What topic is especially important to you? Email your thoughts or some links to the address at the bottom.
Should teachers put out tip jars? Several states are increasing teacher pay this year. Any increase in salary is great, but teachers have been battling for better pay for a long time – and it took a pandemic to get them this far. Most legislators who voted for a bump in teacher salaries probably weren’t viewing this as the first of many. We expect these amazing people to be educator, psychologist, parent and referee – simultaneously – and they don’t want a cute little sticker for their efforts. Maybe they could slide a tip jar onto their desk during school events and parent-teacher conferences? (Venmo and Zelle welcome too.)
Maybe start a GoFundMe for bail? Was it truly an oversight that Kentucky’s new law could put teachers in jail for up to a year for violating rules on discussions of race and touchy history subjects? Hey, if they can’t afford bail, we can make them teach our kids! Oh, wait …
When is a $100K overrun not a big deal? Never. The gas price increase has left one Minnesota school district forking over an extra $100,000. School leaders explain what has to give in cases like these. Did you know that rising food prices also affect the very same food that schools feed students? A few months after prices go back to normal, the cries of districts living beyond their means will return.
If only talking about money made us rich … Since that doesn’t work, maybe people can get it through their heads that acknowledging a student’s two-father household or explaining that transgender students are still humans with hearts is not “grooming” or wicked or wrong. First, it doesn’t work that way! Second, why do people want to legislate against issues they don’t understand? Or, third, take advantage of people who don’t understand? Fourth, why hasn’t anyone asked students what they think? Fifth, why not just look at the facts?
- More than 125 education bills await action. And this is just Ohio. (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio)
- How’d your state do? Report Card on the States’ Response to COVID-19 (National Bureau of Economic Research)
- What do war and COVID-19 have in common? School disruption. (The New York Times)
- The amazing volunteers rushing to save Ukraine’s digital archives. (We featured this in our social studies newsletter this week.) (Washington Post)
Diane Benson Harrington is an education writer at SmartBrief. Reach out to her via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.
SmartBrief education writers and editors read hundreds of articles, studies and press releases each week – too many to summarize and fit neatly into the sections of our newsletters. Education Extra Credit shares some additional topics of note from the past week or so. Check out some of the past issues.
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