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!

The South’s Push to Resegregate Its Schools via Bloomberg Dive

Though it has no law allowing school secession, North Carolina is the latest Southern state looking to resegregate what’s left of the region’s integrated public schools. More than 60 years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling made school racial segregation unconstitutional, school secession has been gaining momentum across the South, with richer areas trying to wall their kids and tax dollars off from big districts in Atlanta; Dallas; Little Rock, Ark.; Baton Rouge, La.; Birmingham, Mobile, and Montgomery in Alabama; and Memphis and Chattanooga in Tennessee.

New Research: As Enrollment in Public Pre-K Surges, Quality Fails to Keep Pace via The 74 Million

About one-third of American 4-year-olds were enrolled in state-funded preschool programs in 2017, a sharp increase from the 14 percent enrolled in 2002, though spending on those programs and their quality hasn’t necessarily kept pace, a new report finds.

Enrollment is growing, but not fast enough, and it shouldn’t come at the expense of quality, said Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, which released its annual “State of Preschool” report Wednesday.

It Doesn’t Just Happen at Starbucks. Teachers Need Racial Bias Training Too. via Education Post

To me, being a teacher means being on the front lines of the fight for social justice. But the work cannot simply be external. To be the best teacher I can be, to be the best advocate and ally I can be, I need to first do my own work and face the racism within.

In the wake of the news that Starbucks is closing thousands of stores to participate in racial education training, it is perhaps worth noting that such training, while useful and a step in the right direction, also falls prey to another common misconception: The tearing down of implicit racial bias is not a one-off exercise, but rather something to be worked on day after day.

One thing to read this week…

Black Students in Milwaukee Are Demanding Changes to Racist Discipline in Public Schools via The Intercept

As Milwaukee schools criminalize youth behavior, black students fare the worst. Milwaukee’s black high school students are suspended at double the national rate — and though black students make up only 55 percent of the city’s student population, they accounted for nearly 85 percent of referrals to law enforcement in the 2013-2014 school year, according to the report. (Students with disabilities, who make up 20 percent of the student population, accounted for 91 percent of those restrained or put in seclusion in schools.)

“The fact that you have a group of young black kids willing to step up and say, We’re not going to take it anymore, is really powerful,” said Dakota Hall, executive director of Leaders Igniting Transformations (LIT). “The fact that they’re taking control of their own destiny and demanding that their values are met in public policies is uplifting.”

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