Extra Credit shares some additional education topics of note from the past week or so.
What we don’t want to know can hurt us. A new poll reveals that only 14% of American adults – and a mere 26% of parents of K-12 students – pay close attention to what their local school board is doing. Since culture wars are prompting an influx of parent-activist candidates, it’s a good bet that half of us may grow uncomfortable with changes in the coming few years. Among the poll’s other findings: About 50% believe parents and teachers don’t have enough influence on public school curriculum; and about 25% see too much school focus on racism, sex and sexuality, while approximately one-third say there’s too little focus on these areas.
Which math textbooks did Florida reject? Here’s the list. Earlier this week, Florida officials hadn’t given companies whose books were rejected any details about why, only saying the books included “unsolicited strategies” such as social-emotional learning or “prohibited topics” such as critical race theory or Common Core State Standards instead of Florida’s new B.E.S.T. standards. Now, Florida officials have released some information.
Schools and gun violence: “Some kids don’t come back the next day.” A teacher in Philadelphia steels herself every morning, wondering whether any of her students will succumb to gun violence. If I tried to link to all the recent gun crimes involving or affecting K-12 students, my computer might run out of blue underlining. This terrific collection of articles tells how Philadelphia schools are dealing with the surge. (Chalkbeat)
Why don’t we tap students’, teachers’ knowledge and ideas? Our SmartBrief for the National Association of State Boards of Education on April 21 mentioned a student member on Guam’s education board and her trip to the organization’s conference. In the linked article, she says she didn’t realize that not all state boards have student members. Schools’ constituents are the students, and many of them feel strongly about policies. Perhaps it’s time that all local and state education boards include at least one teacher and one student, if not more.
University embraces the subscription model (EdSurge, as seen in our SmartBrief on Higher Education)
Columnist suggests remembering the public mission of public schools. (The New York Times)
161 schools’ innovations for marginalized students (The 74)
Did Minneapolis’ tradition of schools strongly supporting music lead a young Prince to speak up? (The Conversation)
Diane Benson Harrington is an education writer at SmartBrief. Reach out to her via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.
________________________________
If you liked this article, sign up for SmartBrief’s free email newsletter from ASCD. It’s among SmartBrief’s more than 250 industry-focused newsletters.
More from SmartBrief Education:
- 5 ways new school-home communication meets family, staff needs
- 5 virtual-classroom tools to foster authentic connections
- Changing the classroom experience with instructional audio
- Powerful social media solutions for students
- How comics curriculum boosts SEL
- 8 ways to make vocabulary instruction more effective