In May 2018, first-graders at George Peabody Elementary School in San Francisco sat cross-legged around the perimeter of a rectangular rug, each slightly swaying and bouncing like an electron held in place by a nucleus’s positive force. It’s hard to say what the main attraction was: Kristine Keane, the school social worker whose eyes narrow...

The nation’s K-12 schools reacted to the disruption of COVID-19 in broadly similar ways regardless of whether they were district, charter or private, according to new research released Monday. In general, traditional public schools did not lag behind charters or private schools, except for a few days near the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis when...

As summer approached, Ruthie Seroussi of Los Angeles began to worry about how to occupy her young sons. Even remote learning offered a structure to the day, but with summer camps cancelled, she dreaded battles over the TV and Xbox. She and her husband are both attorneys, but he works in an office while she...

Uncertainty surrounds the start of the 2020-21 school year. Districts around the country must prepare for three types of learning environments: the in-person style they’ve known for decades, the distance learning most were tossed into during the pandemic, and the most likely of scenarios — a hybrid environment, mixing both remote and in-classroom education. This...

The following statement was released Monday morning by both the Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified School Districts:  On March 13, four months ago today, we made the difficult decision to close our schools to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Much has changed since that time: New research is available, additional information on...

Over the next several weeks, The 74 will be publishing stories reported and written before the coronavirus pandemic. Their publication was sidelined when schools across the country abruptly closed, but we are sharing them now because the information and innovations they highlight remain relevant to our understanding of education. Riverhead, New York  Under oath in...

Singer Alicia Keys had a heartfelt book recommendation for the nearly 700,000 students of the Los Angeles Unified School District. So she shared it on Snapchat for any L.A. student to download for free, marking the launch of the A-List Book Club. She’s only one of the celebrity participants in a virtual effort led by...

In 2019, The Sidewalk School opened in a cramped tent city on the U.S.-Mexico border. Now its students, craving educational opportunities in the States, face their latest challenge: learning during a pandemic The Sidewalk School in Matamoros, Mexico, founded last summer by two American volunteers, defied convention from the start. Located just three miles from...

A new research effort underway at Tulane University aims to track how every K-12 school in the United States — district, charter and private — responded to the coronavirus pandemic and the abrupt shift to remote learning that came with it. Led by economist and education researcher Douglas Harris, the project is part of REACH, the National...

Amber Bennett was 11 when she took her first class at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio. As a seventh-grader, she was eligible for College Credit Plus, a statewide dual enrollment program designed to increase access for low-income students, students who were the first in their families to attend college and children of color. “It...