by their schools. The percentage of teachers who reported their schools had provided their students with such devices doubled from 43% before the pandemic to 86% during the pandemic, a September 2021 report shows. In one sense, it might be tempting to celebrate how schools are doing more to keep their students digitally connected during the pandemic. The problem is, schools are not just providing kids with computers to keep up with their schoolwork. Instead – in a trend that could easily be described as Orwellian – the vast majority of schools are also using those devices to keep tabs on what students are d...

A Pandemic Solution Left Out Of A New Federal Spending Package – Schools Will Stop Serving Free Lunch To All Students

14Mar

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION

A Pandemic Solution Left Out Of A New Federal Spending Package – Schools Will Stop Serving Free Lunch To All Students

Public schools have been serving all students free meals since the COVID-19 pandemic first disrupted K-12 education. In March 2022, Congress rejected calls to keep up the federal funding required to sustain that practice and left that money out of a US$1.5 trillion spending package that President Joe Biden signed into law on March 11, 2022. We asked food policy expert Marlene Schwartz to explain why free meals make a difference and what will happen next. How did the COVID-19 pandemic initially affect the school lunch program? In March 2020, nearly all U.S. K-12 school buildings closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the federal government’s National School Lunch Program, quickly granted waivers to increase program flexibility and accommo...

Principals Are Expected To Be The ‘Rock’ Of Schools, But They’re Stressed Out

4Feb

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION

Principals Are Expected To Be The ‘Rock’ Of Schools, But They’re Stressed Out

No single incident led Kristen Craft to leave education after a nearly 30-year-career. It was a combination of the pandemic, a polarizing political climate and a public backlash against educators, she said. Craft fielded complaints about masks and critical race theory, some of which escalated to full-on threats, all while working nonstop, she said. Before long, the veteran administrator, named Kansas High School Principal of the Year in 2021, felt burned out. Just as teachers and children have felt high amounts of stress during the pandemic, so have principals, as they dealt with the mental health of students and faculty, staffing shortages and shifts in teaching methods. All the while, they faced growing hostility from some policymakers and members of the public. “People have become muc...

American Schools Can Learn From Other Countries About Civic Disagreement

8Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism

American Schools Can Learn From Other Countries About Civic Disagreement

Ashley Berner, Johns Hopkins University Few areas of American life have experienced more conflict of late than public education. The conflict has largely revolved around how public schools should deal with the difficult subjects of race and racism. The situation has become so inflamed that a national school board group asked the federal government to step in and protect school officials and educators from what they said were a growing number of attacks from angry citizens. As a historian who specializes in education policy, I believe it is worth asking: Is the United States the only place where debates rage about what should and shouldn’t be taught in public schools? My experience studying school systems throughout the world tells me that the U.S. can learn a lot from how other countrie...

Charter Schools Are Not As ‘Public’ As They Claim To Be, Here’s Why

30Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION

Charter Schools Are Not As ‘Public’ As They Claim To Be, Here’s Why

Kevin Welner, University of Colorado Boulder Proponents of charter schools insist that they are public schools “open to all students.” But the truth is more nuanced. As an education policy researcher – and as author of a new book about charter schools I wrote with fellow researcher Wagma Mommandi – I have discovered that charter schools are not as accessible to the public as they are often made out to be. This finding is particularly relevant in light of the fact that charter school enrollment reportedly grew at a rapid rate during the pandemic. Specifically, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, enrollment increased 7% from 2019-20 to 2020-21. The organization says that is the biggest enrollment jump in a half-decade. In our book, we identify and describe 13 di...

Pandemic Used By Cyber-Criminals To Attack Schools And Colleges

15Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

CYBERCRIME, EDUCATION

Pandemic Used By Cyber-Criminals To Attack Schools And Colleges

Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro Cyberattacks have hit schools and colleges harder than any other industry during the pandemic. In 2020, including the costs of downtime, repairs and lost opportunities, the average ransomware attack cost educational institutions $2.73 million. That is $300,000 more than the next-highest sector – distributors and transportation companies. From Aug. 14 to Sept. 12, 2021, educational organizations were the target of over 5.8 million malware attacks, or 63% of all such attacks. Ransomware attacks alone impacted 1,681 U.S. schools, colleges and universities in 2020. Globally 44% of educational institutions were targeted by such attacks. I study cybercrime and cybersecurity. In my forthcoming book – set to be published in November 2021 –...

9/11 – What Schools Teach About War On Terror

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

9/11 – What Schools Teach About War On Terror

Jeremy Stoddard, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Diana Hess, University of Wisconsin-Madison The phrase “Never Forget” is often associated with the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But what does this phrase mean for U.S. students who are too young to remember? What are they being asked to never forget? As education researchers in curriculum and instruction, we have studied since 2002 how the events of 9/11 and the global war on terror are integrated into secondary level U.S. classrooms and curricula. What we have found is a relatively consistent narrative that focuses on 9/11 as an unprecedented and shocking attack, the heroism of the firefighters and other first responders and a global community that stood behind the U.S. in its pursuit of terrorists. This narrative is in official...

For LGBTQ Parents That Want To Help Schools Fight Stigma And Ignorance – Here Are 7 Tips To Help

26Aug

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LGBTQ

For LGBTQ Parents That Want To Help Schools Fight Stigma And Ignorance – Here Are 7 Tips To Help

LGBTQ Abbie E. Goldberg, Clark University Many parents want to ensure that their kids are in classrooms where they and their families are respected and embraced. However, as a psychologist and researcher who has studied LGBTQ parents’ relationships with schools for over a decade, I have found that LGBTQ parents often have specific concerns when it comes to inclusion and acceptance. “[We have] always been very upfront that we are a family with two moms,” reported one parent in my research. “If the [school] was going to have an issue, we wanted to get the vibe early so we could find an alternative so our child didn’t have to suffer due to their closed-mindedness.” LGBTQ parents who live in less gay-friendly communities are more likely to describe feelings of mistreatment by their childr...