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Designer Learning Experiences: Bridging the Gap for Low-Income and Minority Students

The number of minority students outweighs the number of white students—yet underrepresented minorities still often face a worse quality education than their white counterparts. It’s prime time to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population, and fortunately, as a society, we are actively looking for ways to do just that. As of 2014, minorities have been projected to be over 50 percent of the K-12 student population, according to the U.S. Education Department’s Nation Center for Education Statistics. In the fall of 2014, about 49.8 million students attended public elementary and secondary schools. Of these students, 35.1 million were …

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Hope for High School Dropouts: How Increasing Graduation Rates Will Transform Our Country

Are math and science killing our high school graduation rates? More rigorous math and science requirements for high school graduation are in place. At the same time, dropout rates in this country are up. Is this a coincidence? Research back to 1990 showed that the US dropout rate rose to a high of 11.4 percent when students were required to take six math and science courses, compared with 8.6 percent for students who needed less math and science courses to graduate. The dropout rate is up to 5 percentage points higher when gender, race, and ethnicity are considered. Andrew Plunk, …

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Black Boys in Crisis: Solutions to the School-to-Prison Pipeline

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis. People who fall outside this fringe group of perceived misfits may wonder why the school-to-prison pipeline should matter to them. Outside of caring about the quality of life for other individuals, which is really something that is not teachable, the school-to-prison pipeline matters in more tangible ways. Each federal prisoner costs taxpayers $28,948 per year based on 2012 statistics, which is about $79 per day. That’s a …

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Black Boys in Crisis: Why Are Schools So Quick to Lock Them Up?

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis. Over and over statistics show that punishment for black boys – even first-time offenders – in schools is harsher than any other demographic. Black boys taken from schools in handcuffs are not always violent, or even criminals. Increasingly, school-assigned law enforcement officers are leading these students from their schools hallways for minor offenses, including class disruption, tardiness and even non-violent arguments with other students. It seems that …

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Black Boys in Crisis: Does Anyone Even Care?

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis. When we talk about reaching students in our classrooms that come from disadvantaged backgrounds, we tend to put several groups under one umbrella. Minority students. Immigrant students. Kids from low socioeconomic households. While it’s true that all of these groups of students need a different approach than their white, English-speaking, middle-class peers, our education system is not yet doing enough to address specific needs within these at-risk …

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Black Boys in Crisis: The School-to-Prison Pipeline

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis. It’s a statistically sound fact that high school dropouts in all demographics have a higher likelihood of incarceration at some point in their lives. Sadly, over half of black young men who attend urban high schools do not earn a diploma. Of the dropouts, nearly 60 percent will go to prison at some point. In fact, The Sentencing Project projects that 1 in 3 black men will …

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Education Equity: Challenges and Suggestions

Equity in education has long been an ideal. It’s an ideal celebrated in a variety of contexts, too. Even the Founding Fathers celebrated education as an ideal, something to which every citizen ought to be entitled. Unfortunately though, the practice of equity in education has been less than effective. That is, equity is a difficult ideal to maintain and many strategies attempting to maintain it have fallen far short in the implementation. The most obvious and horrendous element, of course, is the No Child Left Behind Act. But even Obama has notably dabbled in an attempt to manage equity in …

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Teacher Prep and Better Resources: How to Reach Urban Students

By Matthew Lynch Students in urban schools tend to have stereotypes attached to them. Rather than see these students as individual learners, many urban kids and their schools are often thrown into the “lost cause” category. Problems like deteriorating buildings and overcrowding often become too overwhelming for reformers. As always, before we can implement change, we need to fully understand the problem. Not one-note students In a 2009 article in the Harvard Political Review, writers Tiffany Wen and Jyoti Jasrasaria discuss the “myths of urban education.” The article points out that many people are quick to label urban schools as …

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Talented and Gifted Learning: Where’s the Diversity?

The “talented and gifted” label is one bestowed upon the brightest, and most advanced, students. Beginning in early elementary grades, TAG programs separate student peers for the sake of individualized learning initiatives. Though the ideology is sound, the reality is often a monotone, unattractive look at contemporary American public schools. Earlier this year the New York Times visited Public School 163 located on the Upper West Side of the city to take a look at the disparities caused by the talented and gifted program there. This is what it looked like: a bunch of white kids on the “gifted” side …

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The economic argument for ethnic studies

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.** A guest column by Jim Estrada Our nation is undergoing a cultural evolution as a result of an ethnic population explosion. In a blink of the eye, Hispanics, Latinos, and mestizos have grown to 54 million in 2015 and are projected to reach 132.8 million by 2050, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Much of this …

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