The national childhood poverty rate reached record lows just before the pandemic. The share of children living below the federal poverty line dropped from 22% to 14% over the previous decade, with Black and Hispanic children benefiting most from the decline. The economic downturn in 2020 reversed that trend — and the overturning of abortion […]
Education
Posted inEducation, K-12
Why Some Teachers Are – and Aren’t – Teaching Their Students About Juneteenth
A last-minute piece of legislation from the Biden administration made Juneteenth a federal holiday a year ago. The sudden change on June 17, 2021 — two days before the holiday — left many institutions unprepared. But this year, observances of Juneteenth have been seen coast to coast, and many schools have followed suit. The new […]
Posted inEducation, K-12
Becky Pringle: The Black Woman Representing Teachers Across the Country
Many Americans learned Becky Pringle’s name for the first time last week, when she testified about the nation’s gun violence epidemic in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Pringle, president of the National Education Association, recounted the stories of several deadly shootings that have struck schools nationwide recently, including last month’s massacre […]
Posted inEducation, K-12
Racist Bullying is a Problem That Won’t Go Away Anytime Soon
The headlines read like news from the 1960s: Students at an Ohio high school hung “whites only” and “blacks only” signs above the water fountains. In Maryland, a Confederate flag was hung outside a high school. And in Florida, white students at a middle school took a photo holding up letters that spelled a racial […]
Posted inEducation, K-12
How Police Officers Started Working at Schools — And Why Some People Want Them Out
It’s been 10 days since a gunman infiltrated an elementary school in the small town of Uvalde, Texas, fatally shooting 19 students and two teachers. But many questions remain about how police officers handled the tragic event and whether lives could have been spared. Families’ accounts of begging police officers to enter the school — […]
Posted inEducation, K-12
The Pandemic Worsened Racial Achievement Gaps. Making up the Difference Won’t Be Easy.
Virtual schooling during the pandemic has had a debilitating effect on academic progress for Black and Hispanic students, expanding already wide test-score gaps with their white counterparts, according to a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Those learning losses will have “major impacts” on Black and Hispanic students’ future financial earnings, […]
Posted inEducation, K-12
Schools Have Reopened, But Some Black Students Aren’t Going Back
For Angela Carter Iwu, her youngest child’s first year of school was fraught with frustrations. As a relatively quiet 5-year-old, his tricky transition to the rhythms of kindergarten was further complicated by weekly phone calls from the teacher recounting to Iwu his shortcomings as a student. Her highly acclaimed suburban-Houston school district failed to measure […]
Posted inEducation, K-12
What Happened After LA Schools Cut Police Funds and Hired Mental Health Staff for Black Students
Kyla Payne distinctly remembers being on edge any time she entered Dorsey High School in Los Angeles. The 16-year-old felt uncomfortable being monitored by campus police officers who seemed to be intent on finding crimes and rule violations that weren’t there, Payne said. “I know for me and my friends, it was difficult trying to […]
