Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Bettina Love examines the impact of education policies on Black students and what we can do next [Audio]

Nimah Gobir, KQED

Zook, a high schooler in Rochester, NY in the 1990s, found her dreams of competing in city and state basketball competitions shattered when allegations of class-skipping led to the school revoke the team’s game record. In her frustration, Zook punched a teacher and was expelled. However, according to Bettina Love, a professor at Columbia University Teachers College, Zook’s outburst was a culmination of years of neglect and mistreatment within the education system.  “She doesn’t really punch a teacher for that particular incident. It [was for] all incidents: going through school for the last 13 years and not having one teacher tell her that she was bright, not having one teacher take any type of care, having a teacher in middle school body slam her to the ground and put her in a chokehold,” recounted Love, who played basketball with Zook and looked up to her teammate and friend.

How schools (but not necessarily education) became central to the Republican primary [AUDIO]

Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR

Education isn’t a top voting issue. So, what’s behind Republican politicians’ focus on K-12?

Community Building as World Building

Cristina Paul in collaboration with Olivia Lozano and Nancy Villalta, Rethinking Schools

It was a rainy day and a few visitors to our laboratory school huddled outside my classroom under an umbrella, so I invited them in to look at the equity-based community my students had designed. The visitors circled the large table upon which the community was built, taking in the cardboard museums, paper and wood homes, theater, schools, and library — all precisely addressed. “If there are no addresses, the mail won’t get to the right place!” Ella had emphasized in our design process. The visitors noticed miniature aluminum foil bike locking stations next to little benches made from cereal boxes and carefully placed fox crossing and handicap access signs.

Language, Culture, and Power

Bay Area librarian becomes social media star showing joy of books [Audio]

Deepa Fernandez, Here and Now

As libraries across face existential crises on many fronts — budget cuts, closures, book bannings — one librarian in San Francisco is leading a fightback on social media. Mychal Threets is the supervising librarian at Solano County Library in the Bay Area and has become a TikTok and social media star over the past year, thanks to his fun, positive social media posts in which he highlights the many joys and opportunities of local libraries. He joins host Deepa Fernandes for more on his social media stardom and what libraries can do for the whole community they sit in.

California’s Black, Native American homeless students experienced increase in out-of-school suspensions in 2023

Mallika Seshadri, EdSource

Rates of out-of-school suspensions among California’s homeless youth — and particularly those who are Black and Native American — have dramatically increased over the past year, according to an analysis of California Department of Education data conducted by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA and National Center for Youth Law. The California Department of Education “needs to seriously increase their oversight of districts that are failing to meet the needs of youth of color, especially those who arrive at school from unstable home environments,” said Ramon Flores, one of the researchers at the Civil Rights Project at the University of California Los Angeles, in a statement.

Rep. Cori Bush Calls on Congress to End Race-Based Hair Discrimination

Arianna Coghill, Mother Jones

After a high-profile incident in which a Black teen was punished over the length of his hair, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) is pushing for federal protections against hair-based discrimination. In a tweet on Friday, Bush called on Congress to pass the CROWN Act, a bill designed to protect marginalized communities from hair-based discrimination in school and work settings nationwide. She cited the case of Darryl George, an 18-year-old Texas student who was suspended twice from Barbers Hill High School for refusing to cut his locs. The superintendent has claimed that the policy isn’t racist but instead teaches students “sacrifice” and conformity.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

The pandemic sent hunger soaring in Brazil. They’re fighting back with school lunches

Jill Langlois, NPR

The kindergartners sing at the top of their lungs as they hop and skip their way around the corner and into the small cafeteria at São Paulo’s Professor Lourdes Heredia Mello Municipal School. “Twenty-four, 25, 26!” they shout, counting the number of steps they take before lining up single-file to serve themselves lunch at the buffet-style steam table that, just like the tables and chairs where they sit to eat, is kid-sized.

Students say NYC school buildings need a climate change

Jessica Gould, Gothamist

A group of New York City teens are launching a campaign urging Mayor Eric Adams to speed up plans to retrofit school buildings to make them safer, healthier and more climate-friendly. The teens – part of a student-led environmental coalition called TREEage – are asking peers across the city to post videos to social media about why their schools urgently need green energy upgrades. The group is also asking students to grade how green their school is from A to F. Zuzu Qadeer, a student at Beacon High School, has already submitted a video highlighting problems at their school.

Youth aim to change climate efforts; Vancouver developing program for high school students

Lauren Ellenbecker, Columbian

Isaac Segal, 17, thinks about the future a lot, particularly about the quality of the water he will drink or air he’ll breathe. “We are inheriting this planet, and it’s our responsibility to fix it,” said Segal, Mountain View High School’s environmental club president. But Segal worries young voices like his aren’t included in climate-related conversations and decisions. The city of Vancouver is attempting to remedy this by creating a youth climate leadership program. Vancouver identified a lack of opportunities for young people in climate action and civic engagement, according to a city memo. Staff are currently developing a program for high school students to address this scarcity.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

Bridging the gap between preschool policy, practice, and research

Talia Gerstle and Amanda Schmidt, Blueprint Labs MIT

Preschool in the United States has grown dramatically in the past several decades. From 1970 to 2018, preschool enrollment increased from 38 percent to 64 percent of eligible students. Fourteen states are currently discussing preschool expansion, with seven likely to pass some form of universal eligibility within the next calendar year. Amid this expansion, families, policymakers, and practitioners want to better understand preschools’ impacts and the factors driving preschool quality. To address these and other questions, MIT Blueprint Labs recently held a Preschool Research Convening that brought researchers, funders, practitioners, and policymakers to Nashville, Tennessee, to discuss the future of preschool research.

Psst: Joe Biden Has Solved the Student Debt Crisis

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, Washington Monthly

This past fall, with student loan payments set to resume after the pandemic pause, dread was setting in. My pre-pandemic monthly payments had been a crippling burden that made saving money impossible; the pause was a lifeline that had allowed me to pursue a graduate degree and open my first-ever savings account. For more than three years, the dark rain cloud that had followed me everywhere had cleared. Now it was back. Out of options and running up against the deadline, I heard about the Biden administration’s new Saving on a Valuable Education repayment plan, or SAVE, which was announced at the end of August.

Biden’s education chief to talk with Dartmouth students about Islamophobia, antisemitism

Michael Casey, Washington Post

President Joe Biden’s education chief planned to meet Wednesday with students at Dartmouth College to discuss antisemitism and Islamophobia on college campuses amid the the Israel-Hamas war. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona will hold a roundtable including Jewish and Muslim students as part of recently launched Dartmouth Dialogues, an initiative that aims spark conversations bridging political and personal divides.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

War’s Devastating Effect on Gaza’s Education

Mohammed Ali, Inkstick

As the first dawn of 2024 broke over Gaza, the streets that once resonated with the laughter of children and the chatter of students were filled instead with the eery and now familiar screams of victims and calls for help. Israel’s operation in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023 — 94 days now — has left a palpable scar on every facet of Gazan life, perhaps none more so than the field of education — a foundation stone for the future of any society. Over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict. Among the victims 9,730 are children — the population of students has been severely hit. The displacement crisis compounds the educational catastrophe. According to UNRWA, an overwhelming 85% of the Gaza Strip’s population has been displaced, with many families moving repeatedly in search of safety. The relentless cycle of displacement and destruction has made the concept of a stable educational environment a distant dream.

How mental health experts are handling the Israel-Hamas war’s lasting impact on children [Video]

William Brangham, PBS Newshour

Well, it’s clear that the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war is far-reaching, and the damage from the conflict will be felt for years to come. Hamas’ attack on October 7 and Israel’s counteroffensive since have left thousands dead and caused immense physical destruction. It’s also left an indelible mark on the collective psychology of an entire region, and especially its children. William Brangham has the story of a program trying to address that problem.

Migrant families and schools brace for wave of shelter evictions

Gwynne Hogan & Michael Elsen Rooney, Chalkbeat New York

Thousands of migrant families with school-aged children will begin having their time in city shelters run out starting Tuesday as the first 60-day eviction notices, which the city began passing out in October, start to expire. Among those whose time runs out Tuesday is Joana, 38, a Venezuelan mother who asked that her last name not be used. She said in recent days she’s been having hard conversations with her 8-year-old daughter about what’s in store.

Democracy and the Public Interest

Will Newark’s 16- and 17-year-olds get the right to vote in school board races?

Catherine Carrera, Chalkbeat Newark

The Newark City Council is set to vote Wednesday on a proposal to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 for school board races, where voter turnout has hovered around 3% for the last few years. The ordinance, first proposed at a council meeting on Dec. 20, would take effect in time for the upcoming April election. Council President LaMonica McIver sponsored the measure, which passed the first reading at that meeting. It’s up for a public hearing and final vote at the council meeting on Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. in the council chambers at city hall. “We need to make sure that the young people, our children, and the children coming behind us have a voice,” said McIver after the council took a first vote in favor of the ordinance last month.

In Florida, New School Laws Have an Unintended Consequence: Bureaucracy

Dana Goldstein, New York Times

Got a cut and need a Band-Aid? Want to be called Will instead of William? Or get your vision checked? Across Florida, hundreds of thousands of students need permission slips for what was once routine in schools. Educators in the state say recent laws and regulations around parental consent have created an entirely new bureaucracy, filled with forms and nagging phone calls to parents. The requirements have made it more difficult to provide services to children who need them — even services like vision and hearing tests.

As HISD school upheavals return, a look back to when Latino students in East End demanded change

Jhair Romero, Houston Chronicle

When students at Stephen F. Austin High School in Houston’s East End returned from summer break in 1989, they faced institutional disarray. Many instructors, equipped with outdated textbooks, taught multiple classes at a time, some in classrooms that were over capacity by dozens; others had classes with no students at all. Classes were scheduled inside broom closets and bathrooms. Eager to learn but lacking the resources, the predominantly Latino student body at Austin High revolted.

Other News of Note

Iowa school students walk out of class to protest gun violence after Perry shooting

Samantha Hernandez, Chris Higgins, Stephen Gruber-Miller, Phillip Sitter, Des Moines Register

In the wake of the Jan. 4 deadly shooting at Perry High School, students across Iowa are walking out of class today to protest what they say is lawmakers’ inaction on gun violence. Des Moines metro area students are slated to hold a rally at 1 p.m. at the Capitol despite an incoming winter storm. The protest coincides with the first day of the 2024 Iowa legislative session. March for Our Lives Iowa — a nonpartisan group that works to encourage young people to become involved in politics — began organizing the statewide walkout hours after police say Dylan Butler, a 17-year-old Perry student, fatally shot Ahmir Jolliff, an 11-year-old sixth-grader, and wounded seven other people, including Principal Dan Marburger. Organizers decided to protest after hearing from frustrated students.