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Joanne Jacobs
Sep 2, 20221 min read
What does 'we' mean?
Jay Wamsted, who is White, teaches math in an Atlanta middle school where most students are Black. Last year, before Georgia passed a law...
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Joanne Jacobs
Aug 31, 20222 min read
'The child is not the creature of the state'
Parents aren't perfect. Some are very imperfect indeed. But they have the right to "direct the upbringing and education" of their...
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Joanne Jacobs
Aug 26, 20221 min read
Public trusts teachers, but not so much on racism or gender
Sixty-three percent of people trust local public-school teachers according to a new poll by PDK, an educators' group, reports Libby...
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Joanne Jacobs
Aug 17, 20222 min read
Education's middle ground is 'vanishing'
When schools closed in 2020, support for schools remained strong, but the public's faith in the quality of their local schools has...
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Joanne Jacobs
Jun 16, 20221 min read
Black male teachers are not security guards
If schools want more black male teachers, principals will have to let them be teachers — not security guards — writes Durrell Burns....
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Joanne Jacobs
Jun 13, 20221 min read
Second wave of learning loss is coming in ’23-24
Students learned a lot less in remote classes, test scores show. “The achievement loss is far greater than most educators and parents...
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Joanne Jacobs
Jun 11, 20222 min read
Kids, you’re not ‘stamped’
Moshe K. Levy considers himself “pro-human” rather than “anti-racist,” he writes on FAIR’s site. So he’s not a fan of Ibram X. Kendi’s...
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Joanne Jacobs
May 31, 20222 min read
Want to be antiracist? Teach kids to read
Education Week reports that a growing number of school districts are asking would-be teachers: “What have you done personally or...
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Joanne Jacobs
May 22, 20221 min read
If you want to speak up, you’d better be a saint
Princeton’s president wants to fire a tenured classics professor, but claims it’s not because he criticized “anti-racist” proposals,...
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Joanne Jacobs
May 10, 20222 min read
Causing discomfort remains legal
Lessons that cause students discomfort remain legal everywhere, even in Florida, writes Peter Minowitz, a Santa Clara University...
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Joanne Jacobs
May 10, 20222 min read
What’s ‘age appropriate’ for young students?
Parents and teachers want lessons to be “age appropriate,” but disagree on when children are ready for painful topics, writes Marta W....
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Joanne Jacobs
May 9, 20221 min read
Teaching about racism: Americans are divided
Americans agree that schools should teach about historic racism and slavery, but divided on present-day racism, writes Matt Barnum on...
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Joanne Jacobs
May 5, 20222 min read
Is social-emotional learning a Trojan horse?
While social-emotional learning sounds “positive and uncontroversial” in theory, “in practice, SEL serves as a delivery mechanism for...
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Joanne Jacobs
Mar 22, 20202 min read
Closing the Racial Achievement Gap, Or Not
A contrarian view, to be sure, but I can’t say the author’s wrong: In 2015, MCPS (Montgomery County, MD, Public Schools) embarked on a...
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Joanne Jacobs
Apr 29, 20191 min read
Segregation?
What are the possible explanations for this phenomenon? But more troubling, and often less discussed, is the modern-day form of...
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Joanne Jacobs
Sep 18, 20181 min read
If schooling was as important as football
Vesia Hawkins loves football, she writes on Volume & Light, which follows Nashville schools. This year, she’s taking her young cousin to...
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Joanne Jacobs
Sep 17, 20182 min read
Black boys lack ‘a teacher who looks like me’
Boys do better with male teachers and non-white students better with a same-race teacher, studies show. Yet, 77 percent of teachers are...
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Joanne Jacobs
Aug 3, 20181 min read
Why black teachers quit
“In recent years, there’s been an increased push to get more teachers of color into the classroom, often highlighting large gaps between...
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Joanne Jacobs
Jul 17, 20182 min read
New Orleans improves — a lot
“After Katrina’s devastation, New Orleans embarked on the the most ambitious education overhaul in modern America,” writes David...
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Joanne Jacobs
Jul 16, 20182 min read
Less discipline, more disorder
– Education Next 2015 The Obama-era push to reduce suspensions of black students ended up hurting black students, writes Gail Heriot, a...
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