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!
The Educators Helping Students Through Trauma via The Atlantic
This project reports on the traumatic experiences many young children in New Orleans are dealing with at home, and how some schools are turning to trauma-informed teaching to better serve these students. One of the students interviewed for the project was Sherlae, a 13-year-old student coping with a family mental-health crisis.
After The Hechinger Report’s text and the WWNO radio series ran last year, the journalist and illustrator Sukjong Hong traveled to New Orleans to meet with Katy Reckdahl, a Hechinger writer, and Sherlae to create this graphic rendering of her story.
How Education Has Changed Under the Trump Administration Since the 2016 Election via Teen Vogue
This school year has not been ordinary. One year after the election of the 45th president, students are in schools and on college campuses during a time when this country may not seem to be living up to its ideals.
As a former teacher and principal, as an advocate for education equity, and as a public school parent, I am convinced that the current challenges require our urgent collective commitment to equity. We all have to be making our voices heard, marching in the streets, demanding change, and being politically active. As a nation, we must ask our governors, our legislators, and our members of Congress to act on the right side of history regardless of their party. We cannot accept policies that degrade our humanity. It is time we reject them and replace them with policies that invest in students, expand opportunity, and protect civil rights if we want to save lives and strengthen our country.
Yes, the Republican tax bill would help rich parents send their kids to private school via The Washington Post
For years, conservatives have been promoting publicly financed private school vouchers for low-income students. There doesn’t seem to be much to recommend them: not only do the vouchers divert public funds away from public schools, but the evidence is very mixed about whether such programs improve the academic achievement of the vouchers’ recipients. Despite these concerns, Republicans in Congress are now proposing to spend billions of federal funds over time to subsidize private-school education for the children of higher-earning families.
One thing to read this week…
The Education of Betsy DeVos via Politico Magazine
DeVos may have been Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominee—the first in American history to require a tiebreaking confirmation vote cast by the vice president. Yet she runs the administration’s smallest and arguably least potent federal department; DeVos does not enforce America’s laws like Attorney General Sessions, or direct its international relations like Secretary of State Tillerson. And after nine months in office, it has become apparent to the education secretary that she has limited power to transform the nation’s schools. When it comes to the most contentious debates surrounding America’s K-12 system—vouchers, standards, incentives, tests—DeVos had more tangible influence as a private citizen in Michigan than she does now in Washington.
Did any of these articles particularly speak to you? We would love to know your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below:
