-
Analysis: Tutoring during the summer is a great first step toward fixing pandemic learning loss. It must continue into the fall

There’s a lot riding on this summer. Schools are reopening their doors to in-person learning in the fall, and many see this summer as a chance to address the unfinished learning the pandemic leaves in its wake. But no matter how successful summer programs are, schools can’t expect to operate business as usual this fall....
By Amanda Neitzel | July 1, 2021
-
Analysis: Digital learning is here to stay. Now, give non-traditional online schools the funding to meet their students’ needs

If we have learned one thing from the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that a one-size-fits-all approach to education doesn’t cut it. While many students struggled with the transition from in-person learning to emergency remote instruction, others have thrived using some of the new and innovative models implemented during the pandemic. As education continues to evolve and...
By Yovhane Metcalfe | June 30, 2021
-
Can right answers be wrong? Latest clash over ‘white supremacy culture’ unfolds in unlikely arena: Math class

To learn the geometric concept of transformations this year, Crystal Watson’s eighth-graders drew up blueprints of apartments. As they worked, she asked them to imagine designing affordable housing for Black and Hispanic families like theirs in Cincinnati who have been priced out of their neighborhoods. But when she had them add a hallway down the...
By Linda Jacobson | June 29, 2021
-
Analysis: Pandemic learning loss is rooted in the racial chasm between educators and students of color. Only teacher diversity and a strong Black teacher pipeline can fix it

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” —Aboriginal rights leaders A McKinsey & Co. study on the impact of COVID-19 has told the nation that “the pandemic has set back learning for all students,...
By Sharif El-Mekki | June 28, 2021
-
Rotherham: We need a national commission on inclusion for transgender student athletes

When I was in high school I worked part time at a dry cleaners. One day, a regular customer came in and asked to speak with me privately. He was, he told me, about to undergo a process to change his gender that involved some physical changes and was concerned that because the legalities would...
By Andrew Rotherham | June 24, 2021
-
Analysis: It’s time for free community college. Here are 5 reasons why

A version of this essay first appeared on The Kresge Foundation. Making community college tuition-free should be a national priority. It would help counter recent enrollment declines at our nation’s community colleges. It would help produce the trained employees businesses say they are lacking. Most importantly, it would bring low-income students and students of color into higher education,...
By Laura W. Perna and Edward J. Smith | June 23, 2021
-
USC survey: Schools have proposed a variety of COVID recovery solutions, but parents aren’t so thrilled about most options on the table

After more than a year in which the majority of students attended school fully or partially remotely, districts nationwide are contemplating how to meet children’s present academic and social needs and prepare them for the 2021-22 academic year. A slew of policies and practices are on the table for the summer and coming year, bolstered...
By Morgan Polikoff and Anna Rosefsky Saavedra | June 22, 2021
-
College enrollment continues to plunge, marking the worst single-year decline since 2011

Restaurants and airports may be filling up again as the pandemic eases, but not college campuses. The continued steep drops in college enrollment, especially at community colleges which attract disproportionate numbers of low-income and minority students, are both surprising and worrisome. This spring, overall college enrollment fell by 603,000 students, from 17.5 million to 16.9...
By Richard Whitmire | June 21, 2021
-
Gender gap in vaccination narrower among youth than adults, early numbers show

As young people continue to line up for coronavirus shots, the gender breakdown appears, well, surprisingly even. Compared to a persistent gap between adult men and women in vaccination rates, with women rolling up their sleeves considerably more than men nationwide, early data indicate that the split has been far less pronounced among youth. In...
By Asher Lehrer-Small | June 17, 2021
-
A school discipline double-take: How Catherine Lhamon could turn back the clock with a renewed focus on persistent racial disparities — and ignite new feuds

When former President Donald Trump secured the White House, a top priority was clear from the onset: Erase the legacy of foe and predecessor Barack Obama. A newly sidelined Catherine Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights during the Obama administration, refused to watch quietly. Just months into Trump’s term, a ProPublica...
By Mark Keierleber | June 16, 2021