Wealth disparities can be apparent on the first day of school when some students show up with new supplies and clothes while others carry used materials and wear hand-me-downs. For families already struggling to make ends meet, the soaring cost of back-to-school supplies and technology can drain their already limited budgets. That is especially true...

Although the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended affirmative action in college admission decisions with its June 29 decision, the ruling will not affect tribal colleges and universities, administrators said. The Supreme Court effectively ruled 6-3 in the case Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. The ruling means most colleges and...

Teacher satisfaction has reached an all time low in recent years. This is due to many of the new challenges brought on by the pandemic — including teacher turnover, compounded by teachers feeling undervalued — and leads to a larger question: What can we do to increase teacher retention in our schools and help teachers...

The devastation of the opioid crisis on families and communities is well documented, but its long-term effects on future generations of American children are still unknown. In 2017 alone, an estimated 2.2 million children in the United States were directly affected by parental opioid use or their own. In the 21st century, annual opioid-related overdose deaths among 15-...

Shortly before First Lady Jill Biden took the podium at the White House Tuesday to champion a new federal initiative to combat K-12 school ransomware attacks, the cyber gang Medusa announced its latest victim on the dark web. Such unrelenting attacks — this time against a Bergen County, New Jersey, district —are what brought the...

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea When the main character of a kids TV show can both listen and respond to viewers by using advances in artificial intelligence, youngsters learn more from the program. That’s what my colleagues and I found in a series of peer-reviewed studies. We are...

An LAUSD magnet school recently celebrated a remarkable milestone by unveiling a stunning mural. Valley Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, or VOCES, welcomed the mural as a step in the school’s effort to create an inspiring campus environment. VOCES is a new school serving students from grades 6-12. Formerly Sun Valley High School, the east...

More than three years after the pandemic began, a crisis in teaching quality may be stalling academic recovery, new research shows. Faced with exhaustion, staffing shortages, and frequent student disruptions, many educators are using “outdated and ineffective” methods and content below grade level, according to a report released last week by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at...

As ransomware and other cyber attacks become an increasingly potent threat to schools nationwide, a proposal by Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel seeks to create the first federal funding stream to help districts fight back. A three-year pilot program announced by Rosenworcel earlier this month could invest up to $200 million to enhance cybersecurity...

The primary industry in Lodi, California, is agriculture. About 40 miles southeast of the capital city of Sacramento, this land flanking the Mokelumne River is blanketed in grapevines dating back to 1850. But in this grape-producing powerhouse, which produces 20% of all of California’s wine grapes, just 80 independent wineries stand. Farmers sell most of...