We hope you’re enjoying your Thanksgiving weekend and have found time for rest and relaxation while spending quality time with family and/or friends.  At some point this weekend, take time to read 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!

Is DeVos Near Ending School Discipline Reform After Talks on Race, Safety? via The 74 Million

“When we saw that still, in this century, black students were three times more likely than their white peers to be subject to exclusionary school discipline, that was enormously distressing and a real call to action,” said Catherine Lhamon, the Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights under President Barack Obama, who sent the 2014 guidance letter. Lhamon now chairs the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which is investigating Trump administration enforcement of federal civil rights laws.

A Heavy Blow to One of America’s Most Controversial School Boards via The Atlantic

As is the case in districts across the country, the racial composition of a school board in the New York City suburb of Ramapo doesn’t look anything like that of the predominantly nonwhite student population it serves. The news Thursday of a lawsuit challenging the district’s school-board election proceedings in an attempt to change that might just seem like another effort to challenge the status quo.

But this case is a little different. It’s not just an equity-minded attempt to reform a seemingly flawed policy—it’s also an explosive development of a chaotic tale of cultural collisions and political dissonance that has been simmering for at least a decade.

60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, how racially balanced are America’s public schools? via The Brookings Institution

It’s been more than 60 years since the Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education, ruled “separate but equal” schools unconstitutional. In that time, school populations have diversified, thanks in large part to an increase in the numbers of Hispanic and Asian students attending U.S. schools.

But how closely do America’s traditional public and charter schools look like the communities they serve? And if schools’ student bodies don’t reflect their neighborhoods’ racial makeup, how come?

One thing to read this week…

The ‘DeVos effect’ on the November elections via The Washington Post

The November elections were, without question, a referendum on the leadership and administration of Donald Trump. Given that his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, is as unpopular as any of his Cabinet members, it is not surprising that her policies were issues in some state and school board outcomes. This post shares a few examples of what we’ll call the “DeVos effect.”

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