In his previous book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character, journalist Paul Tough looked at how non-cognitive personal qualities like perseverance, self-control and conscientiousness play a critical role in children's success. Now, in the follow-up to that book, Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why (2016, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Tough […]
Every school district has that "last stop school" where the so-called "bad kids" end up. In California's Morongo USD that school is Black Rock High School, remotely situated in the Mojave Desert. The school serves a population of students who are often struggling academically and living in households with poverty, drug use and neglect. A […]
While the controversial practice of corporal punishment declines, it remains legal in 19 states. In those states, boys, black students and children with disabilities are more likely to receive physical punishment than other students, according to recent report by the Society for Research in Child Development. The 2016 report found that black children in Alabama […]
With increased technological surveillance to protect and monitor students has come deep consequences for student privacy and equity, according to a new report from the National Association of State Boards of Education. While school surveillance is on the rise—and overwhelmingly supported by parents—the collection and use of data is severely unregulated and a cause for […]
Students in districts across the nation have been harassed and intimidated based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion and sexual identity in the wake of the presidential election, according to the nonprofit organization Southern Poverty Law Center. Much of the harassment was directed against immigrants. Black, LGBT, Muslim, female and Jewish students also have been targeted. […]
The rights of transgender students in K12 schools became explicitly clear in a directive issued by the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice in May. Schools must let transgender students use the restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity, not what's listed on birth certificates, the Obama administration says. "This […]
While detention remains a staple of student discipline across the country, many school leaders are looking at ways to modify the practice, or even replace it, with approaches that may be more effective in actually reducing bad behavior. Classic detention, where bored students sit silently and unproductively in classrooms after school, has limited value as […]
The opt-out movement shows no signs of slowing in the midst of this year's spring testing season. An estimated two-thirds to three-quarters of a million students could chose not to take state standardized tests this school year, according to the National Center for Fair & Open Testing. In 2014-15, more than 640,000 students skipped state […]
