High Need Schools
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Education Funding
State K-12 Spending Is Inequitable and Inadequate. See Where Yours Ranks
There's a $17,000 per student difference between the highest- and lowest-spending states. High-poverty schools suffer especially.
Education Funding
How Many Students Are Living in Poverty? The Number Is Likely Wrong
K-12 policymakers' inability to accurately assess student poverty has resulted in billions of dollars being misspent, a new study says.
Education Funding
There Are Big Funding Gaps Affecting High-Poverty Schools. Can Biden Close Them?
Hurdles lie ahead for a $20 billion bid to create "Title I equity grants" to address long-standing funding inequities.
Education Funding
Education Department Issues Directive on Shielding Students in Poverty From Funding Cuts
The agency released the "maintenance of equity" guidance on COVID-19 relief as part of a public-relations blitz on equity amid the pandemic.
Budget & Finance
Teachers Use Crowdsourcing for Education Triage, Not Extras
A study finds a mismatch between the basic classroom requests teachers increasingly make on DonorsChoose and the projects that get funded.
Teaching Profession
Teachers in High-Poverty Schools Penalized Unfairly on Observations, Study Says
The study found that Black teachers were disproportionately given lower classroom observation scores due to factors beyond their control.
School & District Management
Poverty, Not Race, Fuels the Achievement Gap
A new analysis finds that high-poverty schools are the least effective. But why those schools stifle achievement is harder to figure out.
School & District Management
Video
Blunting the Impact of Poverty With Community Schools – 2016 Leaders to Learn From
Rather than waiting to see how job losses and higher housing costs would impact the schools in Vancouver, Wash., top leaders in the district set out in 2008 to create an “opportunity zone” where schools would focus on addressing the impact of poverty that can affect students’ classroom performance.
In several phases, schools in the opportunity zone each set aside space for a family- and community-resource center staffed by a coordinator to help meet the needs of students and their families. Each resource center developed its own menu of services that are tailored to the specific needs of the school community, offering things like food pantries, free clothing, referrals to mental-health services, family-literacy classes, GED prep programs for parents, and on-site dental care through mobile dental vans.
“We have a vested interest in the success of young people,” Superintendent Steve Webb says. “Too many of our young people have barriers to student success in their homes and in their neighborhoods. ... If not us, then who?”
City leaders and school volunteers credit Webb and his chief of staff, Tom Hagley, with helping make that vision a reality.
This video was produced as part of Education Week’s Leaders To Learn From project, recognizing outstanding school district leaders from around the country.
More at http://leaders.edweek.org. Education Week Video
Student Achievement
Opinion
Teachers at Low-Income Schools Deserve Respect
To stem disruptive staff turnover in low-income schools, we must first shift public perception, writes educator Bruce Hansen.
Teaching Profession
Letter to the Editor
Mind the Gap: Deploy Teacher Talent to High-Need Schools
To the Editor:
The June 3, 2015, Teacher Beat blog post "Ed. Dept.: Poorest Districts Have More Trainee Teachers" brings focus to an issue we've known about for years, but have had little success fixing—the inequitable distribution of teachers.
The June 3, 2015, Teacher Beat blog post "Ed. Dept.: Poorest Districts Have More Trainee Teachers" brings focus to an issue we've known about for years, but have had little success fixing—the inequitable distribution of teachers.
Professional Development
Opinion
Why Do Teachers Leave High-Poverty Urban Schools?
The new "question-of-the-week" is:
Why do teachers avoid, or leave, high poverty urban public schools and what can be done to improve the situation?
Education
Opinion
School as Home, and the Unwritten Job Descriptions of Teachers in High-Needs Schools
Creating a "home" at school, a safety net for kids who may have limited parental supervision or positive role modeling, creates the best chance for students to succeed. For teachers, this represents an added layer of responsibility, one for which we can't expect recognition within our formal evaluations, but which is nonetheless a vital component of doing our jobs well.
School & District Management
Opinion
15 Strategies for Placing Excellent Teachers in High-Need Schools
Arthur Levine shares lessons learned in the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation's efforts to attract and prepare high-ability teacher-candidates for work in struggling schools.
Teaching Profession
Group Names Winners of $25,000 Award for Teachers in Low-Income Schools
TNTP, nonprofit teacher-recruitment and policy organization, has announced the four winners of its 3rd annual Fishman Prize for Superlative Classroom Practice.
