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Hope Reed was seeing stark disparities a decade ago at her high school in the suburbs of Columbia, South Carolina. Nearly half the school’s students were white, but the freshman remedial math classes were made up of almost all students of color. Reed, then chair of the math department at Blythewood High School, intervened with […]

Reassigning teachers based on enrollment, the superintendent wrote, was necessary “in order to serve our students equitably.” Telling her students she was leaving Martin Luther King High School was one of the most difficult conversations she’s ever had, said Karlynne Staten. The move wasn’t by choice. Staten, a special education case manager, had been informed

Millions of students are returning for another school year marked by challenging teacher shortages, causing schools to double up classrooms, move courses online and employ what critics have labeled as underqualified teachers. As states lower the certification standards to become a teacher, education experts worry these tactics could delay students’ recovery from pandemic learning loss. Packed

Districts serving large numbers of students of color and families in poverty are losing the highest number of educators. For many educators, the 2022-2023 school year was harder than the pandemic years. Sharif El-Mekki, founder and CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development, recalled a recent conversation with a principal describing the challenges. “Every time

Without reliable data, it is impossible to make systemic changes. Last month, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. released the new district plan intending to make Philadelphia the fastest-achieving school district in the nation. His first priority is to improve safety and well-being — including both environmental hazards and community violence. Making decisions based on data

Gregg Klinginsmith, a Missouri superintendent, switched his district to a 4-day school week in 2019. The district nixed a day in an effort to keep teachers from leaving for better pay in bigger cities. Both students and teachers love the new schedule, and teacher retention is up after four years. This as-told-to essay is based

As a teacher, you know the thrill of a new day and the satisfaction of preparing for it with care. You have lessons that will captivate your students, visual aids that will make their eyes light up, and a plan to keep them engaged from start to finish. But, let’s be real, sometimes things don’t

One of the latest teaching trends includes getting rid of grades and homework as part of a push towards achieving equity in the classroom. We’ve sort of created this rate race and competition all about just getting the grade rather than focusing on the learning itself and that favors, in some cases, the kids who

I once taught a shooter. He wrote me a scathing letter about my class a year before he murdered his mother and reportedly planned to attack the school. During a safety training at my school, we were taught that if a student is trapped in the hall during a lockdown and they knock on the door

While schools across the country struggle to fill vacant teaching positions, one Texas district is capitalizing on groundwork it laid in 2019 that has led to a near-zero vacancy rate. When Ector County Superintendent Scott Muri took over the 33,500-student district in the summer of 2019, there were 356 teaching vacancies—the equivalent of 18 percent