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‘These are the facts’: Black educators silenced from teaching America’s racist past | US education
History teacher Valanna White filed into the auditorium the first week of August for the customary back-to-school all-staff meeting at Walker Valley high school in Cleveland, Tennessee. What she heard shifted her outlook for the coming school year. On 1 July, a new law took effect banning the teaching of critical race theory in Tennessee public schools. White listened intently as a school district official gave a vague overview informing the group that critical race theory was prohibited, though without fully explaining what critical race theory entails. Instead, teachers were told a list of actions – such as discussing racial discrimination – that were forbidden. White left the meeting confused…
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Is America’s Educational System Becoming More Pluralistic?
Derek Thompson: The truth about kids, school, and COVID-19 Why has the political response to school closures been so muted? For one, at least 28 percent of students are receiving instruction that is fully in-person, and many reside in Republican-leaning districts. As the political scientists Michael T. Hartney and Leslie K. Fingers recently observed, the best predictor for whether a school district offered in-person learning this fall was Donald Trump’s vote share in that district in 2016. In California, for example, public schools in politically competitive and right-leaning areas such as Fresno, San Diego, and Orange Counties are mostly in-person while schools in San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles remain…
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America’s unequal jobs recovery in 7 charts
The Covid-19 pandemic has been bad for the United States economy, but not as bad as some experts and economists feared early on in the outbreak. The recovery, though, is uneven — and it’s slowing. In January, the unemployment rate dropped to 6.3 percent, and the country added just 49,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The labor force participation rate is lower than it was pre-pandemic, as many Americans left the workforce. America is also still millions of jobs short of where it was pre-pandemic. “This morning’s employment report revealed a stall in the American job creation machine and underscores how precarious of a situation our economy…
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This Developer Role is Supposedly America’s Best Job
What are the best jobs in America, and how many of them are in tech? That’s a hard question to answer—after all, it hinges on your definition of a “best job”—but Glassdoor recently took a stab at it with it 50 Best Jobs for 2021. As with many other “best of” lists, Glassdoor blended a number of metrics together, including median base salary, job satisfaction rating, and number of job openings. In a twist that probably won’t surprise you, many of the top jobs on the list were in tech, with Java developer in the number-one slot (median base salary: $90,830; job satisfaction: 4.2/5; job openings, 10,103). Data scientist came in second, which…
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How to teach America’s negative history prompts debate on NC Board of Education :: WRAL.com
By Emily Walkenhorst, WRAL education reporter Proposed revisions to North Carolina’s new social studies standards led to intense division among some state Board of Education members, several of whom were concerned about the proposed standards themselves being too divisive. The proposal goes before the board for a vote next week, but members discussed the latest revised language at a specially called meeting on Wednesday. At issue is whether the proposed standards teach enough of the negative history of the United States or do enough to encourage students to feel positively about their country. Per the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 85{c25493dcd731343503a084f08c3848bd69f9f2f05db01633325a3fd40d9cc7a1} of the 7,000 comments received on the proposed…
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Biden seeks to “refresh” America’s grand science strategy
President Biden is tasking his new science adviser with examining the long-term U.S. strategy for science and technology amid competition from China and deepening inequality at home. The big picture: The post-World War II framework for scientific research in the U.S. drove decades of prosperity for the country. But the U.S., the world and the practice of science have all changed dramatically since then, prompting calls to adjust the model. What’s new: In a letter last week, Biden asked geneticist Eric Lander — his pick as presidential science adviser — to “refresh and reinvigorate our national science and technology strategy to set us on a strong course for the next 75 years.”…
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Opinion: What comes next for America’s students
Imagine it’s August 2021, and the kids are finally able to go back to school without fear of a global pandemic. Parents rejoice. So do teachers. We all give thanks to the medical and logistical experts who rolled out an unprecedented vaccine distribution. But even if we’ve gotten the danger under control, big questions about the future of K-12 education still confront the nation. Can distance learning be deployed in the future to ease inequality rather than exacerbate it? How can those children most in need get help with the academic and psychological burdens of the last year? These pressing issues, along with a host of non-pandemic-related ones that have…
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