Latest Edu-Reads

“The mantra of “all kids can learn” is, in fact, a way of upending the racism and classism that undergirds the educational system. If we didn’t have racism or classism, we wouldn’t need to declare this at all.” That’s Heather Harding on racial equity and justice in school reform efforts.

Ashley LiBetti suggests that New Mexico should look to para-professional and educational assistants as a way to diversify its teacher workforce.

This new research on Chicago’s exam schools runs almost exactly opposite to the public debate about them.

Neil Campbell and Abby Quirk look at student mobility and backfilling in charter and traditional public schools in Washington, D.C. schools.

“…the average community college student who successfully transfers to a public four-year institution loses an average of 20 percent of their credits. This loss of credits is equivalent to almost an entire semester of credits and would delay the student’s time to graduate.” That’s John Mullane on what we know about transfer students in higher ed.

Finally, is anyone else confused about the recent stories in The 74 and Chalkbeat about Democratic proposals to increase federal spending on K-12 education? The federal Title I program has its flaws, but on the whole it’s a moderately progressive investment that awards more money to schools with higher concentrations of poor students. As my colleague Max Marchitello has noted, doubling or tripling Title I would instantly provide more money to low-income students. The Title I program is composed of four distinct formulas, and if we were even moderately careful about which of the four formulas the money went through, we could make federal dollars even more targeted, while simultaneously encouraging states to make their formulas more progressive as well. More money is by no means a panacea, but given the latest research on school funding, boosting Title I seems like a no-brainer to me.

–Guest post by Chad Aldeman