Extra Credit shares some education topics of note from the past week or so, most of which didn’t make it into our newsletters.
This should be Teacher Appreciation Year, US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said during a ceremony honoring the nation’s best teachers, including Ohio history teacher Kurt Russell, who won the Council of Chief State School Officers’ National Teacher of the Year award. First lady Jill Biden told the many teachers who’ve been frustrated to “[n]ever forget that student by student, the lives you change go on to change the world.”
Earlier in the week, Cardona met with school leaders and Ronn Nozoe, president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, to talk about challenges, innovations and continued federal support.
COVID-19 isn’t going away for 20% of our teachers. An EdWeek survey points to a frightening number of teachers affected by “long COVID,” the name for a perplexing array of ongoing disorders – lasting for years in some cases – that can range from an inability to smell to life-altering fatigue, memory lapses or hallucinations.
Sen. Tim Kaine, who has lingering effects two years after his initial diagnosis, is among those pushing for answers and access to care, as well as a more accurate count of people suffering from long COVID.
Making students pay for behavior problems — with money. “Across Illinois, police are ticketing thousands of students a year for in-school adolescent behavior once handled only by the principal’s office — for littering, for making loud noises, for using offensive words or gestures, for breaking a soap dish in the bathroom,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
“I’m sure everyone … will be my friend.” Ukrainian and Russian refugees are starting to trickle into schools across the US. Some are confident their new classmates will be kind; others are worried they won’t fit in. All of them yearn for peace — as do the many from Mexico, Central American and Haiti who are fleeing different atrocities.
A radically different approach to gifted education. (EdSurge, as seen in SpecialEd, ASCD)
Dozens more colleges join Second Chance Pell Experiment to bring higher education to incarcerated individuals. (University Business)
Shining a light on 1947’s Mendez v. Westminster decision and the long-ranging impacts of segregating Mexican-American students. (Brooking Institution)
Jason Reynolds, national ambassador for young people’s literature, to visit, support rural America. (Library of Congress)
This year’s innovative “Green Ribbon” schools work toward sustainability in lessons and in practice. Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead would be proud. (US Education Department, Library of Congress)
Diane Benson Harrington is an education writer at SmartBrief. Share which education issues are important to you via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.