Latest Edu-reads

Today is the 84th anniversary of the Social Security Act. Most people don’t know that the original Act excluded state and local government workers, and it was only later that states were allowed to opt in. Even today, there are still 15 states plus the District of Columbia that do not provide teachers with Social Security coverage. That has implications and consequences for about 1.2 million teachers, not to mention their spouses and children and the plan itself. Read more here.

How can we reconfigure schools and re-design teacher staffing roles to “extend the reach” of great teachers? That’s the subject of my new interview with Stephanie Dean. We talk about her work at Opportunity Culture and how they are working with school districts to identify multi-classroom teacher leaders, build teacher leadership capacity, and ensure more students have access to great teaching. They’re up to 25 districts in 9 states, growing rapidly, and showing some positive results. Read it here.

For Chalkbeat, Matt Barnum writes about four new studies all finding evidence that more money boosts educational outcomes, particularly for low-income students.

“Mortality rates in comparable rich countries have continued their pre-millennial fall at the rates that used to characterize the US. In contrast to the US, mortality rates in Europe are falling for those with low levels of educational attainment, and are doing so more rapidly than mortality rates for those with higher levels of education.” That is from an older Brookings piece (from 2017), but it was new to me. The graphs starting on page 45 are especially interesting.

As I’ve noted before, there are more Americans who have dropped out of college than who have dropped out of high school. David Kirp talks about his new book, The College Dropout Scandal, and what we can do about it, with Scott Jaschik.

Elizabeth Warren as a teacher.

–Guest post by Chad Aldeman