Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

California makes Ethnic Studies a high school requirement

Associated Press, Education Week

Along with English, science, math, and other graduation requirements, California high school students will have to take a course in ethnic studies to get a diploma starting in 2029-30. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Friday that makes California among the first in the nation to list ethnic studies as a graduation requirement for all public high school students. Assemblyman Jose Medina, a Democrat from Riverside who authored the legislation that has been years in the making, called it a huge step for California. “It’s been a long wait,” said Medina. “I think schools are ready now to make curriculum that is more equitable and more reflective of social justice.” The new law requires all public schools in the state to offer at least one ethnic studies course starting in the 2025-26 school year and requires students graduating in the 2029-30 school year to have completed a one-semester course in the subject.

Students learned so much more during the pandemic than we realize. Just ask them.

Ben Kirshner, Beatriz Salazar, Arturo Cortez & Carlos P. Hipolito-Delgado, EdSurge

For Lucinda, a Chicana high school senior, the shift to online school—while not great for completing schoolwork—created new time and space for other kinds of learning. During the COVID-19 shutdown of spring 2020, she taught herself to garden and started reading a book about Mexican-American history—her own history, as she puts it—called Radicals in the Barrio. The shutdown, for her, was “a good time to do research” that offered “a lot of time to learn” and reflect. She was not alone.

‘Love and learning have no limits.’ Special education teacher honored as Delaware’s top of the class

Mark Eichmann, WHYY

Education is not easy. Not for students, and not for teachers. But the effort to push through those challenges is worth it. That’s the message Brandywine School District special education teacher Jahsha Tabron delivered to her fellow teachers as she accepted her award as Delaware’s teacher of the year. Tabron encouraged her fellow teachers to keep working together to push students to learn. “I learned early on that your heart and your brain can never be too full. Love and learning have no limits,” Tabron said. “I’m thankful for wanting to always be a lifelong learner because it changes every minute. And if we don’t change with it, we’re left behind and we’re leaving other children behind as well.”

Language, Culture, and Power

It can be challenging for immigrant families to navigate American schools. I know from experience.

Mauricio Pena, Chalkbeat Chicago

When I was a child, adults often had my siblings and me translate for our immigrant parents. We were still learning English ourselves, and it felt as if we were carrying the weight of the world trying to make sense of conversations before explaining those words effectively in another language. From casual translations at grocery stores to more serious visits at clinics, or explaining school notes, rules or policies — something my parents simply weren’t familiar with — it felt daunting and often stressful. Until fifth grade, my school district didn’t consider me fluent in English, a fact I didn’t learn until reading a college recommendation letter from a school counselor years later.

Decade of data shows matching student-teacher race reduced NYC suspensions

Naaz Modan, K12 Dive

Matching students’ race with those of their teachers can reduce rates of exclusionary discipline for Black and Latinx students in large, diverse and urban school districts, according to a new working paper from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. The study examined 10 years’ worth of data from New York City between 2007 and 2017.  During years where students in grades 4-8 were assigned to a greater number of teachers of their same race, students were less likely to be suspended. This proved especially true for Black students, who experienced the largest impact, but the study also confirms a “significant” association for Latinx students and a “marginally significant” association for Asian American students.

Outrage grows over jailing of children as Tennessee university cuts ties with judge Involved

Meribah Knight, Nashville Public Radio, and Ken Armstrong, ProPublica

​​In the days after ProPublica’s investigation of the juvenile justice system in Rutherford County, Tennessee, one state lawmaker wrote that she was “horrified.” Another called it a “nightmare.” A third labeled it “unchecked barbarism.” A former Tennessee congressman posted the story about the unlawful jailing of kids and tweeted, “The most sickening and unAmerican thing I’ve read about in some time.” The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund called for a federal civil rights investigation. A pastor, in his Sunday sermon in Nashville, said: “We can’t allow this madness to continue. These are our babies.” And on Tuesday evening, four days after the story published, the president of Middle Tennessee State University notified faculty and staff that Donna Scott Davenport, a juvenile court judge at the heart of the investigation, “is no longer affiliated with the University.” Davenport had been an adjunct instructor at the school, which is based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. For many years, she taught a course on juvenile justice. In 2015, she was one of the university’s commencement speakers.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

We don’t talk nearly enough about how kids of color are disproportionately suffering during the pandemic

Edwin Rios, Mother Jones

As kids across the country settle into the rhythm of outbreaks and school closures during the second pandemic school year, a staggering number of children are having to do so without their parents or caregivers. A study in the academic journal Pediatrics, published Friday, found that more than 140,000 children lost caregivers or parents to COVID-19 between April 2020 and June 2021. CDC epidemiologist Susan Hillis, a lead author of the study, told NPR that that number has risen to roughly 175,000 today.  Making this more heartbreaking is the uneven way the affliction has been felt by Black, Latino, and indigenous children. Researchers in the Pediatrics study found that American Indian/Alaska Native children were 4.5 times more likely to lose a parent or caregiver to COVID compared to white children. Black children were nearly two and a half times more likely, while Hispanic children were twice as likely. “The highest burden of COVID-19-associated death of parents and caregivers occurred in Southern border states for Hispanic children, Southeastern states for Black children, and in states with tribal areas for American Indian/Alaska Native populations,” the authors wrote.

If you want to support the health and wellness of kids, stop focusing on their weight

Nichole Kelly, Elizabeth Budd, Nicole Giuliani, University of Oregon, The Conversation

Since the pandemic started, people of all ages have gained weight. At the same time, the rate at which youth and young adults are seeking treatment for eating disorders, particularly anorexia nervosa and binge eating disorder, has increased. While the reasons for these changes are complex, pandemic-related stress and weight bias – the belief that a thin body is good and healthy, while a large body is bad and unhealthy – are prominent contributors. As researchers who study health behaviors and are also parents of young children, we often see health research and health initiatives that place a disproportionate emphasis on weight. That’s a problem for two big reasons.

California will soon require free tampons in public schools

Associated Press, NPR

California public schools and colleges must stock their restrooms with free menstrual products under a bill signed Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The move comes as women’s rights advocates push nationwide for affordable access to pads, tampons and other items. California’s latest effort builds on a 2017 law requiring low-income schools in disadvantaged areas to provide students with free menstrual products.  It expands the law to include grades 6 to 12, community colleges and the California State University and University of California systems, starting in the 2022-23 school year. It encourages private schools and colleges to follow suit.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

What will universal TK mean for California kids?[AUDIO]

Zaidee Stavely & Karen D’Souza, Education Beat Podcast

California is making big strides towards offering a free year of public pre-kindergarten to all four-year-olds by 2025.mA teacher shares why she loves transitional kindergarten – the joy of learning and the chance for play so often lost in kindergarten nowadays. Host Zaidee Stavely and EdSource reporter Karen D’Souza discuss the hopes and challenges posed by this enormous expansion.

The Tyranny of letter grades [AUDIO]

Jeffrey R. Young, Ed Surge

Our current grading system can be a way for kids to prove themselves, win college scholarships, or gain admission to highly selective colleges. It also can turn into a game that encourages comparison to fictional “averages.” Some say the whole system of grading focuses on ranking and sorting students rather than actually helping them learn. And it turns out, that’s by design. Much of the drive to standardize grading systems was based on the work of psychologists from the 1800s who saw the goal as finding above-average students to focus teaching on rather than looking to help all students, argues Todd Rose, a developmental psychologist who studies development, intelligence and learning and author of “The End of Average.”

Cal Grant expansion: Newsom vetoes game-changer bill for 150,000 college students

Mikhail Zinshteyn, Cal Matters

For California’s higher-education system, the seemingly endless summer of good budget news came to a screeching halt Friday night when Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the most consequential legislation to college financial aid reform in a generation. With Newsom’s dissent, Assembly Bill 1456 won’t become a reality, rebuffing a Legislature that unanimously supported the legislation. It would have increased by about 150,000 the number of community college, Cal State, University of California and private college students eligible for the Cal Grant — the state’s chief financial aid program. It would have done this by expanding eligibility to students who are low-income but for various reasons can’t access the grant today. Cal Grants last for four years of full-time enrollment for all students. The veto affects community college students far more than any other, though.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

When schools shut: New UNESCO study exposes failure to factor gender in COVID-19 education responses

UNESCO

When schools shut, a global study exposing the gendered impact of COVID-19 school closures on learning, health and well-being, has been released by UNESCO on the occasion of the 2021 International Day of the Girl Child, 11 October. It finds that while gender norms and expectations can affect the ability to participate in remote learning, interventions that challenge gender-based barriers can limit learning loss and drop-out rates when schools reopen safely. “Despite swift action by governments and their partners to ensure continuity of learning, COVID-19 school closures have hampered children’s and young people’s right to inclusive and quality education in countries across the world,” said UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education Stefania Giannini. “The examples included in this report remind us that the path to equality is not a straight line and that purposeful, sustained and collaborative actions are needed to get us on track and to build back equal.”

Afghanistan’s girls lament continued closure of high schools

Ali M Latifi, Aljazeera

Kabul resident Rahela Nussrat, 17, is in her final year of high school, but she has not been able to attend classes. The reason: Afghanistan’s new rulers have decided to keep teenage girls out of school for now. Last month, the Taliban announced schools would be opening, but only boys of all ages were asked to return to school, leaving out secondary school girls. The move has raised questions about the group’s policy about women’s education. The Taliban said “a safe learning environment” was needed before older girls could return to school, adding that schools will reopen as “soon as possible”, without giving a timeframe. “Education is one of the most fundamental human rights, but today, that basic right has been taken from me and millions of other Afghan girls,” Nussrat told Al Jazeera.

Lego says it will work to rid its toys of harmful gender bias

Rachel Treisman, NPR

The Lego Group hopes its iconic blocks can help build not just trains and houses, but a more inclusive society. The Danish toy company announced Monday that it will work to remove gender stereotypes from its products and marketing, citing the results of a worldwide survey that found general attitudes toward kids’ play and creative careers remain “unequal and restrictive.” “The benefits of creative play such as building confidence, creativity and communication skills are felt by all children and yet we still experience age-old stereotypes that label activities as only being suitable for one specific gender,” Julia Goldin, Lego’s chief marketing officer, said in a statement, adding, “At the LEGO Group we know we have a role to play in putting this right.”

Democracy and the Public Interest

Attacks on school board meetings are threatening democracy. Will educators help save it?

Joseph Kahne and John Rogers, Los Angeles Times

Over the past several months, school board meetings across the country have become ground zero for contentious and destructive battles. This vitriolic political rhetoric and threatening behavior is posing a serious threat to democracy.  Last month, anti-mask protesters forced their way into a Poway Unified School District board meeting in San Diego County, and video showed a few tried to swear themselves in as new school board members. In June, basketball players on Coronado High’s team threw tortillas into the air at the opposing team of predominantly Latino players. After the local school board issued a formal apology, one board member was repeatedly harassed on social media. Throughout the U.S., school board members are being subjected to abuse, and some of them are choosing to resign.

Educator faces recall for promoting the truth

Eleanor Bader, The Progressive

Shortly after the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor ignited nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020, North Kingstown, Rhode Island, resident Jennifer Lima declared her candidacy for the town’s school board. “I realized that if I wanted my children to participate in making change, I had to walk the walk, too,” she tells The Progressive. As the founder of Toward an Anti-Racist North Kingstown, Lima was already well known in the area, and she easily won a seat on the board in November 2020. In fact, she received 22.7 percent of the vote, making her the top vote-getter, and she wasted no time in working with the rest of the board to establish a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force.  Things seemed to be going smoothly until July 2021, when a small group of people submitted a Declaration for Intent to Petition for Recall against her. After establishing a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force, a Rhode Island school board member faced backlash from the right, including bullying, harassment, and a petition for recall.

Americans see stronger societal conflicts than people in other advanced economies

Aidan Connaughton, Pew Research Center

The United States stands out among 17 advanced economies as one of the most conflicted when it comes to questions of social unity. A large majority of Americans say there are strong political and strong racial and ethnic conflicts in the U.S. and that most people disagree on basic facts. And while Americans are not alone in this regard – France and South Korea also stand out as strongly conflicted societies – findings from a new Pew Research Center report reveal exactly how the U.S. is more divided than other societies surveyed. Nine-in-ten U.S. adults say there are conflicts between people who support different political parties, while an overall median of 50% say the same across all advanced economies surveyed. Similarly, about seven-in-ten Americans say there are conflicts between people with different ethnic or racial backgrounds in the U.S., more than all the other publics surveyed.

Other News of Note

Why activism needs to be part of any meaningful climate education

Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence

Last month, crowds of young people and supporters gathered in 1,500 locations around the world for one of the largest youth-led climate protests since countries began emerging from the most restrictive phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many students skipped school or staged class walkouts to participate in the Sept. 24 day of action, the latest surge of activity from the school strike movement that launched in late 2018. The protest was a sign that youth climate activists, who have had to adapt to COVID lockdowns and restrictions on large gatherings, are ready to reassert themselves through mass mobilizations. In just the last few years, young people have raised the profile of climate change as a national concern in the United States, made climate a major issue in Congress for the first time in over a decade, and persuaded colleges and universities to divest billions of dollars from fossil fuel companies. Most recently, thanks to student advocacy, schools like Harvard and Boston University have announced they are divesting from coal, oil and gas.