education

Schools must help homeless students. Here’s what you should know

During the 2019-20 school year, close to 1.3 million children in the nation’s public schools were identified as homeless. But that figure may vastly underestimate the actual number. A Center for Public Integrity analysis found evidence that thousands of school districts are undercounting.

Experts who spoke with Public Integrity said that confusion surrounding the McKinney-Vento law and who qualifies as “doubled-up” can leave many students unidentified and not receiving the support they need in school.

Opinion: Online Learning Doesn’t Work for Low-Income Students Like Me. Here’s How We Can Do Better

Our educational system was unequal even before the pandemic. Those inequalities were exacerbated when students transitioned to learning from home.

Black, Latinx and Native American students suffered the most. Not only did they suddenly find themselves isolated from their schools and peers, but their families were disproportionately impacted by job losses, unequal access to health care and vulnerability to COVID-19.

Analysis: How Schools Can Ensure an Equitable Recovery from COVID

While California has one of the lowest COVID-19 transmission rates in the nation and a high vaccination rate, the reopening of schools has proven rocky.

To better understand how the reopening effort is playing out on the ground, I spoke with educators from Oakland Unified School District and Los Angeles Unified School District — two public-school districts that primarily serve students of color.

Opinion: To Close California’s Achievement Gap, We Must Teach All Parents About Early Brain Development

When adults interact directly with babies—such as by talking, reading and singing to them—those children have larger vocabularies at age three, better learning levels as they enter kindergarten, and a much higher likelihood of being able to read well and do well as students in both grade school and high school regardless of income levels, cultural differences or race.

Children from every race, ethnicity, culture and economic level deserve to have the asset of early brain stimulation.

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