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Peering 30 years into the future, economists see lost earnings for the pandemic generation of students — but summer school might help

The year 2050 may seem a long way off, but in 29 years our current crop of K-12 students will be well into their careers. How will this chaotic school year have affected them? Recent findings from the University of Pennsylvania warn that over the next three decades, our recent COVID-related U.S. school closures, as...
By Greg Toppo | August 18, 2021
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Virtual pre-K filled a void for ‘overwhelmed’ parents last year, but experts disagree about its role — and federal funding — in a post-pandemic world

As in most pre-K classrooms, Geneva Gadsden’s students — known as the All Stars — rotate through different stations, from dress-up corners to building block areas. But the All Stars, the Happy Owls and other groups of preschoolers at the Whitted School in Durham, North Carolina, also take turns with Chromebooks, spending 15 minutes a...
By Linda Jacobson | August 17, 2021
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Helping students feel seen and heard: Along, a new digital SEL tool, helps teachers engage their pupils — and unlock better learning

Teachers’ ability to connect individually with students went from tricky to downright challenging during the pandemic. But a new digital reflection tool, Along, can help teachers create personal relationships with students while allowing each student to feel seen and understood. After a pilot program with hundreds of teachers last school year, this summer’s launch of...
By Tim Newcomb | August 16, 2021
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Art teachers are teaching girls to code

Nancy Mastronardi does all kinds of art with her students at Joella C. Good elementary school in Miami. Some weeks it’s drawing and painting, other weeks it’s weaving and pottery. At the Title 1 school, creativity is on display everywhere you look—from the sunshine-yellow tile mosaic flanking the school’s entrance to the painted superhero vegetables...
By Celeste Hamilton Dennis, Next City | August 9, 2021
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‘A rising tide that lifts all boats’: Having more immigrant peers can boost scores for U.S.-born students, new study finds

March marked an all-time monthly high in solo youth crossings at the U.S. southern border. Those children and teenagers could be an unexpected boon for native-born students should they reach American classrooms, a timely new study suggests. The research, which analyzes a decade’s worth of data from over 1.3 million Florida students, links the presence of immigrant classmates...
By Asher Lehrer-Small | August 3, 2021
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Elusive data show teaching candidates fail licensing exams in huge numbers

Across the country each year, thousands of teaching candidates get ready to begin their classroom careers. They finish up their graduate coursework, start scanning excitedly for job openings — and then fail their states’ teacher licensure exams. Dejected and daunted by the prospect of retaking the test, many never become teachers. It’s a distressing pattern...
By Kevin Mahnken | August 2, 2021
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Twitter breaks, meditative walks, security guards: How school leaders are responding to an unsettling season of public outrage

As one of 27 district leaders on a national COVID recovery task force, Virginia Beach schools Superintendent Aaron Spence helped craft a list of the issues his counterparts across the country would need to consider as they reopened schools. But during one meeting earlier this year, he said he interrupted the conversation with a more...
By Linda Jacobson | July 29, 2021
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LA-based education platform Numerade offers free online STEM bootcamps to help MS and HS students overcome COVID learning loss

Summer is a time for students to explore personal interests, and for an expected 100,000 students, free STEM bootcamps will provide a chance to expand their understanding of everything from calculus to chemistry, biology to algebra. For the second straight summer, Numerade is offering free summer bootcamp courses as a way to combat pandemic learning...
By Tim Newcomb | July 27, 2021
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More than a quarter million fewer students applied for financial aid during pandemic, signaling COVID’s effect on college entry

More than a quarter of a million fewer high school seniors have applied for financial aid since the beginning of the pandemic, and the slip is particularly striking in schools with high minority and low-income student populations — an early indicator that the decline in college enrollment among disadvantaged students is continuing. The analysis, released...
By Linda Jacobson | July 26, 2021
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‘Cruel and vindictive’: Immigrant youth rally outside Houston courthouse after federal judge strikes down DACA

Immigrant-rights activists rallied outside a Houston courthouse on Monday demanding the Biden administration act swiftly to protect them after a federal judge halted an Obama-era program that provides deportation relief and work permits to hundreds of thousands of undocumented residents brought here as children. “It hurts deeply that my home state, the place I’ve grown...
By Mark Keierleber | July 21, 2021