Just News from Center X is a free weekly education news blast.
Please subscribe and tweet or share.
Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice
Here’s who Trump invited to the White House to talk about schools. The list says a lot about his education priorities.
Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post
President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos met with a carefully selected group of 10 teachers and parents at the White House on Tuesday, a list of participants that reveals a good deal about the administration’s education priorities.
UC president emerges as champion of program for undocumented students
Louis Freedberg, EdSource
When Janet Napolitano was named president of the University of California over three years ago, her appointment provoked impassioned protests by students and others upset about her role as head of the Department of Homeland Security overseeing the deportation of more than 2.5 million undocumented immigrants. At the July 2013 board of regents meeting when she was selected to the position, protesters brandishing signs like “Undocumented is not a crime, Napolitano, it’s not your time” briefly shut down the proceedings. Student regent Cinthia Flores, the only dissenting vote against her on the board, said Napolitano’s background in immigration enforcement would “cast a long shadow on her future endeavors” at the university. Fast forward to today. Napolitano has emerged as one of the leading defenders of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has provided temporary relief from deportation to three-quarters of a million undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, including many attending UC.
Are teachers becoming obsolete?
Paul Barnwell, The Atlantic
Leaving my school building the other day, I had an unexpected realization: Perhaps a computer was a more effective teacher than I currently was. The thought unnerved me, and still does as I’m writing this. I’m a nearly 13-year veteran educator dedicated to reflecting upon and refining my teaching craft. But I’m now considering the real possibility that, for at least part of a class period or school day, a computer could—and maybe should—replace me. For the past several weeks, I’ve begun class with a simple routine: Students enter the room, grab a new Chromebook, log on to the Reading Plus program, and spend roughly 20 minutes working at their own pace. I stroll around the room and help with technology troubleshooting or conference with students, quietly chatting about academic progress or missing work. I’ve also found myself pausing, marveling at what this program promises to accomplish: meeting students where they are academically and, at least in theory, helping a wildly diverse group of students improve their literacy skills.
Language, Culture, and Power
The school for refugees
Dylan Peers McCoy, The Atlantic
It’s first period on a Wednesday, and Alejandra is chewing gum, bouncing her foot, and goofing off with friends in a reading class for students learning English. The teacher—a substitute for the morning—writes vocabulary words on the whiteboard: “improves,” “silence,” “activists.” When she gets to “dangerous,” Alejandra springs to life. “Not safe!” she bursts out. Danger is familiar for Alejandra, who declined to use her real name because she was involved with gangs in her home country of Honduras and is afraid for her safety even now—months after moving to Indianapolis and enrolling in the city’s first dedicated program for immigrant students. In Honduras, Alejandra was involved with the gangs that have made that country perilous for young people. She lived with her father’s family after her mother fled the country when she was 2 years old, and her father was murdered by a gang before she was 10. After leaving school as a child, Alejandra worked taking fares on a bus before starting to sell drugs. Now, she takes the bus to school, walks with her boyfriend between classes, and practices graphing equations.
How these high school reporters are covering Boyle Heights’ most pressing topics
Esmeralda Bermudez, Los Angeles Times
Diego Flores went door to door. But nobody, it seemed, wanted to speak to a journalist. “Maybe I can leave my number for your manager and he can call me?” he asked one shopkeeper. “What if I set up an appointment and return?” he asked another. This was the first time the 16-year-old was out on the street reporting. He wasn’t going to let rejection get in the way of his deadline. This school year, Flores joined the Boyle Heights Beat, a newspaper in which high school students write about the historic Latino neighborhood east of downtown. Their stories run in Spanish and English, online and in print. It’s a small operation, run out of a donated space at an old hospital. But in the six years the Beat has been around, the paper has become a key voice for the community. The teenagers who run it have learned as much about themselves as they have about Boyle Heights.
Ethnic studies provide vital context for school students
Young Whan Choi, East Bay Times
President Donald Trump’s executive order placing a travel moratorium on people from seven Muslim-majority countries raises important questions about our identity as Americans and how we should educate our children. Are we a country that cherishes the diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds of all its people? Or are we a country that is threatened by such differences and teaches conformity? Our public education system must embrace a truth about our society: Regardless of how many bans we impose, America is a country of people from around the world. Recognizing our nation’s varied, cultural wealth is not in conflict with developing a shared sense of American-ness.
Whole Children and Strong Communities
Sesame Street plans social-emotional learning program for refugee children
Evie Blad, Education Week
The Sesame Workshop hopes the friendly faces of Sesame Street characters will help refugee children navigate the complex social and emotional effects of trauma and displacement. The organization is teaming with the International Rescue Committee, a global humanitarian organization, to “deliver transformative early learning and social-emotional support to millions of refugee children in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria,” it said in a news release Thursday: “Of the 65 million displaced people around the world, half are children and 12 million of those are younger than eight. These children suffer the daily effects of violence and neglect, frequently leading to toxic stress, which can have lifelong damaging effects on learning, behavior, and health. But children are resilient, and damage can be reduced if they are reached early. In a partnership announced last May at the World Humanitarian Summit, Sesame Workshop and the IRC will create multi-media content featuring the trusted Sesame Street Muppets—adapted to reflect the experiences of refugee children and their parents—to meet critical developmental needs and mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences in crisis settings…
California renews push to promote environmental literacy in schools
Carolyn Jones, EdSource
In Clinton Huey’s 6th-grade science class at Bancroft Middle School in San Leandro just south of Oakland, students have made their own carbon dioxide, measured the acid content of car exhaust, created greenhouse gas models from plastic bottles, charted sea-level rise since 700 A.D. and built wind generators – all in a quest to understand climate change. “To me, this is the single biggest issue facing humanity,” Huey said, referring to climate change. “We have to talk to our kids about it. We have to learn about it. … We need to educate our students to become citizens of the world, which is important if we care about what our future world will be.” Huey’s class, and others like it around California, reflect an ongoing effort by California educators to integrate environmental education into the school curriculum – an effort that appears to be gathering momentum.
Student suicide: Moving beyond blame to understanding
Robert Evans and Mark Kline, Education Week
Suicide is the worst of losses, especially when the victim is an adolescent. It’s every parent’s nightmare. And it’s every principal’s, too—not only for the horrific loss of the student, but for the censure that can often follow. Parents, community members, and even students may criticize the school for too much stress and pressure, too much homework and competition, and too little support. As the superintendent of schools in Palo Alto, Calif.—a district with a teen-suicide rate four times the national average—noted last fall, “any school that experiences a student suicide should brace for a tsunami of blame.” The tsunami is particularly painful because guilt always follows suicide. Everyone who knew the student wonders, “What did I miss? What could I have done?” As psychologists who have consulted in schools on more than 40 student suicides, we’ve seen that educators, who invest themselves deeply in their students, are especially vulnerable. They struggle with their own shock and grief, and they are deeply hurt when accused of not caring or doing enough. To try to prevent future tragedies, schools that experience student suicide often adopt steps for student wellness in the aftermath, such as screening students for depression, training teachers and students in signs of risk for suicide, reducing homework, adding mindfulness electives, and modifying the start time of the school day. Some of these changes may improve overall student well-being, but the key causes of suicide often lie beyond the school’s reach.
Access, Assessment, and Advancement
More than test scores: ‘Schools of Opportunity’ to recognize high schools that create full learning experiences for every student
Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post
Newly confirmed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has spent decades advocating for alternatives to traditional public education, once calling the nation’s public school system a “dead end.” That’s news to teachers, administrators and staff members at many public schools who work hard to create learning environments that reach every student — and it is these high schools that can become part of the new “Schools of Opportunity” project cycle. The project was started a few years ago by educators who sought to highlight public high schools that work to close opportunity gaps through research-proven practices and not standardized test scores, which are more a measure of socioeconomic status than anything else. The project assesses a number of factors about schools, including how well they provide health and psychological support for students, judicious and fair discipline policies, and broad and enriched curriculum. Schools submit applications explaining why they should be recognized. Nominations are due by May 1, and winners will be announced by Jan. 15, 2018.
The glue helping at-risk students stick with school
Emily Deruy, The Atlantic
The percentage of students at Washington, D.C., public schools who graduate from high school in four years is at an all-time high. But at 69 percent, the district’s graduation rate is well below the national average, which is north of 80 percent. So in a move that mirrors a broader national conversation about how to help kids who have more than a few obstacles in front of them succeed, the district this year put what it’s calling “pathway coordinators” into its schools to make sure kids at risk of dropping out get a diploma—and to help students who’ve gotten off track rebound. Through a mixture of number-crunching, mentoring, and occasionally good-natured cajoling, these pathways coordinators track how students are doing and help those who are behind come up with plans for moving forward. Right now, the district has about 1,300 students it categorizes as overage and under-credited, meaning students who are under the age of 24 and more than two years behind. The ultimate goal is to get as many kids as possible through high school in four years and to help even those who need a little longer earn a diploma and move into either higher education or the workforce.
Deportation fears depress California Dream Act college aid applications
Larry Gordon, EdSource
Undocumented students in California are lagging far behind last year’s numbers in applying for state-funded financial aid for college, apparently because of fears that information on the forms could be used to possibly deport the young people and their families, officials say. The election of Donald J. Trump as president has so rattled some immigrant families that they are skipping, or perhaps just delaying as long as possible, the chance for state-funded California Dream Act grants that pay a large chunk of costs to attend a community college, a California State University, a University of California or an independent college. That is happening even though California leaders have promised that personal data will be protected as much as possible from federal immigration authorities.
Inequality, Poverty, Segregation
Integration works. Can it survive the Trump era?
Thomas B. Edsall, The New York Times
The 2016 election deepened the chasm between those voters who believe that the government should address the problems of the poor and those who are convinced that the government already provides disadvantaged minorities with too much help, at the expense of the white working and middle classes. While the polarized belief systems that exploded in the battle between Trump and Clinton are driving both policymaking and an invigorated opposition, researchers continue to provide empirical evidence on the difficult issues of race, poverty and intergenerational mobility. Rucker C. Johnson, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, has followed two generations of black families and concluded that integration has been an effective tool for raising educational levels and living standards.
Parents of transgender children plead with Trump to maintain protections
Moriah Balingit, The Washington Post
Nearly 800 parents of transgender children from across the country signed a letter to President Trump imploring him to maintain protections for transgender students, saying that the protections, enacted under President Barack Obama, are critical for the safety and well-being of their children. “All students deserve equal access to a safe, welcoming school and a high quality education no matter who they are and where they live,” the parents wrote. The letter was organized by the Human Rights Campaign’s Parents for Transgender Equality Council and emailed to administration officials Tuesday evening. “This is the value at the center of our nation’s education policies and civil rights laws,” the letter said, “and it is a principle espoused by the 2016 guidance issued by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education seeking the fair and respectful treatment of transgender students in our nation’s schools and colleges.” The letter comes four days after the Justice Department dropped its objection to a preliminary injunction that halts the Obama-era guidance requiring schools to accommodate students in the bathrooms that match their gender identity. The move signals that the administration is changing course on transgender rights and left many parents “heartbroken and scared,” they wrote in the letter.
Fighting racial bias on campus
Sandra Stevenson, The New York Times
Shaun R. Harper has been at the center of the racial debate of the past year — first, as protests illuminated the concerns of students of color, then as the Trump triumph emboldened some to commit overt acts of bias, particularly against Latino and Muslim students. In his new book, “Race Matters in College,” due out in June from Johns Hopkins University Press, he provides a pathway for campuses struggling with these very issues. A leading scholar on racial equity in higher education, Dr. Harper will in July be leaving the University of Pennsylvania, where he founded and directed the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education, and joining the University of Southern California, where he will teach and start up a similar center with big ambitions. One priority is a survey to assess the racial climate on the nation’s campuses.
Public Schools and Private $
Charter schools clash with NAACP over call for moratorium
Jason McGahan, LA Weekly
Last spring, the Fortune School of Education, a charter management group that operates six schools in Sacramento and San Bernardino, christened its newest school the Alice Huffman College Prep Middle School, in honor of the longtime president of the California NAACP. Margaret Fortune, the charter group’s CEO, says it is customary at Fortune, where 60 percent of students are black, to name schools after those she calls “living local African-American community icons.” Then in the summer, the California NAACP, led by the same Alice Huffman, introduced a resolution on the floor of the NAACP’s national convention calling for a halt to the further expansion of charter schools, pending an in-depth review. The resolution carried, and Margaret Fortune, who is a card-carrying member of the NAACP, seems to have taken the vote personally.
How big a factor is Trump’s school choice support in the LA charter school debate?
Kyle Stokes, KPCC
Luna Cruz, 9, pushed through the crowd at the teachers union rally in front of her school, Grand View Boulevard Elementary. A teacher had asked if she would speak in front of the gathering — a protest of President Donald Trump on the eve of his inauguration. The crowd had swelled beyond the “dozens” the union had expected. Hundreds turned out to hear speaker after speaker denounce what they termed Trump’s anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric — and also to criticize the president for his nomination of private school voucher and charter school advocate Betsy DeVos for U.S. Secretary of Education.
Other News of Note
Influential conservative group: Trump, DeVos should dismantle Education Department and bring God into classroom
Emma Brown, The Washington Post
A policy manifesto from an influential conservative group with ties to the Trump administration, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, urges the dismantling of the Education Department and bringing God into American classrooms. The five-page document produced by the Council for National Policy calls for a “restoration of education in America” that would minimize the federal role, promote religious schools and home schooling and enshrine “historic Judeo-Christian principles” as a basis for instruction. Names of the council’s members are closely held. But the Southern Poverty Law Center published a 2014 membership directory showing that Stephen K. Bannon — now chief White House strategist for President Trump — was a member and that Kellyanne Conway — now counselor to the president — served on the council’s executive committee.
Repeal without replacement: A bad strategy for kids
Charles Barone, The Hill
Now that Betsy DeVos has been confirmed as U.S. Secretary of Education, it’s time to turn attention to the issue of governing. Believe it or not, a lot has been going on. Even though it’s been drowned out by the debate over DeVos, the stakes are equally high, particularly when it comes to implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The passage of ESSA in December of 2015 reflected the leadership and bipartisan spirit brought to bear by President Obama and the four principal negotiators: Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Reps. John Kline (R-Minn.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.). However, with Donald Trump in the White House and a new House Education Committee Chair – Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) – there are serious questions as to whether ESSA’s bipartisan center can hold.
Just News from Center X is produced weekly by Leah Bueso, Anthony Berryman, Beth Happel, and John Rogers. Generous support from the Stuart Foundation allows Center X to provide this service free to the general public.
