“Remote learning may be able to crack into students’ minds, but I think the pain of this reality is knowing that remotely reaching students’ hearts is not the same.” —Allison Tingwall, principal of Curie Metropolitan High School in Chicago. ()

“I was able to drive, live, work without fear. Without the constant fear that I’m going to get deported at any minute.” —Karen Reyes, an Austin, Texas, bilingual special education teacher, after the Supreme Court handed down its decision blocking the Trump administration’s effort to end DACA, the program that has allowed some 650,000 immigrants who were brought into the U.S. as children — as Reyes was — to live and work without the threat of deportation. (Read at The74Million.org)

“There are 78 million parents with at least one child in their household under 18. That’s almost a third of the adult population. A parent’s ability to find and keep a job is inseparable from child care and schooling.” —Labor economist Ernie Tedeschi. ()

“I’m doing 300 percent of the planning I usually do.” —Kaitlin Karpinski, leader of Rooted School in New Orleans, on planning for schools reopening in the fall. (Read at The74Million.org)

“This is my great worry. In a moment when we should be investing, we are going to be seeing cuts because Congress apparently feels no urgency … as schools are trying to get ready for what is arguably the most important beginning of a school year that will happen in a lifetime.” —Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat. ()

“I mean, it’s like it’s a lose-lose situation. You have parents that are demanding the schools to open. And then you have parents that are saying, we’re not going to send our kids to school. You have teachers that are saying, we’re not going to go back to work. Districts that are saying, with these budget cuts, we’re going to have to lay off teachers. … It’s just, this is unbelievable.” —Dan Domenech, executive director of the AASA, the school superintendents association. ()

“You can’t be doing this anymore, son.” —Judge Stephen Braslow of Suffolk County, New York, to a 17-year-old at Babylon Junior-Senior High School who allegedly made a homicidal threat on Snapchat. Under the state’s “red flag” law, the district’s superintendent was able to get a court order to search the boy’s home, where police confiscated two pellet guns. (Read at ����Ӱ�� Million.org)

If you look up on Wikipedia, you’ll be greeted with the following bit of conventional wisdom: “This is usually in August or September in the Northern Hemisphere.” That factoid is only one part of what has become a daunting equation for schools, districts and states as they stare down the enormous question of when (and whether) to reopen schools in the fall. A recent by the AASA, the national school superintendents association, reveals the second part. In the June 16 survey, the association said that 94 percent of superintendents said they weren’t ready to announce whether they’ll reopen or resume in-person instruction. Even with the necessary caveats — the poll was conducted between May and June, when reopening for the 2019-20 school year was still a possibility — the math is straightforward: Officials have mere weeks to make what will undoubtedly be the most important decision of their careers.

The stakes? “You don’t want to be the superintendent to open too quickly and somebody dies,” Kristi Wilson, superintendent of the Phoenix-area Buckeye Elementary School District, where schools reopen Aug. 5, bluntly told . “Live with that! It’s just way too much to take on.” But the penalties for remaining closed are also severe. Experts that the economy entered a recession in February. No recovery can happen unless parents return to work, and that can’t happen if kids don’t return to school.

The bits and pieces of reopening plans that have already come to light only underscore the uncertainty. New York City, the nation’s largest school system, indicated that 20 percent of its teachers might have to work from home due to health concerns. As noted, those 15,000 teachers represent more teachers than Houston’s entire public school system. And elsewhere, there has been considerable pushback. In , the governor’s plan to make children come to school with their own masks has come under fire for punishing low-income students and minorities. And in , several district chiefs called the state’s guidelines for in-person summer programs “inappropriate.”

A large part of the problem is that districts have to foot the hefty price tag for new health and safety protocols at a time when they are already hemorrhaging from the recession. The estimates that it will cost an average school district with 3,700 students $1.8 million to meet reopening guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including $448,000 for additional custodial staff. “I mean, it’s like it’s a lose-lose situation,” said , who runs the AASA. “You have parents that are demanding the schools to open. And then you have parents that are saying, we’re not going to send our kids to school. You have teachers that are saying, we’re not going to go back to work. Districts that are saying, with these budget cuts, we’re going to have to lay off teachers. … It’s just, this is unbelievable.”

Top Stories

Equity — Pandemic High: How One of Chicago’s Largest Schools Rebuilt Itself for Cyberspace ()

Reopening Schools — The Socially Distanced School Day ()

Black Lives Matter — High School Students and Alumni Are Using Social Media to Expose Racism ()

Immigration — A Border School for Asylum Seekers Goes Virtual (Read at The74Million.org)

Teachers — As Teacher Layoffs Loom, Should Schools Seek Private Donations? ()

Parents

As COVID-19 Threatens Millions of Child Care ‘Slots,’ Families Face Deep Disruptions to Their Children’s Early Learning and Social Development and to Their Own Jobs (Read at The74Million.org)

‘Our Kids Had Been Forgotten’: Parents of Special Education Kids Hope for Summer School ()

As Playgrounds Start to Reopen, Here’s How to Keep Kids Safe ()

Hundreds of Southern California Schools Vulnerable to Outbreaks Because of Vaccine Reluctance, Data Suggests ()

Educators

20% of NYC Teachers Might Work From Home Because of Health Concerns, According to Education Department Estimates ()

A Teacher Ponders Risk of Returning to Work While Being Paid Less Than Unemployment ()

Teachers Need Opportunities to Heal Before the School Year Begins ()

Pandemic Fallout

Could the Online, For-Profit College Industry be “A Winner in This Crisis”? ()

Analysis: Just 1 in 3 Districts Required Teachers to Deliver Instruction This Spring. They Mustn’t Be Left on Their Own Again in the Fall (Read at The74Million.org)

Colleges Are Ditching Required Admission Tests Over COVID-19. Will They Ever Go Back? ()

Charter Schools, Some With Billionaire Benefactors, Tap Coronavirus Relief ()

5 Radical Schooling Ideas for an Uncertain Fall, and Beyond ()

Meanwhile, Beyond the Pandemic…

DACA Teachers Across the Country Embrace SCOTUS Ruling Allowing Them to ‘Live, Work Without Fear’ (Read at The74Million.org)

The End of Police in Schools ()

A Black Teacher Questioned Eva Moskowitz’s Response to George Floyd’s Death. Now, Success Academy Is Facing Bigger Questions About Race ()

‘The Students Were the Danger’: In Racially Diverse Schools, Police Were More Likely to View Students as Threats, Study Shows (Read at The74Million.org)

Essays and Reflections

Bradford: Black Lives Matter and Black Education Matters Because Freedom Matters. Only When Black Folks Are Safe to Both Learn and Live Will America Be Free (Read at The74Million.org)

Analysis: For Foster Children in Texas, a State of Despair ()

How the New York City School System Failed the Test of COVID-19 ()

Fuck the Bread. The Bread Is Over. ()

In the Face of American ‘Truth Decay,’ Polls Shed Light on How Much Families Are Hurting During COVID-19 (Read at The74Million.org)

QuotED

“I was able to drive, live, work without fear. Without the constant fear that I’m going to get deported at any minute.” —Karen Reyes, an Austin, Texas, bilingual special education teacher, after the Supreme Court handed down its decision blocking the Trump administration’s effort to end DACA, the program that’s allowed some 650,000 immigrants who were brought into the U.S. as children — as Reyes was — to live and work without the threat of deportation. (Read at The74Million.org)

“You don’t want to be the superintendent to open too quickly and somebody dies. Live with that! It’s just way too much to take on.” —Kristi Wilson, superintendent of the Phoenix-area Buckeye Elementary School District, where schools reopen Aug. 5. ()

“At a time when our kids and our communities need us most, we are having to make massive cuts. We must double down for those who have been most impacted by the COVID crisis if we are to deliver on the promise of education to create a more equitable society.” —Susana Cordova, the superintendent of Denver Public Schools. ()

“This is my great worry. In a moment when we should be investing, we are going to be seeing cuts because Congress apparently feels no urgency … as schools are trying to get ready for what is arguably the most important beginning of a school year that will happen in a lifetime.” —Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat. ()

“The concerns that the [school police] had by and large were about the students themselves. It wasn’t about protecting these innocent [youth] from dangers that could come from the outside — the students were the danger.” —Ben Fisher, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisville, on research showing enormous gaps in how school police viewed threats at racially diverse and predominantly white schools. (Read at The74Million.org)

“Remote learning may be able to crack into students’ minds, but I think the pain of this reality is knowing that remotely reaching students’ hearts is not the same.” —Allison Tingwall, principal of Curie Metropolitan High School in Chicago. ()

“Thankfully a flute had her number.” —Alejandro Jaime Salazar, band director at Highland High School in San Antonio, on how he found the last of the missing members of his Mighty Owl Band. Educators had been searching for 4,000 students missing during the pandemic. (Read at The74Million.org)

“We ride that seesaw every day — is it a good idea? We’re not taking this lightly. We don’t want people to think we’re being irresponsible by making this choice. We’re trying to do what we feel is in the best interest of the students.” —Bonnie Lower, district superintendent in Willow Creek, Montana, where a small school opened in May to students and staff. ()

“For many schools that serve predominantly black and brown low-income communities, moments like now are why we teach.” —Leslie-Bernard Joseph, chief executive officer at Coney Island Preparatory charter schools in Brooklyn, on teaching students about race and violence in the wake of the riots sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. ()

“They need to do whatever it takes to make sure that they can get learning into the homes of these kids. We haven’t been thinking creatively. If the Department of Health can set up tents in Central Park with hospital beds and air systems and drive-up testing sites, and we can’t find ways to promote internet access for our kids to get online for school, then we’ve failed.” —Nicol Turner-Lee, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation. (Read at ����Ӱ��Million.org)

“This is presenting very much like a common childhood illness, which it is not. This is a novel diagnosis that doesn’t exactly have a name, doesn’t exactly have a timeline, doesn’t exactly have a protocol. We didn’t learn about this in medical school.” —Dr. Katie Schafer, a general pediatrician who has a private practice in Birmingham, Michigan, on a new coronavirus-like strain that largely affects children. ()

“Schools are a mixing cauldron for disease. Kids interacting in close proximity is a really good environment for the transmission of respiratory viruses. Opening them early is not the strategy I would recommend.” —Jeffrey Shaman, one of the nation’s leading epidemiologists, who teaches at Columbia University. (Read at The74Million.org)

“When I am missing two-thirds of my kids each day, there is a ceiling to how well it can go. But I am proud of what we have done and how the school is responding. We’re making the most of a bad situation.” —Jonathan Faber, who teaches English and social studies to recent immigrants at Coolidge High in Washington, D.C. ()

“Normally, we hear mostly from families who are struggling and who are in some level of dispute. But we have heard from a number of families saying, ‘This has really been a blessing for us.’” —Denise Stile Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, Inc., on the surprising number of special needs students who have thrived educationally during the pandemic. (Read at The74Million.org)

“I worry about the two frogs the most. They have the most care involved.” —Mary Pfeifer, New York City teacher, in an email to parents, asking who would be willing to invite classroom pets into their homes during the pandemic. ()

When should schools open? Even at the highest levels of government, opinion is divided. , Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading epidemiologist, warned of “little spikes” of climbing disease rates that “might turn into outbreaks” if states fail to meet federal guidelines before opening schools. President Trump called Fauci’s reply to lawmakers “not an acceptable answer” and reiterated that “we have to get the schools open, we have to get our country open.”

A released Wednesday by Politico/Morning Consult suggests that more voters are on Team Fauci than Team Trump. Predictably, however, the results skew along political lines. In an online survey of roughly 2,000 registered voters, 41 percent called reopening K-12 schools in the fall a bad idea, but among those with a favorable view of Trump, 54 percent favored reopening elementary and high schools this fall.

Politics, perhaps as much as science, will play a huge role in determining when and where schools reopen. If the target is indeed the fall, district and state leaders have roughly three months to weave the many variables facing them into coherent plans. They have gotten a leg up from think tanks, national teachers unions and the federal Centers for Disease Control, all of which have released blueprints to guide reopening.

But as Education Dive noted in an of those blueprints, many are more easily written than accomplished. For example, a Maryland plan calls for temperature screening checkpoints before students enter school, which Dan Domenech, executive director of the AASA, The School Superintendents Association, called an “an immense logistical issue” at a time when many schools have cut back on nurses. The biggest X factor may be academic: how to address the epic amount of lost learning due to students being at home for months. A by Education Week suggests that schools have been “all over the map” in terms of the rigor of their online instruction. As school winds to a close for the academic year, at least one state is trying to measure the depth of the trough. Texas is offering an to gauge the size of what has become known as the “COVID slide.” However, the test is optional and may therefore be of limited value.

Top Stories

Ed tech — Ed Tech Companies Promise Results, but Their Claims Are Often Based on Shoddy Research ()

Stimulus — Why did The CARES Act Give More Money to Hair Schools Than to a Community College? ()

Reading — Teaching Reading Was Hard Before a Pandemic. Now Chicago Teachers Walk a Tightrope of Technology and Attention ()

Pandemic lessons — An American Principal in Africa Is Using Lessons From the Ebola Epidemic to Confront COVID-19. U.S. Educators Can Learn From Him (Read at The74Million.org)

Class pets — Who’ll Take the Tortoise? What Happens to Classroom Pets During the Lockdown ()

Parents and Families

The Class of 2020: Graduating Into a Pandemic ()

Youngest Learners Prepare to Start School — Without the School: Summer Transition Activities Help Acclimate 5-Year-Olds to the Classroom. Can a Remote Version Even Come Close? ()

Still Trying to Get a Handle on Schooling From Home? Home-Schoolers Know a Thing or Two ()

‘It’s Working Fantastically’: Two Parents on Adjusting to Their Lockdown Role of Proxy Teacher ()

With School Buildings Closed, Children’s Mental Health Is Suffering ()

Educators

Helping Students Grieve From a Distance ()

From NYC Parents to Principals, Mayor De Blasio’s Decision During COVID-19 to Fill Teacher Openings From Troubled Absent Teacher Reserve Sparks Worries (Read at The74Million.org)

39,000 NYC Students With Disabilities Attend School Year-Round. Their Parents Are Bracing for the Summer ()

Oral History — 5 School Leaders, 4 Weeks & the Biggest Education Crisis of Their Careers: How San Antonio Marshalled Its Early Forces to Face the Coronavirus Shutdown (Read at The74Million.org)

Equity and Activism

Low Attendance and COVID-19 Have Ravaged D.C.’s Poorest Schools. Fall Will Be About Reconnecting ()

Closing the Digital Divide: Inside Cleveland’s Plan to Treat Broadband Like a Public Utility Service — and to Pay for Every Student to Get Online (Read at The74Million.org)

For Some LGBTQ Youth, School Buildings Were Safer Spaces Than Their Homes. Now, They Have Nowhere to Go. ()

In Montgomery County, Schools and Parents Clash Over How Much Teachers and Students Are Connecting ()

Essays and Reflections

During Lockdown, Google Maps Gives My Son a Way Out From Our Kitchen in Queens: He Had Created a Paracosm — a Fantasyland. And His Journey Has Led Him Not to Mordor but to Minor-League Baseball Stadiums. ()

Where’s the Rallying Cry? America’s Children Are Unequally Prepared to Absorb The Impacts of COVID-19 ()

Rotherham: From Homeschooling to the Digital Divide to Philanthropy, 10 Questions About COVID-19 and the Future of Education (Read at The74Million.org)

The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our Imaginations ()

Worst. Summer Break. Ever. How One D.C. Third-Grader Is Bracing for the Pain of Quarantine Without the Pleasure of School (Read at The74Million.org)

QuotED

“When I am missing two thirds of my kids each day, there is a ceiling to how well it can go. But I am proud of what we have done and how the school is responding. We’re making the most of a bad situation.” —Jonathan Faber, who teaches English and social studies to recent immigrants at Coolidge High in Washington, D.C. ()

“My initial reaction was concern. In this moment, we are seeing that issues of equity become more entrenched. What we know about the ATR is that placement has disproportionately been in educational settings that are already disadvantaged. [These educators have been] going disproportionately into schools that have high needs and a high percentage of black and brown children.” —Paula White, the executive director of Educators for Excellence’s New York office, on plans to dip into the city’s infamous Absent Teacher Reserve to make up for teacher staffing shortfalls. (Read at The74Million.org)

“I understand there are equity issues. But I think there’s a way to have things fair and still provide more of a learning experience than kids are getting now.” —Brian Krantz, parent of a 12-year-old daughter in Montgomery County, Maryland. ()

“We’d still have to have a robust online presence, because if there were to be a second wave or another outbreak, or if it were to become seasonal, the virtual has to be embedded in the school psyche.” —Jeff Trudeau, director of the American International School of Monrovia in Liberia, which was shuttered during the Ebola epidemic, on preparing for the fall. (Read at The74Million.org)

“I worry about the two frogs the most. They have the most care involved.” —Mary Pfeifer, New York City teacher, in an email to parents, asking who would be willing to invite classroom pets into their homes during the pandemic. ()

Two news events that bookended the week underscore the basic cognitive dissonance of the COVID-19 era. On Monday, a think tank released a�� for how schools can reopen. As reported by Education Week, the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute recommended that “policymakers and educators need to think long-term, preparing for possible changes to operations for the next two academic years.” The gist is that schools need to take the next four months to engage in deep soul-searching and careful planning before students return.

And, just like that, on Thursday opened its doors to 56 students and 18 staff members. The Willow Creek School opened after 75 percent of local parents surveyed in the farming and ranching community said they wanted their kids to catch up on schoolwork and return to a semblance of normalcy before summer. The move came after similar limited openings in other western states like and Wyoming.

Part of the rationale is a strong local-control ethos that is part of the DNA of the American West. “How they open schools and how learning takes place is up to them,” said Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction , a Republican elected in 2016. Other states are following the lead of President Trump, who views opening schools as pivotal to jump-starting the dormant economy. At an Oval Office event this week, Trump reiterated: “I would like to see schools open, wherever possible.”

What happens out west could presage larger-scale reopenings this fall, where decisions will reflect a mix of science, tradition and politics. Whether the openings look more like the Willow Creek School or reflect the extensive deliberation envisioned by AEI will likely depend on zip code. Many are fearful of the economy’s steep decline, even as scientists urge caution. One expert told ����Ӱ�� that given the current inability to stem the virus’s spread, schools that open prematurely risk endangering the lives of students and staff. “Schools are a mixing cauldron for disease,” says Jeffrey Shaman, one of the nation’s leading epidemiologists. “Kids interacting in close proximity is a really good environment for the transmission of respiratory viruses. Opening them early is not the strategy I would recommend.”

Top stories

Reopening Schools — As COVID-19 Keeps Most Schools Shuttered for the Rest of the Year, a Growing Number in Wyoming and Montana Partially Reopen (Read at The74Million.org)

Teen Workers — High School Student and Essential Worker: Teens Fill Essential Role During Pandemic ()

Gap Year — Biggest Gap Year Ever? Sixteen Percent of High School Seniors Say They’ll Take a Gap Year ()

Digital Divide — An Education System, Divided: How Internet Inequity Persisted Through 4 Presidents and Left Schools Unprepared for the Pandemic (Read at ����Ӱ��Million.org)

Health — A New Coronavirus Threat to Children ()

‘Social distance’ learning

Cuomo Taps Gates Foundation to ‘Reimagine’ What Schooling Looks Like in NY ()

NYC Allows Zoom (Once Again) for Remote Learning ()

Educators

Teachers Without Internet Work in Parking Lots, Empty School Buildings During COVID-19 ()

Ringing the Bell: These 10 Houston-Area Teachers and Staff Go Beyond the Classroom Amid the Pandemic ()

Principals Find Novel Ways to Honor Seniors During Shutdown ()

A Texas Principal Traveled 800 Miles to Visit His School’s 612 Graduating Seniors at Home, All While Socially Distancing ()

Coronavirus Separates Student Teachers From Their K-12 and College Classrooms, Forcing Them to Scramble and States to Change License Rules (Read at The74Million.org)

Pandemic fallout

Coronavirus Leaves Students and Colleges Playing Waiting Game ()

District Hard-Hit by COVID-19 Begins ‘Tough Work’ of Getting On ()

Despite Pushback, Sidwell and Other D.C.-Area Prep Schools are Keeping Their Small-Business Loans ()

Voluntary or Mandatory? Remote or in Person? Districts Grapple with Summer School Logistics, Equity Questions ()

Coronavirus Blew Up Summer Internships, Forcing Students and Employers to Get Creative ()

Essays and reflections

A Mom’s View: I Already Knew My Son’s Teacher Is Special. Her Socially Distanced Visits to Our Home Show What an Extraordinary Gem She Is (Read at The74Millon.org)

The Home Is the School: Teaching Philosophy With Kids in the House ()

Why I’m Learning More With Distance Learning Than I Do in School ()

The Pandemic Is Causing Widespread Emotional Trauma. Schools Must Be Ready to Help ()

Student Voice: Facing the ‘Crushing Impact of Isolation,’ Teens Struggling With Mental Health Problems During Pandemic Lean on Each Other (Read at The74Million.org)

QuotED

“We ride that seesaw every day — is it a good idea? We’re not taking this lightly. We don’t want people to think we’re being irresponsible by making this choice. We’re trying to do what we feel is in the best interest of the students.” —Bonnie Lower, district superintendent in Willow Creek, Montana, where a small school just opened to students and staff. ()

“Schools are a mixing cauldron for disease. Kids interacting in close proximity is a really good environment for the transmission of respiratory viruses. Opening them early is not the strategy I would recommend.” —Jeffrey Shaman, one of the nation’s leading epidemiologists, who teaches at Columbia University. (Read at The74Million.org)

“We expect to see an increase in gap years and, actually, gap semesters.” —Angel Pérez, vice president for enrollment and student success at Trinity College in Connecticut and newly named chief executive of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. ()

“This is presenting very much like a common childhood illness, which it is not. This is a novel diagnosis that doesn’t exactly have a name, doesn’t exactly have a timeline, doesn’t exactly have a protocol. We didn’t learn about this in medical school.” —Dr. Katie Schafer, a general pediatrician who has a private practice in Birmingham, Michigan, on a new strain of the coronavirus that largely affects children. ()

“They need to do whatever it takes to make sure that they can get learning into the homes of these kids. We haven’t been thinking creatively. If the Department of Health can set up tents in Central Park with hospital beds and air systems and drive-up testing sites, and we can’t find ways to promote internet access for our kids to get online for school, then we’ve failed.” —Nicol Turner-Lee, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation. (Read at ����Ӱ��Million.org)

Last week, Denmark became the first major industrialized nation to reopen schools during the pandemic. There were some clear rules: Desks, for instance, had to be two meters (about 6.5 feet) apart, leading to once-luxurious teacher-student ratios of 10 to 1 in many classrooms. Students had to wash their hands once an hour. And parents weren’t allowed inside. “It is a new world,” said , the head teacher at Copenhagen’s Logumkloster District School. “We used to make plans for if there was a terrorist attack here — but never this kind of attack.”

Is Denmark a harbinger of things to come? It will take a while to find out. Most European countries aren’t ready for such a bold move. In Spain, for instance, most children haven’t been outside in five weeks. Schools throughout Asia remain closed. In , where the pandemic originated, schools have yet to reopen in most parts of the country; the capital, Beijing, will see high school seniors return to class next week.

For most of the U.S., that reality is likely months away, and in one of the world’s more famously decentralized education systems, it will entail adjustments that were once unthinkable. “If you think you’re going to keep kids six feet apart during the course of a school day, you’re dreaming,” Dan Domenech, executive director for the American Association of School Administrators, told . In Denmark, the increase in classrooms necessary to facilitate social distancing has translated into teachers doing more. What will this mean in the United States, which was facing a dramatic teacher before the pandemic? Will states ease restrictions to licensure, for example, perhaps setting up confrontations with teachers unions?

If schools require students to wear masks and gloves, there are to contend with, and many states cut back on school nurses in response to previous budget cuts. Finally, many school buildings were simply not built for the rigors of social distancing. The West Contra Costa Unified School District, near San Francisco, has no unused classrooms; gym classes often have more than 50 students, and schools stagger lunchtimes so students can sit eight to 10 kids to a table. “We can’t just build new schools overnight,” Tony Wold, the associate superintendent, told the . “Even if the state gives us more money, where will the teachers come from?”

In keeping with America’s decentralized ethos, the Great Reopening will likely be highly regionalized. President Trump, in��his to jump-start the economy, said that sending children back to school is a decision that will be largely left to governors. Already, that plan has sparked confusion: It calls for reopening schools but also maintaining physical distancing and banning groups of 50 or more. California Gov. Gavin Newsom stepped into the breach early, offering up ideas such as staggering school schedules, with some students arriving in the morning and the rest in the afternoon, while rethinking how to handle school mainstays like assemblies and gym. Most state leaders predict that they won’t be ready to move until at least the fall. But officials in — Idaho and Wyoming — have not ruled out opening classrooms this summer.

Top stories

Equity — Philly Students Without Internet Can Do Remote Learning in Parking Lots, District Says ()

Teen Jobs — Children Take to the Fields Following School Closures ()

Unions — Online School Demands More of Teachers. Unions Are Pushing Back ()

Pensions — Report: Teacher Pension Debt Is ‘Crowding Out’ Funding for Education ()

Mental Health — Distanced by Pandemic, School Psychologists Improvise Ways to Connect With Struggling Students (Read at The74Million.org)

‘Social distance’ learning

Technology Shortage Hits Schools: As Remote Learning Jolts Demand for Chromebooks and iPads, Districts Warn Communities’ Needed Supplies Could Take Months (Read at The74Million.org)

Most Illinois School Districts Did Not Have Approved E-learning Plans Before the Pandemic ()

Over a Million California Students Still Lack Access to Remote Learning ()

Analysis: A Month In, Districts and Charters Make Progress on Online Instruction and Monitoring Student Progress, Lag in Grading and Attendance (Read at The74Million.org)

Teachers Need Lots of Training to Do Online Learning Well. Coronavirus Closures Gave Many Just Days ()

Parents and families

What Will Summer in NYC Look Like for Kids? Camps, Pools, and other Programs Face Cuts ()

School Counselors Have a Message for Kids: ‘It’s OK to Not Be OK’ ()

New York Parents Are Stressed Out About Their Children Falling Behind, Survey Finds ()

Educators

Denied a Diploma, April Dunn Made Sure Other Students With Disabilities Had Options. She Died of COVID-19. ()

‘An Unknown They’ve Never Experienced Before’: As Coronavirus Death Toll Grows Among NYC Teachers and Staff, Union Support Team Ramps Up Its Efforts (Read at The74Million.org)

See How Videos Are Bridging the Divide Between Students and Teachers ()

Teach New Content or Review Familiar Material? A Tough Call During Coronavirus Closures ()

Unable to Complete Student Teaching Requirements, Prospective Teachers May Soon Get Reprieve ()

Special education

Some Kids With Disabilities Can’t Learn at Home. Parents and Advocates Want to Know: What’s the Plan? ()

California Should Push Harder for Special Education During School Closures, Disability Rights Groups Say ()

Equity and activism

Many Trans Students Have Been Forced to Hide Their True Selves Because of College Closures ()

For Homeless Students, School Provided More Than an Education. Here’s How They Are Coping Now ()

Schools Transform Into ‘Relief’ Kitchens, but Federal Aid Fails to Keep Up ()

For NYC Students Learning English, Remote Learning Can Come With Steep Barriers ()

Homeless Families Face High Hurdles Homeschooling Their Kids ()

Essays and reflections

The Risks of Homeschooling ()

Forced to Throw Out Their Old College Admissions Standards, Higher Ed Institutions Should Seize on the Crisis to Create Better Ones for the Future (Read at The74Million.org)

Taking Attendance During Coronavirus Closures: Is It Even Worth It? ()

Student Voice: Two Weeks, Five Siblings and One Working Laptop. How I Navigated the Nation’s Largest School System in Search of an iPad and What It Taught Me About America’s Digital Divide (Read at The74Million.org)

Hey FCC, Step Up and Make Sure Internet Reaches the Families Who Need It Most ()

QuotED

“It is so nice to see my best friend again!” —Maja Petersen, a 7-year-old first-grader, on schools opening in Denmark. ()

“There’s a lot of fear now of a different type of unknown, an unknown that they’ve never experienced before.” —Tina Puccio, director of the United Federation of Teachers’ Member Assistance Program in New York City, where more than 60 school teachers and staff have died from the coronavirus. (Read at The74Million.org)

“It almost shows a disregard for the safety of kids, because what seems to be the most important element here is that schools be open to serve their child care function, so that parents can get back to work.” —Dan Domenech, executive director for the American Association of School Administrators, on President Trump’s plan to restart the economy. ()

“Everybody says we hope we return to normal. It’s not going to return to normal anytime soon because the new normal is going to be different.” —Robert Hull, president and chief executive of the National Association of State Boards of Education. ()

“Isolation has been really hard for me. It feels like many things that gave me joy are now gone.” —Jada Bromberg, 16 and a sophomore at W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax, Virginia. (Read at The74Million.org)

Taking attendance is one of the more quotidian aspects of education, less remarked upon than perennial issues like yawning achievement gaps or the inability to read at grade level. But there’s an obvious causal relationship: Reading mastery can’t develop and gaps don’t shrink if students fail to show up. Long before the pandemic, experts deemed chronic absenteeism a��crisis, with nearly 8 million K-12 students missing 15 or more days of school a year.

That was before. Now, the blitzkrieg pace of the switch to remote learning brought about by COVID-19 has led to many more students dropping out, not tuning in. As families struggle with health and economic concerns, not to mention lack of Wi-Fi, some teachers are reporting that they can’t reach students by email or phone. Each failed connection is a story of learning lost. told the Los Angeles Times that two-thirds of the juniors in the Advanced Placement English class at her South L.A. high school had not responded to messages about assignments she’d sent three weeks prior — part of the 7 percent of students the district had not made contact with since schools there closed March 16. , a special education teacher in Atlanta, told the Huffington Post that after three weeks, he still had not heard from two of his elementary students.

In the world of attendance, those are the known unknowns, to paraphrase former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But some systems, like the District of Columbia Public Schools, have completely ceased taking public attendance, and in others, like the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District in North Carolina, remote learning is optional and teachers are therefore not required to check in with students. It goes without saying, but districts were unprepared to handle a disaster of this scale: American schools have lived through hurricanes and wildfires but nothing that encompassed the entire country or lasted so long. “It’s like a hurricane hit every district in America at the same time,” said , president of the education advocacy group 50Can.

For educators, it’s not too early to prepare for the effects of the cataclysm on the nation’s most vulnerable students. Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, has already unveiled a�� to keep struggling students in their current grades once the pandemic ends. That could spark pushback from parents. A�� found that 48 percent of parents say that students who complete a formal distance learning program should advance to the next grade come fall, but roughly a quarter say that students should advance regardless. , executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, told The New York Times that the dilemma of how to catch children up academically once the pandemic fades is “a serious issue that could have implications for years.” “Many skills build one on another,” he said. “If a child misses out on some key idea, then all of a sudden, additional ideas as they’re introduced just become Greek.”

Top stories

Immigrant Students — Miami-Dade Schools Got Ahead on Online Classes, but Immigrant Students Were Left Behind ()

Student Meals — Free School Lunch Programs Forced to Choose: Fight Coronavirus or Students’ Hunger ()

Virtual Charters — Competitors or Collaborators: Some School Closure Orders Look to Restrict Virtual Charters to Protect Brick-and-Mortar Schools During Coronavirus Crisis (Read at The74Million.org)

Teacher Shortage — Coronavirus School Closures Push Out Student Teachers. Will US Teacher Shortage Get Worse? ()

Undocumented Students — For Undocumented Students, Coronavirus Pandemic Brings Learning Disruptions — and Economic Panic — With Few Avenues for Help (Read at The74Million.org)

‘Social distance’ learning

Analysis: How 18 Top Charter School Networks Are Adapting to Online Education, and What Other Schools Can Learn From Them (Read at The74Million.org)

An Unexpected Tool for Remote Learning During Coronavirus: Public TV Stations ()

Now More Than Ever, Houston’s ‘Digital Divide’ Puts Children’s Education in Peril ()

Being Kind Online Takes On New Urgency as Socially Isolated Kids and Teens Find It’s Their Only Destination (Read at The74Million.org)

Parents and families

How NYC Parents Are Working to Keep Their Kids Socializing ()

Give Yourself ‘Grace’ — and 7 Other Tips From Teachers to Home-Schooling Families ()

‘Why Do I Want Digital Experiences for My Kids If It Looks Like This?’ — Experts Fear Parent Backlash Against Online Learning (Read at The74Million.org)

Child Care in a Locked-Down World ()

How Much Home Teaching Is Too Much? Schools Differ in Demands on Parents ()

Educators

Educators We’ve Lost to the Coronavirus ()

Teachers Should Seize This Moment to Connect With Their Students ()

COVID-19: Local Educators Miss Teaching Their Students While Schools Are Shut Down ()

How Schools Will Overcome the ‘Coronavirus Slide’: Ideas From 5 Superintendents ()

‘A Tremendous Loss’: Brooklyn Third-Grade Teacher Dies From Coronavirus ()

Special education

DeVos Weighs Waiving Special Education. Parents Are Worried. ()

‘It’s Exhausting’: Illinois Special Needs Parents Struggle With Remote Learning Days ()

How Children With Disabilities Are Getting Left Behind ()

Disability Rights Groups, School Administrators Spar Over Possible Changes to Special Education Laws ()

Equity and activism

Children May Miss Meals as School Food Service Workers Fall Ill ()

For Schools, a New Challenge: How to Feed Students During Spring Break? ()

Essays and reflections

It’s Hard to Teach Writing Online: A Veteran Educator’s Tips for Reaching Students Remotely ()

Pondiscio: At This Time of Crisis, Schools Are Improvising, Innovating and Scaling Good Ideas With Love, Loyalty & Care. These Days Will Shape Us Forever (Read at The74Million.org)

Oregon’s Coronavirus Education Lockdown: Teachers Unions Block Kids From Transferring to Virtual Charter Schools ()

The Dying Art of Instruction in the Digital Classroom ()

Bradford: $13B in Stimulus Money for K-12 Schools Is a Good Start. But All Types of Schools Will Need More Help From the Feds in Order to Reopen (Read at The74Million.org)

QuotED

“It’s like a hurricane hit every district in America at the same time.” —Marc Porter Magee, president of the education advocacy group 50Can. ()

“I actually need my teachers, who know me and understand me, to help me, and I don’t have that. I just keep thinking, ‘Oh, my God, I might not pass.’ I’m just really scared for the future.” —Titilayo Aluko, 18, a junior at Landmark High School in Manhattan. ()

“I’d give it about a month.” —Miriam, an undocumented high school student in San Anonio, Texas, on the economic urgency facing her family during the pandemic. (Read at The74Million.org)

“I miss my kids. I miss them so much. I just want to … I want to help them. I want to teach them. I think I’m getting a little emotional. I wish I was in a class and I wish I had my whiteboard and my marker and I wish I had all of them in one room because it is not easy. OK, so. Whew, all right. Should we move on?” —Keara Williams, teacher at a South Los Angeles high school. ()

“We’re built for challenging times. Children don’t have the words today to describe it, but the lessons of the pandemic will become clearer in the retelling. It’s about social cohesion, love and loyalty, and how good people step up when we need them to.” —Robert Pondiscio, senior fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. (Read at The74Million.org)

It may have taken a forced quarantine brought on by a deadly pandemic to do it, but the nation’s eyes have finally turned to the inequities facing online instruction. Whereas early coverage of the crisis spotlighted harried teachers and parents suddenly turned into homeschoolers, the focus has turned to the large numbers of students and families who lack any access to Wi-Fi at home. Whether you call it the “digital divide” or the “homework gap,” the issue is crucial now that the pandemic has more than 124,000 school buildings, leaving more than 55 million children without face-to-face classroom instruction.

In a rare , headlined “Locked Out of the Virtual Classroom,” The New York Times put the matter in stark terms: “Internet-savvy school systems that serve connected populations appear to be moving ahead relatively smoothly with the new order of business. At the same time, some districts that lack infrastructure and serve heavily poor populations have given up altogether on remote learning. Still others are hesitant to pursue online instruction out of fear they might be hauled into court for offering course materials to which broadband-deprived families cannot gain access.”

The problems are urban: New York City, the nation’s largest school district, is struggling to acquire internet-connected devices for the estimated 300,000 students who lack them. But they’re also rural: In , Texas, about a two-hour drive from El Paso, just 4 percent of the population uses the internet at broadband speeds necessary for online instructional tools that rely on streaming, according to Microsoft. A new analysis of 46 districts, released by the Center on Reinventing Public Education, found that only a third had plans to deliver computers to students and none had figured out how to ensure that “100 percent of students have a … device and reliable, long-term access to the internet.”

Thus far, a concerted federal push to address the issue has been lacking. The same day the Times published its editorial, President Trump signed the largest stimulus package in American history. Despite offering $13.5 billion for K-12 schools, the bill did not heed the call to provide specific relief for the nation’s online infrastructure. Advocates and politicians are still hopeful that the idea could be resurrected in a future broadband stimulus bill. “K-12 leaders have been calling on Congress to address these problems for years,” said , a founder and partner at Foresight Law + Policy. “Low-income students are at a disadvantage if they don’t have broadband at home. The public has awoken to this issue all of a sudden because it’s not just poor kids, it’s all kids.”

Top Stories

Social Distancing — ‘This is a Health Hazard’: New Jersey Parents Stand Together in Long Lines to Get School Materials for Their Children ()

Recession — What the Great Recession Tells Us About the Pandemic Downturn to Come: Expect Declining Student Performance, Widening Achievement Gaps (Read at The74Million.org)

Attendance —15,000 L.A. High School Students Are AWOL Online, 40,000 Fail to Check In Daily Amid Coronavirus Closures ()

Child Abuse — Out of Sight, Child Abuse in Texas Thought to Be on the Rise ()

Liberty University — What’s It Like on One of the Only University Campuses Still Open in the U.S.? ()

‘Social Distance’ Learning

For Better or Worse, Coronavirus Puts Cyber Charters in the Spotlight ()

No Online Learning? With Schools Closed from Coronavirus, These Teachers Air TV Lessons ()

Here’s a First Look at Chicago’s New Remote Learning Plan, Which Will Include 100,000 Devices for Students ()

While Educators Promote Online Learning as Coronavirus Spreads, Some Illinois Students Aren’t Equipped With the Broadband to Even Notice ()

Broward Schools Online Education Platform Crashes on First Day ()

Parents and Families

Parents Created Kid Schedules After Coronavirus Closed Schools. That Didn’t Last. ()

I Home-Schooled My Kids for 3 Years. Here’s What Parents Need to Know Now ()

Tips for Homeschooling During Coronavirus ()

Current Events, Science, Politics — National Geographic Opens Up Learn-at-Home Resources for Grades K-12. 2 Students Check Them Out (Read at The74Million.org)

Educators

When Teaching and Parenting Collide: As Schools Shift Online, Many Educators Manage Two Roles ()

Many Substitute Teachers Are Going Without Pay During School Closures ()

Teachers of Newcomer Students Try to Keep Them Connected as Schools Close, Routines Shift (

Special Education

Fierce Debate as DeVos Weighs Schools’ Obligations to Students With Disabilities ()

‘It Feels a Little Hopeless’: Parents of Kids With Disabilities Worry Coronavirus Quarantine Will Mean Regression ()

Students With Disabilities Could Lose With COVID-19 Stimulus Package ()

As Schools Close to Coronavirus, Special Educators Turn to Tele-Therapy ()

Equity and Activism

She’s 10, Homeless and Eager to Learn. But She Has No Internet. ()

Detroit to Increase Meals Sites for Students, Filling Gap Left When the District Scaled Back ()

Essays and Reflections

Rotherham: Why America’s Schools Should Stay Open This Summer (Read at The74Million.org)

COVID-19 Is Exposing the Gaps in Our Education System. Let’s Start Fixing Them ()

Remote Learning Can Be More Than a Bandage ()

Can Schools Avert the Coronavirus Cliff? ()

Pondiscio: Studying Current Events Boosts Literacy and Civic Engagement. And It Probably Fits Into Your Learning-From-Home Routine (Read at The74Million.org)

QuotED

“The first question is how do we survive between now and the end of June. But we really need to start talking about what this looks like a year from now.” —Michael K. Barbour, education professor at Touro University California and an expert on virtual learning. ()

“I think we have a responsibility to our students — who paid to be here, who want to be here, who love it here — to give them the ability to be with their friends, to continue their studies, enjoy the room and board they’ve already paid for and to not interrupt their college life.” —Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., whose school is staying open during the coronavirus pandemic. ()

“If, next year, the kids can’t go back to school, and on top of that, school budgets are being cut by 10 or 15 percent, how those schools are going to implement the virtual learning systems when they’ve had to lay off a significant portion of their teacher labor force is a completely unknown quantity. That has never happened before — kids having to work from home, and schools having to deal with massive layoffs at the same time.” —Pennsylvania State University professor Kenneth Shores, on the coming economic downturn. (Read at The74Million.org)

“We know that additional strain and stress on families during this crisis puts children at an increased risk of abuse.” —Sophie Phillips, chief executive officer of the advocacy organization TexProtects. ()

“[Betsy DeVos’s] assumption is that everybody sits with the same opportunities with the internet, with all the resources supporting technology, and thinks everyone is well supported with access. And that is just so narrow-minded to think that everybody is in that same shape.” —Troy Kilzer, director of schools for rural Chester County Schools in southwest Tennessee. ()

It’s only been two weeks since became the first major U.S. district to close its schools due to the coronavirus pandemic. But it may as well have been a lifetime ago. As of Wednesday, — Iowa, Nebraska and Maine — had required that schools be shuttered; and two, Kansas and Virginia, announced closures for the remainder of the school year.

The changes in those 14 days have been seismic and, for many, profoundly unsettling. With schools employing a patchwork of distance learning systems and parents suddenly put in the uncomfortable role of teachers, this period could become “a vast unplanned experiment in mass home schooling,” said , vice president for education policy at the New America think tank. Along the way, it is introducing a whole new slang (?) and putting under a microscope the enormous between the digital haves and have-nots.

The pandemic has also exposed fissures between states, districts and the federal government as schools clamor for clear guidance on a host of issues. Even the dilemma of school closures, which district and state chiefs more or less settled unilaterally, appears to be an open subject at the White House. Asked about it this week, said such decisions are “up to the governors” and that, in some states, “the schools are going to open.” Last week, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced a one-year waiver on standardized testing, but large questions remain on issues such as how to provide distance learning to special education students — issues that may be ultimately decided by the . At press time, the House was poised to act on a $2 trillion coronavirus that could provide substantial relief to parents, teachers and schools. The House needs to reconcile that package with its , which proposes significantly more funding for education.

A quick scan of key coronavirus clips for educators, district leaders, students and school communities:

Top Stories

Student Safety — With School Out and Activities Canceled, Community Leaders Confront the Challenges of Keeping Kids Safe ()

Schooling at Home — ‘A Really Big Experiment’: Parents Turn Teachers Amid Virus ()

Homeless Students — Reaching ‘Our Most Invisible Population’ During a Pandemic: How Schools Are Scrambling to Protect Homeless Students as Coronavirus Disrupts Lives (Read at The74Million.org)

Federal Policy — How Does Current Law Limit Betsy DeVos’ Power to Waive Education Mandates? ()

‘Social Distance’ Learning

School Districts Take Unplanned Plunge into Online Learning ()

Analysis: How Are Schools Shifting Student Support, Instruction and District Operations Amid Coronavirus? 5 Early Findings From New National Survey (Read at The74Million.org)

The ‘New Reality’ of Coronavirus: Here’s What NYC’s First Day of Remote Learning Looked Like ()

Teachers Find Many Obstacles as They Try to Keep Kids Learning Amid Coronavirus ()

What Is and Is Not Working as Educators Transition to Online Learning ()

Parents and Families

Need Help Sorting Through the Avalanche of Online Resources for Kids Who Are Now Learning at Home? 11 Sites for Parents to Look At (Read at The74Million.org)

Childcare Providers Are Feeling an Unprecedented Squeeze. Now, They’re Asking for Help ()

Kids’ Favorite Authors and Illustrators Share Stories, Lessons from Home ()

45 Tweets From Parents About Social Distancing With Kids ()

A Social Activist in Texas Taps His ‘Coolest Friends’ to Host Afternoon Adventures Online During Coronavirus Shutdown, and Parents and Kids — By the Thousands — Tune In (Read at The74Million.org)

Educators

‘Bright Star’ Principal, 36, Dies From Coronavirus ()

Brooklyn Principal Hospitalized After Another Principal in the Same Building Died from Coronavirus ()

With Schools Shut Down, What Happens to Hiring ()

Special Education

‘Am I Doing Enough?’ As Districts Try Remote Learning for Students with Disabilities, These Challenges Lie Ahead ()

For Parents Trying to Replicate School for Children with Disabilities, a Confounding Task ()

Despite Assurances of Flexibility, Educators Fear Liability in Online Instruction of Special Ed Students ()

Equity and Activism

Federal Policy Says Students Must Pick Up School Meals In-person. Families with Susceptible Children Face Wrenching Decisions. ()

NYC Student Activists Can’t Boycott Schools That Are Closed, but as Coronavirus Highlights Long-Standing Inequities, a Chance to Change Policy Emerges (Read at The74Million.org)

Working From Home Reveals Another Fault Line in America’s Racial and Educational Divide ()

Essays and Reflections

Social Distancing Without a Social Safety Net: How Shutdowns Came to My Child’s Fragile School Community (Read at The74Million.org)

How the Coronavirus Could Take Over Your Body (Before You Ever Feel It) ()

The Stimulus Package Will Help Families, But It Doesn’t Go Far Enough ()

Coronavirus: Are California Kids Actually Learning Since Coronavirus Closed Their Schools? ()

Student Voice: Part Staycation, Part Home Detention, My Life During Pandemic Is a Study in Contrasts (Read at The74Million.org)

QuotED

“It’s a really big experiment.” —Roxanne Ojeda-Valentin, a single mother of a sixth-grader in Buffalo, New York, on educating her son during the pandemic. ()

“Of course, I’m concerned for the health of my family and community. But as self-absorbed as it feels to say it, I’m also worried about not being able to go to prom.” —Sadie Bograd, a high school junior at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington, Kentucky. (Read at The74Million.org)

“It is really shedding light on some inequalities in a new way. A lot of people who have highly paid, white-collar jobs that are computer-focused can adjust to this crisis without a lot of pain. And then there’s a much larger group that can’t adjust without a lot of pain to themselves and their families.” —Heidi Shierholz, former chief economist for the Labor Department, now at the Economic Policy Institute. ()

“The friend’s family said, ‘You can’t stay here because people are getting sick,’ and so they asked her to leave. This wasn’t the first time she had spent the night in the car.” —Casey Gordon, who manages homeless-student outreach efforts at the Kent Intermediate School District in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on the plight of homeless students during the pandemic. (Read at The74Million.org)

“Zoombombing is no joke. I don’t think we were ready for that. If a teacher wants to hold a review session for 100 kids, you just can’t monitor what kids are screenshotting and what’s going on in the chat.” —Pat Finley, co-principal of Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School in New York City. ()

CALIFORNIA — After Record Spending and an Ongoing Union vs. Charter Power Struggle, At Least 2 Los Angeles School Board Races Appear Headed to a Runoff: Following Tuesday’s primary election to elect four school board members in the nation’s second-largest school district, races in two competitive districts are likely headed to a runoff in November. As Taylor Swaak reports, teachers union picks were ahead in the vote tallies in both those contests as of Wednesday. United Teachers Los Angeles ally Jackie Goldberg is positioned to keep her District 5 seat, though not all the votes are counted yet. Campaign spending, in a show of union-versus-charter advocate might, was at a record-high $8.4 million leading up to the election, with charter advocates spending the vast majority. Ongoing fights over charter schools, nearly depleted savings and stark achievement gaps are a few of the issues the board will face in the next few years. (Read at ����Ӱ��)

TEXAS —��Dallas Poised to Become First Big-City District to Require Video Cameras in All Special Education Classrooms: Dallas Independent School District trustees voted this week to require video recording in all special education classrooms. A recent survey found that parents overwhelmingly supported the measure, which is intended to help school officials investigate situations where students who cannot speak are restrained or harmed. State law already requires districts to install cameras in special education classrooms when parents request them. Most special education teachers and Superintendent Michael Hinojosa opposed the measure, which the board passed 7-2. ()

NEVADA —��Parents Sue State, Alleging Failure to Adequately Fund Education: A group of Nevada parents is suing the state for “for failing to adequately fund education, claiming it has harmed its schoolchildren by not providing sufficient resources for their success,” Aleksandra Appleton reports in the Las Vegas Review Journal. The advocacy group, Educate Nevada Now, comprises nine parents whose children attend districts throughout the state. They name the state education department, state superintendent and state board of education as defendants. Amanda Morgan, the group’s legal director, said they are hoping the court will send the defendants this message: “What you’re doing right now doesn’t meet your constitutional obligation. Go fix it.” ()

NEW YORK — ‘Fire Carranza!’: Why Asian Americans Are Targeting NYC Schools Chief: New York City Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza says his vision for integration in the nation’s largest school system will benefit “all cultures and all ethnic groups.” But frustrated Asian-American families in America’s largest district say they feel left out of plans and have protested his appearances in recent months, with some chanting “Fire Carranza!” at a January meeting in Queens. Allegations of prejudice are fueled by a series of issues, including Asian-American parents and politicians not being consulted about plans to get rid of the admissions exam for the eight specialized high schools where Asians currently make up a majority of students. Carranza told The New York Times “he regrets not reaching out to Asian Americans sooner” but will “continue to push for the elimination of the entrance exam,” reports. ()

FLORIDA — School Safety Bill Passes Florida House With New Requirements Related to Arresting Kids: In response to the that sparked widespread outrage last month, Florida lawmakers added a requirement for police departments to have a policy in place regarding the arrest of children under 10. The student who was arrested in the viral video, Kaia Rolle, was watching in the gallery with her grandmother when state House minority leader Rep. Kionne McGhee of Miami talked about the amendment on the House floor. The amendment does not ban such arrests but would make sure police have a policy in place to prevent arrests like Kaia’s — she was arrested because she kicked and punched school employees during a tantrum, but she had calmed down by the time police arrived. “It’s rare for amendments by Democrats to be accepted onto Republican bills at such a late stage of the process,” but lawmakers in the House passed the amendment and the bill unanimously, reported Emily L. Mahoney in The Tampa Bay Times. It’s unclear whether the Senate will take up the amendment. ()

Noteworthy Essays and Analysis

HIGHER ED AFFORDABILITY: Mitch Daniels, the College President Who Simply Won’t Raise Tuition ()

CURRICULUM: Don’t Blame Teachers for Selling Their Lesson Plans. Blame the System That Makes It Necessary ()

• Related: Meet the Etsy of Education: Online Marketplace Lets Teachers Buy — and Sell — Millions of Classroom Materials and Lessons

CORONAVIRUS: Tyner: What Happens If Coronavirus Shuts Down U.S. Schools? 5 Lessons in Emergency Distance Learning From China (Read at ����Ӱ��)

RESEARCH: Are America’s Rising High School Graduation Rates Real — or Just an Accountability-Fueled Mirage? ()

What Else We’re Reading

SPECIAL EDUCATION: Dyslexia Is Not a Bad Word, Advocates Say. Schools Should Use It ()

STUDENT HEALTH: Responding to Coronavirus: A Downloadable Guide for Schools ()

EARLY ED: Inside a Preschool That Treats the Youngest Victims of the Opioid Crisis ()

EQUITY: Prep for Prep and the Fault Lines in New York’s Schools ()

• Related: Within NYC’s Highly Segregated School System, a Group of Low-Income Students Sacrifice Their Summers, Weekends for a Chance at College Success

“A vast unplanned experiment in mass home-schooling.” —Kevin Carey, vice president for education policy at New America, a think tank, on plans to teach students remotely via the internet in the event the coronavirus leads to school closures. ()

“All of these years later, now we know that in communities of color those cops are not there to protect and serve, but they are there for law and order purposes. White kids get protect and serve. Black and brown kids get law and order.” —Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the Advancement Project, a nonprofit that focuses on racial justice issues, on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s longtime support of school-based police. (Read at The74Million.org)

“I wouldn’t be surprised if other suits in other states follow, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some states and jurisdictions take this as a cautionary tale.” —Nell Duke, a University of Michigan education professor, on a settlement in a California lawsuit that directs the state to spend $53 million on better reading instruction at the state’s lowest-performing schools. ()

“In the short run, that makes people’s lives easier. In the long run, that really hurts students. It gives them a false sense of security; it sets them up for failure or at least lower performance down the road.” —Seth Gershenson, an associate professor at American University, on the dangers of grade inflation. His new study shows that students perform better on standardized tests when their teachers are tough graders. ()

“Basically, if you’re poor, you’ve got second-class remedies available to you.” —Jennifer Valverde, a law professor at Rutgers University who specializes in special education, on the federal guarantee of “private placement” if a public school can’t meet the needs of children with disabilities. ()

“There’s a lot of forces working to make sure the world doesn’t know how difficult educating kids is and how often people fail.” —Outgoing Louisiana Superintendent John White. (Read at The74Million.org)

NATIONAL — CDC Warning Schools to Plan for Coronavirus, Possible Closures: Federal officials are now warning schools to prepare for “a nationwide surge” in cases of the coronavirus, Mark Lieberman reports for Education Week. Nancy Messonnier, a director at the Centers for Disease Control, suggests that parents ask about schools’ plans for dismissals, closures and teleschool, saying her agency is confident that an outbreak will occur in the United States. In response to the growing threat, with more than 80,000 cases worldwide, several school trips to China and Chinese exchange programs have already been canceled, and K-12 schools are sending letters home encouraging frequent handwashing and keeping sick children home until they’re fever-free. The AASA — the School Superintendents Association — is prepared to help the CDC share information with school districts if an outbreak occurs. ()

FLORIDA — State School Voucher Program Headed Toward Expansion: Florida lawmakers appear poised to expand a school voucher program this spring. Committees in the state House and Senate this week advanced bills that would more than double the number of students eligible for the Family Empowerment Scholarship program, which provides vouchers for students to attend private school. The vouchers are worth 95 percent of what the state would pay school districts per student. The bills differ slightly, but both increase the number of scholarships by 28,902 vouchers. Current legislation caps the program at 18,000 students and calls for slower growth. But the Florida House and Senate are now both under Republican control; the state party has historically supported vouchers. ()

TEXAS — Houston Teachers Union Claims Racial Discrimination in State Education Agency School Board Takeover Plan: “A Houston teachers union, making claims of racial discrimination, asked a federal judge Tuesday to block the Texas Education Agency from replacing their school district’s elected board of trustees with a handpicked board of managers,” reports Cameron Langford for the Courthouse News Service. The lawsuit is a response to Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath’s announcement last year that the state will take over the Houston Independent School District because of repeated poor performance at one district high school and improper actions by board members. According to the complaint, the agency has shown a pattern of targeting school districts in which most of the students are minorities. A state judge has already temporarily blocked the takeover. ()

● Houston Primer: 7 Things to Know About the State Takeover of Houston Schools

NEW YORK — Dramatic Drop in NYC School Arrests Amid New Reform: In the wake of recent reforms that discouraged arrests for more minor offenses, new show that NYPD officers “made fewer than 150 arrests in city schools between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2019 — about half the number of arrests made during the same months the previous year,” Michael Elsen-Rooney reports for The Daily News. “Major crimes,” a category that includes seven serious offenses, also dropped 19 percent compared with last year, but the decrease coincided with a 35 percent increase in “juvenile reports” — a procedure in which no charges are filed but an internal file is kept at a police precinct. ()

ILLINOIS — After Violence Targeting Youth Spikes, Chicago to Expand Program Offering Therapy and Mentorship: Chicago Public Schools is expanding a program that offers “therapy, field trips and mentorship to young people deemed at high risk of experiencing gun violence and trauma,” reports Yana Kunichoff for Chalkbeat. Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the initiative after Chicago saw 11 children shot in one weekend. The program will focus on the city’s alternative high schools, whose students are disproportionately likely to be involved in crimes either as perpetrators or victims, as well as students already involved in the justice system and those who are not projected to graduate on time. A study of the pilot version of the program found that it was effective: Students who participated had 32 percent fewer “misconduct incidents” in school than the control group. ()

● Related: Not Many Afterschool Programs Teach Social-Emotional Learning. Wings for Kids Does, and New Gold Standard Study Finds It’s Working for Low-Income Students

HAWAII — Interest in Hawaiian Language Immersion Schools Surges, but Challenges Remain: Enrollment in Hawaiian language immersion programs has increased 40 percent in the past five years, and teachers are mostly writing their own curriculum in a language that not long ago “seemed in danger of disappearing,” for Honolulu Civil Beat. The first immersion programs on the islands began in 1987, but the statewide district hasn’t done much to capture materials and lessons teachers have been creating. “There’s never been a systematic way to gather up the treasure trove of intellectual property and share it on their terms,” one official said. In Hana, a remote town in East Maui, the change has already had an impact, leading more in the community to use the native language, . “We’re strong in culture,” one school leader said. “But what really lacked for many, many years was our language. And that’s what we’re revitalizing now.” Lee’s coverage is part of an ongoing called Fault Lines that aims to bridge gaps among Hawaiians. (Read at Honolulu Civil Beat: and )

CALIFORNIA — Anti-Semitism Alleged in L.A. School Board Race as Charter Schools and Teachers Union Face Off: Charter school supporters from L.A.’s West San Fernando Valley have initiated a million-dollar attack campaign against a sitting school board member who is up for re-election Tuesday. They pulled one mailer that was slammed as anti-Semitic for portraying Scott Schmerelson as “greedy, corrupt and determined to score fast cash” and containing misinformation about the former principal, reports Howard Blume in the Los Angeles Times. “Behind the surge of negative mailers in this West San Fernando Valley board district is an intense effort by charter school supporters to defeat Schmerelson and elect Marilyn Koziatek, a district parent who works at a local charter school managing community outreach efforts,” Blume reports. Koziatek distanced herself from the flyer, calling it “another example of the sad reflection of the polarized climate of LAUSD politics that is not good for our kids.” Four of the board’s seven seats are up for grabs Tuesday. ()

● Also happening in California: ()

Noteworthy Essays and Analysis

CIVIL RIGHTS: Katherine Johnson Should Also Be Remembered for Desegregating Higher Education ()

HIGHER ED: The ‘Missing Middle’ at Ivy-Plus Colleges ()

TEACHERS: 3 Misconceptions About Educator Self-Care ()

PARENTING:��The Chart That Reveals Your Kid’s Adult Height ()

What else we’re reading��

DEBATE FACT-CHECK: Did 23 NYC Schools Top State Rankings When Bloomberg Left Office? Close. It was 22, and That List Deserves a Closer Look (Read at ����Ӱ��)

LEAD CRISIS: ‘It Was Everywhere’: How Lead Is Poisoning America’s Poorest Children ()

MIDDLE SCHOOL: A Middle School Requires Kids to Dance with Anyone Who Asks. One Mom Is Fighting for Her Daughter’s Right to Say ‘No’ ()

INTERVIEW: Children’s Author Mo Willems on the Lost Art of Being Silly ()

IMMIGRATION: Speaking Mam in MAGA Country: Immigration, Education and the Teenage Boy in the Middle ()

FLORIDA — Florida to Pilot High School Civics Test This Year: Most high school seniors in Florida will be expected to take a 100-question civics test, which is similar to the one immigrants must pass to become citizens, reports Jeffrey Solochek for the Tampa Bay Times. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a “huge proponent of increased civics education,” in December called for the testing, and state education officials said the test will be ready for all schools to pilot this spring. Scores will not count toward students’ graduation eligibility or school accountability measures during the pilot period. ()

• Civics Ed: Can Civics Education Allow Schools to Rediscover Their Democratic Purpose — and Help Rescue America From Decline? (Read at ����Ӱ��)

TEXAS — Texas Primaries Set Up High-Stakes Test for GOP Hold on Education Board: Texas’s state Board of Education could see a “seismic political shakeup” this year, as two-thirds of its 15-member board are either leaving the board or facing opponents in either the primary election in March or the general in November. The board, currently dominated by Republicans, this year is expected to take up contentious issues including how schools should teach sex education, evolution and race, and the new members will have to choose textbooks that comply in 2021, Julie Chang reports for the Austin-American Statesman. The board makes decisions about curriculum, textbooks, charter applications and some education spending. ()

GEORGIA —��Kemp Backs Bill to Reduce Testing, Especially in High School: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced this week he will support a bill that would decrease the total number of required standardized tests from 24 to 19. Four of the five dropped tests would be from the high school requirements. State Superintendent Richard Woods and lawmakers from both parties joined Kemp for the announcement. Some educator advocacy groups helped write the bill, but not all teachers support it, reported Ty Tagami for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ()

CALIFORNIA — California May Pause Student Fitness Tests Due to Bullying: California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants his state to drop the fitness test portion of physical education classes in an effort to “protect children from body shaming, bullying and gender identity discrimination,” Mackenzie Mays reported in Politico this week. The test, which is required for fifth-, seventh- and ninth-graders, includes a body mass index screening that offers only male or female options, as well as tasks to measure upper body strength, aerobic capacity and other physical traits. Under Newsom’s proposal, the test would be suspended for three years while the state education department consults experts about its purpose and administration. ()

ILLINOIS —��To Address a Shortage of Bilingual Teachers, Illinois Legislators Propose Scholarship Bills: A state representative and a congressman from Chicago are pushing for legislation to encourage bilingual students to become educators. “State Rep. Aaron Ortiz and Illinois Congressman Jesús ‘Chuy’ García, both Democrats from Chicago, are backing bills that would expand financial aid for bilingual high school students who intend to go into teaching. Ortiz’s bill would establish a scholarship program in Illinois, while García’s bill would expand funding for federal scholarships,” reports Marie Fazio for Chalkbeat Chicago. ()

NATIONAL —��Here’s What U.S. Schools Are Doing in Response to the Coronavirus: Several U.S. schools are taking steps to reduce the risk of the new coronavirus, including by canceling Chinese exchange programs because of the ongoing outbreak, Sunny Kim reports for CNBC. Other districts are tightening their policies around illness; the Chula Vista district in San Diego, for example, sent parents a letter asking them to keep children home for 24 hours after they recover from a fever of 100.4 degrees or more. A private boarding school in Tacoma, Washington, asked four students who recently visited China to live off campus for one week over concern about the illness. There have been at least of the virus reported in the U.S. so far. ()

NEW YORK — Birth Month Matters: NYC Students Born in November and December Are Classified with Learning Disabilities at Higher Rates: “A new analysis conducted by the Independent Budget Office … uncovered a strong correlation between being born later in the year and being classified as having a learning disability by New York City schools,” Chalkbeat’s Amy Zimmer reported this week. Part of the reason for the disparity could be that the city’s cutoff for kindergarten is Dec. 31, one of the latest in the nation. That means “roughly a third of public school students are expected to start kindergarten at age 4 — an early start that could have lasting impacts on students born late in the calendar year,” and experts said New York City’s rigorous curriculum could also be difficult for the youngest children. ()

• More from New York City: NYC School System Failed to Consistently Conduct Lead Paint Inspections for Years, Records Reveal ()

NEVADA — Teacher Union’s Proposed Sales Tax Increase Would Raise Nearly $1 Billion Per Year, Legislative Analysts Say: The Clark County Education Association last month unveiled a proposal for “raising a portion of the state’s Local School Support Tax by 1.5 percentage points” to boost state and local revenue and increase funding for education. If the proposal gains enough signatures, the state legislature could consider it in 2021. The proposal is one of two offered by the union; the other is a “a gaming tax increase projected to bring in $652 million over a two-year budget cycle,” reported Riley Snyder and Michelle Rindels for The Nevada Independent. ()

Noteworthy Opinion & Analysis

2020 ELECTION: How Bernie Sanders Became Teachers’ Favorite Candidate ()

TEACHER VOICE: The Problem With Education’s Latest Trend, Design Thinking ()

BLACK HISTORY: Code Switch — Black Parents Take Control, Teachers Strike Back ()

HIGHER ED: Is It Fair to Award Scholarships Based on the SAT? ()

RESEARCH: When Teachers Are Tough Graders, Students Learn More, Study Says ()

What Else We’re Reading

POLITICS: Trump Uses State of the Union Address to Push for Tax-Credit Scholarships, Declaring No Child Should Be Forced to Attend ‘a Failing Government School’ (Read at ����Ӱ��)

HEALTH: Teens Find a Big Loophole in the New Flavored Vaping Ban ()

RURAL ED: When the Bus Is the Schoolhouse ()

SOLUTIONS: Colleges Enlist Anti-Dropout Agents: Mom and Dad ()

KICKER: California Teacher Faces His Worst Fears to Inspire Students to Do the Same ()

Quotes of the Week

“The next step forward in building an inclusive society is making sure that every young American gets a great education and the opportunity to achieve the American Dream. Pass the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act — because no parent should be forced to send their child to a failing government school.” —President Donald Trump, during the 2020 State of the Union address (Read at ����Ӱ��)

“The frivolous use of this dress code to prevent students from graduating is about exerting authority over and controlling black people. Black people should not, cannot change themselves to fit white norms.” —Andre Perry, on DeAndre Arnold, who is being barred from his high school graduation because of his dreadlocks ()

“[A student] wrote that she had planned to end her life, but a story I told in class had changed her mind. The story was about how I find purpose in my students. I had no idea it would be such a purpose.” —David Upegui, a Rhode Island high school teacher, in a Tiny Teaching Story ()

FLORIDA — Governor Scraps Common Core, Announces New Florida School Standards: Gov. Ron DeSantis promised to unveil new academic standards for Florida students soon. Known as the BEST Standards — for Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking — the new guidelines are meant to “go back to the basics” of math instruction and will include American history and civics content at every grade level, report Emily L. Mahoney and Jeffrey S. Solochek for the Tampa Bay Times. “It goes beyond Common Core to embrace common sense,” DeSantis said. ()

PUERTO RICO — Puerto Rico Opens Only 1 in 5 of Schools Three Weeks After Strong Earthquake: “Puerto Rico opened only 20 percent of its public schools on Tuesday following a strong earthquake that delayed the start of classes by nearly three weeks as fears linger over the safety of students,” the Associated Press reported this week. Just 177 schools have been able to reopen since the Jan. 7 quake. Engineers found at least 50 that were too unsafe to reopen, leaving about 240,000 students out of school. Another 51 schools are slated to reopen Feb. 3. “Experts say that some 500 public schools in Puerto Rico were built before 1987 and don’t meet new construction codes,” and the fixes are estimated to cost up to $2.5 billion, the AP reports. ()

ILLINOIS — Can Chicago Design a Better School Ratings System? Principals, Parents and Teachers Think So: Money, school environment and pressure around test scores were a few of the things that parents, educators and community members discussed at a recent meeting about Chicago’s school ratings system. The district implemented changes to the system in 2019 and now appears to be seeking community input to improve the system further. Critics including Chicago’s teachers union say the current system relies too heavily on test scores and attendance. “Exactly what the school board plans to do with what it learns from its meeting isn’t quite clear — the district is also trying to drum up participation in a citywide survey on the topic and said there would be future public discussions — but members said they would weigh what they heard,” reports Cassie Walker Burke for Chalkbeat. ()

NEW YORK — NYC Spends a Record $28K Per Student, but the State Is Footing a Smaller Portion of That Bill: Gov. Andrew Cuomo has touted New York’s “record-high spending on education during his administration,” but the state has been paying a smaller portion of the bill for New York City schools, reports Reema Amin for Chalkbeat. A new report shows that New York City has been paying a higher share of school funding while the share paid by the state has fallen by more than 11 percentage points in the past 30 years, according to a new report by the city’s Independent Budget Office. ()

TEXAS — New Standards for Charter Schools Likely to Be Adopted by State Education Agency: The Texas Education Agency is expected to approve new standards for charter schools this spring. The new scoring system would have three tiers and evaluate schools on academics, finances and compliance with state rules and regulations. Under the new system, it will be easier for networks in the top tier to open new schools, reports Phil Prazan for Austin station KXAN. Opponents say encouraging charter school expansion comes at the expense of traditional district schools, which could see enrollment decline as a result. ()

CALIFORNIA — Children’s Mental Health a Cause for Concern in Report on California Youth Policies: A new report issued by the Oakland-based nonprofit Children Now gives California a grade of C- for its care of children and young people. The state received a failing grade for youth mental health because of its high ratios of students to counselors, psychologists, social workers and nurses at schools and high rates of depression and mental health hospitalizations among students, reports Carolyn Jones for EdSource. Children Now also pointed out some bright spots, including growth in the share of children who have health insurance and declining suspension rates at the state’s schools. ()

Noteworthy Opinion & Analysis

STUDENT VOICE — I’m a Student-Activist. Stop Turning Us Into Props ()

FUNDING — Blue States Are Burying Damning Data About School Funds. Red States Are, Too ()

STUDENT HEALTH — Why are school nurses disappearing? ()

STANDARDS — People Keep on Saying They’re Killing the Common Core. How Dead Is It? ()

RESEARCH — High School GPAs Are Stronger Predictors of College Graduation than ACT Scores (Read at , )

What Else We’re Reading

IMMIGRATION — The Cheer Team Caught Between Two Worlds ()

IOWA — Teen Voters Could Swing the Outcome of the Iowa Caucuses (Read at , )

MIDDLE SCHOOL — The Outsize Influence of Your Middle-School Friends ()

HIGH SCHOOL — High School Starts at 3 p.m. for These Michigan Students ()

HIGHER ED — Look Who’s Talking About Canceling Debt: How a Fringe Idea Went Mainstream ()

As the calendar year begins, America’s biggest school districts are dealing with a host of tough issues, from alleged teacher misconduct toward students with disabilities to student protests over segregation to teacher pushback against unpopular performance evaluation systems.

These are a few of the stories we’ll be watching in America’s 15 largest school districts this year.

HOUSTON —��State Takeover Looms in Texas’s Largest District: The Texas Education Agency is poised to take over Houston Independent School District and appoint a new school board in 2020. The changes are expected in the spring despite from parents and teachers that the takeover disenfranchises voters by replacing the officials they elected. The overhaul was sparked by an investigator’s finding of numerous instances of improper actions by board members and failure to address long-standing and ongoing problems at a high school in the district. The school system, which received a B grade from the state in 2019 and has no looming financial problems, seems an unlikely target for takeover, but a 2015 state law requires the state education agency to take one of two actions when a school fails to meet state standards for more than four consecutive years: close the school or take over the district’s board. A lawsuit brought by the district challenging the takeover was in December. (Read at , ����Ӱ��)

LOS ANGELES —��Cal State Trustees Consider Tougher Admissions Requirements That Would Exclude Many L.A. Students: This month the California State University trustees are expected to vote on a controversial measure that would add another year of math or quantitative reasoning in high school to the system’s admission requirements. An analysis by ����Ӱ�� last year found that less than 25 percent of Los Angeles Unified School District seniors took the type of class that would fit the requirement in 2018-19. The potential policy, which would start in 2027, has raised concerns among equity advocates, who say it could bar from entering college even more students from Los Angeles, where only about half of seniors were eligible for admission to CSU last year. CSU officials say the additional requirement is meant to make sure students are prepared when they arrive on one of the system’s 23 campuses, which serve about 481,000 students and make up the country’s largest public university. Proponents of the possible addition say the delayed rollout would give CSU time to work with districts to develop the classes and the extra course will help students strengthen their skills. (Read at ����Ӱ��)

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA — District and Union May Create New Teacher Evaluation System to Replace Controversial Value-Added Model: Miami-Dade County Public Schools administrators in December “introduced a proposal to partner with United Teachers of Dade to develop an alternative student performance measure to be piloted next school year,” . A district official told the Herald that the school system has heard “teachers’ unrelenting complaints about the value-added model, known as VAM,” which factors student growth on standardized tests into teachers’ evaluation scores. Currently, the value-added score accounts for 34 percent of teachers’ evaluations, which helps determine how much bonus pay they receive. Value-added scores are popular with some education reform advocates, while teachers unions often worry they are too affected by things outside a teacher’s control, such as student poverty or trauma. A formal partnership has not yet been announced. ()

BROWARD COUNTY, FLORIDA —��Grand Jury Urges Oversight, Accountability Measures in New Safety Report: A safety report released in December found “urgent” problems with how Florida districts are complying with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Safety Act, a set of safety measures enacted after the deadly 2018 shooting at the school in Parkland, Florida. The grand jury report “strikes an incredulous tone in its blast of slow-to-comply school districts” and calls out Broward County, where the shooting happened, for noncompliance, reports . The report is the second from the grand jury and “says it was issued now because the dangers are imminent and urgent and the state Legislature needs to act when it next goes into session in January,” particularly to designate an agency to ensure that districts are complying with the law in areas such as emergency communications and school security personnel. ()

NEW YORK CITY — Students Demand Action on Segregation, Inequities in School System: Students in America’s largest school system have been organizing weekly walkouts to protest segregation in their schools. The demonstrations, organized by a student advocacy group called Teens Take Charge, are flashpoints amid ongoing debates about how to , who should and who . Admissions data from 2019-20 show that an integration plan in Brooklyn’s District 15 has succeeded in making schools more racially diverse and could offer a model for other districts in the city, which must create their own integration plans. But a school board meeting last week in Queens brought out protesting an integration plan being contemplated for their district. (Read at , , )

●��Related: Amid Fierce Debate About Integrating New York City Schools, a Diverse-by-Design Brooklyn Charter Offers a Model (Read at ����Ӱ��)

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA — Parents Suing District for Abuse of Students with Disabilities: “A Fairfax County Public Schools principal and two former employees have been charged after police said the two staff members assaulted several nonverbal children with special needs and the principal failed to report the abuse” in 2019, reports . Cylmeera Gastav and Cecilia Maria Benavides, former instructional support staff in the district, were indicted in December on felony child abuse charges and misdemeanor assault and battery charges, and principal Scott Bloom was charged with a misdemeanor for failing to report the alleged abuse. Bloom is now on administrative leave. The news comes as parents and disability rights groups are suing the district, “alleging students with disabilities experience discrimination, trauma and physical harm through the excessive and improper use of seclusion and restraint in Fairfax County Public Schools,” . Three parents argue in the lawsuit that the school system uses practices that “silence, detain, segregate, and punish students with disabilities.” On the other hand, district officials say the system has “completed a thorough and independent review of seclusion and restraint guidelines, and added staff, increased training and appointed an ombudsman for special education.” (Read at , )

GWINNETT COUNTY, GEORGIA —��New Teacher Bonus Plan Sparks Controversy About Whether Teachers in Low-Income Schools Are Being Penalized: Gwinnett County Public Schools in December gave checks to more than 3,000 teachers under a bonus pay plan intended to reward and retain the district’s best teachers. But the initiative has “arouse[d] suspicion and opposition from teachers wary that ‘pay for performance’ would be based on factors that don’t truly reflect the quality of their work — mainly test scores. And some say Gwinnett’s plan puts teachers in high-poverty schools at a disadvantage,” reports . Select teachers received between $1,862.64 and $6,208.80 in bonus pay, based on 2018-19 test scores. Eligibility is based on teachers’ annual evaluations, student growth over the year and other factors. Some teachers that the methodology puts teachers in low-income schools at a disadvantage; others have said it could encourage cheating on standardized tests. Data show that 23.93 percent of eligible teachers at high-poverty Title I schools received awards in all three categories, compared with 37.73 percent at non-Title I schools, . (, )

HAWAII — Teacher Shortages Hit Low-Income and Rural Communities Hardest: Hawaii has struggled with teacher shortages in recent years, and shows that the state’s low-income students and those in remote communities are most likely to have teachers who aren’t fully certified. There are a few reasons for the shortage: overreliance on teachers from the mainland, who tend to leave after a few years; the ; and teachers leaving the state at an increasing rate. Schools in remote areas and those serving mostly low-income students are particularly affected, left to hire teachers with emergency certifications. The statewide district is working to and providing some subsidized housing to help recruit and retain teachers. ()

CLARK COUNTY, NEVADA —��New Push to Improve Academic Performance at Schools in and Around Las Vegas: “Clark County School District is beefing up efforts to reach ambitious academic proficiency goals by 2024 with increased testing throughout the year and a new learning tool designed to lift lagging students,” reported in November. Part of a five-year plan to raise academic performance in the district, the initiative expands testing to measure student progress more often throughout the year. Some schools are also trying out a new personalized learning software program created by the test company NWEA and Khan Academy. The goal is for more than 60 percent of third- through eighth-graders to be proficient in English on year-end tests and for 58 percent of elementary students and 48 percent of middle schoolers to be proficient in math by 2024. ()

DALLAS, TEXAS — More Mental Health Care Needed for Kids and Teens Amid Increasing Suicides: “More needs to be done to provide mental and behavioral health services for children — especially those living in poverty — said a biennial report from Children’s Health that examined the quality of life for kids” in North Texas, . Dallas saw a 27 percent increase in adolescent suicides in 2016, and child mortality is on the rise in the region as well. Meanwhile, the number of treatment options in North Texas has declined, according to the report. And the estimated number of children and teens struggling with addiction and emotional disturbances is far higher than the number getting help, Smith reports. Just talking about mental health is a challenge many communities have to overcome. “We have created a health system and a societal system of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell,’” one expert said. “And so, parents and teachers and society doesn’t ask.” ()

● Related: ‘Kids Are Being Arrested, but They Don’t Ask, “Are You OK?”’: San Antonio Students Advocate for Their Own Mental Health, but the Odds Are Against Them (Read at ����Ӱ��)

CHICAGO — Chicago Is Exploring Enrollment Caps at Some Popular Schools, Putting Families on Edge: Chicago Public Schools officials are mulling enrollment caps at some neighborhood schools because of uneven enrollment patterns, leaving some schools “half-empty while others are bursting at the seams,” . No changes are expected for the upcoming school year, but families are already raising concerns about the possible caps. Under the potential new policy, the city would not guarantee admission to a particular school to every student who lives in its zone, but it would give some students the choice to attend a nearby school. Chicago may be forced to deal with overenrolled schools in the coming years because the reached with the teachers union in 2019 requires the district to put money toward reducing class sizes. “No policy decisions have been made or proposed, and when it comes to issues impacting parents and students, the district’s highest priority is community engagement,” a spokesperson told Chalkbeat. Some schools are overenrolled because of choice, not zoning, and they could face changes as well, . ()

PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA —��Palm Beach Schools Among the First Wave of Districts Suing Juul Over Teen Vaping: “Palm Beach County school leaders have added their voices to the chorus nationally claiming in court that the e-cigarette manufacturer Juul has not only imperiled the health of millions of teens but drained district resources to tackle epidemic-scale nicotine addiction and its fallout,” reports . The district joins school systems in four other states in the first wave of lawsuits against the vaping giant Juul Labs and argues that the epidemic has forced the district to spend money on “creating a night class for students suspended for vaping, redirect[ing] staff to revise the student conduct code to explicitly prohibit e-cigarette use and conduct[ing] town hall meetings to alert parents to the danger vaping poses.” Juul denies that it markets its products to kids and teens and has not commented on the lawsuits. The suit uses the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, a set of laws used to prosecute mobsters. Districts in Kansas, Missouri, New York and Washington are also part of the suit. Meanwhile, the Trump administration on some popular vape flavors in an attempt to curb teen use nationwide; advocates said the ban does not go far enough. ()

ORANGE COUNTY, FLORIDA —��Food Stamp Rule Changes Could End Free Lunch for Some Kids in Orange County and Nationwide: Students in Orange County and across the country could lose access to free school lunches under a Trump administration change to food stamp eligibility rules. Nearly a million students nationwide could be affected, including about 200,000 in Florida. Before the change, students were automatically eligible for free meals if their parents received food stamps, but the administration has proposed more stringent requirements for what was formerly called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, meaning fewer families may qualify. The families who no longer do would have to file a separate application for their kids to continue receiving the free school meals. ()

PUERTO RICO — Puerto Schools Are Still Recovering from Hurricane Maria: More than two years after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico is still recovering from the devastating storm. Hundreds of schools have closed in that time, as many students and teachers fled for mainland U.S. classrooms after the 2017 hurricane. The abandoned schools “are among the most visible evidence of the island’s vicious circle of poor governance, neglect by Washington and environmental catastrophe,” according to published in September. There are problems at the schools that remain open as well, including frequent power outages, the threat of landslides and leaky roofs. Former Puerto Rico education secretary Julia Keleher closed hundreds of schools as part of an attempt to overhaul the school system, but she’s since been indicted as part of an alleged corruption scheme. (She has pleaded not guilty.) It’s unclear what’s next for Puerto Rico’s schools. ()

● Related: Complicated Crusader to Accused Federal Conspirator: Ex-Puerto Rico Education Secretary Julia Keleher’s ‘Surreal’ Journey (Read at ����Ӱ��)

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA — Possible School Zone Changes Spark Concern Among Parents: Hillsborough County Public Schools parents are concerned about a proposal to redraw school boundary lines within the district, changing which middle schools their children are zoned to attend. The proposed shift “could move hundreds of kids from an A-rated school to average — and in some cases — below-average schools in the same neighborhood,” . The proposal is a response to uneven growth in the district, which has left some schools overenrolled while others have empty seats. In addition to losing access to certain schools, parents are worried that their kids will have to leave friends and teachers they already know and say their property values might drop if the school boundaries change. District officials say they have to do something about the growth, which could put some schools 30 percent over capacity in just three years, and emphasized that the idea is just a proposal for now. ()

Other National Stories We’ll Be Watching in 2020

EARLY ED: At Least 26 States, Territories Expected to Receive Federal Funds to Improve Early Learning ()

ELECTION: What the 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Have Said About Education ()

SCHOOL CHOICE: Minority Voters Chafe as Democratic Candidates Abandon Charter Schools ()

Recent Essays and Analysis

CENSUS: California Has a Healthy Obsession With the 2020 Census, Will Use Schools to Track Hard-to-Count Residents ()

SPECIAL EDUCATION: What School Could Be If It Were Designed for Kids With Autism ()

FOSTER CARE: Seattle’s Foster Children Deserve Better ()

Nationally, the news of 2019 was dominated by the seemingly endless presidential campaign and the highly partisan debate over whether to impeach President Trump. Education often struggled to find a voice. But outside the Beltway, school news dominated the headlines. Chicago reckoned with a school sexual misconduct scandal that spanned more than a decade. The Palm Beach, Florida, school district fired a principal who denied the reality of the Holocaust. And all over the U.S., from a state takeover of schools in Providence, Rhode Island, to a district secession battle in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, schools wrestled with the legacy of generations of inequity.

These historic moments (and, yes, a gaffe or two) are captured regularly in QuotED, a roundup of the most notable quotes behind America’s top education headlines — all taken from our regular EduClips series, which regularly spotlights important headlines you may have missed from America’s 15 largest school districts.

Here are a few of our favorite education quotes from 2019:

“Lunch should be lunch, which should not be somewhere between breakfast and lunch.” —New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, on a Daily News analysis showing that many city schools offer “lunch” long before 11 a.m. ()

“Rich kids go to therapy, poor kids go to jail.” —Melivia Mujica, a student activist in San Antonio. (Read at The74Million.org)

“Let’s just say my phone has rung a lot.” —American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, on interest from the field of 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls in courting the union vote. ()

“[The superintendent] came to me in a panic because he had been accosted by prominent, wealthy alumni of the school who were Mr. Trump’s friends. … He said, ‘You need to go grab that record and deliver it to me because I need to deliver it to them.’” —Evan Jones, former headmaster of the New York Military Academy, on attempts to conceal the high school academic records of President Donald Trump. ()

“Well, you know, I’m going to die in here and I’m a virgin and I will have never met Bruce Springsteen.” —Heather Martin, recalling what she told a friend over 20 years ago as two gunmen terrorized Columbine High School. Today, she teaches high school English in nearby Aurora, Colorado. (Read at The74Million.org)

“Adult misconduct is surely not acceptable, but, holy crap, we have a lot of work to do in terms of student behavior against other students.” —Chicago teachers union president Jesse Sharkey, on 900 sexual misconduct cases being logged in the district over the course of four months, mostly students reporting on other students. ()

“When it was us, the district didn’t feel like they needed to have any immediacy. We don’t have the resources that SLA has, and their parents jumped on it right away. Where there’s money and influence, there’s more privilege.” —Keith Pretlow, a culinary-arts teacher at Ben Franklin High School in Philadelphia. When Science Leadership Academy, a magnet school, relocated to share the site with Ben Franklin, a long-delayed asbestos cleanup moved into high gear. ()

“Even though you might be scared, you never turn down a story, and it taught me you never know what’s going to happen.” —Amelia Poor, 13, one of 45 students who form the Scholastic News Kids Press Corps that writes for Scholastic’s classroom magazine. Despite her fear of canines, she successfully covered a recent Westminster Dog Show. (Read at The74Million.org)

“We’re taught to live in the present. Right now, my children are healthy.” —Melissa (last name withheld), who said her Buddhist views prevented her from vaccinating her children unless they became very sick, and one of several parents who successfully sued Rockland County, New York, to overturn a measure that barred unvaccinated children from attending schools. ()

“I work 55 hours a week, have 12 years’ experience and make $43K. I worry and stress daily about my classroom prep work and kids. I am a fool to do this job.” —A teacher in an online focus group, quoted in this year’s PDK survey of American teachers. More than half said they had seriously considered quitting in recent years. (Read at The74Million.org)

“Education reform isn’t a cure-all. As a supporter of education reform, I agree that fixing educational inequality requires doing more to address the broader, systemic sources of economic inequality.” —Former President Barack Obama. ()

“Education clearly has not been at the top of his list of priorities to address directly. But he has been very supportive of all the work that we have done.” —Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, on President Trump’s policy priorities. ()

“Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” —Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. ()

“It just becomes like a ghost town.” —Jack Thompson, superintendent of the Perry, Ohio, school district, on what would happen if a nuclear plant there closes. Experts warn that half of the nation’s 59 nuclear plants could close by 2030. (Read at The74Million.org)

“I can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event.” —William Latson, former principal of Spanish River High School in Florida. This year’s revelation of his 2018 comments in a local newspaper sparked international outrage and ultimately led the Palm Beach County Schools to fire him. ()

“Anyone who does what we do knows it’s happened not by chance but by deliberate choice by those who embrace and embark on this work.” —Alberto Carvalho, Miami-Dade superintendent, on the district getting an A grade from the state education department two years in a row. ()

“Schools in north Baton Rouge for 100 years have been getting less. I firmly believe the St. George movement is rooted in racism. Look at the boundaries. You go down Florida Boulevard and it’s like the Mason-Dixon line. South of Florida, it’s white; north, it’s black.” —Tramelle Howard, a new member of the school board in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, which is facing a secession attempt from a mostly white and affluent enclave. (Read at The74Million.org)

“Since when did real estate agents become experts on schools?” —Fred Freiberg, executive director of the Fair Housing Justice Center, who served as a consultant on Newsday’s three-year investigation that uncovered widespread evidence of unequal treatment by real estate agents on Long Island. ()

“For the past two days, I have felt like I have been kicked in the sternum by Godzilla wearing steel-toed boots.” —Providence Teachers Union President Maribeth Calabro, on a scathing report from Johns Hopkins University that lambasted the district for poor academic performance, unsafe schools and lackluster morale. (Read at The74Million.org)

“What more would you have the government say?” —Justice Neil Gorsuch, questioning whether the Trump administration needed to offer more reasons for its decision to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects some 700,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as young children. Gorsuch and other members of the court’s conservative majority appeared during oral arguments to side with Trump in his desire to end the program. (Read at ����Ӱ��)

“We have to acknowledge that our goals for federal education funding will continue to face serious political opposition. Supporting well-regulated public charters, in the meantime, is a meaningful complementary solution. The promise of better schools some day down the road doesn’t do much for children who have to go to schools that fail them today.” —Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker ()

“No kid should have to grow up in a shelter.” —Sherine, who lives with her children in one of New York City’s homeless shelters. Her son, Darnell, 8, is one of 114,085 homeless students in the city. ()

“I will never forget the look they gave us. Like you belonged in somebody’s zoo.” —Antoinette Harrell, on the harrowing early days of integration in Louisiana’s Tangipahoa Parish. Both parties in a 54-year-old desegregation suit against the parish school system hope to settle the case. (Read at ����Ӱ��)

“Since when did real estate agents become experts on schools?” —Fred Freiberg, executive director of the Fair Housing Justice Center, who served as a consultant on Newsday’s three-year investigation that uncovered widespread evidence of unequal treatment by real estate agents on Long Island. ()

NEW YORK CITY —��Brooklyn Desegregation Plan Is Making Schools More Diverse, Data Show: This year’s enrollment numbers indicate that a plan to make district middle schools more racially integrated in one part of Brooklyn is working. Middle schools in District 15 this year used a lottery-based enrollment system and eliminated admissions screens in an effort to create schools that reflect the diversity of the area. “City leaders hope that District 15’s efforts can be a model for the city’s other school districts — all of which must now develop integration plans of their own,” Christina Veiga and Amy Zimmer report. ()

● Related: Amid Fierce Debate About Integrating New York City Schools, a Diverse-by-Design Brooklyn Charter Offers a Model

FLORIDA —��Governor Rolls Out New Teacher Bonus Proposal: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week a new bonus plan for Florida teachers, saying it is one of his priorities for the upcoming legislative session. The $300 million program would benefit those who meet a certain growth threshold on the state’s rating system, with more money going to teachers in Title I schools, he said. Earlier this year DeSantis said he also wants to set minimum teacher pay at $47,500. Jeffrey S. Solochek explains the proposal. ()

HAWAII —��What’s Behind Hawaii’s Rising Test Scores for English Learners? Hawaii’s 2019 NAEP scores showed little change in performance over the 2017 results except for one group: fourth-grade English language learners, who had double-digit gains in both math and reading. Officials said a recent change that made the criteria more rigorous for reclassifying students as proficient in English may have been responsible. The change means students learning English are getting more support for a longer time, even though the state department of education admits that the services should be even stronger. Suevon Lee explains. ()

CALIFORNIA —��Schools Keep Hiring Counselors, but Students’ Stress Levels Are Only Growing: California has in recent years increased the number of school counselors, but mental health professionals say they still have overwhelming workloads. In addition to college and career guidance, counselors help students deal with trauma from fires, shootings and social media, Carolyn Jones reports. “The reality is, school counselors and psychologists are saving thousands of troubled kids every day,” one expert said in the wake of last week’s school shooting in Santa Clarita. “But the demand is increasing exponentially and it’s harder and harder to keep up.” ()

TEXAS — Texas Education Board Likely to Approve African-American Studies Course in 2020: After years of contentious back and forth over ethnic studies classes in Texas, the state board of education “appears poised to approve its first African American studies course next year,” Aliyya Swaby reports. Some Republicans on the board previously opposed ethnic studies classes out of concerns they would cause racial division, but the board approved a Mexican American studies curriculum last year. The board will take a final vote in April, after creating standards for the possible course based on an existing class in Dallas, but board members appeared supportive of the idea at a public hearing Wednesday. ()

Noteworthy Opinion & Analysis

HOUSING: Long Island Real Estate Agents Sell Schools as Much as Houses, Investigation Finds ()

STUDENT VOICE: ‘It Was Paralyzing’: I Graduated From Detroit’s Most Prestigious High School. I Still Struggled When I Got to College ()

ELECTION 2020: Education Week Annotated Bernie Sanders’s and Elizabeth Warren’s Platforms on Charter Schools ()

HIGHER ED: HBCUs Are Leading Centers of Education — Why Are They Treated as Second-Class Citizens? ()

VOCABULARY LESSON: What’s the Difference Between a College and a University? ()

What Else We’re Reading

NEW YORK CITY: 114,000 Students in N.Y.C. Are Homeless. These Two Let Us Into Their Lives ()

INVESTIGATION: The Quiet Rooms: Children Are Being Locked Away, Alone and Terrified, in Illinois Schools. Often It’s Against the Law ()

GUN VIOLENCE: Since Parkland: Student Journalists Tell the Stories of Kids Killed by Guns Since Feb. 14, 2018 ()

SOLUTIONS: What Happens When College Students Discuss Lab Work in Spanish, Philosophy in Chinese or Opera in Italian? ()

KICKER: Teens Are Getting Historical on TikTok and It’s Both Fun and Educational ()

Quotes of the Week

“No kid should have to grow up in a shelter.” —Sherine, who lives with her children in one of New York City’s homeless shelters. Her son, Darnell, 8, is one of 114,085 homeless students in the city. ()

“I will never forget the look they gave us. Like you belonged in somebody’s zoo.” —Antoinette Harrell, on the harrowing early days of integration in Louisiana’s Tangipahoa Parish. Both parties in a 54-year-old desegregation suit against the parish school system worked to settle the case this week. (Read at ����Ӱ��)

“We have to acknowledge that our goals for federal education funding will continue to face serious political opposition. Supporting well-regulated public charters, in the meantime, is a meaningful complementary solution. The promise of better schools some day down the road doesn’t do much for children who have to go to schools that fail them today.” —Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker ()

“There’s nothing automatically good about being a charter school. The school opens and then the work starts. A few years down the road, a decision has to be made whether the school is good enough to stay open.” —Greg Richmond, who recently stepped down after 15 years as president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. (Read at ����Ӱ��)

“Since when did real estate agents become experts on schools?” —Fred Freiberg, executive director of the Fair Housing Justice Center, who served as a consultant on Newsday’s three-year investigation that uncovered widespread evidence of unequal treatment by real estate agents on Long Island. ()

— With contributions from Andrew Brownstein��

CALIFORNIA — 16-Second Spasm of Violence Leaves 2 Dead at a Southern California High School: Two students were killed and three injured during a shooting at Santa Clarita’s Saugus High School Thursday morning. One of the injured students has already been released from the hospital, and the others were held overnight Thursday. The suspected shooter is also hospitalized in grave condition after a self-inflicted gunshot wound. All of the schools in the William S. Hart Union High School District, which includes Saugus, were�� Friday. Officials said Thursday the motive was unclear and they did not know if there was a connection between the shooter and the victims. “I’m bewildered and looking for answers — the question as to why all this would happen,” one student who knew the shooter��. “So many questions no one has the answers to.” (Read at ���Ի���)

NEW YORK — Anti-Semitic Crime Spike Brings No-Hate Class to More Brooklyn Schools: A “dramatic” rise in anti-Semitic crimes in Brooklyn has spurred local advocates and officials to double the number of schools teaching anti-bias classes in the borough. The Anti-Defamation League and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams announced this week a $250,000 effort to double the footprint of the “No Place for Hate” program, allowing the classes to reach as many as 10,000 students across 40 schools, Anna Quinn reports. ()

NATIONAL — Supreme Court’s Conservative Majority Appears to Back Trump Plan to End DACA, Potentially Putting Thousands of Students and Teachers at Risk of Deportation: During oral arguments this week, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed to side with President Trump over DACA, which protects some 700,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as young children. Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer emphasized the human toll of ending the program, while Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned the argument that the president needed stronger policy reasons for ending the program. Mark Keierleber was inside the courtroom. (Read at ����Ӱ��)

CHICAGO — Here’s How Much Chicago’s Tentative Deals With the Teachers Union Will Cost Taxpayers: After an 11-day strike rocked the city, both the mayor and the union notched some wins in the contract, which the union voted on Thursday and Friday and which still requires a vote from the Chicago Board of Education. This year, the district will cover the cost — around $137 million — with the money it saved by not paying teachers during the strike and some surplus tax funds it received from the city. That means the 2019-20 budget is balanced, but it’s unclear how the district will meet its financial obligations going forward. The contract is expected to cost an extra $1.5 billion over the next five years. Cassie Walker Burke breaks down the numbers. ()

TEXAS — Students Still Fighting for Special Education Services: Years after the federal government found that Texas was illegally denying students special education services, thousands of children are still not getting the support they need. Shelby Webb looks at how students and families are coping and why the state is still failing to meet its obligations. ()

● Related: 250,000 Kids. $277 Million in Fines. It’s Been 3 Years Since Feds Ordered a Special Ed Reboot in Texas — Why Are Students Still Being Denied? (Read at ����Ӱ��)

FLORIDA —��How Did a Dad with a Criminal Past Get to Volunteer in a Tampa Middle School? At first, Tony Lorenzo Hart was an outstanding volunteer at Adams Middle School in Hillsborough County, supporting educators and getting more dads involved on campus. Then, in October, he failed a background check because of his criminal history. (He’s served two stints in prison, for crimes that did not involve children.) Now the district is grappling with why he was allowed to volunteer at all and how to better navigate such delicate situations, Marlene Sokol reports. ()

TEXAS —��Dallas Trustees Considering Cameras in Every Special Education Classroom: One Dallas schools trustee has proposed recording every special education classroom in the district. State law already requires special education classrooms to be recorded if a parent, trustee or staff member requests it. Some are concerned about the cost of additional cameras and worry that they might make teacher retention more difficult. Eva-Marie Ayala explains the debate. ()

● More from Texas: As Texas Moves to Replace Houston’s School Board, Here Are 7 Things to Know About the Takeover (Read at ����Ӱ��)

Noteworthy Opinion & Analysis

SCHOOL SCHEDULE: Kamala Harris Wants to Align the School Day to Parents’ Work Schedule. Does It Do More Harm or Good? ()

E-SPORTS: Why Colleges Are Betting Big on Video Games��()

HEALTH: Banning E-Cigarettes Could Do More Harm Than Good ()

DEVOS: Betsy DeVos Might Outlast Them All ()

What Else We’re Reading

RESEARCH: Secret Service Report Says ‘Prevention Is Key’ in Addressing School Violence (; )

PODCAST: The American Dream and Social Mobility for the Children of Immigrants ()

Q&A: How the Muppets Became Revolutionaries: An Interview With Sesame Street’s VP of Curriculum and Content ()

TV: ‘Blue’s Clues’ Returns, and Silence Is Still the Star ()

SOLUTIONS: Motor City Students to Benefit From a Different Kind of Horsepower Through New Partnership ()

Quotes of the Week

“The data just do not support that. With a high school diploma alone, it’s very hard to earn the kinds of wages one would need to support a family.” —Thomas Brock, a research professor and director of the Community College Research Center at Columbia University, on a recent poll showing that many young Americans believe that a high school diploma alone is enough for success. ()

“I was afraid I was going to go in, and not come back out. What is your plan to end gun violence so that way students can feel safe going to school?” —Nora, 12, to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris during an October town hall in Ankeny, Iowa. (Read at ����Ӱ��)

“Everyone thinks we’re fine, but we’re not fine. Our kids aren’t fine and they’re never gonna be. Please tell people we’re not fine.” —Nakiya Wakes, mother of two schoolchildren in Flint, Michigan, where high levels of lead in the water are feared to have sparked emotional and behavioral problems at school. ()

“What more would you have the government say?” —Justice Neil Gorsuch, questioning whether the Trump administration needed to offer more reasons for its decision to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects some 700,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as young children. Gorsuch and other members of the court’s conservative majority appeared during oral arguments to side with Trump in his desire to end the program. (Read at ����Ӱ��)

“Choose civility.” —Motto of Howard County, Maryland, found on the bumpers of many cars. A redistricting plan to balance the number of low-income children enrolled in schools has led to protests, racist emails and a death threat against the superintendent. ()

— With contributions from Andrew Brownstein��

TEXAS —��State to Take Over Houston ISD by Replacing School Board and Superintendent: Texas’s state education agency announced Wednesday that it will take over Houston Independent School District — one of the largest school districts in the country — because of the school board’s “failure of governance” and persistent academic failure at the district’s Wheatley High School. State education commissioner Mike Morath will appoint both a board of governance and a superintendent as part of the takeover, which did not come as a surprise, reports Aliyya Swaby. ()

VIRGINIA —��Democratic-Backed Candidates Take Full Control of Fairfax County School Board: Democratic-backed candidates this week swept the school board elections in Fairfax County, Virginia, one of the nation’s largest school districts, with nearly 190,000 students and a $3 billion annual budget. Though the elections are nonpartisan in name, the campaigns were fiercely contested along party lines, with much of the fight centered on a proposal that would require district officials to consider students’ race and socioeconomic status when redrawing school boundaries. Over the summer, the district hired an outside consultant to deal with that particular proposal, but Republican-backed candidates made it a “focal point of their campaigns,” Debbie Truong reports. Of the 12 board members who will start four-year terms in January, eight are new to the board. ()

NATIONAL —��Flint’s Children Suffer in Class After Years of Drinking the Lead-Poisoned Water: The lead crisis in Flint, Michigan, “has migrated from its homes to its schools, where neurological and behavioral problems — real or feared — among students are threatening to overwhelm the education system,” reports Erica L. Green. The schools are now in a “downward spiral” of declining enrollment, tight budgets and overwhelming student need. And Flint is not alone in these challenges. ()

ILLINOIS —��What Happens Next With the Chicago Teachers Contract: After an 11-day teacher strike, the city’s longest since 1987, students and teachers returned to the classroom last week, but the contract is not yet finalized. Chalkbeat reporter Yana Kunichoff explains what the mayor, the union and their attorneys still have to do to make it official. ()

HAWAII — Nearly Half the Kids in Hawaii Can’t Swim. Meet the Organization Trying to Change That: A new report shows that drowning was the third-highest cause of death for Hawaii kids between 2014 and 2018, but swimming lessons can be prohibitively expensive for many families on the islands. Now, individual schools are partnering with the Hawaii Aquatics Foundation to make swimming and water safety more accessible to Hawaii’s kids, reports Suevon Lee. ()

FLORIDA —��‘Astoundingly Slow’ Progress on School Renovations in South Florida District, Despite $800 Million Bond: Five years after Broward County schools got an $800 million bond from taxpayers to renovate 233 schools, renovations are complete at just eight schools, according to an analysis by reporter Scott Travis. Most of the schools, which have problems such as leaky roofs, mold and poor air quality, aren’t under construction yet. ()

●��Related from ����Ӱ��: Schools Have Lost $16B in Capital Funds Since the Great Recession. Those Buildings Are in Trouble — and That Means Problems for Students

Noteworthy Opinion & Analysis

TEACHER PAY: Can Early-Childhood-Education Programs Deliver If Lead Teachers Are Paid Less Than Dog Walkers? ()

KID ECONOMICS: How Many Tootsie Rolls Is a Snickers Worth? Kids Know. ()

DISCIPLINE: Procedure isn’t enough: What I’ve learned advocating for students at NYC suspension hearings ()

BOOK REVIEW: How one Navajo Nation high school is trying to help students see a future that includes college ()

What Else We’re Reading

ELECTIONS: Democrats Enjoy Big Wins in Kentucky and Virginia, and Reform Foes ‘Flip the Board’ in Denver (Read at ����Ӱ��)

RURAL SCHOOLS: Many Rural Districts Face Education ‘Emergency’ ()

STUDENT-ATHLETES: Hunger Games: High School Student Athletes Deal With Food Insecurity ()

GOOD NEWS: Ohio Mom Mobilizes Her Son’s Football Team to Help Hungry Players From a Nearby Team ()

“I hope the strike ends sooner, and they do what they need to do. It’s not benefiting the kids or parents. School is their safe place, and it’s where they get a meal, too.” —Fantasia Martin, a mother of two young girls, as the Chicago teachers’ strike entered its second week. ()

“When the average age of a building is 44 years, things start to fail.” —Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund, on the need to invest in school infrastructure. (Read at The74Million.org)

“When it was us, the district didn’t feel like they needed to have any immediacy. We don’t have the resources that SLA has, and their parents jumped on it right away. Where there’s money and influence, there’s more privilege.” —Keith Pretlow, a culinary-arts teacher at Ben Franklin High School in Philadelphia. When Science Leadership Academy, a magnet school, relocated to share the site with Ben Franklin, a long-delayed asbestos cleanup moved into high gear. ()

“Is this really school? Is this really education? Is this how it is supposed to be? How am I going to go to college and write a five-page essay … when I’ve been watching movies or going down to the gym?” —Jamarria Hall, 19, who graduated at the top of his class at Detroit’s Osborn High School, a time he now considers four lost years. ()

“I don’t think you can ethically sell an endorsement.” —S. Daniel Carter, president of Safety Advisors for Educational Campuses, on school security companies that pay $18,000 a year for the right to call themselves “School Solutions” partners with AASA, The School Superintendents Association. (Read at The74Million.org)

“The bias is present. It’s written. It’s stated. It’s plain.” —Kristen Harper, director for policy development at Child Trends, on threat assessments such as those used by schools in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that disproportionately target minority students and those with disabilities. ()

“What if our farts are supposed to help us fly?!” —a student of Christina Torres, an eighth-grade English teacher in Honolulu, collected as part of Education Week’s “Tiny Teaching Stories.” ()

NATIONAL —��Environmental Protection Agency Proposes New Rules to Require More Testing of School Water for Lead: The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new rules that would require that “all water utilities conduct lead-level tests at 20 percent of K-12 schools and child care facilities within their service areas annually” and provide the results to the schools and local or state health departments. While this change would help protect children from lead, a known toxin that is particularly dangerous for children, the proposal “would also weaken rules for replacing service lines after they have been identified as lead-contaminated,” the Las Vegas Sun reported. That means water utilities could take up to 33 years to replace contaminated pipes, compared with 13 years now. The new rules are in a public comment period; it’s uncertain how soon they could be enacted. ()

FLORIDA —��Florida Is Set to Change Its School Standards for the Fifth Time in 24 Years: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order “to eliminate Common Core from Florida’s schools, and to revise the academic standards.” Some educators have expressed concern that the proposed replacement standards are weaker and vaguer than the Common Core. ()

CALIFORNIA —��California Plans to End ‘Lunch Shaming’ With a New Bill That Guarantees Meals for All Students: Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a requirement that all public school students get a school meal regardless of unpaid fees in an effort to end lunch shaming in his state. ()

NEW YORK — Few Selective New York City Schools Post Precise Admissions Criteria: A new analysis found that just 20 of New York City’s 157 selective high schools publicly share the rubrics they use to screen and admit students. The news comes as the city’s specialized schools are under fire from critics who say they exacerbate segregation and widen achievement gaps in the nation’s largest school district. ()

TEXAS —��Money Keeps Flowing Into Houston Independent School District Trustee Elections Despite Takeover Threat: Under the shadow of a looming state takeover that would push the trustees out, the 13 candidates for four open seats on the board of trustees have taken in $210,000 altogether. If a takeover happens, some of the winners could return to their seats before their four-year terms end, giving donors reason to contribute. ()

NEVADA — Clark County OKs $12M Plan to Fight Chronic Absenteeism and Truancy: Clark County officials approved a plan to spend $12 million on a range of student supports in an effort to improve attendance. An already approved sales tax will pay for the program. ()

Noteworthy Opinion & Analysis

DISCIPLINE —��Nashville Schools Spent 5 Years Trying to Close the Racial gap in Suspensions. It Only Got Worse ()

CHICAGO STRIKE —��Chicago Teachers May Test Unions’ ‘Social Justice’ Strategy ()

●��Go deeper — Union Report:��The Looming Chicago Teacher Strike May Be As Much About Membership As It Is About Money (Read at The74Million.org)

BIG DATA —��Student Tracking, Secret Scores: How College Admissions Offices Rank Prospects Before They Apply ()

TECH —��Why Boredom Often Beats Screen Time ()

SAFETY —��Former Sex Workers See Value in Trafficking Education ()

What Else We’re Reading

CULTURE —��Here’s How Boy Band BTS Inspired a School in South L.A. to Teach Korean Culture ()

INSPIRING —��Dedicated Teacher Keeps Classes Going in Bahamas After Dorian ()

TEACHING — Tiny Teaching Stories: ‘For Good Instead of Mischief’ ()

Quotes of the Week��

“To read they had a plan after Sandy Hook and didn’t do a thing with it was just mind-boggling to me.” —Stephen Feuerman, a parent of students who survived the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, on the school district’s 2013 decision not to levy $55 million in tax dollars for school safety. ()

“Obviously we appreciate the state legislators taking action … This is just a side effect that not everybody probably realized might take place.” —Ernie Okley, a junior high math and science teacher and co-vice president of the union at Bond County Community No. 2, a district in Greenville, Illinois. The state’s decision to raise minimum teacher salaries has led to some unforeseen consequences, including the likelihood that pay will rise more slowly in his district.��(Read at The74Million.org)

“When it was us, the district didn’t feel like they needed to have any immediacy. We don’t have the resources that SLA has, and their parents jumped on it right away. Where there’s money and influence, there’s more privilege.” —Keith Pretlow, a culinary-arts teacher at Ben Franklin High School in Philadelphia. When Science Leadership Academy, a magnet school, relocated to share the site with Ben Franklin, a long-delayed asbestos cleanup moved into high gear. ()

“My concern was, ‘Oh my gosh, how am I going to do this?’” —Kenneth Wagner, chief of the Clay County Schools Police Department, who was tasked with creating district police department in five months in response to a post-Parkland Florida mandate. (Read at The74Million.org)

“What if our farts are supposed to help us fly?!” —a student of Christina Torres, an eighth-grade English teacher in Honolulu, collected as part of Education Week’s “Tiny Teaching Stories.” ()

NATIONAL — NEA, National PTA File Brief Supporting DACA Students and Teachers in Supreme Court Case: The nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, and the National Parent-Teacher Association have filed an amicus to the Supreme Court in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, the Obama-era program that allows undocumented people who were brought to the United States as children to get work permits and stay in the country without fear of deportation. According to data from 2016, “228,000 children age 15 and younger were unauthorized immigrants potentially eligible for the DACA program provided they stayed in school,” Education Dive . Moreover, about 9,000 DACA recipients are teachers, making education one of the most common professions for those who benefit from the program. The brief includes testimony from some teachers. Ending DACA “will be disastrous for students and public education,” NEA President Lily Eskelsen García said in a statement. The Supreme Court is expected to hear the case Nov. 12. ()

NEVADA — Parents of Special Needs Kids Raise Concerns About Treatment From CCSD Staff: Five parents from Clark County School District said in a press conference Monday that special education students have been “routinely abused” in the district’s care. Parents said their children had been bullied and hit by educators and that the district has prohibited monitoring devices that would record what happens to their children during the school day. “You have denied information, erased videos, blamed families and [done] anything else you possibly can to cover up because you do not want to take responsibility for what went wrong under your care,” one parent said, addressing the district. ()

CALIFORNIA —��New State Law Creates Pot of Emergency Funds for California Community Colleges: California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law last week that allows the state’s community colleges to use money from an existing funding stream to cover “emergency financial aid” for students in good standing. The change is meant to allow schools to help students cover “unforeseen financial challenges” including housing and food costs, textbook purchases and transportation. ()

VIRGINIA — Parents Sue Fairfax Schools, Allege Improper Seclusion and Restraint of Students With Disabilities: Three parents filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging that the Fairfax School District used excessive and improper seclusion to “silence, detain, segregate, and punish students with disabilities.” One child was secluded “on at least 745 occasions and excluded from class several hundred more times over seven years, according to court papers.” ()

FLORIDA — DeSantis Wants to Boost Minimum Pay for Florida’s Teachers: Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to raise the minimum salary of teachers in Florida to $47,500, a proposal that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and is expected to become a key issue for the state legislature next year. DeSantis said his proposal will raise pay for 60 percent of teachers in Florida, which at $37,636 ranks 27th in the country for starting teacher pay. ()

ILLINOIS — Could Chicago Actually Shorten Its School Day? The Latest Twist in the City’s Labor Battle, Explained: The Chicago Teachers Union, which is threatening to strike Oct. 17 if it does not reach a contract by then, is demanding a shorter school day as part of the negotiation. The union wants elementary teachers to have an additional 30 minutes of morning prep time. The current school day for elementary students is seven hours, and it’s unclear where those 30 minutes would come from. ()

●��Related: Class size has also emerged as a key issue in the negotiation ()

Noteworthy Opinion and Analysis��

NATIONAL — How the Ed. Department Threw a Wrench in Student-Privacy Laws ()

STRIKES —��Chicago Is the Latest Front for ‘Common Good’ Bargaining ()

PARENTING — Is Your Child Struggling in School? Talk to Your Pediatrician ()

TEACHING —��Four Ways Educators Can Help Young Black Students Thrive ()

GIFTED ED —��The Contradiction at the Heart of Public Education ()

What Else We’re Reading

TEACHER VOICE —��Arkansas Teacher of the Year Criticizes Little Rock Proposal to Break Up District ()

• Go Deeper:��

INSPIRING —��A Bandless Football Team and a Teamless Band Team Up ()

SOLUTIONS —��Florida Students Lobby for Bill to Help English Learners ()

ILLINOIS —��District Teachers and Support Staff Set October Strike Date: The Chicago Teachers Union, school support staff and park employees will go on strike Oct. 17 if they do not reach contract deals with the city by then, the reports. During previous teacher strikes, some parents have sent their children to the parks, which is why the three organizations are working together, a union official said. The joint strike date “is about taking away that avenue and forcing [employers] to negotiate in good faith. … They want to pit workers against each other,” said Jeffrey Howard, a vice president for the union that represents school custodians, special education aides and other support staff in addition to many park employees. Ninety-four percent of teachers in the union voted in favor of the strike authorization last week. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and schools chief Janice Jackson said schools will remain open for the city’s 360,000 students if the strike happens, staffed by principals and nonunion employees. “It’s clear the two sides remain far apart, with both accusing the other of stalled responses to demands and offers,” according to the paper. A strike would mean about 35,000 public employees walking off the job. Both sides have said they will continue negotiating. ()

NEW YORK —��Mayor Bill de Blasio to Partner with XQ America, Robin Hood to Open New Schools and Restructure Others: New York City will use money from XQ America, an education organization founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, and Robin Hood Foundation, an anti-poverty philanthropy organization based in New York City, to open or restructure 40 schools, reports. Teams of students and educators will propose ideas for their schools and for new schools, and winners will receive grant funding to bring their ideas to life. Though de Blasio has previously criticized the presence of private money in education, the mayor “is now borrowing from the playbook of his predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg, whose overhaul of the education system relied in part on donations from major private institutions and prominent benefactors,” according to the Times. XQ will contribute $10 million to the project, with Robin Hood adding $5 million to open new schools in low-income neighborhoods and $1 million for teacher training. The city will match those gifts with an additional $16 million to open or restructure 10 other schools. ()

NATIONAL —��‘Shooting People Is De-escalation’: Three Days With Teachers Training to Use Guns in Schools: Meet Angie, a fifth-grade teacher in Ohio who had never used a gun before this summer, as she visits a shooting range and trains to carry on campus. She learns how to shoot the gun and does target practice, but she’s also gathering tips unique to her profession, such as how to hug students without them noticing the weapon. “Cause we’re huggers,” she said. “You have to get them from this side … You have to retrain a lot of things that you do.” The number of districts allowing staff to carry guns has nearly doubled since the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting in 2018, according to data from Vice News. The training required varies by state and even by district, with some places requiring no training at all. Angie receives training from FASTER Saves Lives, “a course developed by an Ohio-based firearms association after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School,” WHYY reports. ()

NEVADA —��No Bad Principals in Clark County, Evaluators Say: None of the more than 300 principals in Clark County School District, which includes Las Vegas, has been rated “ineffective” in the past four years. Only one has been rated in the second-lowest category, “developing,” in that time. “Meanwhile, the district has consistently had more than 100 one- and two-star schools, the lowest tiers in the state’s academic performance standards,” reports the . At the same time, “an unknown number” of principals have quietly taken leave, been demoted or retired while under scrutiny, leaving parents and communities with little information. The district is taking steps to improve professional development and evaluation, officials said. Additionally, the teachers union has created a new internal system that “seeks to bring attention to principals who have persistent issues with school staff and climate.” ()

HAWAII — Teachers Say Low Pay Makes It Tough to Stay in the Classroom: Hawaii is so desperate for educators that one Maui high school recently said it will accept applications from high school graduates for substitute teaching positions — no other qualifications needed. One of the reasons for the dearth of educators is the low pay for teachers in the nation’s most expensive state. “While Hawaii’s average teacher pay of $60,000 is higher than the national average, it is considered the lowest in the country when adjusted for cost of living,”��the reported. The state department of education recently conducted a listening tour to learn how pay contributes to teacher attrition in the state. “There’s a disconnect here with the political system, a complete, utter discontent,” said one Maui teacher. “I just don’t see this ever being solved, with the history, with the lack of empathy from legislators, from governors, with just the pure utter disconnect in our communities.” The Civil Beat also recently that a Hawaii program offering free tuition to prospective teachers is struggling to fill its openings this year. ()

FLORIDA — Enrollment Keeps Falling at Many Florida Public Schools: Enrollment is flat or declining at three of Florida’s biggest school districts, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. (Those districts are respectively the fifth-, seventh- and 11th-largest districts in the U.S.) The South Florida Sun-Sentinel offers two reasons for the decreasing number of students: an increase in the number of families turning to charter schools and an influx of empty nesters in South Florida. Parents with children in charter schools said they worried that nearby public schools were overcrowded or overwhelming. “I felt my son would get lost. At the charter school, everybody knows everybody. The principal knew him by name in the first week,” said one parent in Broward County. ()

CALIFORNIA —��Can Charter and Public Schools Share Space Without Fights? LAUSD’s $5.5 Million Solution: District and charter schools that share space in Los Angeles will soon receive new money to help repair and improve their campuses, thanks to a new plan unanimously passed by the Los Angeles Board of Education. Fifty-five district schools that share space with one or more charters will get $100,000 each to deal with facilities challenges such as installing a new sound system for a common auditorium or repairing a gate, the reports. The funding will come from “voter-approved school construction bonds set aside for charters,” a district official told the Times. Two influential board members, charter supporter Nick Melvoin and charter critic Jackie Goldberg, collaborated on the plan, which they say will ease cooperation between charter and district schools. “We can help the day-to-day operations run a little smoother, and maybe even promote a new spirit of collaboration,” Melvoin said. ()

Noteworthy Opinion & Analysis

PARENT VOICE —��My Son Didn’t Get Into Any of the Schools He Wanted. My Disappointment Made Me Realize I’d Been Hoarding Opportunity ()

TECH��—��Is the Era of the $100+ Graphing Calculator Coming to an End? ()

STUDENT VOICE — Kid Chess Champions Share Their Secrets ()

POLITICS —��How a Kids’-News Outlet Is Explaining Impeachment ()

ASSESSMENT —��It’s Time to End Timed Tests ()

CRIMINAL JUSTICE —��More Than 30,000 Children Under Age 10 Have Been Arrested in the U.S. Since 2013, FBI Reports ()

Quotes of the Week

“It feels like a superficial way of getting to the root of the problem.” —Philadelphia public school teacher Kathryn Sundeen, on Democratic proposals to raise teacher pay. ()

“Where we’re talking about a cost to a school of maybe $2,500 to $5,000 [for services], school districts in Texas will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to basically appeal these cases so that not only are attorneys not willing to take them, it chills other parents who would like for these services to be provided to their child. The goal becomes, how do we run the family out of money, or make the appeal process so long and arduous that parents just give up and leave the system.” —Texas attorney Catherine Michael, on the state’s lax response to a federal mandate on special education services. (Read at The74Million.org)

“A lot of these kids suffer horrible trauma on the journey to the United States. Some were sexually abused. Others were almost murdered by a gang or left in the desert.” —Perla Banegas, who until recently taught newcomers at Minnesota’s Worthington High School, part of a district that has received more unaccompanied minors per capita than almost anywhere in the country. ()

“We know the legal question of affirmative action is one that has been roiled up consistently over the past 30 years. It’s worth remembering that every time we make it to the United States Supreme Court, affirmative action survives.” —Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (Read at The74Million.org)

“We understand there will be consequences and we’re prepared to take responsibility for them. We know that it will take time to heal, and we hope and pray that the boys, their families, the school and the broader community will be able to forgive us in time.” —a statement from the grandparents and guardians of a sixth-grade girl at the Immanuel Christian School in Springfield, Virginia, who now says she falsely accused three white male students of forcibly cutting her hair on a school playground. ()

“We can’t allow people to get sick and we can’t allow our youth to be so affected.” —President Donald Trump, announcing plans by the Food and Drug Administration to rein in sales of flavored e-cigarette products. ()

“We know the legal question of affirmative action is one that has been roiled up consistently over the past 30 years. It’s worth remembering that every time we make it to the United States Supreme Court, affirmative action survives.” —Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (Read at The74Million.org)

“A lot of these kids suffer horrible trauma on the journey to the United States. Some were sexually abused. Others were almost murdered by a gang or left in the desert.” —Perla Banegas, who until recently taught newcomers at Minnesota’s Worthington High School, part of a district that has received more unaccompanied minors per capita than almost anywhere in the country. ()

“Where we’re talking about a cost to a school of maybe $2,500 to $5,000 [for services], school districts in Texas will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to basically appeal these cases so that not only are attorneys not willing to take them, it chills other parents who would like for these services to be provided to their child. The goal becomes, how do we run the family out of money, or make the appeal process so long and arduous that parents just give up and leave the system.” —Texas attorney Catherine Michael, on the state’s lax response to a federal mandate on special education services. (Read at The74Million.org)

“I was teaching sophomores about my experience as a sophomore, and I would go home after that lesson and just break down. I was having a hard time detaching. [Teachers] want to form a connection, but we also need to stay professional as historians and have that little bit of detachment. It’s definitely not easy to do.” —Teacher Lauren Hetrick, herself a student on Sept. 11, 2001, on educating students about the terrorist attacks. ()

“It feels like a superficial way of getting to the root of the problem.” —Philadelphia public school teacher Kathryn Sundeen, on Democratic proposals to raise teacher pay. ()