We’re back with Last Week’s Best Articles In Education!

Our team is always seeking the latest news in the field of education. As advocates for a quality education for ALL students, we know we have to stay up-to-date on everything that’s going on in the education spheres of our nation…from the White House to the local public school district, from new legislation to the small acts of bravery and kindness made by a single teacher, from the milestones and celebrations to the hazardous injustices affecting many of our nations students.

Here are the best stories we came across last week…because we believe you should stay up-to-date, too!

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He Called the School Board Racist. Now, He’s Joined It via The New York Times

Mr. Carson operates in that tenuous spot between hope and unrest. He applauded Decatur as a place where “we really have that hard conversation” about race, where the white police chief has been serious about investigating allegations of racism in his department.

Yet he ran for school board in large part because racial disparities remain among students. Even after he turned his life around, he encountered problems all too familiar to many black people here and around the country, from difficulty getting a job to uncomfortable encounters with the police.

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Schools Are Missing What Matters About Learning via The Atlantic

The power of curiosity to contribute not only to high achievement, but also to a fulfilling existence, cannot be emphasized enough. In the school context, conceptualized as a “character strength,” curiosity has also received heightened research attention. Having a “hungry mind” has been shown to be a core determinant of academic achievement, rivaling the prediction power of IQ.

Yet in actual schools, curiosity is drastically underappreciated. As Susan Engel has documented in her book, The Hungry Mind, amidst the country’s standardized testing mania, schools are missing what really matters about learning: The desire to learn in the first place.

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The real story of how a failing North Carolina school became a success story via Washington Post

This is a crucial concept for those who wish to improve struggling schools. A school is not a business — it is a community that reaches well beyond its walls. Building schools that reflect the society we want our children to live in is a more daunting task than simply reorganizing internal operations and monitoring test scores. But it’s a necessary one.

So here’s the story of how we built that community at Shamrock.

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One thing to read this week…

Critics of vouchers say they’re marred by racism and exacerbate segregation. Are they right? via Chalkbeat

It’s true that the idea of public subsidies for private school tuition grew in the 1950s and 60s as a means to avoid integration efforts — and it’s also true that there has long been pockets of support for the idea among progressives.

There is little evidence that existing voucher programs have caused increases in racial segregation. But there is also reason to fear a larger initiative, one that’s not limited to low-income families, might.

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Did any of these articles particularly speak to you? We would love to know your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below: