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Predominantly Black and Latino schools are more likely to have on-site law enforcement than those with largely white enrollment, a new analysis finds.

And that disparity holds true in both high- and low-poverty schools, says the report, released by the Urban Institute April 6.

The findings come as federal lawmakers and the Tennessee legislature debate boosting funding for school police and armed security officers after six people died in a March 27 shooting at The Covenant School, a church-run Nashville elementary school.

But civil rights and student groups have long cautioned that the presence of law enforcement in schools can lead to the criminalization of routine disciplinary issues, particularly when their day-to-day roles are not carefully defined.

Here's what you need to know.

Predominantly white schools are less likely to have school police

Predominantly Black or Latino schools-those where Black or Latino students make up at least 80 percent of enrollment-are more likely to have officers on site.

The authors of the analysis combined data from the U.S. Department of Education's 2017-18 federal Civil Rights Data Collection-the most recent data available on school policing-with a separate school-level poverty estimate model developed by Urban Institute researchers. They defined "higher income" schools as those with poverty estimates above the overall national median rate, and "lower income" schools as those with estimates below the median.

What they found:

Among predominantly Black schools, 36 percent defined as lower income had a school resource officer, compared to 37 percent of those defined as higher income.

Among predominantly Latino schools, 34 percent of lower-income schools had a school resource officer, compared to 36 percent of higher-income schools.

Among predominantly white schools, 5 percent of lower-income schools had an SRO, compared to 11 percent of higher-income schools.

"Other factors could explain differences in the presence of SROs, including urbanicity, state policy, and income differences beyond the above-and-below-median measure we use," the analysis says. "But these differences are unlikely to explain the starkly unequal exposure that Black and Latinx students have to SROs. Exposure is particularly troubling for those attending low-income schools, which often have fewer resources and higher discipline rates."

Calls for increased school policing

Calls for increased school policing have increased following the Nashville school shooting.

In Tennessee, lawmakers are considering Republican Gov. Bill Lee's proposal to provide $140 million in grants to place SROs in every public school in the state.

Tennessee's U.S. Senators, Republicans Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, introduced federal legislation to establish a $900 million grant program for both public and private schools to hire veterans and former law enforcement officers to work as "school safety officers." The funding could also be used to hire off-duty law enforcement officers, or for physical security measures.

Concerns about school officers' role in student discipline.

Critics of school police as well as some researchers have questioned whether an increase in on-site officers really makes students safer. Those concerns took on new weight after numerous law enforcement agencies took an hour to confront a school shooter in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022.

In recent years, student activists have called for removing police from schools or for limiting their roles in student discipline through carefully crafted agreements with districts.

Those efforts saw momentum during widespread racial justice protests following the 2020 Minneapolis, Minn., police killing of George Floyd.

Between May 2020 and June 2022, at least 50 school districts ended their school policing programs or cut their budgets, according to an EdWeek tracker. As of last June, at least eight districts had reversed course and brought them back.

Most recently, leaders of the Denver school district, which removed school police in 2020, committed to reversing course after a 17-year-old student shot and injured two administrators March 22 as they were searching him for weapons as part of an individual "safety plan."

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Schools With More Black and Latino Students Likelier to Have Police

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Predominantly Black and Latino schools are more likely to have on-site law enforcement than those with largely white enrollment, a new analysis finds. And that disparity holds true in both high- and low-poverty schools, says the report, released by the Urban Institute April 6.

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Why Black Children Must See Themselves.

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...we can cultivate a new era, an earthly paradise, where liberation exists in every crevice and space for Black children.

I remember seeing a little Black girl being viciously yelled at to stop moving and to sit with her hands folded while her eyes followed the teacher. When she moved an inch, out of jitters or childish restlessness, her teacher responded with a death glare or a disparaging tone that blindly enforced obedience. My task was to identify certain skills the teacher demonstrated that were "great" and while sitting in my disbelief and discomfort, I couldn't find any. Instead, violence and militarism is what I witnessed. This is the position so many Black educators have found themselves in. The position in which the status quo in education- where whiteness dictates which behaviors, attitudes and scholarship is to be permissible and celebrated within the classroom- is perpetuated regardless of the inherently racialized violence it inflicts onto Black students. It is by refusing to reproduce the status quo in my classroom that I have worked aimlessly as a Black educator to resist harmful forms of teaching by educating from a place of love and not from a place of duty or violence.
RELATED: Black educators and administrators, let's remember to center and uplift Black children as they return to school.
As an educator, I have existed in white spaces in which colorblindness became the unspoken decorum of the space and students' Blackness or Brownness was violently erased from the classroom. In a world that continues to see my students' Blackness before it sees them, the (un)intentional act of divorcing my students from their race and culture is a crime. This was necessary for me to recognize because this enabled me to invite my students to be their authentic selves and therefore provided a space for their visibility in school. This came in the form of acknowledging and incorporating their cultural backgrounds, voices and communities within the curriculum and classroom. By doing so, I undermined a system that wishes to deprive them of an education centering them and their history-a tradition performed by many Black educators.

Blackness needs be integrated into classrooms so that Black students can see and engage with existing Black scholarship, divorced from the stifling slave narratives commonly found in most accredited curriculums. Often, white-dominated curriculums negate the significance of Black students' experiences and culture by violently erasing Black voices and upholding whiteness as the standard to be assessed by. Thus, violent classrooms and classroom cultures are constructed to focus on assimilationist teachings and erase non-white cultures, behaviors and attitudes from the classroom. However, my decision to actively allow Blackness to permeate the classroom has allowed for more freedom and scholarship in the space to occur. For instance, a lesson was constructed around the history of hip hop, which provided historical insight on the liminal stage of the movement and culture. Other lessons we analyzed Black poets like Nayyirah Waheed and Maya Angelou; we interpreted the underlying meaning and symbolisms found in "This is America"; we deconstructed mainstream topics using prior lessons as a lens and foundation (ex. Kanye West's argument about slavery being a choice vs Frederick Douglass' autobiography).

These pivotal cultural moments pushed my students to become navigators of their own education by inquiring about their interests and converting that insight into lessons that adhere to Common Core Standards. Thus, the classroom became a transformative learning space where my students and I collaborated to curate a classroom that is culturally competent and challenges all of us to grow. While an unconventional space was needed for culturally competent teaching to occur, love was needed to cement the metamorphosis of the space by changing the active members from within.

When I think about love, I think about the gems I found surreptitiously placed in bell hooks' books about radical teaching practices and cultivating genuine love; I think about Corinthians 13: 4-6, where the Bible lists love as "patient... kind... no record of wrongs... always protects...always hopes, always perseveres"; Lastly, I think about the unconditional love I feel from my parents, and their selfless willingness to support and provide for me beyond their means. These sources- bell hooks, the Bible and my parents- have helped me define what love is and what love can become. They have helped me to realize the infinite possibilities and forms that love can take. But it is my students who pushed me to develop my own love devoid of contingencies and unmet expectations when confronted with undesirable behaviors from students.
RELATED: What I learned about the work it takes to protect children from anti-blackness from being homeschooled.
I love my students. However, I didn't enter my field practicing unconditional love; in fact, I had to learn how to love them. I had to call out my own bias against those students who defied the rules more frequently. I realized some of my students' breach of the rules was their resistance and outcry to their own trauma they encountered. Although unfair that many of them have experienced so much trauma in their lives, I had to find ways to obviate their outbursts in the classroom while simultaneously providing them with compassion and coping mechanisms to process and redirect their emotions. Eventually we reached a place of understanding and high accountability, one in which my students were aware of the classroom rules, and their necessity, and I became aware of the additional responsibilities, fear and trauma they were experiencing within their own lives. Loving my students was more than just teaching them, it was also recognizing their trauma, fears, laughter and their dreams. To teach my Black students, I had to learn to give genuine love or carelessly perpetuate racialized institutional violence in my classroom.

As a Black educator, I sense an obligation to teach my students about anti-Blackness, and the real world, while simultaneously empowering them to navigate it, combat it and hopefully to change it. Restoration, space, and love were tools used to facilitate this urging need to prepare my students for what awaits them. At the same time, these tools were also used to reconfigure my students' warped and traumatic exposure to the American educational system-a way to revitalize and redefine their interest in learning. Was it perfect or easy? No, but the willingness to allow the classroom to become a lab to actively inquire the world around us and explore possibilities to alter its current trajectory, empowered my students. Perhaps freedom can no longer be found in traditional education, but through unconventional learning and love we can cultivate a new era, an earthly paradise, where liberation exists in every crevice and space for Black children.
Liljuan Gonzalez is a graduate student, social justice advocate and an educator based in Chicago. He enjoys dancing, anime, and practicing radical self-care.

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Why Black children must see themselves in the classroom. - The Black Youth Project

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by Liljuan Gonzalez I remember seeing a little Black girl being viciously yelled at to stop moving and to sit with her hands folded while her eyes followed the teacher. When she moved an inch, out of jitters or childish restlessness, her teacher responded with a death glare or a disparaging tone that blindly enforced ...

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James Baldwin Speaks....#Facts still ring true today.....

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Code Switching - Young People Explaining what it is and how it has affected their lives.

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Discover the powerful CPU of code-switching | Endiya Griffin & Tatiana Howell | TEDxYouth@SanDiego

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These podcasts are a MUST to listen to. If you did not know, you will learn something from listening. Hopefully you will do something too.

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Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Some of this feels new, but in truth it's an old story.

Why? Where did the notion of "whiteness" come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for?

Scene on Radio host and producer John Biewen took a deep dive into these questions, along with an array of leading scholars and regular guest Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika, in this fourteen-part documentary series, released between February and August 2017. The series editor is Loretta Williams.

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Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Some of this feels ne

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Seeing White Study Guide - Check it out.

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Download the Study Guide
Study Guide: Seeing White

On one level, it seems Americans talk about race and ethnicity all the time. The news media always seem to be reacting to the latest racial "incident," while pundits ponder "race relations" year in and year out. And yet. The premise of this series is that the American conversation about race, and the stories we tell ourselves about race and ethnicity, are deeply incomplete and often misleading. We need new stories and new understandings, about our history and our current racial and ethnic reality.

Host and producer John Biewen set out to take a different kind of look at race and ethnicity, by looking directly at the elephant in the room: white people, and whiteness. White supremacy was encoded in the DNA of the United States, and white people dominate American life and its institutions to this day, and yet whiteness too often remains invisible, unmarked, and unnamed.

In embarking on this journey into whiteness, past and present, Biewen sought guidance from an array of leading scholars, and from professor, journalist, artist, and organizer Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika.

A caution: Race and racism are sensitive subjects, as we all know. It's important to create an environment of safety in your classroom or discussion group. Our advice is to say something like this:
The subject of whiteness is potentially uncomfortable for people of any race or ethnicity. People of color may react to the topic of whiteness by thinking: Really? We live in a world dominated and controlled by white people. Whiteness is our often-uncomfortable reality. Do we have to have a discussion about whiteness? For folks feeling that way, please understand: This is not about celebrating whiteness. We're here to take a critical look at whiteness and how it functions in the life of our society, how it affects us all. Because it does, and we usually don't talk about it directly. White people, on the other hand, may react with unease: Am I about to be attacked? Is the point of this discussion that all white people are bad? To those people we can say: The point is not to attack every individual of European descent. None of us chose our "race," nor did we create the society that we were all born into. In this class or discussion group, we're in this together, trying to understand how we all got here. A conclusion of the Seeing White series is that white people must own and take responsibility for the advantages that come with whiteness, but that is not the same as saying that you as a white person are to blame and need to feel ashamed.
Additional guidance on leading discussions on race, particularly for young people, from the Anti-Defamation League.
General Questions (for comprehension and discussion)

1. Chenjerai Kumanyika says that he hopes the Seeing White project will focus on systemic, structural racism, not individual bigotry or "race relations." What does he mean? What's the difference? Can you give an example of each kind, individual and systemic racism? [Part 1]

2. John Biewen asks, Where did whiteness come from? What's the answer that he finds? [Part 2]

3. Who invented whiteness, and when? For what purpose? [Part 2]

4. Why would you say that race as we know it - "blackness," "whiteness," etc. - was not invented until the 15th century? [Part 2]

5. As American-style chattel slavery evolved into the 1700s, how was it different from the slavery practiced by the early British colonists? [Part 3]

6. When laws were changed in colonial America to give lower-class white people advantages over Africans, how did that make life easier for large landowners and other powerful white people? [Part 3]

7. American leaders assert almost universally that the words of the Declaration of Independence, "all men are created equal," have been a consistent guiding principal in American life and law. Do you agree? [Part 4]

8. When the United States government acquired the land that became part of the state of Minnesota from the Dakota people, did it do so in an honest and respectful way? [Part 5]

9. What does philosopher Shannon Sullivan mean by "good white people?" [Part 6]

10. People in the American North often believe that the Civil War was a moral crusade in which the Union intervened to end slavery and "save" black people from bondage. Is this an accurate summary of what happened? [Part 6]

11. Scholar Dorothy Roberts says that race scientists of the 17th to 20th centuries used science to "confirm ... their reality." What was the "reality" they were trying to confirm? [Part 8]

12. What does today's genomic science say about biological/genetic significance of "race"? [Part 8]

13. If the people of Minnesota, or of Corbin, Kentucky, prefer not to remember violent racial episodes in their region's past, why might that be? [Parts 5 and 9]

14. When it comes to defining whiteness, for determining American citizenship or other legal or social purposes, have the standards been consistent over the years? [Part 10]

15. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the citizenship cases of Ozawa and Thind in 1922 and 1923, what was the one thing that remained consistent in the justices' rulings? [Part 10]

16. In telling the story of his encounter with "Michael" in Philadelphia, John Biewen says that, looking back, he was "pretty white" in some of this thinking at the time. What does he mean? [Part 11]

17. During the 400-year history in which people of European and African descent have lived in what is now the United States, which of those groups has committed more violence against the other? [Part 11]

18. Myra Greene talks about the "social context" of the history of photography, and "who controls what parts of the image." What do you think she means by that? [Part 12]

19. Considering all racial and ethnic groups - white, black, Latino, Native American, Asian - which group has benefitted the most from government programs and largesse throughout American history? [Part 13]

20. In doing antiracist work, what is the difference between actions taken by individuals and those made by the society as a whole, through the federal government - and why might the latter be appropriate and necessary? [Part 14]

Additional discussion questions for each episode:
Episode 31: Turning the Lens (Seeing White, Part 1) Events of the past few years have turned a challenging spotlight on White people, and Whiteness, in the United States. An introduction to our series exploring what it means to be White.
How does whiteness fly beneath the radar? Think of the institutions that you are part of or belong to. In what ways does the idea of whiteness act as the norm within institutions?
Episode 32: How Race Was Made (Seeing White, Part 2) For much of human history, people viewed themselves as members of tribes or nations but had no notion of "race." Today, science deems race biologically meaningless. Who invented race as we know it, and why? Before hearing this episode, how would you have imagined that the notions of "black" people and "white" people came into being? How does it change the way you think of your racial/ethnic identity to know that race was invented to justify the exploitation of other human beings? Episode 33: Made in America (Seeing White, Part 3) Chattel slavery in the United States, with its distinctive - and strikingly cruel - laws and structures, took shape over many decades in colonial America. The innovations that built American slavery are inseparable from the construction of Whiteness as we know it today. What are some of the ways that American culture minimizes the legacy and impact of 250 years of chattel slavery, or reinforces the impression that it all happened in the ancient past? How could our schools, media, and popular culture tell a truer story about slavery and its effects on people alive today? Episode 34: On Crazy We Built a Nation (Seeing White, Part 4) "All men are created equal." Those words, from the Declaration of Independence, are central to the story that Americans tell about ourselves and our history. But what did those words mean to the man who actually wrote them? Do you think that historic figures should be forgiven for beliefs and actions that you consider repugnant on the grounds that those people were "of their time"? How does that apply to us? Are we doing things, individually or as a society, that we should be forgiven for by future generations because we are people "of our time"? Episode 35: Little War on the Prairie (Seeing White, Part 5) Growing up in Mankato, Minnesota, John Biewen heard next to nothing about the town's most important historical event. In 1862, Mankato was the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history - the hanging of 38 Dakota warriors - following one of the major wars between Plains Indians and settlers. Biewen explores what happened in 1862, and why people in Minnesota stopped talking about it afterwards. Do you think that most parts of the United States have events in their history that have been suppressed because they don't reflect well on the dominant group in that place? What can we gain, as communities and as a larger society, from talking more honestly about the past? Episode 36: That's Not Us, So We're Clean (Seeing White, Part 6)
When it comes to America's racial sins, past and present, a lot of us see people in one region of the country as guiltier than the rest. Host John Biewen spoke with some white Southern friends about that tendency.
What is the meaning of aversive racism? Often people think of racism as a problem of bigoted individuals, or organizations like the KKK. What are some of the ways that racism takes on more-subtle but perhaps more-pervasive forms? Episode 37: Chenjerai's Challenge (Seeing White, Part 7) "How attached are you to the idea of being white?" Chenjerai Kumanyika puts that question to host John Biewen, as they revisit an unfinished conversation from a previous episode. What is the cost of racism to white people? Can you add to this list? When are the times that you feel able to see the benefits of being white? Episode 38: Skulls and Skin (Seeing White, Part 8) Scientists weren't the first to divide humanity along racial - and racist - lines. But for hundreds of years, racial scientists claimed to provide proof for those racist hierarchies - and some still do. What are some of the benefits for white people in creating scientific reasons for white superiority? How do beliefs about the genetic superiority or inferiority of racial/ethnic groups manifest in the everyday life of our culture? Episode 39: A Racial Cleansing in America (Seeing White Part 9) In 1919, a white mob forced the entire black population of Corbin, Kentucky, to leave, at gunpoint. It was one of many racial expulsions in the United States. What happened, and how such racial cleansings became "America's family secret." An expert on "sundown towns" has identified hundreds of communities across the United States in which black people, and sometimes Jews or other groups, were or still are not welcome. Read this article and discuss. https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-2008/does-my-town-have-a-racist-past Episode 40: Citizen Thind (Seeing White, Part 10) The story of Bhagat Singh Thind, and also of Takao Ozawa - Asian immigrants who, in the 1920s, sought to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that they were white in order to gain American citizenship. Thind's "bargain with white supremacy," and the deeply revealing results. If you are white, or partly white, how do you identify ethnically? (Irish, Italian, English, etc.) Research when those ethnicities became fully "white" in America. What laws were changed to allow for that ethnic identity to become legally white? Episode 41: Danger (Seeing White, Part 11) For hundreds of years, the white-dominated American culture has raised the specter of the dangerous, violent black man. Host John Biewen tells the story of a confrontation with an African American teenager. Then he and recurring guest Chenjerai Kumanyika discuss that longstanding image, and its neglected flipside: white-on-black violence. Unlike explicit bias, which reflects the attitudes and actions that someone has at a conscious level, implicit bias is judgment and behavior that often operate unconsciously, and without intentional control. How does someone's unconscious reaction to people of a different race influence their judgment and behavior? What are some examples? https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html Episode 42: My White Friends (Seeing White, Part 12) http://paulkivel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/thecostsofracism.pdf What are some "white" characteristics that can be seen? Are there characteristics of whiteness that cannot be seen? What are they? Episode 44: White Affirmative Action (Seeing White, Part 13) When it comes to U.S. government programs and support earmarked for the benefit of particular racial groups, history is clear. White folks have received most of the benefits. How do politicians and the media talk about government programs in a way that obscures benefits that have gone to white people in the past and present, while emphasizing the "handouts" given to people of color? http://newsreel.org/guides/race/whiteadv.htm Episode 45: Transformation (Seeing White, Part 14) The concluding episode in our series, Seeing White. An exploration of solutions and responses to America's deep history of white supremacy: addressing white fragility, and some possible responses by government, including reparations for descendants of enslaved people. Consider your sphere of influence - that is, people and organizations that you have some influence on. What could bring about change?
For years, Myra Greene had explored blackness through her photography, often in self-portraits. She wondered, what would it mean to take pictures of whiteness? For her friends, what was it like to be photographed because you're white?

Activity

Choose two or more of the above questions and talk as a class or in small groups.
Study guide created by John Biewen with assistance from Jenna Chandler-Ward, Co-Founder of Teaching While White and Co-Director of the Multicultural Teaching Institute. Download the Study Guide.
In particular, choose themes likely to lead students to challenge mainstream thinking about race. For example, the slavery-based origins of "black" and "white," or the prevalence of racism across the country and not just in the South, or the history of white-on-black violence. Ask students to compare those insights from Seeing White to the messages they've received from the mainstream culture about these issues.

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Download the Study Guide Study Guide: Seeing White On one level, it seems Americans talk about race and ethnicity all the time. The news media always seem to be reacting to the latest racial "incident," while pundits ponder "race relations" year in and year out. And yet.

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Speak Your Three Languages - I hear you lady - Go ahead on chile!

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Jamila Lyiscott: 3 ways to speak English | TED

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Race in the Midwest. The disparities in Iowa - Not new

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Educator Well-Being

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Teacher Well-Being - We Need Systems Change (Part 2)
Reforming teacher training to better prepare teachers for the job they face
By Mark Greenberg Emeritus Bennett Chair of Prevention Science, Penn State University, Chair of CREATE (www.createforeducation.org)
" In the current national focus on teacher quality, the essential role of teachers social and emotional competencies is often overlooked. But ask educators when they need those competencies and they'll likely respond everyday." Jones, Bouffard & Weisbourd, 2013, p.62

Teaching is a highly rewarding but emotional exhausting profession. Teachers give their heart and soul to their jobs and while relationships with their students are often very rewarding, teaching requires high emotional labor. What this means is that teachers often need to manage their own emotions in order to support the authentic emotions of their students. As a result, teachers often experience vicarious trauma from their support of the many needs of their students. As my colleague, Marc Brackett has noted " Educators have always known that emotions play a key role in teaching and learning, yet few systematic efforts have been made to train teachers and educators on the skills associated with emotional literacy. "(Brackett & Kremenitzer, 2011)

No one has captured this better than Linda Darling-Hammond who reflects about great teaching " If you think about what kids say about great teachers, what they are really saying, quite often, is that great teachers are socially and emotionally intelligent; they interact well; they are able to be centered, and fair, and they have good relationship skills; they make the other person feel attended to, and important; they pay attention to students' learning, and are able to be responsive (2014)." .

The Current State of Teacher Training and SEL
In seeking to support teacher well-being, one of the major concerns is the nature and quality of their preservice training. So, it is at least somewhat surprising that in teacher pre-service training it is a very rare College of Education that requires teachers to take a course on social and emotional learning, either in regard to students, or for teachers, themselves. In fact, in many Colleges of Education, there are no courses offered in this topic. As a result, t here is an enormous gap between the preparation teachers receive and the situations in which they find themselves when faced with their own classroom. It is no wonder that teachers suffer very high rates of stress and burnout.

CASEL commissioned a comprehensive research study on pre-service courses led by Kimberly Schonert-Reichl at the University of British Columbia. After detailed review of 3,916 courses from 304 Colleges of Education, they found there was very little explicit content in required coursework focused on providing teacher candidates with information on SEL of Teachers or SEL of Students. The study found that few teacher education programs covered the five SEL competencies outlined by CASEL. For example, only 13 % had at least one course that included information on relationship skills. For responsible decision-making, self-management, social awareness, and self-awareness, the numbers were between 1 and 7 %. Further, most pre-service programs do little or nothing to support teachers own self-care. This lack of preparation leads many new teachers to feel unprepared to manage their classrooms and the secondary impact on their own well-being often leads to teacher turnover. In 2010, the costs of teacher turnover was estimated at 7 billion dollars per year in the U.S. and the cost of each teacher departure is estimated to cost between $10,000 and $25,000.

Teacher Education Reform: Next Steps
If we want teachers to succeed and schools to thrive, we must address changes needed in the preparation of the next generation of teachers. This requires that we develop quality preparation programs that give teachers a deep understanding of child development, peer relations, equity, and systemic issues that affect identify and belonging. Such coursework can help teacher candidates set the stage for SEL by teaching them to develop safe, inclusive, and supportive classroom environments. Teachers should also learn the science and practice of evidence-based SEL. In addition, by helping teachers to explore their own social and emotional awareness we can support their own well-being and teach skills and habits to support the emotional labor of teaching.

To make these essential changes, faculty will need to reflect on their own teaching and integrate practices that support SEL effectively in their coursework. This will require new training opportunities for faculty (online, summer institutes, etc.). Finally, there is a need to conduct research on the effectiveness of such efforts to build more effective preparation programs with outcomes that include teacher instructional quality as well as teacher well-being, satisfaction, and retention.

Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best...
Bob Talbert

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Educator Well-Being - We Need Systems Change (Part 2) - CREATE For Education

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Teacher Well-Being - We Need Systems Change (Part 2) Reforming teacher training to better prepare teachers for the job they face By Mark Greenberg Emeritus Bennett Chair of Prevention Science, Penn State University, Chair of CREATE (www.createforeducation.org) " In the current national focus on teacher quality, the essential role of teachers social and emotional competencies is often overlooked.

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Organizational Change - Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

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Organizational Change - Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

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Angela Davis - History Maker.....

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How Did Angela Davis Inspire a Movement? #BecauseOfHerStory

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Bryan Stevenson on kids in the criminal justice system

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Bryan Stevenson - Just Mercy....

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Dear White Parents......We are all HUMAN!

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Collective Grief - Social Conditioning

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Nikole Hannah-Jones on the Collective Grief of Black Americans | Where Do We Go From Here? | OWN

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Anna Mae Weems - A legend and shero for civil rights in Iowa....

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The United Food & Commercial Workers International Union

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Photo Credit: Richard L. Copley

Anna Mae Weems, a member of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA), one of the unions that would later merge to become the UFCW, shared her memories of working with Dr.Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) on the 1968 Sanitation Workers' Strike in the following article that appeared in The Courier.

The UPWA had long been a strong supporter of the SCLC. In addition to continually organizing conferences and legislative actions in support of equal rights for women and minorities, the UPWA donated 80 percent of the cost of SCLC's first year budget and held regular drives to raise money for sit ins and freedom rides. When Memphis sanitation workers called on labor allies for help, Weems and other UPWA members heard the call.

Photo by BRANDON POLLOCK, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

WATERLOO - It was early 1968. A charismatic minister Anna Mae Weems had hosted on a visit to Waterloo nine years earlier and his organization needed help. She answered the call.

Weems, who had been active with the United Packinghouse Workers of America at The Rath Packing Co., and other labor leaders were called to Memphis, Tenn.

Unionized municipal sanitation workers, predominantly African-Americans, were on strike for better pay and working conditions. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was called in to help. Other labor organizations also were called in.

That's what brought Anna Mae Weems to Memphis for what would be her last meeting with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., SCLC leader.

"We marched down Beale Street and around City Hall," Weems recalled. Through it all, King maintained a humble persona. "He was a common person. It wasn't like I was sitting with a celebrity. He was like someone you knew all your life. He was for the good of the community all the time."

Weeks later, on April 4, 1968, King was killed by an assassin's bullet on a Memphis hotel balcony. Weems, home in Waterloo, reacted as many, with shock and horror.

The 50th anniversary of King's assassination makes this Martin Luther King Day particularly poignant for many, including Weems. She escorted King around Waterloo in November 1959 as the young minister was starting to make a name for himself with civil rights activities in Montgomery, Ala. He met community leaders, spoke at West High School and at Iowa State Teachers College, now the University of Northern Iowa.

Fifty years removed from the tragedy of his passing, Weems said King's death reminds us leadership is not for the squeamish but is still needed today on issues of justice and equality.

"He would want us to build on leadership," Weems, 91, said. " If you get good leadership in a community and you get that motivation and you get that influence, then you would have a community that's unified. ... You see, leadership is not for cowards. You have to know how to bring out the best in people."

She supported King on some marches activities in the South.

"Some people would throw things, and he would say 'Louder, children. Louder. They're not hearing us.' He would say things that are uplifting, not downtrodding."

Weems said she and others were called to a meeting at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, now the home of the National Civil Rights Museum. It was where King frequently held meetings and was ultimately assassinated. A fellow Rath-UPWA member from Waterloo, Russell Lasley, became national treasurer of the UWPA, which supported the SCLC.

"We were called down there to help the garbage workers," Weems said. "I was volunteering all around," working under King's friend and SCLC associate, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy.

King sought conciliation, not confrontation, through organizational efforts, Weems said.

"Dr. King always had that saying that you should inspire, not intimidate. People would say things are real bad. Dr. King would say, 'There's no such thing as an unmotivated person.' A leader should go in, work with a person and stir up the energy God gave him. ... Bosses drive men. Leaders motivate."

Weems first met King in Washington, D.C., in the late 1950s. He gave the invocation at a breakfast hosted by then-Vice President Richard Nixon. She invited King to Waterloo.

While some locally initially were standoffish to the young minister, Weems said others, such as the Rt. Rev. Monsignor E.J. O'Hagan, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church, welcomed him with open arms. Burton Field of Palace Clothiers fitted the young minister with a heavier suit of clothes for the chilly November Iowa climate. He stayed at the Russell-Lamson Hotel.

After his talk at West High, Weems recalled, King stood behind the auditorium curtain, buoyantly asking, "Did I do all right?"

"He was intoxicated with love for his fellow man," Weems said.

She learned of King's assassination when called by a Courier reporter. "It was such a shock," she said. She hushed her children and called the UPWA union hall to verify it. The secretary was in tears.

She later told The Courier, "Dr. King taught us that violence is not the answer; it only creates fear. The wound of racial injustice can only be healed by the peaceful balm of religion and morality. We must - and we shall - try to fill the void and move forward with brotherly love."

The Rev.Martin Luther King Jr. and Anna Mae Weems are shown here during King's visit to Waterloo in 1959. Photo from The Courier.

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A packinghouse worker's account of MLK and the 1968 sanitation strike - The United Food & Commercial Workers International Union

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Anna Mae Weems, a member of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA), one of the unions that would later merge to become the UFCW, shared her memories of working with Dr.Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) on the 1968 Sanitation Workers' Strike in the following article that appeared in The Courier.

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Get comfortable with discomfort.....

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Get comfortable with being uncomfortable | Luvvie Ajayi Jones | TED

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The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans – and How We can Fix It

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Emotional Tax

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Hometown Heritage of Buxton, IA

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Welcome back to the Hometown Heritage blog! This week's post marks the third and final post in our 3-part series on the abandoned towns and the history of coal mining in Iowa (you can find the other posts here and here).

This week's post is by author Rachelle Chase. Even before moving to Iowa, the history of Buxton, Iowa, and its former residents fascinated Rachelle, and now that she has become an Iowa resident, she is determined to help share their story. Rachelle is the author of multiple fiction books and the non-fiction book, Lost Buxton.

In 1900, Consolidation Coal Company established one of the most unique towns in Iowa: Buxton. Spanning 8,600 acres in Monroe County and 1,600 acres in Mahaska County, along with a population that grew to 5,000, Buxton became the largest unincorporated town in Iowa.

Though the town itself was different from most other coal mining towns, Buxton is renowned for its large African American population. For the first 10 years, African Americans made up 55% of the population and remained the largest ethnic group until 1914.

The typical mining town featured hastily constructed houses, a company store, a small school, a tavern, a union hall, and a church. Buxton was not "typical." Buxton residents enjoyed 1-1/2 story houses which were maintained by the company, a company store that rivaled department stores, three two-story schoolhouses, a two-story high school, a three-story YMCA, and more than 10 churches.

According the September 18, 1903 edition of the Iowa State Bystander, Superintendent Ben C. Buxton "designed and superintended the laying out of the town, the plans and construction of the buildings, the location and equipment of the mines, the water supply, the drainage and all the many interesting details ..."

Buxton, Iowa, looking north. "Boy's Y" (rectangular white building, left), YMCA (far left), W.H. Wells Company Store (center). The company store burned down in 1911 and was replaced with a brick building and renamed Monroe Mercantile Company Store. Courtesy: Michael W. Lemberger.

As mentioned in previous posts, mining was often seasonal, which resulted in a reduced demand for coal in the warmer months. This was not the case in Buxton. Since Consolidation Coal Company was owned by the Chicago & North Western Railroad and trains required a constant supply of coal, men in Buxton worked year-round, earning $40-$100 every two weeks. "The miners received excellent pay according to the economy at that time," said Reuben Gaines Jr., a successful African American businessman in Buxton, in an undated memoir. "In any event or manner the money flowed freely."

There was no shortage of ways residents in Buxton could spend money. They could shop at more than 40 independent businesses, plus the company store. "You could buy anything in that company store, from a diaper pin to a coffin," said Kietzman. "The company had its own morticians and own mortuary. They had a shoe department, shoe repair department, furniture, hardware, groceries, cooking ware, clothing, and yard goods. The company store had a bank in it, the company office, a soda fountain where they served lunches."

Former residents-both black and white-agreed that Buxton was integrated and that any segregation that did exist, such as separate churches, was by choice. The company awarded housing on a first-come, first-served basis; 16 of the 85 company store clerks were black; black men and white men worked in the mines in neighboring "rooms"; black children and white children were taught by black and white teachers; and residents attended public events-baseball games, movies, parades, and picnics-sitting or standing wherever they desired.

Believed to be blacksmith's shop in Buxton, Iowa. Courtesy: State Historical Society of Iowa

Residents also remembered interracial marriages. "There were a lot of interracial marriages down there..." said Oliver Burkett, an African American resident. "There was Charlie King, he was a black man, he married a white woman. Hobe Armstrong, he was a black man and he married a white woman. George Morrison, he was married to a white woman." Carl Kietzman, previously quoted, was married to an African American woman.

In addition to miners, there were many African American professionals and business owners in Buxton. African American professionals included doctors, lawyers, a dentist, pharmacists, constables, teachers, commercial and rental property owners, an insurance agent, company store clerks and at least one manager, a bank manager, a cigar maker, a postmaster, a mine engineer, two justices of the peace, barbers, a tailor, and many entrepreneurs.

Black-owned businesses included hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, confectionaries, a bakery, drug stores, pool halls, dance halls, a music store, a photography and printing business, a meat market or two, millinery shops, and at least four newspapers.

By 1918, the mines near Buxton were almost completely played out and the company had moved operations to Consol, located 18 miles southwest of Buxton, and Bucknell/Haydock. By 1922, Buxton was a ghost town.

Miners and their families had moved to other cities in Iowa and beyond in search of work or had moved to the company's new towns. But by 1927, the continuing decline in coal demand and the negative perception of Iowa coal, plus labor problems, resulted in the shutdown of remaining mines. Consol and Bucknell/Haydock, like Buxton, were gone.

The company store's stone warehouse, the largest remaining structure in Buxton, Iowa in 2016. Source: Rachelle Chase

For many African American residents, leaving Buxton was like stepping back in time. Jim Crow laws, segregation, extreme racism, and menial jobs awaited them, leaving many feeling like Susie Robinson. "There's no place that's ever going to be like Buxton," said Robinson. "That's the best place that I've ever been, Buxton."

If you would like to learn more about Buxton, Rachelle's book, which uses rare photographs and quotes from former residents to tell its unique history, can be found on Amazon. You can also learn more about Rachelle and her books on her webpage.

I hope you've enjoyed our mining series as much as I have, and many thanks to our guest authors Darcy and Rachelle!

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Buxton, Iowa: A Coal Mining Town Built On Inclusion and Equality

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Welcome back to the Hometown Heritage blog! This week's post marks the third and final post in our 3-part series on the abandoned towns and the history of coal mining in Iowa (you can find the other posts here and here). This week's post is by author Rachelle Chase.

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Buxton, Iowa....History

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What key decisions influence whether a community thrives?

Most early Iowa settlers lived on farms. Some, however, were merchants, lawyers, doctors, newspaper publishers, ministers or craftsmen who lived in the new towns springing up across the prairie. Not all the towns survived. Some never attracted many people and others lost population when conditions changed. The result was Iowa "ghost towns" that exist across the state.

Iowa Ghost Towns

Most early towns came into existence to serve the surrounding farm population. When a trip to town could take several hours, farmers wanted services and supplies close at hand, and towns sprang up every five to six miles apart. The coming of the railroads in the 1870s and 1880s both helped and hindered Iowa. Towns along the rail lines became trading centers where merchants could receive goods from the East and farmers could sell their cattle and hogs for shipment to eastern cities. Towns that had no railroad connection lost customers and usually became ghost towns. Sometimes the railroads even created towns due to the fact that steam engines needed coal and water. This impacted western Iowa especially as rail lines arrived before major waves of population.

Some towns were created with a special purpose. This is especially true of those based upon coal mining, a big industry in Iowa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The railroads again were a major factor because trains were the main buyers for Iowa coal. Many small coal mines sprang up in southeastern and central Iowa. Miners and their families occupied cheap housing nearby, and the rail company sometimes operated general stores and other services for their workers. When the coal ran out in the mine, the mine closed and the miners moved away. Sometimes the houses and other buildings were loaded onto trains and moved to a nearby location where a new mine was opening up.

Buxton

The town of Buxton in southeastern Iowa was unique in that a majority of its residents were African-American. The Consolidated Coal Company worked for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. Having a hard time recruiting white miners, Consolidated Coal sent agents to southern states to hire black workers. In 1873, it founded the town of Buxton and opened nearby mines. It grew quickly and, according to one source, became the largest coal town west of the Mississippi. In the 1905 census, the town boasted 2,700 blacks and 1,991 whites. The town supported black doctors, lawyers and other professionals, and an African-American YMCA with a gymnasium, an indoor swimming pool and many programs for Buxton residents. The town was proud of its baseball team, the Buxton Wonders. White residents included immigrants from Sweden and elsewhere, and they existed peacefully with the African-Americans throughout the community's history.

Buxton coal production peaked during WWI but afterward, mechanization and conversion of train engines to diesel fuel decreased the demand for coal. Several severe fires ravaged the community and the mines. By 1919, Buxton's population had declined to only 400. The last mine closed in 1927. Residents moved away but fondly remembered their Buxton days. Many blacks moved to Des Moines or Waterloo. Very little physical evidence of the town remains today.

There have been many articles and several books written about this unique African-American experience in rural Iowa. While it is only one of Iowa's many ghost towns, it is probably the most famous.

Supporting Questions

How was Buxton a unique community?

Benjamin C. Buxton, Founder of Buxton, Iowa, Date Unknown (Image)

Postcard View of Center Street in Buxton, 1908 (Image)

Panoramic View of Buxton, 1910 (Image)

Postcard Showing Buxton Coal Bank in Shaft of #12 Mine, 1910 (Image)

Postcard of Miner with Mule-Drawn Cart in a Shaft of Buxton's #12 Mine, 1910 (Image)

Monroe Mercantile Company Opening, 1911 (Image)

Monroe Mercantile Company Interior, 1911 (Image)

Monroe Mercantile Company Employees, 1911 (Image)

Map of Bluff Creek Township (Buxton), 1919 (Map)

In what ways did Buxton prosper?

What caused Buxton to turn into a ghost town?

Benjamin C. Buxton, Founder of Buxton, Iowa, Date Unknown

Description

Benjamin Buxton was the namesake of and main planner of the town of Buxton. Benjamin Buxton took over as superintendent of Consolidation Coal Company from his father, John Buxton, in 1896, when he was just 25 years old, until 1909. The town of Buxton, established in 1900,...

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Postcard View of Center Street in Buxton, 1908

Description

This photograph, featured on a postcard, shows many people seen at a distance walking down "Center Street" in Buxton, Iowa, in 1908. Also called "coal chute hill," coal was moved from railroad cars at the bottom of the hill to the coal conveyor and chute at the top of the...

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Panoramic View of Buxton, 1910

Description

This "Panoramic View of Buxton, Iowa" was photographed in 1910. The image shows two water towers, a few two-story buildings, dozens of identical houses, along with streets of the town. Since Buxton was designed and built by the Consolidation Coal Company to be a central...

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Postcard Showing Buxton Coal Bank in Shaft of #12 Mine, 1910

Description

An unknown photographer captured this photograph inside Buxton #12 mine showing pieces of shale and coal that miners were working on moving in 1910. Miners entered the shaft with an empty cart and were paid based on the amount of coal that they brought out at the end of the...

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Postcard of Miner with Mule-Drawn Cart in a Shaft of Buxton's #12 Mine, 1910

Description

An unknown photographer captured this image that shows a miner in 1910 with mule-drawn coal cart in the shaft of mine #12 at Buxton, Iowa. In his interview, Paul Wilson remembers how mules and mine cars were used to move...

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Monroe Mercantile Company Opening, 1911

Description

Monroe Mercantile was the Consolidation Coal Company's company store. The original Monroe Mercantile building was destroyed by fire on February 21, 1911. By March 21, 1911, the construction of the new company store was underway, and they held the grand opening of the second...

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Monroe Mercantile Company Interior, 1911

Description

Monroe Mercantile was the Consolidation Coal Company's company store. It had a wide variety of products and is reported by some to have had fair prices and others to have been higher priced. The original Monroe Mercantile building was destroyed by fire on February 21, 1911....

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Monroe Mercantile Company Employees, 1911

Description

The photograph shows employees from Monroe Mercantile, which was the Consolidation Coal Company's company store. It had a wide variety of products and is reported by some to have had fair prices and others to have been higher priced. The original...

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Map of Bluff Creek Township (Buxton), 1919

Description

This atlas and plat map book of Monroe County, Iowa, was compiled and published by Geo. A. Ogle & Co. in 1919 and funded by the federal government. This image shows a plat map of Bluff Creek Township and Buxton. The township was divided into sections and the owners of...

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Buxton Wonders Baseball Team, 1915

Description

The Buxton Wonders Baseball Team was partially sponsored by the Consolidation Coal Company through the donation of land to play on, building bleachers and even paying for uniforms for this traveling team. It is reported that this team always had both black and white players...

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Interview of Paul Wilson, Born in Buxton, May 13, 1992

Description

This transcribed interview is of Paul Wilson, who was born in Buxton, Iowa, and grew up in the town. He then moved with his family, to Haydock, Iowa, and subsequently, to Des Moines, Iowa, where he spent the rest of his life. This interview was done in 1992 by Francis...

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"Back to Buxton," July 1, 2009

Description

This article by Eula Biss, entitled "Back to Buxton," was published in 2009 by the Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry at the University of Iowa. The article focuses on the general components of Buxton, Iowa, featuring its remarkable reputation as being a town where blacks and...

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Aftermath of Explosion in Buxton's #12 Mine, Date Unknown

Description

In 1914, an explosion at mine #12 in Buxton led to the shutdown of that mine. Coal dust is highly flammable, and explosions were not uncommon. There is no record of anyone being hurt in the explosion since it happened after the mine closed for the day. The Consolidation Coal...

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"Buxton Review" in the Iowa State Bystander, June 26, 1914

Description

This brief article about Buxton was published in the Iowa State Bystander on June 26, 1914. The article included parts about how a Buxton resident was glad that the coal mines have resumed work after several months. The lack of work has impacted community...

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Buxton: Work and Racial Equality in a Coal Mining Community, 1987

Description

Professor, researcher and author Dorothy Schwieder published "Buxton: Work and Racial Equality in a Coal Mining Community" in 1987. The first excerpt from this source is a table showing the annual income of selected workers in Buxton in 1914. It shows how lucrative jobs with...

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"As I Remember" by Minnie London, 2003

Description

This article was written by Minnie London, who first moved to Muchakinock as a bride and then to Buxton a few years later. London writes of her life as a coal miner's wife including scheduling time to place orders with the company store, how people from many states moved to...

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Additional Resources:

Images of America: Lost Buxton by Rachelle Chase (2017): This recent publication is loaded with rich images and meaningful quotes from dozens of Buxton citizens. The author synthesizes many sources to concisely tell the story of Buxton with meaningful details.

Buxton: Work and Racial Equality in a Coal Mining Community by Dorothy Schwieder (1987): Professor, researcher and author Dorothy Schwieder provides details and explanations of many causes and effects of the formation and decline of Buxton.

CRI News Package: Home from Buxton, Iowa: This two-minute video tours a house from Buxton that was moved to Oskaloosa around the 1920s, and then was moved again to the Nelson Pioneer Farm during October 2008.

"Searching for Buxton" Documentary (Part One and Part Two): A young African-American goes searching for his family's past in a long-disappeared Iowa coal mining town and discovers that much of the prosperity and goodwill his relatives enjoyed nearly a century ago is elusive today. Narrated by Simon Estes.

Reclaiming Iowa's Abandoned Coal Mine Lands: This eight-minute Iowa Outdoors video focuses on Iowa's coal mines. A century ago, southern Iowa was home to hundreds of surface coal mines. As the coal boom died so did the companies that mined for it, leaving those mines abandoned and open to the elements. Today, decades after the industry died, efforts slowly continue to clean up the deserted mines and reclaim the ground that was once rich with coal.

"Editor's Observations" from the Iowa State Bystander (Oct. 29, 1909, pg. 4): This newspaper article by John Lay Thompson, editor of the Iowa State Bystander, describes the success of African-Americans in Buxton, Iowa. During an era of Jim Crow laws in the South, those who were recruited from Virginia to come and work for Consolidation Coal Company experienced a far different reality in Buxton than they had in Virginia. In his editor's column, Thompson writes about the demographics, businesses, prominent citizens and services located in Buxton, Iowa, in or around 1909.

"The Buxton Souvenir Number" from the Iowa State Bystander (Dec. 6, 1907): This additional resource includes eight newspaper pages of photos and articles about Buxton.

C. & N.W. Ry. Depot in Buxton, Iowa (1905): A photo of a train depot for Chicago and Northwestern Railway in Buxton, Iowa, in 1905.

Additional Buxton Photographs from the State Historical Society of Iowa

Iowa Core Social Studies Standards (2nd Grade)

Listed below are the Iowa Core Social Studies content anchor standards that are best reflected in this source set. The content standards applied to this set are elementary-age level and encompass the key disciplines that make up social studies for 2nd grade students.

SS.2.7. Explain how people from different groups work through conflict when solving a community problem.

SS.2.10. Determine effective strategies for solving particular community problems.

SS.2.12. Identify how people use natural resources to produce goods and services.

SS.2.16. Using maps, globes, and other simple geographic models, evaluate routes for people or goods that consider environmental characteristics.

SS.2.17. Explain how environmental characteristics impact the location of particular places

SS.2.18. Describe how the choices people make impact local and distant environments

SS.2.20. Determine the influence of particular individuals and groups who have shaped significant historical change.

SS.2.24. Describe the intended and unintended consequences of using Iowa's natural resources.

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What key decisions influence whether a community thrives? Most early Iowa settlers lived on farms. Some, however, were merchants, lawyers, doctors, newspaper publishers, ministers or craftsmen who lived in the new towns springing up across the prairie. Not all the towns survived. Some never attracted many people and others lost population when conditions changed.

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North End Stories - Northeastern Iowa History.

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4 actions to take to become antiracist....

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Catherine Williams - A Iowa History Maker

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Systemic racism is meant to produce the outcomes we see...

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Was normal ever normal?

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Love outweighs hate........

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Be you, do you - authentically.

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Systemic racism is a Public Health Crisis.

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Home > Topics > Systemic Racism Is a Public Health Crisis

Infographics

Published on: August 17, 2020. Updated on: October 20, 2020.

About the Data Insights

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a spotlight on the link between systemic racism and health in many communities. This infographic clarifies the relationship between long-standing social and economic inequities and health disparities affecting Black Americans, over the life course and in relation to COVID-19. Black Americans are dying at 2.5 times the rate of White Americans from the virus. Here we review intentional and actionable strategies that can be enacted at the state, local and health care system levels to bring about lasting change.

Systemic Racism Definition: Racial Equity Tools, Racism

COVID-19 Impact Data:

Population Share: The United States Census Bureau

National Death Data: The COVID Tracking Project, The COVID Racial Data Tracker

NOTE: Current as of August 17, 2020

Risk Factors for Black Communities:

Over-Representation in Frontline and Essential Worker Roles: Associated Press

Unequal Health Insurance Access: Changes in Health Coverage by Race and Ethnicity since the ACA, 2010-2018, Kaiser Family Foundation

Hypersegregated Housing: COVID-19 in context: Racism, Segregation, and Racial Inequities in Philadelphia, Drexel University, Urban Health Collaborative

Food Insecurity: Feeding America, Hunger hits African American communities harder

Housing Insecurity: National Alliance to End Homelessness

Wealth: Brookings, Examining the Black-white wealth gap

Education: Adapted from USA Today article, "12 charts show how racial disparities persist across wealth, health, education and beyond"; original data from National Center for Education Statistics

Mass Incarceration: The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons, The Sentencing Project

Stress and Allostatic Load Representation:

Health Disparities:

Health disparities (Hypertension, Diabetes, Obesity): Adapted from CDC analysis and infographic on risk factors

Maternal Mortality: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Reproductive Health, Pregnancy-related Mortality

Actionable Ways to Address Disparities:

Address Provider Bias: "It's Time To Address The Role Of Implicit Bias Within Health Care Delivery, " Health Affairs Blog, January 15, 2020. DOI: 10.1377/hblog20200108.34515

Identify and Correct Racially-Biased Health Care Algorithms: Obermeyer Z, Powers B, Vogeli C and Mullainathan S. "Dissecting Racial Bias in an Algorithm Used to Manage the Health of Populations." Science, 36(6464):447-53, October 25, 2019

Provide Culturally-Competent Care: How to Address COVID-19 in Communities of Color, ASTHO Experts Blog

Diversify Workforce: How Health Equity Gaps Affect COVID-19 Impact, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois

Conduct Community Outreach: HHS Initiatives to Address the Disparate Impact of COVID-19 on African Americans and Other Racial and Ethnic Minorities

Improve Locations of COVID-19 Testing Sites: "In Large Texas Cities, Access To Coronavirus Testing May Depend On Where You Live," NPR Shots

Increase Internet Access and Telehealth Opportunities: HHS Initiatives to Address the Disparate Impact of COVID-19 on African Americans and Other Racial and Ethnic Minorities

Increase Access to and Awareness of Self-Protective Equipment: How Systemic Racism Impacts Coronavirus Racial Disparities, Anti-Defamation League

Incorporate Equity in Value-Based Care Arrangements: How Health Equity Gaps Affect COVID-19 Impact, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois

Strategies for Lasting Change:

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Systemic Racism Is a Public Health Crisis

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Home > Topics > Systemic Racism Is a Public Health Crisis Infographics Published on: August 17, 2020. Updated on: October 20, 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a spotlight on the link between systemic racism and health in many communities.

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Does Midwest Nice Breed Racisim

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I was born in Iowa. I grew up in Minnesota less than an hour and a half from where George Floyd was murdered. I live in Wisconsin just two hours from where Jacob Blake was shot.

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Black History in Iowa

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A Brief Iowa Black History, 6 min 30 sec

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The only chip in the cookie - Podcast

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The Only Chip In The Cookie - Episode 9: Ways To Support Your BIPOC Employees

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Jane Elliott....An Iowa Educator...

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Anti-Racism Educator Jane Elliott: ‘There’s Only One Race. The Human Race' | NBC BLK | NBC News

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Much to consider for educators.....

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By Dena Simmons

I write these words a week after the Breonna Taylor verdict and two days after the first presidential debate, where I watched President Trump uphold white supremacy. I wish I could let these events slide off me, but they haunt, they nag, and they remind me yet again that Black lives do not matter. Other wounds of 2020 already fester-George Floyd's public execution, Ahmaud Arbery's last run, the disproportionate number of Black people impacted by COVID-19, and on and on.

Last week, a white man wrote me an email starting with, "I trust you are well." I responded, "These days, I don't think we can trust that anyone is well, especially Black women. I am not well. We are not well."

When schools shut down last spring, Black educators not only worried about how we would become virtual instructors overnight, but we also mourned Black death and police brutality. We agonized over our safety in a country that seems to care only about Black productivity and labor. Still, we tucked our pain into our pockets and pushed through like we always do. We smiled during video meetings with colleagues and students when all we wanted to do was cry. We served on antiracism committees. We stayed up late to learn new virtual engagement programs. We wrote lessons. We recommended books to white colleagues, who had recently discovered racism. We bit our tongues. We taught. We led schools and districts. We fumbled. We failed. We succeeded.

This fall, already battered and broken by constant reminders of anti-Blackness, we showed up again-this time to virtual and hybrid-modeled schools, even after antiracist instruction was deemed "unpatriotic" by some, even after some families complained that saying "Black Lives Matter" was "too political." Despite it all, we showed up. We always show up. Because we know our work is critical to Black youth in white-dominated school systems. Because we want a better, antiracist future. Because we know the power of teaching and learning in creating that future-even if it comes at a cost.

But we are exhausted.
The right to self-care
Black scholar and poet Audre Lorde once said, "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." She wrote these words after being diagnosed with cancer twice and denied medical leave from the academic institution where she worked. The context of her words, coupled with the health disparities heightened recently by COVID-19, highlights that care has not been equitably distributed. As it pertains to Black educators, this itself is an equity issue for schools.

There is a paucity of research that explores the unique well-being of Black educators, but what I can tell you from my experience is that when I returned home to the Bronx to become a teacher, I carried my own traumas into my classroom. Then I inherited those of my students. I spent nights tossing and turning about what more I could do for my students. I never once wondered what more I could do for myself. I was perpetually tired and often sick from trying to do too much, from trying to be someone else's savior.

Back then, I did not know the dangers of saviorism or the importance of self-care, and I burned out. I now know that none of us can do anything well if we are unwell. If we have nothing left of ourselves, what do we have to offer?

After experiencing a traumatic event recently, I had no choice but to focus on my self-care no matter how self-indulgent it felt. As part of my healing journey, I incorporated exercise, journaling, therapy, and meditation back into my life. I connected with friends and family virtually and committed to getting more sleep. I also started setting boundaries to protect my time, energy, and spirit. And I am healing, but I still have a long way to go before I feel whole again.

This pandemic has cemented for me that self-care must be part of our Black liberation, especially in a world where, as Black poet Lucille Clifton writes, we have to "celebrate / with that everyday / something has tried to kill [her] / and has failed." Indeed, every day, something is trying to kill us-the microaggressions, the discrimination, the harassment, the anti-Black racism, the police, and, and, and. To counteract these daily injuries, we must honor our minds, bodies, and spirits so that we can nurture those of our students, especially our Black students who are struggling, too. We have to stop believing that our work, our exertion, is our only worth-a lie told to us by an economic system founded on whiteness, founded on Black stolen labor.
Better working environments
Yet while self-care is necessary and recommended, it is not enough. We could set all the boundaries in the world, take all the exercise classes, sleep for all the hours, eat all the right foods, see the best therapists, and still be unwell. Why? Because many of us work in school systems and environments that undo all our good self-work with performative antiracism racism, toxicity, and hostility.

In the absence of literature on Black teachers' mental health specifically, I want to share the findings of a 2019 Teach Plus and Education Trust report, which revealed that teachers of color: 1) experience antagonistic school cultures; 2) feel undervalued; 3) are deprived of agency and autonomy; 4) navigate unfavorable work conditions; and 5) bear the high cost of being a teacher of color.

As a result of these obstacles, Black educators are always having to heal new wounds, getting caught up in a vicious cycle of obsessive self-care strategies to treat systemic problems. We need school systems to take better care of us so that we are not always in desperate need of repair at the end of each school day. We need school systems that do not spirit-murder us. We need school systems to give us the time and resources to learn, plan, create, and reflect for superior instruction and relationship-building with students. We need the space to heal when the world reminds us yet again of its disregard for Black life. We need practices, policies, and structures that build in care for educators, especially Black educators, who already carry the burden of living in an anti-Black world. We need to be valued, respected, heard, and affirmed.

Above all, we need school systems to start this work by asking us what we need to thrive, to feel safe, and to be whole.

School systems cannot solve for antiracism if they continue to be traumatic places for Black educators and if Black educators are only valued and asked to lead when antiracism is trendy. Now is the time for school systems to look within themselves, to live out the equity in their mission statements, and to make actionable plans for community and collective care, for the honoring of Black lives, and for the antiracist future we all deserve.
About the author
Dena Simmons is a lifelong learner, educator, and activist who supports schools throughout the nation in implementing social and emotional learning and culturally responsive and equitable practices. She is the author of the forthcoming book, White Rules for Black People (St. Martin's Press, 2021). Follow her on .
This post is adapted from a forthcoming article in Educational Leadership. For more Educational Leadership stories, become an ASCD member.

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For Black educators when school systems aren't doing enuf - ASCD Inservice

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By Dena Simmons I write these words a week after the Breonna Taylor verdict and two days after the first presidential debate, where I watched President Trump uphold white supremacy. I wish I could let these events slide off me, but they haunt, they nag, and they remind me yet again that Black lives do [...]

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Dubuque Iowa working to shed its racist past.

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How a nearly all-white Iowa city is trying to shed its racist image

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The history of Fort Des Moines.

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The Fort Des Moines Story // Documentary

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History of Edna Griffin in Des Moines.

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Edna Griffin - A legend often overlooked.

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The Significance of the Edna Griffin Building

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Special Collections Iowa State University Library

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Black Des Moines: Voices Seldom Heard (1985)

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The forgotten history of Alexander Clark.

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The Forgotten History of Alexander Clark

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Thoughts on racism in Iowa

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Ask the right question.

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Your why drives everything....

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No more bad stats " BS"

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22 News - Dr. Ivory A. Toldson visits Wilmington Public Library

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Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome

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OWN Spotlight: “Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome” | (In)Visible Portraits | Oprah Winfrey Network

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Caste - The origins of our discontent....

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‘Caste' author Isabel Wilkerson on America's race and class hierarchy

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Where oh where is social justice for Asian Americans?

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By Wayne Au and Moé Yonamine

Candles at the Massage Parlor Outreach Project Vigil for Atlanta Massage Workers.
March 22, 2021, Seattle. Photo courtesy of Melissa Ponder.

Although the recent increase in anti-Asian attacks has been hard for all of us, the murderous killing spree in Atlanta has our families, our youth, and our communities spiraling. From a Japanese teacher in Seattle's Chinatown-International District being assaulted by a man wielding a sock filled with rocks, to the robbery and killing of an Asian American elder in Oakland, to the elderly Asian American woman shoved and spit on in White Plains, New York, to the punching of an Asian man in North Portland, Oregon, these attacks both traumatize and activate us as Chinese American and Okinawan American educators personally. They connect us to our own experiences with hate in this country, and they highlight the deeply rooted history of white supremacy in violence against Asian people.

What is happening now is nothing new. The racism, the devaluing of life of Asian and Asian Americans, the dehumanizing of immigrant workers, the fetishism of - and violence toward - Asian women have been perpetuated throughout U.S. history. What's more, the monolith that "Asians" are somehow one, single identity and image, invisibilizes the diverse racial and ethnic groups that our communities represent, and dehumanizes us both as individuals and as a collective. The white supremacist "model minority myth" has perpetuated a fake hierarchy, pitting people of color against each other for an unattainable proximity to whiteness.

As much of the country attempts to reflect and raise awareness, Asian and Asian American students from various states are choosing not to return to school, disproportionately absent from hybrid classes. The rise in hate crimes has resulted in fear for their own physical safety, both in and out of the school community. Students ask:

Am I safe? Will I be next?

Why hasn't our community's safety been a priority?

Will anyone protect me from the violence?

Do I matter?

To our Asian/Asian American students:

Please know that you are powerful and important. Your safety is an urgent right and we believe you. The weight of white supremacy is not your burden, although the activism you choose to lead in this moment will no doubt be invaluable for future generations. Resting is revolutionary. Turning off to take care of you is strong. So is demanding justice and organizing together on your terms. We will rise and we will collectivize across the nations. Asian Americans, you are beautiful.

Massage Parlor Activist JM Wong speaks to the crowd at the Massage Parlor Outreach Project Vigil for Atlanta Massage Workers. March 22, 2021, Seattle. Photo courtesy of Melissa Ponder.

To our Asian/Asian American teachers and educators:

Please know that we see you. We know that the trauma of the moment impacts you triply: Not only are you having to process your own emotional health right now, you are also potentially holding up your Asian American students, and you are also likely negotiating the complex issues of being forced to return to face-to-face schooling during the pandemic.

To our Asian family, who have resisted other movements for racial justice:

We ask you to hold onto this moment, this feeling. We ask you to remember it when we're out in the streets yelling Black Lives Matter after the death of another Black person at the hands of the police; Remember it when you hear of the next ICE raid on undocumented workers or see immigrant children still kept in cages; Remember it when you hear about yet another missing or murdered Indigenous woman or see tribal nations fighting for sovereign control over their lands; Remember it when you hear about the targeting and profiling of the Muslim community, or the demands for climate justice from frontline Pasifika peoples. We ask you to remember this moment, this feeling, and understand that we are all linked through the oppression of white supremacy.

To our Black, Brown, Indigenous, and white educator family:

It is clear to us that in this moment, not only do many Asian Americans not know their own history, but a lot of folks in other communities do not know our history either. We don't blame anyone, since we know how our country's educational system works to support racism and Eurocentrism, and the sad fact is that we still have very little K-12 curriculum on Asian Americans. What we see and know is that this limited historical memory shapes - in bad ways - how folks make sense of, and respond to, the rise in anti-Asian violence.

As you learn or unlearn Asian American history, teach about the oppression from white supremacy, but also about the movements, activists, and solidarity across movements.

Teach about the long history of violence against Asian Americans, and how ignoring that history is itself a form of violence.

Teach about how pandemics have been used to justify anti-Asian violence.

Teach how "Anti-Asian racism never stopped being an outgrowth of U.S. imperialism."

Teach about Asian Americans and important moments in People's History.

Teach the PBS Series "Asian Americans" and use the accompanying curriculum developed by Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

Teach "A Different Asian American Timeline," which places Asian American history in the context of race and capitalism in the United States.

Teach about the incarceration of the Japanese Americans during WW II, from their imprisonment in local fairgrounds, to Japanese Latin Americans being rounded up internationally.

Teach about the true diversity of Asians and Asian Americans, from Indigenous Okinawans who have been colonized and resisted colonization by both Japan and the United States, to Filipinos who have struggled against the imperialistic regimes of Spain and the United States.

Teach that it is time to retire the term Asian Pacific American, because it marginalizes Indigenous Pasifika Island peoples.

Teach about the murdered women in Atlanta: Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Xiaojie Tan, and Daoyou Feng, and say their names correctly using the Asian American Journalists Association pronunciation guide.

Teach the "Hidden Stories that Give Rise to Violence Against Asian American Women."

Teach about the police killings of 20-year-old, Vietnamese American Tommy Le, 30-year-old Filipino American Angelo Quinto, and 19-year-old Chinese American Christian Hall, because it is important for both Asian and non-Asians to understand that, even though we do not face the same level of police violence as Black folks, even for Asian Americans, the police are not our friends.

Teach about the murder of Vincent Chin, beaten to death by white laid-off autoworkers in Detroit, who blamed him for the rise of the Japanese car industry.

Teach about the 1989 school shooting in Stockton, California, where a gunman opened fire on a schoolyard filled mainly with Asian American children, killing five and wounding more than 30.

Teach about the 2012 white supremacist attack on a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in which six people were killed.

Teach about the Asian American Movement, and the dynamic history of Asian American activism in the United States.

Teach about the history of tensions and solidarity between Asian American and Black communities.

Teach about the Third World Liberation Front, a multiracial coalition of Black, Native American, Latinx, and Asian American students in the San Francisco Bay Area who together, through protest, started the movement for Ethnic Studies.

Teach about the Myth of the Model Minority as a form of anti-Asian racism and as a racist myth used as a "wedge" against other communities of color.

Teach about Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, and their solidarity work with the Black community.

Teach about the Movement for Black Lives and the Black Lives Matter at School respective statements in solidarity with Asian Americans facing violence.

Teach about early instances of interracial solidarity, like when Frederick Douglass spoke out against growing anti-Chinese violence in the United States and the movement for Chinese Exclusion.

Teach about the organizing for Asian-Black solidarity happening in Oakland.

Teach across K-12 using books by and about Asian Americans.

There is so much more to teach about Asian America, and we obviously don't have enough curriculum. But this is a start.

As author Jeff Chang reminds us in the foreword to Karen Ishizuka's Serve the People, "There was a time ... when the term 'Asian American' was not merely a demographic category, but a fight you were picking with the world...."

It is a fight that requires solidarity - not just solidarity among Asian Americans, but with all communities battling for racial justice.

The time has come again to fight for Asian Americans and for Asian Americans to fight. In doing so, we need to remember that the enemy is white supremacy, the enemy is the myth of the model minority, the enemy is anti-Blackness, the enemy is imperialism, the enemy is settler colonialism, the enemy is environmental racism. It is a fight that requires solidarity - not just solidarity among Asian Americans, but with all communities battling for racial justice. It is a fight that requires us to teach and learn about each other, together, in struggle.

Wayne Au (Wayne.wk.au@gmail.com) is a Professor in the School of Educational Studies at University of Washington Bothell and is a long time Rethinking Schools editor.

Moé Yonamine (moe@rethinkingschools.org) teaches high school Ethnic Studies in Portland, Oregon. She is a Rethinking Schools editor.

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Dear Educators, It Is Time to Fight for Asian America - Rethinking Schools

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Although the recent increase in anti-Asian attacks has been hard for all of us, the murderous killing spree in Atlanta has our families, our youth, and our communities spiraling.

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Managing Change In Education

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Interview archives on various racial justice issues.

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We have just 1 day left in our crucial fundraising campaign, and we still need to raise $19,000. We have just 1 day left in our crucial fundraising campaign, and we still need to raise $19,000. We're counting on you to keep Truthout alive.

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Adressing inequities in education for Black Children....

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Addressing Inequities in Education: Considerations for Black Children and Youth in the Era of COVID-19 | Society for Research in Child Development SRCD

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Data on COVID-19 transmission rates show an irrefutable and disturbing pattern: Black Americans are contracting and dying from COVID-19 at rates that far exceed other racial and ethnic groups. Through inequitable policies and practices, Black Americans are forced into conditions that elevate their risk for COVID-19, and consequently, place Black children at the epicenter of loss in multiple domains of life.

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Who are you talking about when you say POC really?

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It's okay to call me Black. And if you feel it isn't, I still insist that you do.

Kerry James Marshall, "Knowledge and Wonder" (1995). Photo courtesy of Christie's.

I understand why "people of color" has become a popular phrase. It replaces the outdated term "colored people" with one that is more palatable. It allows for a kind of political solidarity between non-White...

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We Need to Stop Saying 'People of Color' When We Mean 'Black'

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It's okay to call me Black. And if you feel it isn't, I still insist that you do. I understand why "people of color" has become a popular phrase. It replaces the outdated term "colored people" with one that is more palatable. It allows for a kind of political solidarity between non-White...

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Opinion piece - working in White Spaces

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If you're interested in sharing your opinion on any cultural, political or personal topic, create an account here and check out our how-to post to learn more.
____

You know what's worse than America treating racism like a new album that just came out? People moving on like nothing ever happened.

Over the last few weeks, you've probably noticed most of your white colleagues have abandoned their outrage over George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, trading it in to enjoy summer's finest things - sailing, bonfires and lake house getaways. But not us. Those tough and uncomfortable conversations everyone boasted about having have slowed (maybe even stopped), and once again Black trauma in the workplace has been placed back in the hands of Black employees. While I wish I could say everything about this is new or shocking, the truth is we've been here before.

Let's take it back for a moment. My most prominent memory of Black trauma in the workplace was just a few years ago. The day was July 7, 2016. That day, from the moment my legs swept over the side of the bed and hit the floor, there was a heaviness that overtook my body. It was a feeling I wouldn't be able to shake even in the commute leading up to the work day. In the elevator ride up to the office it felt like my anxiety had somehow multiplied. Philando Castile, a Black man, was murdered by police officers the night before. In a similar fate, Alton Sterling, another Black man, was murdered just two nights prior, also by police officers. While my brothers and sisters in Baton Rouge were protesting for justice, I knew that I was walking into a work environment with people that wouldn't understand the significance of the pain and the weight of that kind of trauma. The last few weeks have presented a seemingly parallel feeling.

That morning I did all the things one does to "maintain professionalism" because let's be real, as Black professionals we often feel like we can't be caught slipping (aka displaying feelings). But when putting my best face forward failed, my colleague asked what was wrong? I explained my stoicism was due to Sterling's and Castile's death, which was ultimately the result of the racism and systemic oppression that plagues our country, constantly making Black people a target.

What came next was disappointing but not surprising. Her response was, "Well, did you know him?" In that moment, just as it had in others, it became clear that Black trauma had no place, no weight of relevance in white workplaces. This wouldn't be the last time Black trauma was ignored, displaced or misunderstood.

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7 Things That Need To Be Said About Black Trauma In Predominantly White Workplaces - Blavity

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If you're interested in sharing your opinion on any cultural, political or personal topic, create an account here and check out our how-to post to learn more. ____ You know what's worse than America treating racism like a new album that just came out? People moving on like nothing ever happened.

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Roadmap for embedding SEL practices in school.

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Performative wokeness....

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Performative Wokeness:

A disingenuous demonstration of an acute awareness of social issues that affect marginalized populations.

Those who embody performative wokeness claim to promote social justice but fail to acknowledge the anti-Blackness present in schools and society.

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Performative Wokeness:

A disingenuous demonstration of an acute awareness of social issues that affect marginalized populations.

Those who embody performative wokeness claim to promote social justice but fail to acknowledge the anti-Blackness present in schools and society.

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Performative Wokeness:

A disingenuous demonstration of an acute awareness of social issues that affect marginalized populations.

Those who embody performative wokeness claim to promote social justice but fail to acknowledge the anti-Blackness present in schools and society.
— drwatson (@terrinwatson) March 23, 2021

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Performative Wokeness:

A disingenuous demonstration of an acute awareness of social issues that affect marginalized populations.

Those who embody performative wokeness claim to promote social justice but fail to acknowledge the anti-Blackness present in schools and society.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Performative Wokeness:

A disingenuous demonstration of an acute awareness of social issues that affect marginalized populations.

Those who embody performative wokeness claim to promote social justice but fail to acknowledge the anti-Blackness present in schools and society.

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Performative Wokeness:

A disingenuous demonstration of an acute awareness of social issues that affect marginalized populations.

Those who embody performative wokeness claim to promote social justice but fail to acknowledge the anti-Blackness present in schools and society.

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What does intersectionality mean today...

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She Coined the Term ‘Intersectionality’ Over 30 Years Ago. Here’s What It Means to Her Today

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Kimberlé Crenshaw on why all inequality is not created equal

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National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)

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Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality?

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SEL Playbook for Leaders.

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Getting antiracist work wrong....Start with you and at your home first.

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Tokenism....Never a good idea.

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Discrimination against black Americans in the recruitment process hasn't decreased in 25 years. In the UK, black male graduates earn 17% less than their counterparts. Despite diversity being good for business, these disparities remain the norm.

Diversity not only creates a richness of ideas and innovation, but it is what gives an organization a competitive edge and ensures that is has a good understanding of its market, clients and customers. Asif Sadiq, MBE.

There's only a certain amount of blackness the white corporations can tolerate, the token gives them the perfect dose and makes them feel diverse at the same time. To get the system in companies changed would be radical, especially when the popular idea is "having a tolerable blackness'.

The history of race in America has been a power struggle between groups. Black people have not been oppressed on the basis of their individual faults; rather, individual black people have been discriminated against due to their association with the entire race. Though some individuals have managed to overcome the burdens of racial prejudice, black people are still looked down upon as a group. Lumumba Seegars.

Tokenism would stop when black people are no longer seen as tokens, but as individuals. American laws and policies have to favour black people as a group and not by effect of singularity.

Why is it that every time a black person does something good, somebody tries to let him know that he's not like the rest of us? The token feels an immense amount of pressure. Nobody is perfect, but the token has to make sure that he doesn't slip up in front of white people. Lumumba Seegars.

There must be policies that foster the self expression of the minority in their workplaces. The idea that a minority needs to 'whiten up' to be included is a regressive and horrendous one, there has to be a level playing field, not a white and black door on a white wall.

The black workforce would find their voice in their individuality, not in their ever changing 'token value'. How would this happen? Unbiased and progressive gatekeepers across every facet of an organization are the way to go, not people in positions or authorities, but institutions and departments tasked with eradicating racial profiling, institutions like the HR Department:

The Human Resources Department

An organization that shares anti-tokenism values from the top down, would entrench a solid Human Resources department capable of upholding a system of diversity, equality and inclusion in the workplace.

Fostering diversity in the workplace isn't just by preparing a report, it's more than that, it's by building actual trust with employees, ensuring they feel included. The workers have to feel enthusiastic about their positions and not mitigated all the time.

The HR department should be aware of the 'diversity brochure approach' and avoid threading that route when dealing with issues of inequality in the organization.

We speak to lots of employees who are being tokenized in publicity, while their concerns about bias and inequality are not being addressed. Debbie Danon.

Racism happening across the organization, might be difficult to pinpoint, because of the impulse of disbelief that riddles the leadership, but this kind of ignorance can be tackled.

Some people from marginalized backgrounds have developed survival strategies which involve not speaking up or making themselves invisible. Yasmeen Akhtar.

When you believe, you not only build trust with your employees, you also build an environment where they can speak up when necessary.

The minority population in the company should be run through viable analytics, how much they earn, their job titles and tenure are relevant information that require processing. Don't sweep racial bias under the carpet, use anonymous surveys to get conflict free results, capable of causing sustainable change.

In the US, household incomes of blacks are half that of white households. In the UK, black, Asian and minorities face inequality with £3.2 billion a year in pay gapdifferences compared to their white counterparts.

Actively seeking black workers and other minority, and ensuring the racial pay gap is closed from the stage of recruitment all the way through, would gradually erase the 'catch up' culture, where new employees have to keep earning less in every position as a result of accepting lower pay jobs at entry level due to discrimination.

Not only would these 'gatekeeping' roles by the HR Department eventually eliminate tokenism, but these actions would promote a culture among companies where transparency is encouraged and equality for every worker, black or white, minority or majority becomes attainable.

In the world we live in, some voices are louder than others, some were born with megaphones, while some weren't even connected to the power supply. True diversity is good for the minority, but when the ploy is only to have their melanin seen through the office windows, and their voices never to leave the editing room, then you've successfully become pseudo anti-racist.

Success for black people isn't by how many positions they've attained, it's by how many obstacles they've overcome, while trying to get their voice on the podium.

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Tokenizing Black People Is A Form Of Covert Racism

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Discrimination against black Americans in the recruitment process hasn't decreased in 25 years. In the UK, black male graduates earn 17% less than their counterparts. Despite diversity being good for business, these disparities remain the norm.

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Emotional Resilience - How to leverage for better health

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What Is Emotional Resilience? (+6 Proven Ways to Build It)

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Emotional resilience is the intrinsic ability to calm your mind.

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Action steps for promoting racial justice.

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106 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice

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Note 1: This article was last updated on February 5, 2022.
Note 2: Our work is to fix what we broke and left broken. The work isn’t done…

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Ways to promote anti-racism in the workplace

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10 Ways To Promote Anti-Racism In The Workplace | Forbes

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Adopting Anti-Racist Practices When Teaching SEL | TpT Back-to-School 2020 | Teachers Pay Teachers

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Future of public education state priorities analyzed

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How schools should spend COVID19 dollarw

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Billions of dollars in federal Covid recovery funding are flowing to the nation's schools: money from the March 2020 CARES Act, much of which has been obligated or already spent, and billions more soon to arrive from relief packages passed by congress in December and earlier this month. State and local educators will have until 2024 to spend the money. Their challenge: to spend the windfall in ways that serve students-and taxpayers-best. FutureEd asked our senior fellows and research advisors for their thoughts on how education leaders should approach this rare opportunity.
Rely on Community Input, Evidence

By Andrew Buher and Mario Ramirez

Districts and schools should be intentional about creating an inclusive and transparent process in developing a Covid recovery strategy based on what works, for which students, and under what set of circumstances.

To that end, the first step for any district or school is to systematically collect feedback from stakeholders-students, teachers, school staff, school leaders, parents and guardians-to understand community expectations for next school year (fall 2021) and share that information publicly, ensuring that it is accessible, responsive, and culturally sensitive.

Second, districts and schools should ground their comprehensive recovery planning in evidence. Before allocating funds to a specific intervention, districts and schools should review all available student-level data to understand the extent of the problems they are trying to address.

They should then formulate SMARTE-specific, measurable, achievable, relevant time-based, and equitable-goals that address those problems and settle on evidence-based or evidence-informed interventions to achieve the agreed upon goals.

Finally, districts and schools should communicate with stakeholders their comprehensive recovery strategy and spending priorities, with clear metrics to measure success.
Andrew Buher is the founder of Opportunity Labs, and Mario Ramirez is managing director.
Target Resources to Underserved Students, Including English Learners

By Amanda Fernandez

Since Black and Latino students, including English Learners, are among those most impacted by the pandemic, Covid relief should target students and educators of color. And because our nation's education system failed many low-income students before the pandemic, school district leaders must avoid a "race back to normal," and instead ask How do we move forward in a more equitable way in public education?

In the short term, state and district leaders should prioritize three things: tech equity, mental health supports and preschool for all children from low-income families.

Millions of students still lack the tech devices and broadband needed to participate in virtual learning. Even after schools return to in-person instruction, tech will continue to play a key role in students' learning and their ability to navigate our post-COVID world. The internet is the gateway to success in the 21st Century; without it, a student has very little chance to succeed. School districts must ensure that every one of their students has a device and broadband access. The stories of a family sharing one cell phone for school should quickly become a relic of the past.

What's more, our COVID-19 family surveys tell us that most Latino parents are concerned with the mental health impact that the pandemic and virtual learning are having on their children, citing a decline in socialization and emotional well-being. As the pandemic continues to place economic burdens on Latino families, and Latino children are losing loved ones, school districts need to ensure these students have access to counselors and mental health services so they can be better positioned to learn. We know that schools in lower-income communities have less access to counselors; that must end.

Finally, we know that many young students have had a tough start on their educational journey, as many of the hands-on supports they get in pre-K and kindergarten were not easily replicated in a virtual classroom. School districts should enroll all low-income children in pre-K programs, especially Latino children, and extend summer programming for kindergarten students so they can start their academic work on the right foot. We know that for English Learners and Latino students, early childhood education can make a difference in helping them excel academically; this should be a no-brainer for school district leaders.
Amanda Fernandez is the CEO and co-founder of Latinos for Education.
Look for Cures, Not Band-aids

By Joanne Weiss

Health and safety have gotten the lion's share of the attention and the stimulus funding so far-PPE, HVAC, vaccinations. That's understandable; the needs are concrete and the work is urgent. But it is time to turn our attention to teaching and learning.

School systems have been given the gift of massive, one-time, once-in-a-lifetime funding to be used over three years to address the inadequacies and inequities exposed by COVID. These stimulus funds will allow educators to stop Band-aiding gaping wounds and instead look for cures. Now is the time to invest in building the teaching and learning structures we want, the systems that our students need and deserve.

The place to start is with a coherent vision for teaching and learning. My vision (yours may be different) is to engage every student, every day, in meaningful, affirming, grade-level instruction. Once the vision is clear, districts can assess where they are relative to the vision, and can then focus their investments to drive the vision forward.

What might districts do to understand the assets and gaps in their current system and to focus spending strategically?

The first step is to engage families and students in an ongoing fashion to find out what's working, what isn't, and what they've learned from experience prior to and during COVID.

Districts also need to engage with teachers, review their opportunity-to-learn and academic data, learn what's working, and prioritize areas of need.

They should develop partnerships-with community organizations, businesses, higher education, and health and service providers-so students are surrounded with supports, access, and opportunities.

In addition, they need to ensure that each school's culture and structures-schedules, staffing, and continuous improvement systems-support and keep the focus on teaching and learning. That includes monitoring and supporting students' well-being.

Districts need to put high-quality instructional materials-and an internet-connected device-in the hands of every teacher and student, purchasing new materials if necessary. Along with new materials, districts should provide the professional development needed to deliver the curriculum and should structure teachers' time so they can work together to better support their students' learning needs.

Few districts can do this work alone-it's too new, and they are too overwhelmed. States can support their school systems by sharing their vision and offering frameworks that systems can use to organize their design and planning work. They can also write guidance that supports systems' planning and implementation; and they can issue statewide purchasing agreements that make it easier for school systems to design and implement with quality.

The stimulus funding, if used well, could alter the trajectory of K-12 education for decades to come. Our students and families are counting on us to make this possibility a reality.
Joanne Weiss is the president of Weiss Associates LLC.
Invest in Curriculum, In-Person and On-Line

By Morgan Polikoff

I'm writing this 366 days since the COVID-19 crisis began in earnest in the U.S. It goes without saying it's been a traumatic year for American schools and the people affected by them (parents, students, teachers, and everyone who relies on them). The American Rescue Plan offers real, equitable, and very substantial funding to schools to address some of the worst effects of the crisis, and they should think big in using this money to support students.

It will surprise no one that I think one of the most important investments schools can make emerging from the pandemic is high-quality, well-supported, distance learning-ready curriculum materials (including adequate supports for teachers to understand and use those materials). There are several important considerations in selecting these materials.

First, states should play a role in helping local schools and districts make these decisions. This means things like evaluating available materials or relying on existing evaluations like those done by EdReports, establishing incentives (or requirements) for schools and districts to adopt only approved materials, and supporting districts with implementation. Louisiana has been a model in this kind of work. More generally, there are existing online/virtual curriculum options that have established track records and could be borrowed or adapted, such as the Florida Virtual School).

Second, schools need to be well prepared if the worst happens and new lockdowns or closures are needed in the fall. Sending teachers home with packets of materials from TeachersPayTeachers won't cut it-and neither will giving teachers digital materials they don't like or don't think are well aligned with their kids' needs. Schools must be ready to transition instruction back and forth as needed without massive disruption to teaching and learning. This means choosing comprehensive instructional materials, rather than piecemeal solutions.

Importantly, whatever is chosen should be part of a long-term strategy, not a short-term Band-aid. We may have concerns about the quality of online or hybrid teaching, but it is clear that, at least for some students, it is here to stay. Only with a quality, online-friendly curriculum can districts possibly hope to provide adequate educational opportunity to kids in the online setting.
Morgan Polikoff is an associate professor of education at the USC Rossier School of Education.
Use Tutors as Mentors, Mentors as Tutors

By Matthew A. Kraft

I've had a lot of conversations with inspiring leaders in the tutoring and mentoring space over the past few months, and one thing has struck me. When I talk to folks on the ground who know mentoring they emphasize that mentors value having a concrete, focused way to use their time, such as supporting students in their academic work, i.e. tutoring.

We typically think about mentors and students just socializing, but many programs are moving toward mentorship models that wrap these relationships around a core activity of what is sometimes called academic coaching. At the same time, many tutoring experts talk about the fundamental value of sustained tutor-student relationships underlying the instructional emphasis of tutoring. Students are more willing to engage with challenging material when they trust their tutor and don't want to let them down.

What does this mean for how districts and schools might leverage new federal dollars to expand tutoring and mentor supports for students? I think it means that when implemented well in K-12 settings, tutoring and mentoring become highly overlapping and should be seen as a single initiative. I think it means we cannot narrowly focus on unfinished academic learning simply because we have academic assessments but don't have large-scale data on the scale of student trauma, stress, and isolation.

As we look to support students, let's think about building systems that provide time, space, and support for developing caring relationships between students and teachers, non-instructional school staff, and tutors.
Matthew A. Kraft, FutureEd's research director, is an associate professor of education and economics at Brown University.
Measure What Matters Most

By Stephen L. Pruitt

How can we make sure the massive new investment in education goes for what matters most?

One way is for the new administration to work with states to expand how we measure whether schools succeed, a strategy allowed under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

Student achievement should remain paramount, but test scores only tell us so much-and that's coming from an advocate for high-quality state tests.

The biggest problem in my view, however, is in how we use those test scores. Haven't we been reminded during the pandemic that many other factors are more critical than ever to a child's education?

I propose that states adjust their school-accountability systems to show for every school the most important measures of quality and equity.

Can every student prepare for and take advanced courses? How about career-tech programs that lead into postsecondary education and meaningful careers? A rich education that includes the arts? Is technology and broadband access available to all?

Are schools seeing about students social-and-emotional health? Is mental health counseling available for anyone who needs it?

Does every classroom have competent, caring, fully credentialed teachers-and if not, why? What's the responsibility of the local school system and the state in recruiting, compensating and supporting educators better?

How do students' opportunities break down by race and ethnicity, family income and location?

The new federal funds emphasize evidence-based summer learning, extended-day and extended-school year programs to respond to students' academic, social, and emotional needs during and following the pandemic. We should show the public what's happening on that front, too.

Counting what matters most-student achievement and the additional components of quality all of us want in our children's schools-could help us close the opportunity gap and make clear the local school systems' and states' responsibilities in addressing serious, persistent inequities in education. Focusing on students also is an economic necessity, with more good jobs requiring more education and training.
Pruitt is the president of the nonpartisan Southe rn Regional Education Board (SREB).
Change the Way We Spend Money in Schools

By David Rosenberg

Children across the country now need more opportunities for differentiated, high-quality learning, stronger relationships with the adults in their schools, and more streamlined access to social-emotional support. These needs are most deeply felt in our lowest-income communities and by Black and Latinx students, English language learners, and students with disabilities.

The massive infusion of new federal K-12 funding is crucial to addressing these needs. The money also poses a huge risk to the long-term sustainability of our public schools.

How does more funding threaten financial sustainability?

Some investments will add long-term costs without fundamentally improving students' experience. For example, in light of the challenges teachers have faced before and during COVID, it may be tempting to allocate federal funds to across-the-board, permanent staffing and salary increases. But in just a few years, districts would be left with inflated and unfunded budget obligations-and potentially little academic growth to show for it.
David Rosenberg is a partner at Education Resource Strategies.
Instead, education leaders should focus on investments that address student needs and change underlying cost structures by shifting traditional staffing, scheduling and student-teacher assignment practices. Near-term strategic investments should be ones that lay the groundwork for deeper, structural change over time.

For example, a strategic vision for improving the teaching job could include more time for teachers to reflect, collaborate and build individual connections with students, lower student loads for core teachers in middle and high school, and significantly reduce class sizes in high-priority and high-need subjects, such as 9th grade English language arts. It could also include scaling meaningful leadership opportunities for teachers with the most expertise. And It could mean compensating teacher leaders with stipends and/or additional time for planning and observation.

School districts can also expand partnerships with institutions of higher education to establish tutor-to-teacher models and provide seed investments in "grow your own" staffing strategies-all of which can help reinvent how teachers enter, and then stay in, the profession.

Schools like Brookside Elementary in Indianapolis and Lander Elementary in Mayfield Heights, OH have piloted models that show how to make these and other shifts. New funding creates the space to develop new models and build the capacity and systems required to implement and scale them.

Address Students' Social-Emotional Needs

By Laura Hamilton

Surveys of teachers, school leaders, families and others on the educational front lines point to the importance of using pandemic relief resources to address learning loss. But students' social and emotional learning (SEL) is an equally high, if not higher, priority to them. That's hardly surprising, given that the pandemic left many students isolated and created stressful conditions for students and educators alike.

At the same time, the spread of misinformation, mistrust of previously respected information sources, a national reckoning with racial injustice, and the threats these developments pose to the well-being of our communities point to a need for schools to emphasize civic learning post-pandemic.

A growing number of strategies and resources are available to promote social-emotional and civic learning. And research demonstrates the value of these priorities for educational and career success.
Laura Hamilton is associate vice president of research centers for the ETS.
Efforts to support students' social-emotional and civic learning should reflect the local context and needs of both students and educators. But there are steps local policymakers can take to provide a good foundation.

Educators should begin by gathering input from students, families, and educators about how recent experiences have shaped student engagement and opportunities to learn, and about what supports each group is likely to need. Regular check-ins with students and families can supplement system-wide surveys or other assessments to track social, emotional, and civic learning in ways that will inform instructional decisions.

Importantly, schools can't be expected to tackle these challenges on their own. Partnering with expert advisors and other community-based organizations can create opportunities for students to engage in evidence-based activities that promote SEL and civic learning. approaches.

An emphasis on SEL and civics can be controversial, especially when many policymakers are deeply concerned about students' academic learning. Education leaders will need to help community members understand how SEL and civics can support the development of English Language Arts skills and quantitative and scientific literacy while simultaneously enhancing student well-being.

Tackle Student Absenteeism

By Phyllis W. Jordan and Hedy Chang

The stimulus package just approved by Congress requires states to spend money on summer learning and extended school day programs, among other approaches. But students won't benefit from these programs-or the tutoring initiatives launching around the country-if they aren't in school or online to take advantage of them. Reducing chronic absenteeism, which has spiraled during the pandemic, must be an essential part of recovery efforts.

The numbers we're seeing show that absenteeism has risen dramatically during the pandemic. Connecticut records show, for instance, that the share of students who are chronically absent-missing 10 percent or more of school days for any reason-has nearly doubled this school year, to 21 percent.

The most recent rounds of funding recommend "tracking student attendance and improving student engagement in distance learning" as a strategy for addressing learning loss, particularly among students with disabilities and others that schools have struggled to serve effectively during the pandemic. But there are plenty of other ways that education leaders can use the money to improve both in-person and online student attendance and get students learning again.

Expand student and family engagement: Relief funding could help facilitate the relationship-building activities that help children and families feel a connection to schools. That can take the form of teachers sending postcards or texts or can be a personal call or visit to a family's home to identify barriers to attending class. It can mean telehealth connections for students suffering physical or mental problems. The Attendance Playbook- Covid 19 edition shares these and other evidence-based practices.

Improve data systems: State-of-the-art attendance and engagement tracking systems would be a smart investment at the state or local level. Attendance data has historically been captured in a district's student-information system. But when learning is remote, information capturing whether a student attends, logs in or submits an assignment often exists elsewhere, or is captured by a virtual platform such as Zoom. Upgrades could allow such data to be combined electronically, rather than manually, to avoid an undue data-entry burden on teachers. Systems could also be updated to code synchronous, asynchronous or in-person learning.
Phyllis Jordan is FutureEd's editorial director, and Hedy Chang is executive director of Attendance Works.
Train staff: A key to combating student absenteeism are school and district staff who are trained to respond to absenteeism data effectively and work as teams to implement a multi-tiered, problem-solving approach to reducing absences. A strategy team at the school or district level can support school-wide responses to absenteeism that address the school climate, behavior and academic dimensions of the problem.

Support Community Schools: Districts could use federal dollars to create community schools, which pull together nonprofit organizations and local agencies to support disadvantaged students. These programs often provide extended learning and summer programs the federal bill is advocating. And they have proven effective in reducing absenteeism.

Tutoring, mentoring: Some students will need extra academic support to recover learning lost during the pandemic. Relief aid could pay for tutoring or mentoring programs, which can catch kids up and create the kind of personal connection that research has shown leads to better attendance. These efforts could include creating individual student attendance plans and mental health supports.

Ventilation upgrades: Improving ventilation systems could improve attendance for students with asthma or allergies to mold and mildew.

Start With Questions, Not Answers

By Nora Gordon

The stimulus package's financial commitment to K-12 schools creates unprecedented possibilities. Many districts are seizing the moment to create new initiatives or scale expensive but cost-effective options that had seemed doomed to dwell forever in a proof-of-concept purgatory, such as high-dosage tutoring. (I am a consultant to the National Student Support Accelerator, which supports high-dosage tutoring, and I'm all for it.)

As districts ponder where to invest, they should first assess what their schools and students need. That may lead to more mundane-but important-options to strengthen school quality.

For some, this cash infusion will be a good time to adopt a new core curriculum-or provide meaningful implementation support for an existing one. Schools might choose to train staff in positive behavior strategies or to increase counseling staff. Districts could make long-overdue capital investments to improve indoor air quality, directly responding to COVID while also promoting student health and achievement for years to come.
Nora Gordon is an economist and an associate professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.
Given the compressed timeline, it is tempting to start with answers from lists of "approved" educational products or evidence clearinghouses, rather than the question of what is needed. But leading with the answers instead of the question can mean the best options never even get considered.

A careful needs assessment could point toward an approach that research has found to be effective, but that doesn't show up a list of approved products. This is especially true for many educational practices that require funding to staff, but do not involve the purchase of proprietary products or programs.

Luckily, the lists are not the only sources for discussions of research findings on educational practices. The What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guides take a broader view of what "counts" as evidence than other parts of the U.S. Education Department clearinghouse. And COVID has spurred the education research community into high gear when it comes to outreach. Look for short briefs synthesizing what we know from places like the Annenberg Institute's Ed Research for Recovery, the Evidence Project at the Center for Reinventing Public Education, and FutureEd.

Adopting easy answers may appeal to administrators tasked with the challenge of spending an infusion of new funding. But it's not the best way to help students.

Create Education Savings Accounts

By Michael Goldstein

Let's admit that schools struggle to spend one-time funds effectively. Really, really struggle.

School budgets are mostly people earning salaries: people who need to be found, onboarded, trained, deployed. As a result, when schools receive one-time infusions of funding, they tend to spend it on jobs, short-term jobs often filled though rushed/shoddy search, onboarding, training, and deployment. But even when schools make smart hires, results are often short-lived because the short-term jobs end.

Let's also acknowledge that even some progressive economists think that the full $1.9 trillion federal stimulus isn't "fiscally needed" right now. If some of the money is distributed but not spent, that's okay, from a macro point of view.

So here's a thought: Let's take all the unspent Trump and new Biden stimulus and allocate it to poor students, in the form of an Education Savings Account to be spent no sooner than age 25.
Mike Goldstein is the founder of Match Education in Boston.
Say that works out to $5,000 per student in today's dollars. If we care about economic justice, there's just no way a marginal few thousand in one-time K-12 spending (all done as a "Rush Job") is going to pay off for kids later.

But imagine a 10-year-old today waking up in 15 years to his or her own vocational training account worth, say, $10,000 after their pandemic relief grows in a TIAA or other pension account over that time. That might come in handy to navigate a totally different, robot-dominated workplace, with totally different, AI-dominated workplace training.

I know this idea has no chance of being adopted.

But let's say we had an economist compare the results of my proposed "vocational training ESA" to what education leaders are going to actually do: waste Covid relief money on unsustainable one-time programs. Just as a thought experiment, if the outcome metric was "Long Term Poverty Reduction For Students," which approach would you pick to win?

Photo courtesy of Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for American Education: Images of Teachers and Students in Action.

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Perspectives on How Schools Should Spend Covid Relief Aid | FutureEd

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Billions of dollars in federal Covid recovery funding are flowing to the nation's schools: money from the March 2020 CARES Act, much of which has been obligated or already spent, and billions more soon to arrive from relief packages passed by congress in December and earlier this month.

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Congressional funding measures

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(Updated 11/19) The House today approved a $1.75 trillion plan that includes more funding for K-12 schools, as well as about $400 billion to make child care more affordable and to secure six years of funding for universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-old children. The Build Back Better plan, which passed on a party-line vote, also includes:

$200 million for teacher training to support the survival and viability of Native American languages

$161 million for developing personnel to support students with disabilities

$112 million to support school principals

$112 million to develop and support high-quality teacher residency programs

$112 million to create "grow your own programs" to address shortages of teachers in critical areas

$112 million to create Hawkins Centers of Excellence at minority-serving institutions

$600 million for grants for career and technical educations programs in the next five years

The package provides $300 million for the e E-Rate Emergency Connectivity Fund, which can help students connect to the internet. Gone from the plan is the $82 billion investment that the House proposed for schools facilities. President Joe Biden also agreed to jettison an initiative offering free community college tuition. Instead the package includes resources to make higher education more affordable by increasing Pell Grant awards for low-income college students.The bill now goes to the Senate where it faces an uncertain future.

The vote on the package comes just days after Biden signed into law a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package that provides money for schools to remove lead pipe lines, expand broadband access and purchase electric school buses. The infrastructure funding would come in addition to nearly $200 billion that Congress has allocated for Covid-relief aid to public schools. The U.S. Education Department has approved 44 of the 51 state plans submitted for spending the federal money, clearing the way for some states to begin receiving their full share of funding provided in the American Rescue Plan (ARP).

To help guide spending, the department released a frequently-asked-questions sheet laying out the rules for states to review local plans for spending the ARP money and other relief aid that will flow to school districts. It makes clear that state legislatures or departments of education cannot limit how localities use the money, as long as the uses are within the bounds of the federal law. And states and localities cannot use the relief aid to replenish "rainy day" funds. Further guidance released in November clarifies how districts can use the funding for transportation, including to address the school bus driver shortage that many places are facing.

The department's guidance also reiterates the need for states and local districts to use "evidence-based" interventions to help students recover from lost instructional time during the pandemic and clarified that the definitions of evidence-based match those provided in the Every Student Succeeds Act. "Given the novel context created by the COVID-19 pandemic, an activity need not have generated such evidence during the COVID-19 pandemic to be considered evidence-based," the guidance explains. A new website features best practices for using the relief aid to reopen schools safely and support the academic and social emotional needs of students.
[Read More: How States Are Using Federal Funds for Learning Recovery]
The guidance document makes clear that schools can use the federal dollars to pay for health-related expenditures needed to reopen safely--including vaccinations and testing for students and staff members--as well as for any community outreach needed to persuade students and families that it's safe to return to school.

"It's an unprecedented level of funds because the needs are so great to ensure that we're able to continue to reopen schools safely and maintain their safe operations and to address the social, emotional, mental health, and academic needs of students," Acting Assistant Secretary of Education Ian Rosenblum said in an interview with FutureEd.

School construction is an allowable use for Covid relief funds--including new projects, renovations to ventilation systems, and purchasing trailers. But the guidance cautions against large capital projects that will require too much money and entail not only approval from the state but complex requirements for using federal money for such purposes. "Remodeling, renovation, and new construction are often time-consuming, which may not be workable under the shorter timelines," for the relief aid, which must be obligated by September 2024.
[Read More: Getting to Yes on Covid Relief Spending]
The money can be used to support nontraditional students, include 2020 graduates who have yet to connect to jobs or postsecondary opportunities and adult students, including English language learners. Last month, the department released new information on support for homeless students.

In April, the department released an interim rule laying out a process for states to develop and submit plans for spending their share of the $122 billion the American Rescue Plan reserved for public K-12 schools. The department also provided a template for state plans, which were to be submitted by June 7. The rule, posted in the Federal Register on April 22, calls for states to seek input through "meaningful consultation" with students, educators and community groups in developing those plans.
[Read More: Parsing the Evidence Requirement of Federal Covid Aid]
"The state plan not only addresses how the state is planning to invest the resources, but also reflects significant stakeholder input, so that we're able to make sure that we have the voices at the table of the groups, including students and families who are most impacted," Rosenblum said. "States will also describe their fiscal safeguards and monitoring processes."

For local school districts and charter networks, the rule requires developing spending plans and submitting them to their state education agency. Like the state plans, these proposals must include information on mitigation strategies for safe reopening, evidence-based interventions, other spending plans, and an explanation of how the spending will address the needs of disadvantaged students. Local districts must also seek input from the broader community and review their plans every six months for possible revisions.

The state will set the deadline for receiving local plans that should come within 90 days of the local entities receiving the dollars, according to the rule. Education Department officials have since said that states can extend the deadlines for submitting plans and encourage local districts to review them intermittently. In addition, the law requires districts to submit within 30 days of receiving the money a plan for safely reopening schools, a requirement that covers all districts regardless of their current mode of instruction..

Earlier, the Education Department released complex guidance for how districts and states can navigate the so-called "maintenance of effort" clause designed to ensure that the federal cash will be used to expand educational opportunities, rather than just replace the state and local dollars that now support schools. The clause appears in all three Covid relief packages, and the guidance sorts outs differences among the pieces of legislation. It also offers rules for seeking waivers from this requirement.
[Read More: Education Department Perspectives on Covid Relief Spending]
Recognizing the differences in how state calculate school finance, the guidance offers overall principles for evaluating the maintenance of effort. States that do not meet the requirements could lose out on future dollars or have to return existing funds.

In addition, the department recently released guidance explaining how states and school districts can meet the requirements for using federal Covid relief money in ways that provide equitable support to schools dealing with concentrated poverty. The key principles of the maintenance of equity provision included in the American Rescue Plan are:

A state does not disproportionately reduce per-pupil state funding to high-need school districts or charter schools.

A state does not reduce per-pupil state funding to the highest-poverty districts below their fiscal year 2019 level.

A district or charter does not disproportionately reduce state and local per-pupil funding in schools with high concentrations of poverty.

A district or charter does not disproportionately reduce the number of full-time-equivalent staff members per-pupil in high-poverty schools.

These developments came after the department released $81 billion in American Rescue Plan funds--or two thirds of the money available--to states for supporting safely reopening schools and addressing the needs of students, including closing academic equity gaps and addressing mental health concerns. States had 60 days to share the money will local districts
[Watch the FutureEd-SREB webinar on Covid relief funding]
The department has released a handbook for safely reopening schools and another for meeting the needs of all students. It has also provided an estimate of how much money each state can expect to receive for K-12 schools under the stimulus plan, which included a total of $168 billion for K-12 and higher education. School districts will have until 2024 to spend the stimulus aid.

The American Rescue Plan includes:

$122 billion for K-12 schools to be distributed through the federal Title I formula for funding schools and districts with concentrated poverty. The K-12 dollars will be focused on helping schools reopen and helping students catch up on learning they have missed during the pandemic. Districts must spend at least 20 percent of the money addressing learning loss and must make public a plan for returning to in-person schooling safely. Another $2.75 billion is allotted for private K-12 schools, bringing the total to about $125 billion.

State education agencies can hold on to about 10 percent of the allocation before distributing the remainder to districts. State agencies must spend at least 5 percent on learning loss, 1 percent on summer learning, and 1 percent on afterschool programs.

$40 billion to support higher education institutions, most of which would go in direct grants to public and nonprofit colleges and universities, as well as vocational programs. Minority serving institutions would receive additional support.

$2.75 billion for governors to share with private schools. This is the primary mechanism for supporting schools beyond the public sector.

$7.2 billion for the E-rate program that makes it easier to connect homes and libraries to the internet.

$3 billion in added funding to support students with disabilities

$1 billion to expand national service programs to support response and recovery, including tutoring programs in schools and other priorities.

$800 million to support education and wraparound services for homeless children, all of which has been released to states.

In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will give states $10 billion for COVID-19 screening testing for K-12 teachers, staff, and students in schools.

The Education Department released this fact sheet on the measure. The Southern Regional Education Board released a brief on the states it serves.

Congress pursued approval of Biden's package through a process known as budget reconciliation, which can be achieved with a simple majority of votes. Biden, who called for bipartisan support for the measure, met in early February with 10 Republican senators arguing for their own scaled-down, $618 billion plan. Biden declined to accept the package, and no Republicans voted for the final version of the measure in either house.
[Read More: Why Investing in Ventilation Could Pay Dividends for Learning]
Beyond the Covid relief package, the Biden Administration is proposing more than $100 billion for school facility repairs and construction in its nationwide infrastructure proposal. Biden's $2 trillion plan also includes $12 billion for capital projects at community colleges and $25 billion to upgrade and expand access to child care facilities. K-12 schools would also benefit from money set aside to expand high-speed broadband infrastructure for all and to replace lead pipes, including those in 400,000 schools and child care facilities.

School facility upgrades and new construction would be financed through $50 billion in grants and an another $50 billion leveraged through bonds. His proposal stresses the importance of ventilation and indoor air quality, as well as the need to create more energy-efficient, green buildings. That could include electric school buses.
[Read More: Perspectives on How Schools Should Spend Covid Relief Aid]
The stimulus plan was approved just months after Congress passed a $900 billion Covid relief package that included about $82 billion for education. The December 2020 package, known as the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSA) provides:

$54.3 billion for K-12 schools, largely delivered through Title I funding. That's about four times what schools received in the CARES Act approved in March.

$22.7 billion for higher education with $1.7 billion set aside for minority-serving institutions and close to $1 billion for for-profit colleges

$4 billion for governors to spend at their discretion, with $2.7 billion of that for private schools

The U.S. Education Department has begun to disperse the funds from the December relief package and released a breakdown of
how much relief aid each state would receive for K-12 schools, as well as discretionary dollars for governors. The governors fund represents the primary mechanism for providing relief aid to private K-12 schools.

CRRSA also includes $7 billion to expand broadband access, $10 billion for child care, and continued funding for school meal programs. And it includes $2 billion for motor bus operators, some of which can be used for school buses. Separately, lawmakers agreed to lift a ban on Pell Grants for prison education programs, an agreement included in the bill funding the government through the fiscal year. The higher ed agreement would also simplify the FAFSA form required for applying for federal financial aid, expand Pell Grants support to 500,000 new low-income college students, and cancel $1 billion in debt at historically Black colleges and universities.

The December Covid relief deal was far smaller than the $2.2 trillion Democratic leaders had been seeking for much of the Fall but higher than the $500 billion that Senate Republicans favored. The measure left some education leaders disappointed. American Council of Education President Ted Mitchell released a statement calling the funding for higher education "wholly inadequate." Alliance for Excellent Education President and CEO Deborah S. Delisle praised the overall effort but faulted Congressional leaders for failing to include $3 billion for the E-Rate program, money that had appeared in previous relief proposals. School choice advocates found little of the support for private schools contained in Republican-backed bills.

The Association of School Business Officers International released results of a survey showing how schools are spending the money in the first two rounds of funding.

The bulk of the money allotted to stabilize K-12 schools in the stimulus package and CRRSA will go directly to school districts based on the proportion of funding they receive through Title I of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

Like the first round of Covid relief aid in the CARES Act, the December measure and the stimulus package allows for a broad range of uses for dollars to stabilize schools. Districts can essentially use it for any activity allowed under other federal laws for education, including those for students with disabilities and those who are homeless. These include:

Improving coordination among state, local, tribal and other entities to slow the spread of Covid-1

Providing resources that principals need to address coronavirus at their schools

Supporting school district efforts to improve preparedness

Addressing learning loss especially among disadvantaged students, including those living in poverty, learning English, experiencing homelessness, dealing with disabilities or living in foster care

Training staff on the best ways to sanitize schools and proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE)

Purchasing PPE and the supplies needed to clean and disinfect schools. The CDC has provided an analysis of the costs of such resources.

Planning for school closures

Purchasing the hardware and software needed to conduct remote and hybrid learning

Providing services to support student mental health

Supporting afterschool and summer learning programs

Using evidence-based approaches to address learning loss, which can include assessments and distance learning equipment

Repairing school facilities, especially ventilation systems, to improve air quality and reduce spread of Covid

At least 20 percent of the money provided in the American Rescue Plan must be spent to address lost learning. The law specially mentions the need to administer high quality assessments to determine academic needs, implement evidence-based practices, support students and families in distance learning, track student attendance and engagement during remote instruction, and monitor student academic progress to identify students who need more help.

In mid-March, the Education Department released five questions for districts to consider when evaluating the whether the proposed spending is appropriate:

1. Will the proposed use of funds "prevent, prepare for, and respond to Coronavirus?"

2. Is it an allowable use of funds under the CARES Act?

3. Is it reasonable and necessary?

4. Does it promote equity?

5. Does it support returning students to the classroom?

Under CRRSA, governors will divvy up about $4 billion in aid, $1.3 billion of that for public schools and for higher education institutions most significantly impacted by the pandemic. Another $2.75 billion can go to private and parochial K-12 schools for such things as equipment, training, staff and other expenses needed to keep schools running. The measure specifically prohibits using the new money to support private school vouchers or other mechanisms for spending public money on private school tuition. The only exception is for governors who used their first round of discretionary dollars for such purposes. The only money allotted to governors in the March stimulus package is a $2.75 billion fund for private schools.

State-by-State Breakdown for K-12 Funding

Here are U.S. Education Department estimates of the amount of money that state and local school districts should receive under December's CCRSA measure, and the American Rescue Plan (ARP).

The CARES Act

Before December, the only Congressional relief aid directly for K-12 schools came in the $2 trillion March stimulus package, known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act or the CARES Act, which $13.2 billion for K-12 schools, although several other bills were considered.

The stimulus bill that passed in late March, known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act or CARES Act, earmarks $30.7 billion under an Education Stabilization Fund for states to spend on education, including $13.2 billion for the Elementary and Secondary School Education Relief Fund and $14 billion for Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund. Another $3 billion went to the Governors Emergency Education Relief Fund, which governors can use for "significantly impacted" school districts or higher education institutions.
[Read More: How Governors Are Spending Their CARES Act Education Dollars]
The U.S. Education Department has released estimates of how much money each state should receive, ranging from $32 million in stabilization funding for K-12 education in Wyoming to $1.6 billion in California. (see full chart below) Under the governors discretionary funding, New York will have $164 million to spend, while Rhode Island will have less than $9 million. In California, EdSource has calculated how much each of the state's school district could receive. The CARES Act money must be spent by September 2022. The department released a frequently asked questions sheet about the process.

An analysis by the Association of School Business Officials International and the Superintendents Association suggests that a typical school district could spend nearly $2 million to reopen schools, given increased need for cleaning and transportation costs.
The law list 12 allowable uses of the $13.2 billion in the package's K-12 relief fund:

1. Any activity authorized by the ESEA of 1965, including the Native Hawaiian Education Act and the Alaska Native Educational Equity, Support, and Assistance Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, or subtitle B of title VII of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

2. Coordination of preparedness and response efforts of local educational agencies with state, local, Tribal, and territorial public health departments, and other relevant agencies, to improve coordinated responses among such entities to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.

3. Providing principals and others school leaders with the resources necessary to address the needs of their individual schools.

4. Activities to address the unique needs of low-income children or students, children with disabilities, English learners, racial and ethnic minorities, students experiencing homelessness, and foster care youth, including how outreach and service delivery will meet the needs of each population.

5. Developing and implementing procedures and systems to improve the preparedness and response efforts of local educational agencies.

6. Training and professional development for staff of the local educational agency on sanitation and minimizing the spread of infectious diseases.

7. Purchasing supplies to sanitize and clean the facilities of a local educational agency, including buildings operated by such agency.

8. Planning for and coordinating during long-term closures, including for how to provide meals to eligible students, how to provide technology for online learning to all students, how to provide guidance for carrying out requirements under IDEA and how to ensure other educational services can continue to be provided consistent with all Federal, State, and local requirements.

9. Purchasing educational technology (including hardware, software, and connectivity) for students who are served by the local educational agency that aids in regular and substantive educational interaction between students and their classroom instructors, including low-income students and students with disabilities, which may include assistive technology or adaptive equipment.

10. Providing mental health services and supports.

11. Planning and implementing activities related to summer learning and supplemental afterschool programs, including providing classroom instruction or online learning during the summer months and addressing the needs of low-income students, students with disabilities, English learners, migrant students, students experiencing homelessness, and children in foster care.

12. Other activities that are necessary to maintain the operation of and continuity of services in local educational agencies and continuing to employ existing staff of the local educational agency.

The CARES Act includes an additional $100 million in grants under Project SERV, which is dedicated to helping school districts and post-secondary institutions recover from "a violent or traumatic event that disrupts learning." That pot of money can support distance learning, as well as mental health counseling and disinfecting schools.

Microgrants and Private Schools

In addition, DeVos launched a $180 million "Rethink K-12 School Models" competitive grant program, designed to focus on helping states and families with virtual learning and the needed technology particularly during the Covid emergency. She encouraged states to develop innovative models "not yet imagined" for providing remote education. Congressional critics slammed the grant program as a backdoor approach to providing vouchers to parents who want to educate their children at home or in private institutions.

DeVos acknowledged as much in a May 19 interview on SirusXM radio, saying the funding could allow parents to send their children to faith-based schools. "For more than three decades that has been something that I've been passionate about. This whole pandemic has brought into clear focus that everyone has been impacted, and we shouldn't be thinking about students that are in public schools versus private schools."

In July, Devos awarded $180 million in grants to 11 states to support virtual coursework, training for remote instruction, and electronic devices. DeVos announced grants ranging from $6 million to $20 million to 11 states: Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, North Carolina, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas. Several states, including Rhode Island and Texas will enhance their virtual coursework offerings, which could benefit students from shuttered schools as well as homeschoolers. New York will put the bulk of its money toward training teachers in remote instruction, while Louisiana sets aside some of its grant providing devices and internet hotspots for 12,000 students. South Carolina is exploring a way to deliver remote instruction without internet access.
[Read More: The Challenge of Taking Attendance in Remote Learning]
Private school funding was also a point of contention in the Spring after the. Education Department developed guidance and then an interim rule released in July explaining how CARES Act dollars should be shared with private schools. Typically Title I dollars can flow to private school students for "equitable services," such as tutoring, if the students are deemed low achieving and live in an attendance zone for a Title 1 public school. The initial guidance called for school districts to provide these services, including materials and equipment, to any students and teachers in non-public schools, regardless of whether the students are low-achieving or live in the right attendance zones. The share for private schools would have to be proportionate to the share of all students in the district attending such schools. The interim released in July gave school districts more flexibility, but ultimately directed more federal dollars to private institutions.

In addition, at least four governors have devoted some of CARES Act discretionary funds to tax-credit scholarships for private schools, and other allow private schools to compete for grants.

On August 21, a federal judge in Washington state put a temporary hold on DeVos's rule, agreeing with state officials that sharing more federal aid with private schools could cause "irreparable harm" to public schools. "The Department's claim that the State faces only an economic injury, which ordinarily does not qualify as irreparable harm, is remarkably callous, and blind to the realities of this extraordinary pandemic and the very purpose of the CARES Act: to provide emergency relief where it is most needed," Judge Barbara Rothstein wrote in her opinion.

On August 26, a federal judge in the Northern District of California issued a similar ruling blocking implementation in a lawsuit filed by Michigan, California, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; the District of Columbia; an school districts in New York City, Chicago, Cleveland and San Francisco. "The Department may prefer to give CARES Act funds to private schools more generously than Congress provided, but it is Congress who makes the law, and an 'agency has no power to 'tailor' legislation to bureaucratic policy goals by rewriting unambiguous statutory terms,'" U.S. District Judge James Donato Donato wrote in issuing his temporary injunction.

And on Sept. 4, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. issued a summary judgment effectively invalidating DeVos's interim rule nationwide. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich ruled that the education secretary overstepped her authority and misinterpreted what Congress intended for the CARES Act funding.

"In enacting the education funding provisions of the CARES Act, Congress spoke with a clear voice...," wrote Friedrich, a Trump appointee to the court. "Contrary to the Department's interim final rule, that cannot mean the opposite of what it says."

Other Legislation

For months last year, negotiations in Congress snagged over a provision that would protect companies and other entities from liability in coronavirus-related lawsuits, something that Democrats opposed. Republicans, meanwhile, objected to money going to state and local governments, concerned that the federal dollars would simply pay off past debt or go to pension funds.

The House approved the $3 billion HEROES Act in May and a scaled down version in October, which includes $175 billion for stabilizing K-12 schools, $27 billion for higher education, $2 billion for Bureau of Indian Education-funded schools and Tribal Colleges and Universities, and $4 billion for governors to split. Another $5 billion in grants would have gone toward improving K-12 facilities, including school ventilation systems. And $11.9 billion was intended to help colleges and universities address pandemic-related challenges. That bill garnered no support from GOP House members, and despite White House negotiations, Senate Republicans said they had little interest in a deal larger than $1 trillion.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell focused instead on a smaller "highly targeted" $500 billion package, which failed to muster the needed votes on Sept. 10 and again on Oct. 21. That measure would have provided about $100 billion for education, with two thirds of K-12 aid reserved for schools and districts with in-person classes. The December measure has no such restrictions. The Republican package would also have supported private schools with proposals for a two-year pandemic tax credit program to pay tuition scholarships, extra dollars to expand state tax credit voucher programs, and permission for parents to use 529 savings accounts to pay for homeschooling costs. None of these provisions were included in the final package approved in December.
[Read More: How the Federal Government Can Help School Reopen Safely]
Beyond Capitol Hill, courts have weighed in on coronavirus relief by blocking a a controversial Education Department rule requiring public school districts to share more of the federal Covid aid with private schools. On Sept. 4, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich in Washington, D.C., ruled that then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos misinterpreted Congress's intent when she drafted an interim rule for how CARES Act dollars should be spent.

Students with Disabilities

The American Rescue Plan dedicates $3 billion toward funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Beyond the new money allotted, The Education Department has been offering states more flexibility in how they spend their existing money, with release of a template for requesting waivers. This could allow schools to spend more of the federal dollars on technology for distance learning.

While the CARES Act gives the DeVos broad authority for waiving accountability requirements, lawmakers stopped short of allowing waivers for special education rules and gave DeVos a month to report her recommendations to Congress. In an April 27 report, she did not recommend any waivers for the "core tenets" of the federal law that requires providing services for students with disabilities. She did suggest flexibility on time lines for evaluation to ensure that toddlers with disabilities don't lose the support they need.

Schools are grappling with how to deliver services-such as physical or occupational therapy-or meet timelines set in individualized education plans (IEPs) required under federal law. Or even how to get the required signatures for IEPs. Some districts initially declined to provide instruction to any students because they could not address the needs of those with disabilities. The U.S. Education Department discouraged that sort of thinking.

Child Nutrition

Another important aspect of student health is nutrition. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, approved in mid-March, provides greater flexibility for schools to serve free meals beyond the school grounds. Some schools are allowing families to pick up food at community centers or using school buses to deliver meals. The measure also allows student who qualify for free and reduced-price meals to receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The U.S. Agriculture Department has granted districts considerable flexibility and extended those waivers through June 2022. In addition:

The American Rescue Plan includes more than $5 billion to extend the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program throughout the school year and summer, giving students uninterrupted access to meals during the pandemic.

The December relief package included $13 billion for increased SNAP and other child nutrition benefits. It increased SNAP benefits by 15 percent and provided federal dollars to support food banks.

A continuing resolution that Congress passed in the Fall to keep the government running provides another $8 billion for child nutrition programs

The CARES Act provided $18.5 billion toward SNAP and $8.8 billion for child nutrition programs.

Student-Based Health Care

With many schools still shuttered, millions of students have lost access to an important source of health care. As school districts and health providers cobble together solutions, Congressional funding and new regulatory flexibility could deliver some needed support.

A key source of funding for the school-based health care is Medicaid, which covers 37 percent of school-age children and reimburses $4 billion to $5 billion in services at schools annually. That figure has increased in recent years after a 2014 regulatory change allowed schools to seek reimbursement for services provided to all eligible children.

The Families First Act temporarily increases the federal match to states for Medicaid. To receive those extra dollars, states must commit to maintain current eligibility standards and premiums and to limit disenrollment. The American Rescue Plan provides incentives for more states to expand Medicaid to low-income adults, expansions that have led to more students being enrolled in other states. In addition, the stimulus plan created more affordable insurance option through state marketplaces.
Read More: How the Health and Education Sectors Can Collaborate]
Beyond legislative efforts, federal authorities are granting wide latitude on billing Medicaid for using telehealth to deliver services and urging states to expand offerings. This allows students to receive special education services or visit health providers virtually, using a smart phone or computers, without risking a visit to an office or hospital.

State Medicaid programs can reimburse these providers for telehealth services just as they do for in-person visits without obtaining federal approval, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) explained in a recent release. That said, some states have restrictions on what services must be delivered in person, especially for students with disabilities.

The legislation passed so far will hardly be Congress's last word on education funding. Members of Congress and education leaders are already contemplating how to support K-12 schools in future stimulus bills.
[Read More: Tracking State Legislation on the Coronavirus]
CARES Act Allocation

The CARES Act requires that at least 90 percent of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund flow to local education agencies, with no more than 10 percent reserved for the state agency, and a fraction of that for administrative costs. The totals in the chart below are rounded.

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What Congressional Covid Funding Means for K-12 Schools | FutureEd

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(Updated 11/19) The House today approved a $1.75 trillion plan that includes more funding for K-12 schools, as well as about $400 billion to make child care more affordable and to secure six years of funding for universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-old children.

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Racial & Social Justice

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Students of every race, background, and zip code deserve the freedom to learn and pursue their dreams. NEA engages and mobilizes activists in the effort for racial, social, and economic justice in public schools and on campuses.

We are building and growing a community of activists committed to advancing social justice policies in public education.

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NEA is growing the movement to win education justice for our students, schools, and communities.

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Ending school to prison pipeline

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National Education Association Resources and Support

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National Education Association Resources and Support

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School closings and alternate-day in-person classes require families to pay a more active role in students' education. With the help of partners like Reading Rockets, we're providing the help you need to keep kids' learning on track.

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School closings and alternate-day in-person classes require families to pay a more active role in students' education. With the help of partners like Reading Rockets, we're providing the help you need to keep kids' learning on track.

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Research on impact of COVID19 and Public Education

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The COVID-19 pandemic altered the lives of every family in America and particularly affected American families with school-aged children. In March 2020, every school district in the country closed and transitioned to remote learning, and this posed new challenges for parents, teachers, and students. The virus persisted throughout the fall and winter, and so have the associated challenges for families and children.

Some schools began the process of reopening in the spring, while others either remained closed or canceled their reopening plans amidst rising infection rates. As of spring 2021, 24 percent of schools remain fully remote, and 18 percent are teaching fully in person.¹ The majority of schools (51 percent) are operating under some type of hybrid model, offering in-person instruction on limited days of the week or for select grade levels, with no option for full-time in-person instruction.²

The evidence suggests that this disruption to children's education harms their learning, as well as the mental health of parents, students, and teachers. Parents are facing additional stress as a result of overseeing their children's at-home education, teachers must adapt to a new method of instruction, and children have entered the uncharted territory of at-home learning, separated from their teachers and friends. While the costs are concerning, decision makers have the unenviable task of balancing the costs of school closures against the health risks of in-person instruction.

This paper surveys the research on the costs of school closures and the health risks of reopening in order to help inform local decision-making. School closures have negative, predictable ramifications for parents and students, with the greatest harm concentrated among the youngest students. At the same time, research also indicates that young children are less likely to contract and spread COVID-19, and this suggests that local leaders should prioritize young children's return to school.

The circumstances that American families find themselves in during the pandemic are unusual. Families' diverse needs during the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the drawbacks of a traditional one-size-fits-all approach to education and highlight the need for innovative alternatives to traditional options, now and in the future.

The Academic Impact of School Closures

For a variety of reasons, extended school closures have harmful implications for children's academic and developmental progress. First, early childhood education is dependent on sensory and social experiences that are not easily replaced at a distance. Additionally, recent research estimates that remote learning will result in considerable learning losses among older students, and these losses will have long-term effects.

It is unlikely that distance learning can serve as a suitable replacement for the classroom for young children. To begin with, closing schools separates children from important learning tools used in the classroom. To the extent these tools are not adequately replaced at home, this separation may hinder children's education and development.

For instance, a primary method used in the instruction of young children is sensory play-hands-on activities that aid learning by engaging the five senses. Sensory play has been referred to as "the foundation of all the skills children will use in school learning to read, write and solve math and science problems."³ For example, young children's use of blocks as learning tools can help build the foundation for math skills by aiding the development of spatial awareness and pattern recognition. Research also suggests that sensory play-based experiences in preschool and kindergarten result in better social and academic outcomes than direct instruction.⁴

Another consequence of remote learning is that it can lead to reduced social development. As many adults have learned, even the best online experiences can hardly replicate in-person interactions. Children are less likely to learn how to interact with peers and adults without in-person schooling or extracurricular activities such as sports. In a Pew Research Center survey conducted in fall 2020, 47 percent of parents with young children said they were more concerned about their children falling behind in social skills than they were before the pandemic, compared to just seven percent who were less concerned.⁵

By decreasing the amount of time children spend learning and socializing in school, school closures have also led children to increase their use of digital media, exacerbating parents pre-existing concerns about their children's screen time. In a Pew Research survey conducted in early March, just before pandemic restrictions went into effect, 71 percent of parents with children under 12 reported being at least somewhat concerned that their children were using screens too often.⁶ Prior to the pandemic, children ages five to eight were already using screen media for more than three hours per day, with the large majority of that time spent watching television or online videos.⁷ Since then, Nielsen ratings data show that television and video viewing among children has only increased.⁸ Similarly, survey data indicate that parents' concerns have grown as screen use among their young kids has increased.⁹

Unfortunately, research suggests that higher levels of television watching can have negative effects on young children's development. For example, higher levels of television viewing is linked to poorer attention issues among young children.¹⁰ Although the bulk of the literature connecting television watching and developmental outcomes focuses on children who are not yet school age, more frequent television viewing among school-aged children has been associated with lower physical health, less pro-social behavior, and decreased academic achievement,¹¹ and some of these adverse outcomes seem to persist into young adulthood.¹²

Beyond television watching, there may be additional reason for pause with regard to children's increased screen use. For instance, preliminary results from a ten-year longitudinal study of 11,000 U.S. nine- and ten-year-olds indicate a relationship between increased screen use and lower scores on cognitive and language tests.¹³ Overall, the available evidence suggests that remote learning is suboptimal for younger students' development.

Learning Losses

School closures threaten to disrupt children's education, leading to poorer academic outcomes and potentially worse economic outcomes later in life. Just as students experience a "summer slide," and forget much of what they learned over the past year during summer vacation,¹⁴ so students today are experiencing a "COVID slide."

Using past research on summer learning loss, as well as work on human capital investment and other interruptions to students' education, several studies have attempted to estimate the learning loss resulting from COVID-19 school closures. These studies predicted that severe learning losses would dramatically set children back in the fall semester.¹⁵

Later in the year, researchers were able to use real-world data to quantify the magnitude of the COVID learning slide. According to one study of grades 1-8, students in many grades were reading close to expectations in the fall semester, though others were several weeks behind. Furthermore, every grade was behind in math, in some cases up to 12 or more weeks behind.¹⁶ Another study of grades 3-8 similarly found that students had made some progress in math and learning since the pandemic began, with reading ability similar to past years but math ability roughly 5 to 10 percentage points below normal.¹⁷

Nevertheless, teachers and parents seem more skeptical of students' abilities than study results suggest. In an October 2020 survey, 66 percent of teachers said that most students were less prepared for grade-level work compared to last year, and 27 percent reported that a majority of their students were significantly less prepared. Only 19 percent of teachers reported that they had covered all or nearly all of the material they would have covered by this point a year ago, while 56 percent said that they had covered half or less of last year's material.¹⁸ Similarly, only 40 percent of parents believe that their children have learned as much at home as in the classroom.¹⁹

The COVID slide may be particularly harmful to low-income students, partly due to differences in home environments and access to the technology necessary for online learning.²⁰ Assuming a complete return to in-person instruction in January 2021, McKinsey estimated that low-income students will lose 12.4 months of learning compared to the overall average loss of 6.8 months.²¹ The disparity is due to a variety of factors; low-income students are less likely to have a high-quality learning environment at home free of distractions, less likely to have access to their own devices dedicated to remote instruction, and less likely to engage in online school with the same consistency as students from higher-income families.²² Indeed, in an October 2020 survey, 33 percent of teachers in the highest-poverty schools reported that students were significantly less prepared than the year prior, versus 16 percent of teachers in low-poverty schools.²³

Data from Harvard University's Opportunity Insights highlights these disparities (Figure 1).²⁴ Prior to the pandemic, rates of student progress were relatively similar across schools aggregated by their respective ZIP codes' median incomes. Since then, students in ZIP codes in the top quartile by median income have progressed further in online math courses than those from ZIP codes in the bottom quartile.²⁵ They have also participated far more consistently in online math than those from areas in the three lower quartiles.²⁶

Figure 1: Online Math Learning Achievement by School ZIP Code's Median Income (as of December 13, 2020) Source: Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker

In addition to learning loss varying by income, learning loss also appears to vary with age. Younger children are likely to face the greatest setbacks because they are supposed to be learning foundational skills. For example, numerous studies have projected pronounced reading losses among U.S. kindergarteners due to school closures.²⁷ Researchers from Illuminate Education recommend that schools "[s]pend more time focused on reading and math in K-3 classrooms. The risk of learning loss is greater in these grades, so it is even more critical to spend time helping students make up for the lack of instruction in these foundational subjects."²⁸ Additional research has concluded that "there may be a need to think about providing more resources at early grades to help students catch up in their learning or to prioritize what skills are taught in these grades."²⁹

Economic Costs of Learning Loss

Learning loss will bring with it long-term economic costs, even if schools return to full in-person instruction immediately. McKinsey estimated that, assuming in-school instruction resumes in January 2021, the average K-12 U.S. student could lose $61,000 to $82,000 (constant 2020 dollars) in lifetime earnings.³⁰ For the aggregate K-12 cohort, this amounts to an estimated $110 billion in annual earnings lost-$98.8 billion from learning loss, and $11.2 billion from an increase in high-school dropouts. Of course, any delays past January 2021 would increase losses further.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model similarly estimated that, as of October 1, 2020, school closures had already cost students in grades 1-12 between $43,000 and $57,000 each. ³¹ Each additional month of school closures is estimated to cost current students $12,000 to $15,000 in future earnings.³²

As with learning loss, young children will likely face the greatest economic harm from today's school closures. One study estimates that children aged six-those just starting primary school when the pandemic struck-will suffer earning losses 60 percent higher than children aged 14.³³ All told, the Brookings Institution estimated that the aggregate cost of four months of lost education in the United States is $2.5 trillion, or 12.7 percent of annual GDP.³⁴

The Effect of School Closures on Americans' Mental Health

In addition to children's developmental and academic losses, American families are experiencing declines in their mental health. Children are suffering from a loss of routine, isolation from their peers, and the stress of remote learning. Parents, especially those with young children, face the added stress of overseeing schooling in addition to their other responsibilities.

Harm to Children's Mental Health

Disruptions to normal school activity have caused many children to struggle with their mental health. In May, nearly 30 percent of parents surveyed by Gallup reported that their child was experiencing emotional or mental harm due to social distancing and school closures. Nearly half believed that their child's separation from classmates and teachers posed a major challenge, and of those, only 12 percent thought that their child could continue with remote learning indefinitely.³⁵

Parental concerns grew considerably as schools remained closed. A Pew Research Center survey from October revealed that 59 percent of parents with children in grades K-12 were concerned about their child's emotional well-being, and that 60 percent were concerned about their children not maintaining social connections and friendships. Parents were significantly more concerned about each of these issues if their child was only receiving online instruction versus in-person instruction.³⁶

In addition to causing feelings of isolation, school closures are contributing to families' stress more generally. When higher levels of stress translate to a stressful home life, they further harm children's mental health: research shows that high-stress environments can exacerbate pre-existing psychological issues in children, such as behavioral problems and psychological disorders.³⁷ Indeed, in a national survey of parents, nearly one-fifth reported that their child's behavioral health had worsened from March to June after schools had closed - findings that were similar across racial and economic groups.³⁸ Reports did differ, however, depending on the age of their child. Parents with children ages 6 to 12 were more likely to report worsening behavioral health than parents with children older than 13.³⁹

Increasing stress in family life may also worsen some children's treatment at home. Parents' stress levels are undoubtedly rising as they are being asked to be work, teach, and care for their children at the same time, especially while some children exhibit greater behavioral problems. These stressors may lead to parental burnout, defined as "a prolonged response to chronic and overwhelming parental stress."⁴⁰ Research shows that parents with higher levels of parental burnout engage in greater levels of child abuse and neglect.⁴¹ At the same time, school closures are separating children from teachers, school psychologists, nurses, and other staff trained to identify and report child mistreatment. One analysis of child abuse hotline allegations in Florida found that reported allegations of abuse, neglect or abandonment in March and April were 27 percent lower than expected, and the reduction was driven by decreased calls from school staff.⁴²

The potential for mistreatment is increasing at a time when mental health services are less accessible to children. A nationally representative survey conducted in 2014 found that 13 percent of children aged 12 to 17 received mental health services from a school setting.⁴³ These services can include talking to counselors or participating in programs for students with emotional or behavioral problems, and younger adolescents were more likely than older adolescents to receive these services. An analysis of the same survey from 2012 to 2015 found that, of the adolescents that received any mental health services, 35 percent received their services exclusively from school settings and 57 percent received at least some services in a school setting.⁴⁴

Finally, school shutdowns have been particularly difficult for students with learning disabilities. Schools are required to provide these students with specialized services to help them succeed, yet these services are harder to deliver while schools are closed. For example, some students may require one-on-one assistance in the classroom from a personal aid, and others require modified equipment or a different method of instruction. According to a survey conducted in May by ParentsTogether, 80 percent of parents with children in special education said that their children were not receiving all of the specialized services they require, as mandated by law.⁴⁵Additionally, parents of special needs children were twice as likely as other parents to say that their child was doing little to no remote learning (35 percent vs. 17 percent).⁴⁶

Harm to Parents' Mental Health

In 2019, there were over 50 million working parents with children under 18 years old, 42 percent of which had children under the age of six.⁴⁷ As children have suffered from the disruption of routine, these parents have also struggled with taking on the new responsibility of schooling their children. The added stress is even greater for the parents of younger children, who require more attention throughout the day.

In an April survey of parents with children ages 12 and younger, 45 percent did not feel prepared to educate their children at home, and 50 percent felt overwhelmed by their new responsibilities, citing behavioral problems and the difficulty of balancing their work with their children's schooling.⁴⁸ Similarly, in a Pew Research Center survey conducted in May, 72 percent of working parents said that balancing a job with helping kids with school was a challenge, and over 40 percent reported it was a major challenge.⁴⁹

Not surprisingly, this added stress has worsened parents' well-being. A national survey from June 2020 revealed that over one quarter of parents experienced declining mental health since March, and parents of young children saw even more widespread declines.⁵⁰ Furthermore, using survey data collected from February to April, researchers have estimated that the increased caregiving burdens caused by school closures are significantly associated with negative parental mood, even after controlling for the mood effects of COVID-related job and income loss.⁵¹ More recently, the U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey from early December revealed that adults in households with children under 18 report higher rates of anxiety and depression than adults in households with no children.⁵²

Productivity is a key component to economic growth. By harming working parents' mental health, school closures have negative ramifications for the labor force and the economy.

In 2019, nearly one third of workers in the United States had children under the age of 18.⁵³ Therefore, school closures threaten to reduce a large proportion of the labor market's productivity. For instance, one study of dual-income households found that, during the COVID-19 lockdowns, mothers reported lower work productivity and job satisfaction than fathers. Prior to the lockdowns, however, there were no differences between reported productivity and satisfaction, suggesting that mothers took on a greater role in childcare once schools closed.⁵⁴ Additional research found that mothers of school age children in states with early closures worked longer hours than mothers in states with later closures, and this indicates a decrease in work productivity among mothers that work from home.⁵⁵ As long as school closures require working parents to be responsible for overseeing their children's schooling, it seems safe to assume U.S. productivity will suffer.

How Reopening Schools Affects the Spread of COVID-19

Closing schools harms children and parents-developmentally, academically, and psychologically. Yet, teachers, parents, and policymakers have worried since the beginning of the pandemic that reopening schools will increase the spread of COVID-19.

It is important that decision makers balance the benefits of school reopening against associated health risks; however, evidence on the relationship between school reopening and health risks is more mixed than commonly recognized. One interesting area of consensus is that younger children are at much lower risk of contracting and transmitting the virus than older children.

Health Risks for the Overall Population

Reopening schools brings with it the fear that in-person contact will increase the spread of COVID-19 and threaten at-risk teachers and relatives. In line with that concern, one analysis estimated that 42 percent of school employees are high-risk due to confounding factors like obesity and high blood pressure, and additionally that 59 percent of school-aged children live with at least one adult who meets the definition of increased risk.⁵⁶ Given this information, it is important to determine to what extent school reopenings might increase COVID-19 transmission.

Many researchers have attempted to quantify how school reopenings influence infection rates, both domestically and around the world. In the United States, preliminary evidence suggests that school reopenings do not significantly contribute to the spread of COVID-19. For example, researchers from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently concluded there is little evidence that school attendance increases community transmission.⁵⁷ They cite studies of schools offering in-person instruction in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Mississippi, in each case finding that transmission is rare between students and faculty and rare among the students themselves. Because of the low rates of infection at schools, the researchers argue that reducing community-based transmission is more important to slow the spread of COVID-19 than reducing school-based transmission.

Two new studies seem to echo these findings, but with caveats for schools in communities with high infection rates. The first study examines Michigan and Washington schools in fall 2020, and finds that interventions like mandatory mask wearing effectively eliminate the relationship between in-person instruction and COVID case counts.⁵⁸ Yet, the researchers caution that in-person schooling is predicted to increase community spread in areas with very high pre-existing infection rates. The second study analyzes schools in nearly every county in the United States from January to October.⁵⁹ The researchers find that in-person instruction had no effect on infection rates in counties with fewer than 36 to 44 new COVID-19 hospitalizations per 100,000 people per week and roughly 75 percent of the schools examined fell beneath this threshold.

Using data from 47 states, economist Emily Oster found similar results: in schools that reopened, infection rates were only equal to 0.13 percent among school students and 0.24 percent among staff. These rates equate to "about 1.3 infections over two weeks in a school of 1,000 kids, or 2.2 infections over two weeks in a group of 1,000 staff,"⁶⁰ and they suggest that school reopenings do not pose a significant threat for COVID-19 spread. Oster later analyzed October and November infection rates in New York and found that 80 percent of schools offering in-person instruction reported zero COVID-19 cases.⁶¹ She noted that "of those schools that did detect covid, nearly 90 percent had only one or two cases across all students and staff."⁶²

The international evidence is less clear. For instance, one study analyzed interventions in 79 countries and found that school closures were among the most effective at reducing infection rates.⁶³ Another study came to a similar conclusion after evaluating interventions in 131 countries, finding that school closures had the largest impact on reducing infection rates.⁶⁴ It is worth noting, however, that the researchers were unable to evaluate the effectiveness of school safety protocols - such as desk dividers, physical distancing, and enhanced hygiene - which scientists argue reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Other international studies have been unable to draw causal relationships between school reopenings and infection rates. For example, one study found that closing schools in Norway and Denmark led to a decline in infections, yet reopening schools did not lead to a corresponding increase due to low rates of community transmission.⁶⁵ Similarly, in Germany, school reopenings increased transmission among students, but not school staff.⁶⁶ In Spain, reopening schools led to cases rising in one region but falling in another.⁶⁷ And after Sweden chose to keep its schools open and Finland chose to close its schools, students under the age of 20 in both countries experienced nearly identical infection rates.⁶⁸

Perhaps the non-profit group Insights for Education summarizes the research best. After studying the experience of 191 countries, Insights for Education concluded that "no consistency can be observed between school status and infection levels."69 Yet, at least domestically, the evidence seems to suggest that school reopenings are safe for areas with lower rates of community transmission.

Health Risks across Age Groups

Though the evidence on the relationship between school reopenings and overall infection rates is somewhat mixed, the research is united on one point: the risk of transmission increases with age.

First, a review of worldwide outbreaks by researchers at the University of Vermont found that young children are hardly ever the primary sources of infection. The authors posit that, because children are more likely to be asymptomatic than adults, they are less likely to cough or otherwise release infectious particles that spread the virus.⁷⁰ Similarly, a study from South Korea showed that children under age 10 transmit the virus at one quarter of the rate of children ages 10 to 19.⁷¹

Other research confirms that infection rates are consistently lower in younger populations. One study of German schools found that children ages 6 to 10 were less likely to have COVID-19 than adults and older children at the same schools.⁷² Another study of Italy, Japan, and four other nations found that individuals under age 20 were only half as susceptible to infection as adults over the age of 20, and that nearly 80 percent of infected students did not show symptoms.⁷³

The same patterns are observable in the United States. In New York, high school students and staff have similar infection rates to the overall population, yet the rates for elementary and middle school students are consistently lower.⁷⁴

These trends can be visualized using data from Utah, which keeps detailed records of school-associated COVID-19 cases. Figure 2 displays Utah infection rates by age from April to December, and it shows that high school-aged children are much more likely than elementary school-aged children to be infected over the entire time period. According to data from December, the daily infection rate was 177 percent higher among high school-aged children than elementary school-aged children, and 70 percent higher among high school-aged children than middle school-aged children.⁷⁵

Figure 2. School-Age Group Specific Case Rates per 100,000 Population in Utah, by Report Date Source: Utah Department of Health COVID-19 Surveillance

This evidence confirms that younger children face only modest health risks from returning to school, and this suggests that their return to school should be prioritized. Across all ages, a flexible approach to education is critical; this approach should include an option to return to school or utilize other educational options based on students' and families' educational needs, risk factors, and risk tolerance.

The Response from Parents and Communities

While teachers and policymakers consider whether, when, and how to reopen schools, parents face the more personal question of how to continue their children's education in a way that fits their family's needs, priorities, and risk tolerance. Many parents appear to be treating the pandemic as an opportunity to reevaluate their children's educational options. For example, in October 2020, 64 percent of parents said that schools should focus on "rethinking how we educate students, coming up with new ways to teach children moving forward as a result of the COVID-19 crisis," rather than prioritizing a return to pre-pandemic conditions.⁷⁶ Similarly, a July survey found that 69 percent of parents believed that schools should provide multiple learning options in fall 2020.⁷⁷

Parents' interest in new educational approaches is apparent in their willingness to experiment with new ways of meeting their children's educational needs. For instance, homeschooling has seen a dramatic increase. One recent survey reported an increase in homeschooling from 5 percent in fall 2019 to 10 percent in fall 2020,⁷⁸ while another reported an increase from 7 to 16 percent.⁷⁹ As the Social Capital Project has documented, results from the nationwide American Family Survey conducted this summer show that roughly 40 percent of parents say the pandemic has made them more likely to consider homeschooling in the future.⁸⁰ Overall, 67 percent of parents have a more favorable opinion of homeschooling since the pandemic began in March, compared to 19 percent whose opinion is less favorable.⁸¹

Although parents' views on charter schools are roughly the same as in March,⁸² there are some indications that parents have been especially satisfied with charter schools this year. For example, 45 percent of charter school parents reported in May being "very satisfied" with their school's response to COVID-19, versus 26 percent of public school parents. Compared to parents of public school students, parents of charter school students also report that their students' schools devote a greater share of remote instruction to learning new material and they report more one-on-one teacher-student interaction.⁸³

Perhaps the most notable, recent educational innovation has been the rise of "learning pods"-small groups of students that function as schools in miniature. Students generally meet in person at one family's house or elsewhere and receive instruction from a parent or outside tutor. A recent survey of Americans shows widespread support for policies that would reduce the regulatory obstacles to parents creating pods, and this suggests further public support for a more pluralistic approach to education. For example, 50 percent of respondents agreed thatpolicymakers should consider aligning pods with current laws for homeschooling and private schools so that pod families do not face heavier regulatory burdens, while only 15 percent disagreed. Similarly, 41 percent of respondents agreed that states should avoid putting in place new pupil-staff ratios for pods and further supported permanent waivers to childcare regulations for pods, compared to just 20 percent who disagreed.⁸⁴

Conclusion

As policymakers contemplate reopening schools, it is important that they balance the often-ignored costs of continued school closures with the critical health risks of school reopenings. This paper aims to aid decision-makers by surveying existing research on each of these topics.

First, research confirms that school closures constitute a difficult disruption to students' development. The harm is especially concentrated among very young children, whose separation from teachers and classroom tools may hinder their progress. Furthermore, these children are the most at risk of developing cognitive issues from excessive screen time, a feature of remote learning.

Disruptions to in-person education also harm older children academically. Students with learning disabilities may be disproportionately harmed by not having access to the specialized services they depend on at school. Because of differences in home environments and technology access and use, continued remote learning may also exacerbate current gaps in educational achievement across the socioeconomic spectrum. These COVID-19 learning losses may reduce all students' expected future earnings, however children at the beginning of their school career will likely suffer to the greatest extent.

Second, school closures significantly increase stress for American families with school-aged children. Surveys show that parents are worried about their children's emotional wellbeing while they are isolated from their teachers and friends, and that their children are experiencing greater behavioral issues while they engage in remote learning. Furthermore, separating children from school also separates them from many mental health services, which can be particularly damaging during this time of increased stress and isolation. Reported harm is even worse among younger children, who are experiencing greater issues with their behavioral health and normally take greater advantage of school-provided mental health services.

Parents are also experiencing greater stress as they are confronted with the new responsibility of schooling their children at home. This stress is bleeding into their work life, requiring them to work longer hours and reducing their work productivity. Parents with young children are especially impacted as they must devote more time and attention to caring for their children throughout the day.

All of this evidence suggests that young children should be prioritized for going back to school. Although the research is quite conclusive regarding the harms of school closures, the obvious concern about reopening schools is that it would exacerbate the spread of COVID-19. In this area, the connection between school reopenings and COVID-19 infection rates is debated. Evidence from the United States suggests that in-person schooling does not significantly contribute to COVID-19 transmission, but some international evidence suggests that it may. Across all countires, research has found that young children are at lower risk of getting and transmitting COVID-19 than older children and adults.

As important as the immediate matter of school reopening is, however, the pandemic also provides an opportunity to think more broadly about how to improve the American education system and better enable parents to select the education that best fits their preferences and their children's needs. As the Social Capital Project's paper " Multiple Choice" argued, policymakers should promote "educational pluralism," which "recognizes the value of having distinctive school cultures and couples choice with accountability."⁸⁵ Educational pluralism recognizes that the challenges and competing priorities of reopening schools cannot be solved by a one-size-fits-all approach.

The pandemic in particular calls for a response that recognizes the variation in parental and student needs. Indeed, the range of efforts from parents to continue their children's education today suggests that many are already well aware of the benefits of flexibility to adapt each child's education to his or her particular needs. Though the pandemic will pass, the need for policymakers and educators to accommodate those needs will remain. As policymakers weigh the costs and benefits of reopening schools with the appropriate safety measures, they should recognize the growing popularity of alternative schooling methods and work to improve parents' ability to organize educational approaches that best meet the needs of students and parents alike.

Jacqueline Varas
Senior Economist Vijay Menon Robert Bellafiore
Former Policy Advisor
Policy Advisor

5 Juliana Menasce Horowitz and Ruth Igielnik, "Most Parents of K-12 Students Learning Online Worry about Them Falling Behind," Pew Research Center, October, 29, 2020. https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/10/29/most-parents-of-k-12-students-learning-online-worry-about-them-falling-behind/

12 Robert J. Hancox, Barry J. Milne, and Richie Poulton, "Association between Child and Adolescent Television Viewing and Adult Health: A Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study," The Lancet 364, no. 9430 (July 2004): 257-62. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(04)16675-0/fulltext; and Robert J. Hancox, Barry J. Milne, and Richie Poulton, "Association of Television Viewing during Childhood with Poor Educational Achievement," Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 159, no. 7 (July 2005): 614-8. https://jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/archpedi.159.7.614.

15 "Estimates of Learning Loss in the 2019-2020 School Year," Center for Research on Education Outcomes, Stanford University, October 2020, https://credo.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj6481/f/short_brief_on_learning_loss_final_v.3.pdf; Megan Kuhfeld et al., "Projecting the Potential Impacts of COVID-19 School Closures on Academic Achievement," Annenberg Institute, Brown University, EdWorkingPaper: 20-226, May 2020, p. 23, https://www.edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai20-226-v2.pdf.

24 Research assistance provided by Patrick T. Brown, JEC Senior Policy Advisor.

30 Dorn, Hancock, Sarakatsannis, and Viruleg, "COVID-19 and Student Learning in the United States."

45 Anya Kamenetz, "Survey Shows Big Remote Learning Gaps For Low-Income And Special Needs Children," NPR, May 27, 2020, https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/27/862705225/survey-shows-big-remote-learning-gaps-for-low-income-and-special-needs-children.

59 Douglas N. Harriz, Engy Ziedan, and Susan Hassig, "The Effects of School Reopenings on COVID-19 Hospitalizations," National Center for Research and Education Access and Choice, January 4, 2021, https://www.reachcentered.org/publications/the-effects-of-school-reopenings-on-covid-19-hospitalizations.

64 You Li, et al., "The temporal association of introducing and lifting non-pharmaceutical interventions with the time-varying reproduction number (R) of Sars-CoV-2: a modelling study across 131 countries," Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh, UK, October 22, 2020, https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1473-3099%2820%2930785-4.

74 Emily Oster, "Schools Are Not Spreading Covid-19."

80 Rachel Sheffield, "Marital Health, Parental Well-being, and Family Bonds during the Pandemic: Findings from the 2020 American Family Survey."

85 Patrick Brown, "Multiple Choice: Increasing Pluralism in the American Education System," U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Chairman's Staff of the Joint Economic Committee, December 10, 2019, https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/analysis?ID=BFFED882-7A9E-4462-AC0B-69ED4E67D663.

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What's Next for Schools: Balancing the Costs of School Closures Against COVID-19 Health Risks

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The COVID-19 pandemic altered the lives of every family in America and particularly affected American families with school-aged children. In March 2020, every school district in the country closed and transitioned to remote learning, and this posed new challenges for parents, teachers, and students.

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Autumn Rivera and Ashley Wallace

Introduction

Much attention has been paid to the academic learning loss that is projected to have occurred as a result of COVID-19 school closures. As schools plan out their fall reopening, many are asserting social and emotional learning (SEL) should be a priority. Christina Cipriano, who holds a doctorate in educational psychology and is director of research at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, is among those pushing for more SEL. She recently stated, "It is next to impossible to expect teaching and learning to occur in a crisis without attending to our emotions." In this brief, we summarize the ways that stakeholders suggest SEL be addressed this fall.

The Collaborative for Social, Emotional and Academic Learning (CASEL) defines SEL as "the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions." The science of learning has found that one learns within social contexts, that emotions are essential for learning and that the social brain is the leading force in cognition.

As state departments of education, various organizations, researchers and other stakeholders release recommendations for school reopening, this has either included or focused on social and emotional well-being. In this brief, we identify and discuss five emerging themes gleaned from the following documents:

What follows are snapshots of some of the themes in the above guidance and recommendations.

Strengthen Conditions for Learning

AIR says schools with essential conditions for learning maintain environments that are physically and emotionally safe, supportive, challenging, and socially and emotionally nurturing. CCSSO created a framework to address and respond to COVID-19 impacts on the K-12 education system and included conditions for learning in its guidance. Below are the CCSSO recommendations, alongside NCSL-identified state examples:
Ensure continuation of wraparound supports, such as school meals and access to counseling.
The Oklahoma State Department of Education has provided resources and guidance for distance learning school counseling. The resources include academic and SEL themes and were shared with Oklahoma school counselors to support the transition from in-person to virtual counseling.
Share guidance on trauma-informed SEL, including a focus on school culture and climate and deployment of multi-tiered systems of support.
A multi-tiered system of supports ( MTSS) is a framework for organizing and providing a tiered instructional continuum to support learning for all students. The Oregon Department of Education developed guidance on mental health for school counselors and other administrators, as well as on how to support teacher and student mental and emotional well-being.
Share health and safety protocols for reopening schools, including cleaning, screening, monitoring, deploying school nurses and more.
The Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has provided a nearly 60-page fall reopening plan for schools. The plan outlines recommendations on health and safety requirements, health screenings upon drop-off, and transportation. The National Governor's Association (NGA) has provided a state-by-state tracker of reopening guidance documents that includes actions for K-12 schools.
Provide guidance on parent and family engagement and supports, particularly around distance learning and reopening protocols.
The Indiana Department of Education created a road map for fall reentry that outlines SEL for the end of school, summer sessions and the start of the 2020-21 school year.

Identify and Address the Stress, Trauma, and Social and Emotional Needs of Students

As students may be impacted in multiple ways by COVID-19 and the closure of schools, experts and educators can look back to acknowledge the challenges and successes of virtual learning before moving forward. Since the disruption, there has been further research on the importance of social and emotional skill-building to help students manage difficulty in their lives. Research identifies student anxiety and depression as the two most urgent mental health issues. In the discussions around fall reentry, student anxiety is likely to be a significant concern. Furthermore, according to the Aspen Institute report, outreach and assessment should occur before school reopens and continue through the first 90 days. The two recommendations below come from the recent Aspen Institute report and are paired with in-practice examples that NCSL has identified:
Identify and address the stress and trauma that students have experienced during school closings, and that will be ongoing when school buildings reopen.
Children's reactions to trauma can affect learning and behavior at school. Schools can serve as a system of support for students who have experienced trauma. Even before COVID-19, some states were working on ways to promote trauma-informed practices (TIPs) in schools. While the policy approaches vary, many states aim to increase TIPs for those in contact with youth who may be suffering the effects of trauma. Pennsylvania SB 1142, enacted in 2018, provides grants to schools aimed at increasing trauma-informed approaches, such as counseling and staff training, and identifying students at risk of trauma. Programs such as this one could bolster counselor and other school staff efforts to examine where SEL has been impactful and where more support may be needed.
Create emotionally and physically safe, supportive and engaging learning environments that promote all students' social and emotional development.
In 2019, several states enacted legislation that addresses the issue of school climate. Connecticut HB 7215 created the Social and Emotional Learning and School Climate Advisory Collaborative. Tasked with developing a suicide risk assessment tool for students in grades three through 12, the collaborative will submit recommendations to the General Assembly by 2021 as to the tool's implementation. Mississippi HB 1283 requires the state department of education to establish three pilot programs in six school districts. Using an evidence-based social and emotional curriculum, the program aims to provide K-5 students with the tools to manage stress and anxiety to build resiliency and deal with challenges in a healthy way.

Identify and Address the Stress, Trauma, and Social and Emotional Needs of Adults in the School

The National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development (SEAD) brought together input from scientists, youth, parent groups, educators and policymakers in the report "From a Nation at Risk to a Nation at Hope," which documents the benefits of SEL for children and provides policy, research and practice recommendations. The report revealed that teachers' own social and emotional competencies affect their teaching abilities. A growing body of research suggests that developing teachers' social and emotional competencies improves teacher well-being, reduces stress and burnout, and can reduce teacher and principal turnover. Although teacher stress and well-being are not new concerns, experts expect that COVID-19 has and will continue to produce additional stressors for educators.

The Aspen Institute stated that an adult MTSS is a useful tool of recovery for school personnel. Options can include support for trauma, targeted support or more intensive supports accessed through employee assistance programs (EAP). In a recent brief, CASEL highlighted the need for creating a space where adults can heal and cultivate their own SEL competencies and capacities during these uncertain times. Below are CASEL's recommendations, alongside some on-the-ground examples that NCSL has identified:
Allow space for connection, listening and healing among all leaders and staff in the school building.
By partnering with Acknowledge Alliance, a nonprofit educational consultant, the Sunnyvale School District in California created a space with an open-door policy to encourage staff to receive mental health services and promote well-being through its Educator Resilience program.
Provide professional learning to build educators' capacity to support students' SEL.
Several states addressed this issue through legislation prior to the pandemic. One example is Colorado SB 272, enacted in 2018 and creating a grant program to assist schools in providing professional development to teachers, administrators and staff around crisis and suicide prevention. Another example is the professional educator license-renewal legislation Illinois enacted in 2019 ( HB 355), requiring professional development in inclusive instructional practices and SEL.
Ensure access to mental health and trauma supports for adults.
The American Institutes for Research produced a tool for educators to use in assessing their resilience and forming a trauma-informed self-care plan. Wisconsin and Indiana are offering similar assessments and self-care resources for educators and staff.

Build Partnerships With Afterschool Programs and Other Community-Based Organizations

Since the pandemic began, the education sector has had a full plate, including shifting to distance learning and seeking hot spots and connectivity agreements in order to reach all students, and assisting with student meals. Many of the guidance materials suggest that this is not sustainable in the long term and recommend that the education sector build partnerships in order to shift some responsibilities.
Afterschool programs can be a key partner in reopening schools and addressing student and family needs.
Afterschool programs can foster opportunities for social and emotional learning, as well as re-engaging students through relationship building and enrichment activities. AIR's brief on the role of afterschool programs in reopening and rebuilding underscores these programs' experience as trusted partners of communities and schools. Schools could collaborate with afterschool programs and leverage their connections to local resources and services, such as mental and physical health providers. During a time when clear, timely communication with families is critical, afterschool programs can act as a bridge between schools and families. Finally, if schools collaborate with afterschool programs around split and block schedules this fall, they can help meet the needs of working families and provide students with a sense of safety and belonging.
State/local examples:

The California Department of Education's reopening plan recognized the unique role that afterschool programs play in "helping mediate high levels of stress, establishing trusting and positive relationships with youth that foster belonging while also inspiring engagement and skill development, and building bridges with families in the community." The plan states that school districts should proactively reach out to their afterschool partners.

The Iowa Boys and Girls Club is among the afterschool programs that have worked to provide meals and virtual programming for local families during the pandemic, including partnering with a food bank.

The 50-State Afterschool Network can be a resource to help education organizations and state policymakers identify afterschool partners.

New partnerships can assist with identifying and addressing student and staff SEL needs.
An Aspen Institute report suggests that partnerships between state education departments and child and family services agencies could help with information sharing and problem-solving and take some of the burden off an overextended education sector. The Colorado Education Initiative partnered with the state Department of Education to conduct a school needs assessment. The results have given districts the chance to evaluate community needs and determine their response while moving forward.

Empower the Youth Voice

Empowering youth to use their voice to express themselves, push for change and build strong relationships with adults furthers numerous social and emotional skills. As the National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development's Youth Commission stated, "We know that we learn best when adults know us, make us feel safe, hold us responsible for our learning, and help us work constructively and productively together." Youth want to be partners in their learning and COVID-19 could present an opportunity to reengage them. The Aspen Institute's policy guide makes the following recommendation around youth voice:
Establish a student advisory council for statewide education and COVID-related policy issues that impact youth and families.
Youth and youth-serving community-based organizations could be included in education committee hearings, P-12 task forces, advisory groups and school board hearings. Through these avenues or through student surveys, youth could be partners identifying effective distance learning techniques, providing feedback on why some were not engaged during school closures, stressors experienced, and ways schools and school partners can address student needs and successfully reengage youth in learning.
State/local examples:

The Prichard Committee Student Voice Team works to integrate students as partners to improve Kentucky schools. One of the recent ways it's doing this is by conducting a "Coping With COVID" student survey.

The Indiana Department of Education developed a searchable database that includes SEL and wellness supports for P-12 students. The department also speaks specifically to SEL and youth voices in its Continuous Learning Guidance Plan.

Programs that amplify the youth voice, such as Mikva Challenge Programs, have resulted in growth in five key SEL competency areas: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making.

Additional Resources

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national conference of state legislatures

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Addressing Social and Emotional Needs During COVID-19: Emerging Themes in School Reopening Guides

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Autumn Rivera and Ashley Wallace Much attention has been paid to the academic learning loss that is projected to have occurred as a result of COVID-19 school closures. As schools plan out their fall reopening, many are asserting social and emotional learning (SEL) should be a priority.

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Nine ideas for post COVID in public education

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New ideas for new era of Public Education

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In 1993, Paul T. Hill founded the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research center based out of the University of Washington's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance that from the outset was focused on issues of the next century and the broader question of how America's schools can better prepare their graduates for a rapidly changing society.

This past winter, CRPE, now led by Robin J. Lake and based at UW Bothell, hosted a gathering of education experts and observers to commemorate its first quarter-century of work, toasting 25 years of research, analysis, field studies and white papers created in hopes of aiding school leaders, elected officials and families in reimagining our education system. And not just the function of our schools - but the ways in which the larger system is structured, governed and evaluated.

Across its first 25 years, CRPE's pursuits were focused primarily on developing more highly effective public schools in every community, especially for low-income or otherwise disadvantaged students. One prominent strategy at the core of the center's work has been the portfolio strategy, in which public schools operate with high levels of flexibility and family choice, paired with strong government oversight. But beyond the portfolio model, the center has also focused on key issues of funding formulas, governmental oversight, innovative practice and the charter school sector.

In a series of new essays and analyses published in coordination with its anniversary celebration, CRPE took the longer view, considering how these systems and structures must adapt over the next 25 years as education becomes more nimble and personalized, and as it becomes a priority for learning to extend beyond the traditional classroom structure.

It was an eye-opening and horizon-expanding thought experiment. And we've assembled a handful of these new essays - and their bold theses - below, in a bid to answer the underlying question: What does success look like in 2050 America, and how must our schools evolve to set graduates up for that success?

In honor of CRPE's 25th anniversary, here are eight of the center's biggest thoughts about the next era of public education - some not-so-modest proposals worth thinking about:

Reconfiguring the P-16 Pipeline - How do we redraw the high school-college career continuum? American public education assumes one common pathway for all: four years of high school and, for the lucky, another four years of higher education, the required credential for the vast majority of middle- and high-paying jobs. Even as careers grow ever more diverse, and students fall into a clear and concerning skill gap that will only get worse with continued automation, we remain almost singularly devoted to the "4+4" preparation model. Instead, the billions of dollars we devote each year to education would be better spent breaking down the traditional barriers among high school, college and career and reimagining the 9-16 continuum of learning so we can develop the talented workforce and democratic citizenry needed for our nation to thrive in the 21st century. Read the full proposal.

Redefining Equity - Beyond the classroom, how are we going to grapple with out-of-school enrichment, postsecondary preparation and beyond?: Expanding access to educational opportunity has defined debates over school reform for nearly a century, including desegregation efforts, finance equalization cases and proposals to expand school choice. But despite notable progress in some areas, opportunity is more stratified than ever along the lines of race and class. While the issues of racial and income-based segregation, inadequate spending and gaps in achievement continue to define educational inequality, they fail to capture broader societal shifts that are changing the ways we think about youth development. These include increased household spending on out-of-school learning experiences, particularly among wealthy families; the growing complexity of postsecondary educational opportunities; and the importance of non-achievement-based educational outcomes. These shifts highlight sources of educational inequality that, to date, policy has largely failed to address - and at times actively undermined - and suggest a new framework for our evolving conversation surrounding improving opportunity for America's most vulnerable children. Read the full proposal.

Rejecting 'Average' - How we can redesign the school system for the tails, not the mean. The public education system must prepare all students to solve the problems of the future. But the current system is not rising to the challenge. While high school graduation rates are at an all-time high, completion and dropout statistics for students with disabilities remain dismal. (The latest federal education statistics show that fewer than two-thirds finished high school with a standard diploma.) Beyond students with disabilities, other student populations have unique needs that existing public school systems remain ill-equipped to meet. The struggles of these students, along with those of countless other "square pegs" - independent thinkers, nonconformists, students who are exceptionally creative - cry out for approaches that can better match talent with opportunity. Here's a renewed call to design an education system for the tails, not the mean. Read the full analysis.

Rethinking the Classroom - Instead of a portfolio of schools, envisioning a portfolio of student opportunities: Conversations about the next generation of education reforms often get bogged down in either-or disputes. Should districts focus on improving their own schools or contracting with autonomous schools of choice? Can students gain access to job-related learning opportunities without having to sacrifice high school college prep coursework? Should states invest in expanding universal pre-K and other programs built to help lay students' academic foundations, or should they focus on building K-12 schools capable of helping them achieve faster rates of academic growth? An agile public education system, Lake argues in this new essay tied to the 25th anniversary of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, would avoid pat answers to these questions and concentrate instead on providing effective, flexible and individual pathways toward common goals. It would find ways to enable every student to achieve gateway competencies. It would give students the support necessary to achieve their full potential and allow them to pursue personal objectives such as job and language skills, social-emotional development and achievements in science or the arts. Most importantly, if something was not working, or a student's needs were not being met, an agile education system would be equipped to change. Looking beyond merely a portfolio of schools, a broader student-centered system would be animated by a drive to do whatever is necessary to prepare every student to solve the problems and capitalize on the opportunities that await the next generation. Read the full proposal.

Retraining Teachers - How personalization, specialization, soft skills and a talent shortage will reshape the profession: A rapidly changing future has implications not just for learners but also for educators. What might it mean for who teaches what - and how? In a new analysis, we consider the broader future of the teaching profession, from how instructors will be required to expand their expertise to how schools and districts will be forced to rethink issues of recruitment, development and collaboration. In particular, the paper identifies two areas of teacher expertise beyond academics that will become increasingly important and spotlights emerging ideas about how to challenge the one-teacher, one-classroom model while making the job more manageable. The authors also underscore the need to cast a wider net in engaging a broader community in the conversation about what quality teaching looks like for the next generation. "The future of teaching may be less about knowing the answer," the authors write, "and more about rethinking who asks the questions and works to solve emerging problems." Read the full thinkpiece.

Redistributing Funding - How routing dollars to students instead of schools could fund a more nimble system: In a more nimble public education system, all students would have equitable access to learning opportunities during the summer, outside the normal school day and beyond the school walls. Students would also continue to have access to these learning opportunities, supplemental support and postsecondary education opportunities later in life. And students from special populations - those who are gifted and low-income, those with disabilities, those who are not native English speakers or who lack stable home environments - would have access to educational programs tailored to their circumstances. One policy could help enable all of them: personalized education funding. Rather than states and local governments allocating funding to specific public schools, students themselves would receive funding based on their needs and circumstances, and could then plan with their parents to direct this money toward their educational needs: basic school attendance, tutoring, therapy or supplemental learning experiences. Read the full analysis.

Restructuring Education Systems - How can an innovative approach to school governance balance a need for experimentation with a parent's right to make informed choices?: A local public education system built for personalization and rapid adjustment to workforce demands must be open to innovation and make full use of learning opportunities outside of conventional schools. But that system cannot be so atomized, chaotic or dominated by irresponsible providers that families are ultimately unable to make informed choices for their children. Families need a comprehensible set of options and information about likely results for students, and communities need options that prepare young people for jobs that are likely to exist. Still, this need for some degree of order and process must not drive out innovation and responsiveness to change. Students must be free to pursue - and providers free to offer - learning experiences that community leaders might not understand or prefer. Paul Hill takes the long view on how to balance these essential, conflicting needs. Read the full commentary.

Empowering Change - Why America's educators are ready to innovate (but their education systems are not): Designed more than 100 years ago, America's public education system is not preparing students for today's realities of civic and global competitiveness - much less tomorrow's. Consider the facts: U.S. students are scoring poorly in math and science compared with students in other industrialized countries, and they're not graduating with the necessary skills or knowledge to succeed in college. Think about social mobility, and the situation grows even starker: Children from high-income families are 10 times as likely as other children to become inventors; NAEP fourth-grade achievements show that only 8.6 percent of students with disabilities scored proficient in reading; and rural students have less access to high-speed internet, AP coursework and extracurricular opportunities, leaving them more likely to "undermatch" themselves when applying to colleges. There is no single answer, but for every solution tried, there is one common theme: Educators, students and families who want something better are thwarted by an outdated delivery model. Robin Lake pens an in-depth analysis of the current educational system - and why she says it will not deliver in preparing students to solve the problems of an unpredictable future society. Read the full analysis.

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New Ideas for a New Era of Public Education: 8 Ways We Can Change How Schools Are Organized, Funded, Measured and Led to Prepare Grads for the Age of Automation

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In 1993, Paul T. Hill founded the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research center based out of the University of Washington's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance that from the outset was focused on issues of the next century and the broader question of how America's schools can better prepare their [...]

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Systemic Change for Public Education

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American Center for Transforming Education

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School reform has been tried and doesn't work. What is needed is systemic change. An article on EducationNext highlights key components of select schools that implemented systemic changes in order to transform their schools. Much of which are in line with senior fellow Don Nielsen's policy propositions in his book Every School: One Citizens Guide to Transforming Education.

Authors Karen Hawley Miles and Karen Baroody recognize eight school systems that "focus less on specific interventions and more on the systemic conditions that lead to results." They continue, "to address these challenges, [deplorable graduation rates and low-performing schools] they had chosen from a small set of clear strategic priorities such as getting the right people in the right roles, differentiating and expanding student time and attention, organizing resources for job-embedded, curriculum-connected professional learning, and leveraging the community to support students and families."

So why aren't more schools adopting these policy proposals? Because hardly anyone is talking about the system itself. Much like the two authors above, Nielsen argues for systemic change. He pushes for "a new system must be different than the 'one size fits all' system we have now." Examples of these ideas, in a broad manner, similar to those highlighted in the eight school systems, are, "Change an adult-focused system to a student-focused system; Change an input-focused system to an output-focused system; Change a teaching-focused system to a learning-focused system; Change a group-focused system to an individual-focused system; and Change a time-focused system to a competency-focused system."

These policy proposals need not occur immediately. In fact, they should be rolled out over time in order to address change appropriately. We also need to recognize that changing our school system will also require significant change in the American culture. That cannot happen overnight. Nielsen has a proposed "game plan" that involves two phases. The first is concerned with legislation regarding right-to-work, school-choice, innovation schools and districts , and leadership institutes." Phase 1, which includes short-term, incremental goals, is designed to begin the creation of a "movement" for change and needs 1-3 years to take hold. The second phase, given the results are positive in Phase 1, would take 4-10 years, perhaps longer. In this phase, the goal is to "uncuff" the restraints on the current system to allow innovation to flourish and to enhance stability of leadership and governance. The policy suggestions include legislation regarding appointed school boards, certification requirements, school funding, and graduation requirements.

Paramount to this "game plan" is the process begins with a state legislature. As Nielsen notes, "If we want sustainable change, it must occur at the state level, with passage of new laws and codes." He explains, "the state controls most of the money, who can and cannot teach, who can and cannot lead...as in any other organization if you control the money and the people, then you control the operation."

Changing the system can be a daunting challenge, but if one state begins this process it can transform our entire nation. As Nielsen proclaims, "Our children and our country are counting on us."

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Fixing Education Requires Systemic Change

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School reform has been tried and doesn't work. What is needed is systemic change. An article on EducationNext highlights key components of select schools that implemented systemic changes in order to transform their schools. Much of which are in line with senior fellow Don Nielsen's policy propositions in his book Every School: One Citizens Guide to Transforming Education .

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15 Failures of Public Education System in America

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Decades ago, the American formal education system was designed to meet the changing needs of the industrial revolution. What was once a time of growth has changed over the years and, with the current economic climate, that system is no longer able to meet modern needs. But what are the biggest failures of the American public education system, and how can they be remedied?

In this article, we'll explore fifteen of the biggest failures affecting the American public education system today. We'll also explore five of the biggest emerging trends in American education.
The Top 15 Failures in American Public Education
Policymakers are constantly fighting to make changes to the American public education system, and not all of them are beneficial. Over the years, there has been a great deal of back-and-forth that has left the public education system in shambles. Some of these problems are easy to identify and have been long-standing issues while others are new, brought about by advances in technology, changes in policy, and general change that happens with time.

Every story has two sides, and for every policy or program put into place, there are going to be proponents and critics. Below you'll find an overview of some of the biggest issues facing the American public system as well as arguments from people on both sides of the issue.

This video examines the question of why public education is failing parents and students.

Here are the top 15 failures affecting the American public education system:
1. Deficits in government funding for schools.
Funding is always an issue for schools and is, in fact, one of the biggest issues facing the American public education system today. For more than 90% of K-12 schools, funding comes from state and local governments, largely generated by sales and income taxes. Research shows, however, that funding has not increased with need - many states are still issuing funding that is lower than it was before the Great Recession. Lower funding means fewer teachers, fewer programs, and diminished resources.
2. Decline in school safety.
There has been a string of high-profile mass shootings in American schools, resulting not only in dozens of deaths but many debates about school safety. In one poll, over 50% of teenagers said they were worried about the possibility of gun violence in school. Teachers all across the country are faced with the problem of figuring out how to prevent attacks and protect the lives of students and personnel. Some suggest special straining for teachers and concealed weapons might make schools safer while critics argue that more guns in schools could lead to more accidents and injuries.
3. Challenges with technology in education.
Today's students have grown up using technology and have come to expect it in the classroom, but there are arguments about how large a role technology should play in education. Supporters suggest that technology creates the potential for more active student engagement and provides instant access to up-to-date resources while critics say it could be a distraction. While technology in the classroom certainly has its benefits, certain aspects of technology are challenging. For example, smartphones and easy access to technology have made it easier for students to cheat and can negatively impact learning.

This video discusses the worsening school funding crisis.
4. Controversy over charter schools and voucher programs.
Another hot topic in education today is school choice. Charter schools and school vouchers allow parents to choose options other than traditional public schools for their children. Charter schools are funded by a combination of private and public funds and operate outside the public school system. School vouchers allow parents to use public funds to send their child to a school of choice, including private schools. Critics of these schools suggest that charter schools and voucher programs siphon funds away from public schools that are already struggling financially.
5. Problems with the common core curriculum.
The Common Core State Standards were developed to specify exactly what students should know before graduating high school. It was developed in 2009 to promote educational equity across the country, holding all students to the same standardized testing requirements. Some see the problem as a federal intrusion into the state control of education and others say that it doesn't allow for teacher innovation and flexibility with the learning process. Most states adopted the standards when they were introduced but more than a dozen have since repealed or revised them.
6. Decreased teacher salaries.
Teacher salaries are by no means impressive and, in most states, they have decreased steadily over the past few years. In fact, research shows that the average salary for public elementary and secondary school teachers dropped by nearly 5% between the 2009/10 school year and now. States like Oklahoma and Colorado experienced a 17% and 16% decrease - these states also saw massive teacher walkouts in 2018. There are, of course, some states where teacher salaries increased, and some teachers received a growth in benefits that may or may not be enough to balance out wages that are low overall.
7. Emphasis on standardized testing.
Along with Common Core, there has been an increased focus on standardized testing, especially during the No Child Left Behind years. Schools and teachers are judged based on student test scores which, many argue, is not a fair or accurate measure of efficacy. Many critics argue that standardized testing is one of the biggest problems in American education, suggesting that the pressure to produce high test scores leads to a teach-to-the-test approach and reduced focus on non-tested subjects like art.
8. Arguments about teacher tenure.
Tenure is designed to protect teachers from being fired for personal or political reasons - the school district must demonstrate just cause. In many states, tenure is granted to public school teachers who have consistently received satisfactory evaluations, though some states don't award it at all. Supporters suggest that tenured teachers can advocate for students without having fears of reprisal while critics say that it makes it harder for school districts to dismiss ineffectual teachers. Some also suggest that tenure may encourage complacency, allowing teachers to put forth the minimal effort.
9. Bullying in schools.
Violence in schools is a rising issue and bullying is a key contributor. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, over 20% of students in grades 6 through 12 have been bullied either in school or on their way to/from school. This figure is actually down from 32% in 2007 but is still much too high. The challenge with these statistics is that many students who are bullied do NOT report it. Bullied students experience a wide range of physical, behavioral, and emotional problems that can impact not only their education but also their lives.
10. Growing problems with student poverty.
According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, more than 50% of the public-school population in the United States was made up of low-income students. This is a significant increase from 38% in 2001. This is a nationwide problem with 40% of public-school students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches in 40 states. In 18 of those states, student poverty rates were over 50%. Studies have shown that low-income students tend to perform lower than affluent students and family income shows a strong correlation with student achievement measured by standardized tests.
11. Schools are overcrowded.
In the 2011/12 school year, the average class size in American public schools was about 21 students in elementary school and almost 27 students in secondary school. Anecdotal reports, however, suggest that classrooms today have closer to 30, and in some cases, 40 students. Teachers and other proponents of smaller class sizes suggest that class size influences the quality of instruction with smaller class sizes have improved student outcomes. Critics say that the cost of limiting class sizes is a limiting factor and that it may not be worth it. In Florida, class sizes were capped in 2002 but a 2010 study showed no significant impact on test scores for students in grades 4 through 8.
12. Student mental health challenges.
Mental health is a growing concern in the United States and one that even affects school students. A 2018 study showed that nearly two-thirds of college students experienced overwhelming anxiety and anxiety has been reported in younger students as well. Even schools that are trying to make a difference face challenges. For example, the recommended ratio of students to counselors is one counselor for every 1,000 to 1,500 students but the U.S. college campus average is 1,737 to 1. Awareness of mental health issues is increasing, but there is still a stigma that prevents many students from seeking care.
13. Parents are not involved enough.
Teachers in public schools can only do so much to support their students. When the students go home for the day, the state of their home life can impact their development both personally and academically. In cases where parents lack higher education, they may not be able to provide the assistance students need to learn and to complete homework. Students in low-income families face additional challenges at home, though even middle- and upper-class families aren't off the hook. In many families, parents are too career-focused and have little time to spend supporting their child's education.
14. Too many schools are being closed.
Schools all over the country are closing their doors in numbers that are quite alarming. This only leads to an increase in issues with large class sizes and poor access to resources. It is easy for parents, teachers, and communities that are affected by closures to feel targeted even when school board members provide unbiased data. In some cases, closures cannot be prevented but they can be delayed and communities should consider other solutions or alternative uses for the school such as a community center or adult education center.
15. Lack of teacher innovation and outdated teaching methods.
The teaching methods used decades ago simply do not work for the modern student. One of the biggest things holding back the American public education system is a lack of teacher innovation, partially created by the enforcement of standardized testing and the Common Core curriculum. Unfortunately, the problem really needs to be addressed at the federal level with changes to policies that will result in a change within the public education system. America needs teachers who are better trained to meet the needs of their students and who are willing to speak up and facilitate change. Teachers are on the front lines and, without them speaking up, change is not possible.

Problems abound in the American education system, but growth and change are possible. Keep reading to learn about the top emerging trends in the nation's public education.
The Top 5 Emerging Trends in Education
Though the American public education system certainly has its issues, it is by no means a lost cause. The only thing anyone can do is change with the times and there are a number of emerging trends in education that could be a step toward resolving some of the issues above.

Here is an overview of the top 5 emerging trends in American education:

1. Increase in maker learning initiatives.

2. Moving away from a letter grade system.

3. Changing classroom approaches like flipped learning.

4. The institution of micro-credentials.

5. Growing concern for social and emotional development.

Now, let's take a quick look at each of these trends.
1. Increase in maker learning initiatives.
In many schools, teaching is the focus when education should really be focused on student learning. Maker education allows students to follow their own interests and to test their own solutions for problems in a do-it-yourself approach to education. Students learn in collaborative spaces where they identify problems, create inventions, make prototypes, and keep working until they have the final result that works. There is little hard evidence on the trend as of yet, but it is growing quickly.
2. Moving away from a letter grade system.
Student assessment is necessary to test the efficacy of teaching strategies and curriculum - it is also a good way to measure individual student growth and success. For many years, letter grades have been the primary method of student assessment but that is changing. Leaders in education currently feel that the traditional letter grade model is not a sufficient measure of the skills most highly valued in the modern workforce - skills like creativity and problem-solving.

In 2017, the Mastery Transcript Consortium was formed and includes over 150 private high schools. These schools have adopted a digital system that provides qualitative descriptions of student learning and samples of work instead of the grade-based transcript system. Public schools are quickly adopting the trend as well in a nationwide shift toward mastery-based or competency-based learning.
3. Changing classroom approaches like flipped learning.
The traditional model of teaching places the teacher in front of the class giving a lecture, followed by students working at home on assignments to enhance their understanding of the subject. Flipped learning involves students watching videos or relevant coursework prior to class, and using class time to expand on the material through group discussions or collaborative projects. Flipped learning allows students to control their learning pace and encourages students to learn from each other, exploring subjects more deeply than they otherwise might.
4. The institution of micro-credentials.
This trend in higher education is a departure from traditional college degrees that require years of study over a multi-year span. Micro-credentials, rather, are also known as digital badges or nano degrees that demonstrate knowledge or skill in a given area and are earned through short, targeted educational offerings. About 20% of higher education institutions offer some kind of alternative credentialing system, often partnering with third-party learning providers.
5. Growing concern for social and emotional development.
Traditional education is focused on academics but there is a movement toward nurturing the whole study called social-emotional learning (SEL). This movement is based on the growing consensus that schools have a responsibility to protect and develop students' social and emotional development in addition to their cognitive skills. SEL focuses on helping students manage their emotions, show empathy, set goals, identify their strengths and make responsible decisions. Research on SEL shows a reduction in anti-social behavior and an improvement in academic achievement and long-term health.

The United States is a giant country with a huge population, making it difficult to standardize education or make improvements across the board. Though there are many problems with the American public education system, there are also many people (including legislators) who are dedicated to making positive changes that could benefit the future students of this country.

Questions? Contact us on Facebook. @publicschoolreview

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The 15 Biggest Failures of the American Public Education System - PublicSchoolReview.com

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The world is in a constant state of change and those who fail to adjust fall behind. Unfortunately, the American public education system has not kept up with the times and is currently facing a number of serious problems. Keep reading to learn about the biggest failures affecting the modern U.S.

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Five ways to create cultural responsive environments

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1) Commit to knowing your students well - academically, socially, and emotionally. Learn about their families, cultures, and interests. Ask questions, talk with parents, community members and colleagues, read books, watch movies, listen to music. Make home visits, or create opportunities for students to share and celebrate their family traditions and cultures (and never underestimate the power of the positive phone call home). Be aware of different worldviews, and learn about the 'collectivistic-individualistic continuum'. Be explicit and talk to your students about 'code-switching' - the choices we make in how we talk and present ourselves. Help students to know when and why it is appropriate, while valuing their home culture and language.

2) No matter the subject matter, build on your students' life experiences and consistently bring them into the classroom. Current, real world examples help students connect to the curriculum, allow for deeper engagement and help students make connections with their individual, community, national, and global identities. The classroom can be a space for students to develop and explore their 'socio-political consciousness' (Gloria-Ladson-Billings, 1994).

3) Create a classroom learning community. Encourage students to care for one another and be responsible for each other inside and outside of the classroom. Provide consistent routines that help students feel valued and safe, and accountable to one another. Design a safe and welcoming classroom environment-students respond cognitively and emotionally to classroom aesthetics. Whenever possible, aim for natural light, moveable chairs and desks, and ample space to highlight student work and cultural artifacts. Let students know that the classroom space is theirs to create together.

4) Hold high academic standards and expectations for all of your students, and enthusiastically encourage all students to reach those standards and beyond. Treat all students as competent and developing-focus on fostering a 'growth mindset'. Design lessons with your most underserved students in mind.

5) Understand your own cultural identity, and its consequences. Rigorously examine your cultural behavior patterns, especially when it comes to classroom management and discipline. Be yourself with your students - honest, caring, and human.

"All instruction is culturally responsive. The question is: to which culture is it currently oriented?" - Gloria Ladson-Billings

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5 Ways to Create a Culturally Responsive Classroom - National Equity Project

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1) Commit to knowing your students well - academically, socially, and emotionally. Learn about their families, cultures, and interests. Ask questions, talk with parents, community members and colleagues, read books, watch movies, listen to music. Make home visits, or create opportunities for students to share and celebrate their family traditions and cultures (and never underestimate the power of the positive phone call home).

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Ways to serve students more effectively.

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"Do Black Lives Matter in Education Reform?" This question was the title of a viral Medium post by my colleague Natalie Wilson last summer. In it, she shared what it's been like to work in education and search for good schools for her daughter in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Oakland.

Some of Natalie's insights about the broader implications of her experience challenged some of my assumptions about how Black families think about their schools. Last fall, just before the election, Natalie and I recorded a conversation in which we went deeper into some of her points, intending to share it soon after. Events since then led us to pause the project until now.

What follows are video snippets of about a minute each from our discussion. Taken together, they propose four ways our education system could work better for Black students and families.
1. Understand and address the specific challenges Black students face in schools because of their race, regardless of their family income.
Educational outcomes for Black students persistently lag those of other student groups, even if they come from higher income families. As Raj Chetty and his colleagues showed in a study published in 2018, these lead to differences in opportunity that persist and intensify in adulthood, especially for Black boys. As Natalie puts it, "While these national data are not new nor surprising, it debunks the myth that Black families can earn their way out of racism. I do not want to downplay the impact of poverty on students' educational outcomes but rather explicitly advocate for a deeper focus on the unique challenges Black children face within schools that cannot and should not be reduced to their socioeconomic status." Natalie shared more about how she came to this conclusion in this clip:
2. Change the criteria for being an excellent school to include specific information about how Black students are faring and make it easily accessible.
Natalie shared her own quest to find good schools for her daughter, now a fifth grader. Because she works full time in education and has quantitative degrees from top universities, Natalie analyzes and understands all the publicly available outcome data for a given school. But like many parents, she has also relied on other markers of success like state ratings and national awards. Yet these often obscure whether Black students are thriving. Natalie suggests making outcome data about Black students determinative in ratings of school performance and easy to find:
3. Work to rethink assessment so that it more accurately and holistically reflects student learning, but in the meantime recognize that parents still use test scores when choosing schools because they have currency.
The question of whether standardized tests are a good measure of student learning is not new. But the debate has intensified recently with a focus on whether they actually perpetuate racial inequities because of biases inherent in their design and use. Since Natalie uses test scores to evaluate school quality, I asked her how she balances this issue when choosing a school for her daughter. Her answer was both pragmatic and aspirational:
4. Prepare, recruit and hire more Black teachers and support them so they stay in the classroom.
A growing body of research shows that students of color benefit when some of their teachers share their race and ethnicity, and this is especially true for Black students. Currently, more than 40% of public school students are Black or Latino while more than 80% of teachers are white. Efforts to create a teacher workforce that more closely mirrors the demographics of students are underway, but Natalie highlights the need for a deeper commitment and more effective approaches to this challenge:

The ideas Natalie shared are inspired by her professional and personal experiences in education as a philanthropist, a system-level leader, a student, and a mom. She understands how much work remains to reimagine the way our education system works for students. But even after the challenges of the last year - including the pandemic and our racial reckoning as a country - Natalie is optimistic about the possibilities in this moment. Check out her parting thoughts:

... Read More

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4 Ways To Change How Schools Serve Black Students

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"Do Black Lives Matter in Education Reform?" This question was the title of a viral Medium post by my colleague Natalie Wilson last summer. In it, she shared what it's been like to work in education and search for good schools for her daughter in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Oakland.

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Facing the Race Issue

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By Hugh J. Vasquez and Kathleen Osta, National Equity Project

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." - James Baldwin

Do you believe that everyone should have the opportunity for life? For liberty? For the pursuit of happiness? Do you believe in E pluribus unum - out of many, one - that we are all part of one human family.... and one nation?
The United States has yet to realize these ideals for all of our people. This country may have been aspirationally founded on these principles, but it was also forged from a completely contrary set of beliefs that some people are more human than others, some more deserving, and only some deserve to live well, prosper, and be free.

Race is a socially constructed designation that has no biological basis. Racism relies on a false belief system that some groups of humans are superior to other groups with people considered "white" at the top of the racial hierarchy. This is what is meant by a white supremacy ideology. Since our founding, our nation's elites have used this false hierarchy to sow division among people to build and protect the power and wealth of a few at the expense of everyone else.

We are a nation of people who have been hurt by division based on identity. The land we call the United States was home to 590 Native nations for thousands of years before it was "discovered" by Europeans (and yet, descendants of those Native nations weren't considered American citizens until 1924). Our founders forcibly took land that belonged to someone else to create this nation. Our economy was built and driven by the labor of African people our government enslaved. The false notion of "white supremacy" was used to justify these heinous acts of murder, colonization, and enslaving.

Acknowledging and confronting these facts of our history does not mean we hate our country or that all white people are bad. Quite the contrary, it means we care about freedom and democracy enough to lean into hard truths and do the work necessary to learn from and take responsibility for our past so we can make progress on this project we call the United States.

During our 400 year history, there have always been people who resisted, who stood up and risked their lives to fight for freedom for themselves and others. There have been tremendous strides toward civil rights and justice. And, there have always been government policies and practices that cause tremendous harm for groups of people not considered "white." Both things are true. During World War II, our government put our own Japanese American citizens in concentration camps. We made it illegal for people of different races to love, to play together, to live in the same neighborhoods, to eat at the same lunch counter. Voting, our most essential practice of participatory democracy, has been denied to the majority of our population for most of this country's history and continues to be suppressed, particularly in communities of color, today. We are a work in progress and progress relies on each of us to fight for the freedom of all of us.

We can probably agree that we are divided as a nation when it comes to race and racism. The problem of racism has not been solved. Whatever beliefs you carry about the causes of the problem, whomever you blame for the continuation of the problem - can we at least agree that we have a problem?If we believe that "united we stand, divided we fall" - today, we are falling. The question before us is... what do we do about it?

James Baldwin reminds us that if we want to change something, we have to face it. If we want to solve our racism problem, we have to face it. And we means all of us.

One of the most effective and empowering actions we can take as a people is to learn about our past. If we look at how our history impacts our current situation, we can listen and understand how we are all hurt by our divisions, and come together to explore how we can collectively heal and create a new future together. We must face this problem in every place we gather: schools, religious institutions, Congress, the workforce and yes, even inside of our government agencies. Anywhere that we see experiences and outcomes that are racially disparate, we need to think critically about why that is so and work together to remove barriers to freedom for any group.

We are all implicated in reproducing racism; not because we are bad people with negative intentions, but because participate in systems that discriminate and cause harm, day in and day out. Many of us have become accustomed to the injustice all around us and rarely look in the mirror to understand how we contribute to the inequities and how some of us benefit from them. But, what might be possible if we had opportunities to come together within and across race, to learn, struggle, organize, and build together?

In our work with people from all over the country, we have found that people most often want to learn about how we got here and are energized by the possibilities of working together to eradicate racism and build more just communities. We support people to confront hard truths about the history of this country, not to lay blame, but to understand the problem we are confronted with so that we can disrupt and dismantle policies and practices that discriminate and impede the pursuit of freedom for any group of people. We work to build the emotional stamina of people to hold both truths: that we are a country that espouses freedom for all of its people and that we are not there yet. That we have made progress and that we have so much more work to do. We bring people together to learn how each of us can contribute individually and institutionally to all people being free to pursue life, liberty and happiness. And, we lead from the belief shared many years ago by Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, "Nobody's free until everybody's free." Everybody.

Why have so many of us worked for decades with government employees on what is widely known today as diversity and inclusion matters? Because every person in our government is essential to solving our nation's racism problem.

President Trump and his administration's latest response to our national racism problem is to issue a memorandum to stop the delivery of diversity and inclusion training to federal employees and to threaten individuals and organizations who want to face our history and work to solve our present day problems of racism. The argument that learning about and confronting our history means we hate this country is false. Being willing to face hard truths to fight and struggle for our democracy is about choosing progress and love over division and hate. This executive order will not help us heal from the deep wounds of the past and present; this move will divide us even further. If we as a people stop trying to heal the wound, it will only fester and get worse. Take a look around you, it is getting worse. It is an outrage to keep medicine from anyone who is sick - and this move diverts necessary medicine from the pernicious illness of racism from which we all suffer.

Just as the founders of this country created a system that meant only some people were free, too many of our current decision makers are following in their footsteps by perpetuating division and deep inequity rather than advancing the aspirations articulated in the Constitution. This is our history, and it is our present. We see the effects of the racism embedded in our systems today in terms of who has access to opportunities, safety, and even life - in education, housing, jobs, policing, and healthcare. All summer we have seen people across the country of all ages and races protesting to end racism and its devastating consequences. More people than ever before have awakened to the injustices built into our institutions and are coming together to demand change. The current global pandemic has made it even more clear that we need each other, that our fates as a human species are quite literally linked. Now is the time to band together, learn about and confront the painful parts of our shared history, and fight for our common humanity. Now is the time to come together, across our real and perceived differences, to create a society in which everyone belongs and is cared for and in which every person and every community has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What could be more life affirming and patriotic than that?

An executive order from the current President is not stronger than the will of generations of people who have fought, struggled, and sacrificed for freedom. There are a growing number of people who will not stop seeing the truth and will not stop working for what is possible. Who will not stop interrupting racism in all its forms and recruiting others to join together to eradicate injustice. Together, we will create a world that works for everyone - with more justice and more peace.
What You Can Do Now What Others Are Saying & Doing

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Divided We Fall: Solving America's Racism Problem By Facing It

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By Hugh J. Vasquez and Kathleen Osta, National Equity Project "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." - James Baldwin Do you believe that everyone should have the opportunity for life? For liberty? For the pursuit of happiness?

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Online learning is here to stay

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Online Learning is Here to Stay: The Roadmap to a Sustainable and Effective Online Learning Program

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The world around us has changed forever. Distance learning is now an integral aspect of learning-for all levels-around the world. And it's clear that online learning is here to stay in at least som...

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Who helps the helpers in schools?

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By Justina Schlund and Amanda Fitzgerald
Stress is nothing new to school counselors. But as they continue to shoulder the tremendous responsibility of helping young people heal from the momentous events of the past year and ongoing traumas, education leaders need to renew a focus on school counselors' well-being. Although nearly all educators are experiencing heightened stress and anxiety, school counselors are often the first ones called in to help address crises and traumatic experiences. As we look to support the mental health of educators, we must also remember the school "helpers" who are often asked to place the needs of students, families, and colleagues before their own.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is critical to maintaining the mental health and well-being of the school community. Over the last decade, we've seen schools and districts increasingly prioritize adult SEL by promoting self-care, supportive staff relationships, and opportunities for reflection and collaboration. This intentional focus combined with structures for additional mental health supports can bolster staff wellness, help prevent secondary trauma and compassion fatigue, and create supportive climates that allow school counselors to bring their full selves to work.

Below, we offer four strategies to promote school counselors' well-being and mental health.

Create agreements to connect, listen, and heal together.

We know that self-care is important for school counselors, but it's hard to prioritize if it's not reflected in the work climate and culture. Self-care should become part of the school culture rather than a responsibility for individual staff members to seek out on their own. Relationships are the foundation for supportive conditions that prioritize staff wellness and are built through connecting and listening to one another.

A good way to start establishing these conditions is by developing Staff Shared Agreements to talk about how staff interact with and listen to one another, as well as how to set realistic boundaries around work. For example, these agreements can help staff find ways to support and connect with one another virtually or in-person, define how they will model SEL when they communicate with students and families, create expectations around email and response times, or set up routines for reflecting on their own well-being.

Follow up on these agreements by carving out dedicated time and space for school counselors to come together with other school staff to build connections and engage in collective healing, through activities like staff circles or the three signature practices for adult SEL.

Check in on school counselors and normalize asking for support.

School counselors will have varied experiences and stressors during this time, and some may have additional mental health needs related to depression, anxiety, grief, or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Create routines to check in regularly with school counselors and support staff, such as five-minute chats at the beginning of the day for staff to share how they're feeling and reflect on their needs. It can also be helpful to establish simple routines that let school counselors and educators ask for support from colleagues when they need a quick break. For example, a teacher tap-in/tap-out protocol might be adapted to allow school counselors to ask colleagues to hold off sending students to their offices for a few minutes when they need a moment to recenter.

Ensure school counselors are aware of-and know how to access- employee assistance programs and wellness benefits that may provide access to community mental health providers and resources. Also, creating a confidential referral process, such as a dedicated phone line that protects the privacy of employees, is important for staff who are at higher risk for significant stress or trauma. This may mean ensuring access to community mental health providers who can offer extra resources.

Use this extraordinary time to innovate and tap into school counselors' "why".

Reconnecting with what drives us to this work is an important way to motivate and ground ourselves, especially when experiencing stress and burnout. Although the past months have often been overwhelming, this difficult time has also offered opportunities to innovate and to reconnect with why the work that school counselors do is so important.

Give school counselors opportunities and space to reflect on and share what they've learned from their unique experiences. What new strategies have they found to confront inequities and build meaningful relationships with students and families? How might these insights improve communities and structures moving forward? How can school counselors and educators work together toward creating a school culture free from racism and bias?

Set up formal or informal conversations with teams or colleagues to share best practices, talk about successes and challenges, and identify innovative ways to design inclusive spaces. You might want to try using protocols, such as National School Reform Faculty's Futures Protocol, to harness a team's brainstorming energy for paths forward.

Develop a professional learning plan with school counselors focused on adult SEL.

Studies have found that educators with stronger social and emotional competencies are less likely to report burnout, have higher job satisfaction, and demonstrate higher levels of patience and empathy. As school counselors face work-related stress, adult SEL can have positive effects on their outlook.

A good starting point is self-reflection. When staff reflect on their own lifelong process for developing social and emotional competencies, they gain insight into their own strengths and areas for improvement.

One strategy to consider is to support school counselors in taking a self-care inventory and noting coping mechanisms they use in stressful times. Recording reflections in a self-care journal can allow for a healthy space to explore feelings, seek out positive strategies, and fine tune the areas for improvement.

Build on this self-assessment by creating a plan for how to strengthen areas of growth. This might include developing coping and emotional regulation strategies. It may also include deepening self-awareness about individual perspectives and biases, strengthening cultural competence as part of social awareness, and developing relationship-building skills.
Justina Schlund is the senior director of content and field learning at the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). Amanda Fitzgerald is the assistant deputy executive director of the American School Counselor Association.
As schools respond to the urgent mental health needs of all educators, we must also remember the needs of our school counselors. We hope these strategies continue to build on a culture of support and healing for every member of the school community.

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Who Helps the Helpers? SEL for School Counselors' Mental Health - ASCD Inservice

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By Justina Schlund and Amanda Fitzgerald Stress is nothing new to school counselors. But as they continue to shoulder the tremendous responsibility of helping young people heal from the momentous events of the past year and ongoing traumas, education leaders need to renew a focus on school counselors' well-being.

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Public Education & White Flight

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Last year, the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education came and went, and America's public schools are the most segregated they've been in decades. According to a report by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1988 to 2016 the share of "intensely segregated" schools in which 90 to 100 percent students are non-white more than tripled. Forty percent of black students and 42 percent of Latinx students now attend these super-segregated schools, which are often in high-poverty areas. The average white student, meanwhile, attends a school that is 69 percent white.

Decades of research has found that segregated schools and schools with high concentrations of students living in poverty have devastating effects on poor black and Latinx children. Yet since the 1980s, the peak of integration, a rollback of legal mandates has made it easier for white families to withdraw from integrated districts. Increasingly, white people have been opting out, forming splinter districts with relatively high-income families. But if privileged white parents bear a lot of responsibility for today's school segregation, a growing movement suggests that they should take responsibility for addressing the problem. Across the country, local organizations are encouraging white parents to join in the work of integrating schools, starting with their own families.

One of the leaders of the movement was Courtney Everts Mykytyn, who in 2015 founded a national network called Integrated Schools. The organization now has 19 local chapters in cities from Seattle to Dallas to Washington, D.C. Mykytyn died in December after being struck by a car. I spoke with her about her work shortly before her death.

"It began out of my own experience in our Los Angeles neighborhood," she said. "The few white and/or privileged families that I knew in our neighborhood were not even considering the local schools - not even saying no. That kind of got me thinking a lot about, What does it mean to be a neighbor?"

Some Integrated Schools chapters are essentially one-parent operations, offering a sounding board for those thinking about "desegregating their kids." Others organize community meetings where they host parents for discussion. Integrated Schools' first request of school shoppers is a "two tours pledge," which calls for privileged parents to check out at least two schools where the majority of students are from a different racial, socioeconomic, or linguistic background. Parents are encouraged to look for positive qualities in those schools and discuss them with parent-friends. "So much of this work is really hearts-and-minds, movement-building work," Mykytyn said. "We call it playground work. Each of these moments, at preschool pickup, all of those places are places where you have the power to tilt a conversation in a way that might undermine segregation a little bit."

Integrated Schools also runs a book club and produces a podcast featuring conversations with education experts and fellow parents. There's a growing audience of white people interested in the connection between schools and racial justice, Mykytyn found, spurred in part by the rise of Black Lives Matter and Donald Trump. "The conversations that I was having 10, 12 years ago when my kids were little were really different than what we're having now," Mykytyn said. "People are willing to think about their role in upholding the system in a way that isn't easy."

***

Some of the clearest evidence showing the impact of school segregation comes from Rucker Johnson, a public policy scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. By looking at court-ordered desegregation plans from the 1960s to 1990, Johnson found that black students in desegregated districts ultimately completed more years of education and had higher earnings, better health, and less chance of being incarcerated than their segregated peers. For the white students with whom they sat in classrooms, there was no downside. Key to Johnson's analysis was that the observation that desegregation's benefits come largely from increased state funding flowing into desegregated schools. That is, what makes a difference is not merely diversity, but resources.

Noliwe Rooks, an interdisciplinary scholar at Cornell University who is on the Integrated Schools board of directors, told me that the advantages of integration aren't a matter of osmosis - with rich, white students conferring opportunities to other kids. Rather, she said, integrating schools is the only method that has shown success in combating inequality of funds: "The history of public education teaches us, in the U.S. at least, that the resources that wealthier kids, well-supported kids, that they come to expect - that those resources are consistently hoarded."

Tremendous social pressure keeps it that way. It's not unusual for parents to tell Kylene Dibble - the executive director of the Pitt County, North Carolina, chapter of Parents for Public Schools - that they've heard there is only one elementary school in the area worth considering. Dibble's group, which formed six years ago as a way to give parents greater influence in local schools, has made integration a priority. She implores parents to look beyond GreatSchools ratings and the state report card system, since those numbers tend to reflect the wealth or poverty of the kids who attend the school, not the educational experience. Schools serving a large number of kids who qualify for free and reduced-price meals are almost invariably those tagged with warnings ("below average" and "worrying sign"). "There's this misconception that the schools are good because they have a certain report card grade, or bad because they have a certain report card grade," Dibble said. "Those report card grades don't reflect that this D school has a string orchestra quartet, or this C school has a phenomenal culinary program and they actually open up as a restaurant every week."

What's ironic about white, highly educated parents writing off certain schools is that their children are the ones who are least likely to suffer any consequences based on the schools they attend. Researchers have found that that, even though attending a highly segregated, mostly black and Latinx school is related to lower test scores for nonwhite students, it doesn't have the same effect on white kids. In fact, integrated schools seem to benefit white students by helping them overcome prejudice. Children of all races tend to score lower on standardized tests if they attend a high-poverty school, but highly educated, wealthier families generally have the resources to help their kids if they struggle academically.

Dibble's organization runs a parent-engagement program for 20 parents per year, teaching them about public education and giving them tools to advocate for their schools. One module includes a history of segregation in Pitt County and encourages a mixed-race, mixed-income group of parents to assess their own experiences with public education. "We have pretty open conversations about that," she told me. "We put the graphs up." When parents look at the numbers, it's impossible to deny that school report card grades are directly related to poverty, not potential. Dibble's group also offers tours of public schools to politicians, clergy, and real estate agents to help enlighten new families' first contacts. "Realtors, they have very specific thoughts about certain schools without walking through the door," she said. "A lot of it is about changing perceptions."

***

Part of the point of bringing in privileged parents to help integrate schools is acquiring the resources - political connections, grant-writing experience, and sheer wealth - that come with them. But there's a danger, too, that some parents may use their power to make demands that seem important to them rather than work with others to set common priorities. Schools that appear diverse on paper may still be segregated internally, with rich, white parents finding ways to get their kids into honors and advanced placement programs. "We can put all the kids into a school together, but that doesn't mean we're doing meaningful integration where everyone's dreams are valued," Mykytyn said.

There's also a bigger question about how far voluntary integration can go in solving society-wide problems. Rooks would like to see more people throwing their weight behind institutional change of the kind happening in Brooklyn's District 15, where a mixed-race, mixed-income group of parents has been working to redraw or eliminate zoning lines and rewrite admissions policies to reduce segregation. New York City is one of the most segregated places to attend school in the country, and as local officials have declined to pursue a robust citywide integration plan, activists in many neighborhoods have recently been looking at District 15 as a model.

Integrated Schools isn't doing policy advocacy, Mykytyn told me, though they might eventually enter that arena. "I think the missing piece has been building a strong constituency as people who are invested and committed," she said. And it would require building a larger network of more diverse parents. "Policy can get overrun by well-meaning white people as well," Mykytyn went on. "Work we do in a local setting that is policy-direct has to be in partnership."

With the focus still on getting privileged parents to think about the role they play in maintaining segregation, Rooks said that she's been impressed with how receptive people are to Integrated Schools' message. "I completely support an organization that tells white parents, 'Look, this is the way you live your values,'" she explained. But that won't be sufficient to solve deep inequity, concentrated poverty, and institutional racism in schools. "Freedom isn't voluntary," Rooks said. "Justice shouldn't have to be voluntary."

***

Livia Gershon is a freelance journalist based in New Hampshire. She has written for the Guardian, the Boston Globe, HuffPost, Aeon and other places.
Fact-checker: Matt Giles Copy editor: Jacob Z. Gross

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Last year, the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education came and went, and America's public schools are the most segregated they've been in decades. According to a report by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1988 to 2016 the share of "intensely segregated" schools in which 90 to 100 percent students are non-white more than tripled.

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A series of podcasts to build awareness and capacity for raising equity

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A series of podcasts to build awareness and capacity for raising equity

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The Invention of White People

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The Invention of White People with Dr. Jacqueline Battalora:  ReRooted – Ep. 39 – Francesca Maximé

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Des Moines SURJ Learning Info.....

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America be America....

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The Loft Presents: Danez Smith "Let America Be America Again"

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This fall, the Loft presents linked programming around the theme of Vigilance. Through this theme, the Loft will explore how poems and stories can bear witne...

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Systemic Racism Explained

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Guide to Centering Systemically - COVID19 & Beyond

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Guide to Centering Systemically - COVID19 & Beyond

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Believe in your becoming - the best "YOU," you are created to be

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Believe in your becoming - the best "YOU," you are created to be

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We are forever changed. Embrace ongoing and continued change 

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We are forever changed. Embrace ongoing and continued change 

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Bills in Committee for Review and Consideration

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Bills in Committee for Review and Consideration

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Information pertaining to the Iowa Legislature as well as the Executive and Judicial branch in as much as they relate to the legislative branch

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Iowa Current Legislators

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Iowa Legislature - Committee Information

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Information pertaining to the Iowa Legislature as well as the Executive and Judicial branch in as much as they relate to the legislative branch

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Iowa Board of Education - Board Members & Contact Information

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Sara Yedlik, Chair
Cedar Rapids CSD, PACT Resource Specialist

Sara J. Yedlik, appointed to the board in 2014, is a 2nd-5th grade PACT (Program for Academic and Creative Talent) Resource Specialist for the Cedar Rapids Community School District. She was raised on a farm near Vinton, Iowa. After graduating from Luther College in music education, she received her graduate degree from Drake University in Educational Leadership. She taught music education for 12 years and has been with the PACT department (talented and gifted) for 4 years. Sara has served as a teacher leader for her district and the Iowa State Education Association. She also served as a member of the Teacher Leadership Initiative with the National Education Association.

Dr. Anthony D. Voss, Vice Chair
Hudson CSD, Superintendent

Dr. Anthony D. Voss is the superintendent of the Hudson Community School District, where he has been since 2010. He earned his BA from Clarke University and his MA at Loras College. He continued his graduate work at the University of Northern Iowa where he received his doctorate in 2015. Prior to his arrival at Hudson, he served as a teacher and principal in the parochial system. Tony currently works with the Institute for Educational Leadership at the University of Northern Iowa where he serves as a 'critical friend' for aspiring superintendents. He is also a regular instructor and contributor for the Iowa Superintendents Finance and Leadership Consortium (ISFLC) where his areas of expertise include finance (budget preparation and presentation), teacher leadership, and collective bargaining.
Dr. Voss lives in Hudson with his wife, Ann. They are the proud parents of two and have six grandchildren.

Kathy Behrens
Carroll, Kuemper Catholic Schools, Teacher

Kathy Behrens appointed to the board in 2015 is a 4/5 Resource teacher at Kuemper Catholic Schools in Carroll. She completed her graduate and post-graduate work at Buena Vista University. At Kuemper Catholic Schools, Kathy has served in several leadership roles. One as a member of the Building Assistance Team and another as a member of the Building Leadership Team. She has also served on the Heartland AEA Advisory Team and the Heartland Accreditation Team. Kathy has endorsements in Reading, Early Childhood and Coaching. Kathy and her husband, Mark, live on a farm south of Carroll where they raise corn, soybeans and wine grapes. They have three grown children, Katie, Kora and Kyle and a granddaughter, Kaycee. In her spare time Kathy loves running, walking, biking, Cyclone athletics and spending time with her granddaughter.

Larry Bice
Iowa Department of Education

Lawrence R. Bice, Ed.D currently serves as the administrative consultant for practitioner preparation in the Iowa Department of Education. He is responsible for oversight of all Iowa educator preparation programs in meeting Iowa program standards and requirements. Prior to accepting this position in 2012, he was Associate Professor and Chair of the Education Department at Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa. Bice has been licensed as a secondary science teacher in Kansas, Arizona, and Iowa. He taught high school science in Kansas and Arizona. As a Kansas native, Bice earned his BA degree in biology and in secondary education from Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas. He earned a MS in science education and an Ed.D in science education from Montana State University. He was awarded a National Science Foundation fellowship in his doctoral work. Lawrence and his wife, Vici, reside in Pleasant Hill, IA.

Tim Bower was appointed to the Board of Educational Examiners in December of 2019. Mr. Bower has held a number of senior level positions in global corporations and has been the President of the Nelson Company in Fairfield Iowa since May 2018. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State University in 1984 and his Executive MBA from the University of Iowa in 1995. Tim was elected to the Muscatine CSD School Board in September of 2009 and was on the board until September of 2018 when he resigned to relocate to Fairfield of which he is a graduate of Fairfield High School. He was elected to the Fairfield CSD School Board in November 2019. Tim held a Director position for district 9 for the Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB) until September 2018, was a member of IASB's Legislative Resolutions Committee, Legal Service Fund Committee and other panels. Tim was appointed to the Governor's Southeast Iowa STEM Advisory Board for six years. Tim and his wife Karen live in Fairfield and have three adult children, one of which is an educator and one grandchild. Tim and his wife are active members of their church, having held leadership roles. Karen and Tim have completed training as Stephen Ministers and Leaders. In their spare time, they visit family and attend Iowa State University events.

David A. Harper
Sigourney CSD, Superintendent

David A. Harper is the superintendent of the Sigourney Community School District since 2014 and shared superintendent with Pekin Community School District since 2016. He earned his BA from Buena Vista University and his MA from Drake University and his Superintendent Certification from University of Northern Iowa. He entered into the profession as a special education teacher in 1998 at Pekin CSD. He left Pekin as the secondary principal in 2010 to serve two years with the Iowa National Guard from 2010 to 2012. He returned to education as the principal at Evans Middle School from 2012 to 2014. He served 24 years in the Iowa National Guard and retired in 2013. Dave lives in Linby with his wife, Crista and their daughter Jade.

Chad Janzen
Rock Valley CSD, Superintendent

Chad Janzen is the superintendent of the Rock Valley Community School District, where he has served since 2012. He earned his bachelor's degree from Augustana University in 1997. He began his teaching career at Los Angeles Lutheran Jr/Sr High School where he taught social studies for three years and served as principal for three years. During this time, he earned his master's degree in school administration from California State University, Northridge. He continued his teaching degree in Baltic, South Dakota for three years upon returning to the Midwest. In 2006 he returned to administration serving as the principal and superintendent in Canistota, South Dakota. While in Canistota, he earned his education specialist degree at the University of Sioux Falls. Chad and his wife, Lou Ann, a registered nurse, live in Rock Valley. They have two sons.

Rhonda McRina
Waterloo, Public Member

Rhonda McRina, employed at Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo for 18 years, is currently Director of Diversity and Inclusion. She has worked as a mental health and educational counselor with youth and adults for over 25 years. A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Rhonda received her B.A. in English and M.Ed. in counseling and guidance from the University of Montevallo in Alabama. She recently served as a Waterloo Community School District Board of Education member where she was also district delegate for the Iowa Urban Education Network. Rhonda chaired the Waterloo Commission on Human Rights for several years and presently volunteers on several community task forces and advisory boards such as Waterloo Schools Foundation and Grow Cedar Valley Economic Inclusion Initiative. Proud parent to adult son James-Daniel, Rhonda is presently an ABD/doctoral candidate in Higher Education Administration/Community College Leadership at Iowa State University.

Dr. Kristen Rickey
West Delaware County CSD, Superintendent and Director of Special Education

Dr. Kristen Rickey is the superintendent and Director of Special Education in the West Delaware County Community School District, where she has served since 2010. She earned her BS in Psychology and MA in Special Education at the University of Iowa. She earned her Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Leadership Studies at the University of Iowa in 2005. Prior to her work with West Delaware Schools, Dr. Rickey has served as a teacher or administrator in Marion, Cedar Rapids, and Tripoli School Districts. She also founded a professional development consulting firm to provide guidance to districts across the country in effective strategies for working toward more inclusive education practices. She has served in an advisory role to the field of education in various capacities, including the Iowa Virtual Clearinghouse for Work Based Learning, School Administrators of Iowa Professional Standards Committee, Northeast Iowa Regional Planning Partnership, and Executive Leaders Steering Committee. Dr. Rickey lives in Manchester with her husband, Glen. They enjoy spending time with their two daughters and sons-in-law and one granddaughter.

Erin Schoening
Council Bluffs CSD, Reading Interventionist and IB Program Coordinator

Erin Schoening has taught in the Council Bluffs Community School District for 14 years. She attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where she earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education and a master's degree in K-8 reading education. Her past teaching experiences include kindergarten teacher, first grade teacher, literacy strategist and Reading Recovery teacher. She currently serves as a reading interventionist and as the International Baccalaureate Program Coordinator at College View Elementary. As part of the new Teacher Leadership and Compensation program in Iowa, Erin was selected as a Program Leader for the work she does as the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program Coordinator. Erin also teaches reading methods courses for pre-service teachers at Buena Vista University's Council Bluffs office.

Erin's husband, Devin, is a K-12 Instructional Technology Coach for Council Bluffs Community Schools. They have two daughters who attend College View Elementary.

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Sara Yedlik, Chair Cedar Rapids CSD, PACT Resource Specialist Sara J. Yedlik, appointed to the board in 2014, is a 2nd-5th grade PACT (Program for Academic and Creative Talent) Resource Specialist for the Cedar Rapids Community School District. She was raised on a farm near Vinton, Iowa.

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Des Moines City Council Meetings - Agenda & Opportunities to View 

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Des Moines City Council Meetings - Agenda & Opportunities to View 

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Regular Meeting Start Time & Location

Start Time: Regularly scheduled City Council meetings occur at 4:30 PM.

Location: City Hall, Council Chambers, 400 Robert D. Ray Drive, 2nd Floor, Des Moines, IA 50309

The deadline for submission of City Council agenda items is 5:00 PM on the Tuesday preceding the meeting.

Agendas are available by 4:00 PM on Thursday preceding the meeting.

Agendas close to Extra Items and changes at 3:00 PM on Mondays.

COVID-19: For information on how to join a meeting via teleconference, view the agenda for the meeting when it is published. View our Zoom meeting instructions page

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Regular Meeting Start Time & Location Start Time: Regularly scheduled City Council meetings occur at 4:30 PM. Location: City Hall, Council Chambers, 400 Robert D. Ray Drive, 2nd Floor, Des Moines, IA 50309 The deadline for submission of City Council agenda items is 5:00 PM on the Tuesday preceding the meeting.