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

7 Findings That Illustrate Racial Disparities In Education via Brookings

On Wednesday, June 8, the Brown Center hosted a public event about racial inequities in education. This event brought together community and education leaders to discuss race and income and how they facto into education opportunity. Before the event, Brookings put together a list of findings regarding racial disparities in education. See the full list.

“Seth Gershenson’s troubling research finds that non-black teachers have significantly lower educational expectations for black students than black teachers do when evaluating the same students. For example, when a black student is evaluated by one black teacher and by one non-black teacher, the non-black teacher is about 30 percent less likely to expect that the student will complete a four-year college degree than the black teacher. ”

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Teach to One: Inside the Personalized Learning Program That Bill Gates Calls the ‘Future of Math’ via The 74

This one-of-a-kind math curriculum is personalized for each student. Teach To One is a company that uses personalized algorithms to create a learning schedule for each student, taking into account state testing requirements as well as student’s tendencies. They call themselves the ‘Pandora’ of education, knowing what a student needs next based on what they have skillfully mastered and their most effective learning style.

‘Teach To One: Math creates custom curriculum, not just personalized each day by a team from the New York offices, but built with three-week “playlists” of target skills and year-round goals. “We layer on real-world projects, tasks, group learning so day to day, through your experience, you understand what you are shooting for in a two- to three-week time,” Rush says.’

How Far We Haven’t Come? Racial Disparities In Education Today via Brookings

Remember the first article we sent you to in this post? Well, here’s a video from the event. In the video, a group of panelists discuss how we can bring the issue of education disparities to the forefront in the current political debate. Check out the article to see the video and read more about the event.

‘Panelists spoke at length about many pressing issues in K-12 education, with a main topic of discussion being how to bridge the achievement gap between white and non-white students. Brown Center Deputy Director Michael Hansen addressed the lack of diversity among America’s teachers, which he says will become worse as America’s racial demographics continue to change. He argued that direct policy intervention is necessary to address this issue because, “based on the numbers…it’s just not happening.”’

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