Today is the 59th anniversary of the historic Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Almost six decades later, students, parents, teachers and advocates across the country are still fighting against education policies that leave students of color and low-income students deprived of the resources and opportunities they need to succeed.
If there's one thing we can all agree on in the midst of budget slashing and a limping economic recovery, it's that kids who go to preschool are better prepared to start learning in school and stand a better chance of graduating and achieving at high levels.
The National Education Policy Center's new book "Closing the Opportunity Gap" offers a wide array of policy recommendations for closing the opportunity gap and ensuring all students have the resources they need to succeed. This policy guide distills the most important recommendations from the book at three different levels: at the level of students' individual needs, at the level of in-school opportunities and resources, and at the level of communities and neighborhoods.
More than 20 million students in the United States are below proficient in reading and math and barred from the educational opportunities that will lead to success.
In his second inaugural address, President Barack Obama returned repeatedly to the theme of "we the people" and the ever-more-inclusive nature of that "we" in our nation.
The National Center for Education Policy (NEPC), an OTL ally, has a new, must-read book about the change our nation needs to make from thinking about the achievement gap to trying to fix the opportunity gap that underlies it.
A new report from UCLA's Civil Right Project is a one stop shop for all the school discipline data advocates or organizers needto fight the overuse of out-of-school suspensions. Out of School & Off Track uses data from over 26,000 U.S. middle and high schools for the 2009-2010 academic year and breaks it down by district, race, gender, elementary/secondary school level, English language learners, and disability status.
This is an incredibly useful and powerful report – download it here!
America’s education polices are brimming with contradiction. Schools, we’re told, need more standardization, but parents need more choices which standardization precludes. Teachers need to be held to more accountability, but entry into the teaching force needs to be easier with fewer qualifications.
On February 27th, the Opportunity to Learn Campaign will be hosting a webinar on racial justice with the Applied Research Center, an OTL ally. The webinar will provide advocates and organizers with valuable tools for framing and combating racial disparities in our nation's education system. Sign up here!
In the first in a series of policy proposals, the National Opportunity to Learn Campaign advocates the creation of Personal Opportunity Plans for every student who is one grade level or more behind in reading or math, giving them access to the academic, social and heathcare supports they need to get back on track.
