When the powers that be talk about sending kids to war, they aren’t talking about their kids. So, whose kids are they talking about, and where do those kids come from? I teach senior English at an urban high school in upstate New York. The poverty rate here is high. There are no Fortunate Sons […]
Current Events in Education
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
The Moral Challenge and Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Message to the Student Leaders
On Friday, mourners will have one last chance to pay their respects to the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The public homegoing service in Chicago marks the end of a two weeks of memorials that crisscrossed the country as the nation after the Civil Rights icon died on Feb. 17. His passing is not just a moment […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
The End of the Do-Over? Retake Policies in the Age of AI
As a college professor who also teaches high school students computer science in a summer program, dinner-table conversations in my home often sound like faculty meetings. My husband, an assistant principal and former classroom social studies teacher, and I regularly compare notes about what we are seeing in students as they move from middle school […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
When Everyone Else is Scrolling: Why I’m Delaying Smartphones for My Daughters
I’ve spent a decade teaching high school English, and I can tell you exactly when a student got their first unrestricted smartphone. Not because they tell me, but because I watch it happen in real time. The attention span fragments, the anxiety spikes, and the ability to sit with difficult thoughts disappears. I’m also a […]
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From Funding to Fidelity: What Districts Should Know as LIFT Implementation Begins
With the launch of LASO Cycle 4, Texas is ushering in the next evolution of its grant and allotment programs, investing over $500 million to strengthen schools across the state. “Learning Acceleration Support Opportunities (LASO) is a single, consolidated application that combines grants, allotments, and in-kind supports, bundled around a few key strategies to accelerate […]
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Holding your kids back: Retention isn’t the problem
The idea that holding students back when they haven’t met grade-level standards does more harm than good is a widely held belief in education circles. This phrase is often repeated as if it were an unquestionable scientific fact. But few anti-retention advocates seem to understand how the foundational studies were conducted, what the data could […]
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Trump administration abandons appeal targeting DEI in education
The Trump administration has withdrawn a significant initiative that sought to curb diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts across schools and colleges. The Trump administration has filed a notice withdrawing its appeal in a case that sought to roll back more than 60 years of civil rights protections in public education after attempting to require […]
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Chasing a different STAAR: HB8 changes to state testing for elementary and middle schooL students in Texas
I remember the exact moment. It was June 2023, right after the last bell rang on a Friday afternoon. My colleague stuck her head in my classroom door, grinning. “Did you hear? They killed the STAAR!” We’d been teaching under the weight of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness for over a decade. […]