By Katie Fleischer for Ms. Magazine
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service/Public News Service
After another school year impacted by the COVID pandemic, the long-term effects of educational disruptions are increasingly visible. Years of increased stress, financial burdens, and virtual schooling have affected children as well as adults: Test scores have fallen, rates of behavioral issues and absenteeism are up, and students are struggling to maintain their mental health and social skills.
These effects manifest disproportionately in Black and brown families. While students in majority-white schools are starting to recover to pre-pandemic success rates, students in majority-Black schools remain five months behind pre-pandemic math and reading levels-leaving them a full 12 months behind their peers in majority-white schools.
This widening education gap is a devastating sign that many Black children will continue to be marginalized by structural racism and classism throughout their lives. Women of color, particularly Black women, already disproportionately face systemic barriers in higher education and attaining high-paying jobs. The increased learning gap will only broaden those disparities.
For low-income families, this education gap is particularly dire. After the expanded child tax credit (CTC) expired in January, the childhood poverty rate rose from 12% to 17%, and soared to more than 23% for Latino children and 25% for Black children.
Low-income parents across the country are now struggling to provide for their families and support their children's education. For example, essential worker Johnnie was forced to leave her job during the pandemic to care for her daughter, highlighting some of the unique challenges low-income working moms face:
"During the pandemic, it was really hard for me because it was mandatory for me to go to work, but then my daughter was home from school and I didn't have anyone to be there to help her. I ended up leaving my job because it was not safe and my daughter was not able to continue with school without my help. I didn't have any options, so I had to quit my job to help my baby. I want her to have an education and I couldn't let her fall behind."
And regardless of the pandemic, many employers devalue and ignore challenges employed mothers face. Guaranteed income recipient Sequaya was forced to choose between her job and her daughter's safety:
"When school started back up this fall, I had to leave the warehouse job because there was no one to help my daughter get to and from her own school. They wanted me to work 12-hour shifts, and there's just no way to do that when you have a little kid who needs to get on and off the bus around a normal school day. I tried to get my manager to help me work around it, but he wouldn't budge. I had to be at work at 5 a.m. and her bus doesn't come until 7 a.m., and you know what he said? He said to just leave her outside and let her wait. He told me that twice. He said I had to make a decision, and so I did. I left. Motherhood comes first. But that experience hurt, even though I know I did the right thing and walked away with a smile."
Both Johnnie and Sequaya were forced to make difficult decisions to prevent their children from falling behind in school. But most low-income families don't have that option. As Magnolia Mother's Trust (MMT) guaranteed income recipients, Johnnie and Sequaya had the financial ability to leave their jobs and support their children's education.
Guaranteed income is a transformational economic justice policy that involves providing monthly payments to specific marginalized groups. Based in Jackson, Miss., MMT provides Black mothers living in extreme poverty $1,000 per month for a year. Even just a year of receiving consistent and unrestricted payments enables the recipients to escape cycles of debt and poverty and prioritize the long-term needs of their children.
The success of the Magnolia Mother's Trust, which is now in its fourth cohort, demonstrates guaranteed income's far-reaching effects on low-income families and communities.
After one year of receiving monthly payments:
85% of the moms had completed their high school education, compared with 63% at the beginning of the program.
Recipients were 20% more likely to have children performing at or above grade level than other low-income mothers.
83% were able to pay all their bills without additional support, compared with just 27% before receiving guaranteed income.
For many struggling families, access to education is a major expense. Even public schools often have hidden costs for extracurriculars and advanced learning opportunities, and schools in low-income, predominately Black and brown areas are much more likely to be underfunded, understaffed and overpoliced.
Guaranteed income is one way to reduce some of the structural barriers low-income children face. Unrestricted payments allow can open up a wide range of opportunities. Once they had a stable source of income, MMT moms were able to prioritize education-both their children's and their own. Sabrina could transfer her son to a school designed to help with his dyslexia, and Sherika no longer had to painstakingly save up for school supplies.
Guaranteed income became a lifeline for recipients like Annette, a mother of two studying elementary education and hopes to one day own her own day care center.
"If I were able to sit down with our country's leaders, I would tell them how important a program like the trust is. It helps low-income women like myself better ourselves," she wrote. "The money has helped me in pursuing a better future for me and my kids and allows me to do things that I wasn't really able to before-like going back to school. I know if I finish school I will be a better person, and I'll be a better person for my kids."
Unfortunately, graduating is not always enough to guarantee financial success later in life. Black students, especially Black women, are still more likely to face discrimination in higher education, have student loan debt and earn less than their white male coworkers. U.S. racial and gender wealth gaps were further exacerbated by the pandemic.
However, researchers have found that education gaps are tightly correlated with low-income areas in a self-sustaining cycle, with schools and children both lacking the resources they need to achieve academically.
A federal guaranteed income program would mitigate these economic barriers caused by systemic racism and sexism, and lift up entire communities. Recipients would have less financial stress, more control over where they live and work, and more money for tuition, tutors and school supplies. Monthly unrestricted payments would empower low-income Black moms to prioritize education and prepare their children for long-term success. As the pandemic continues to widen educational disparities, a federal investment in low-income families would reduce education gaps across the country.
Unrestricted guaranteed income payments do more than just help families pay the bills; the stability they provide reverberates to the future. For single mom Chephirah, one year of guaranteed income broke decades of generational cycles of poverty.
"[Guaranteed income] has helped me cover my monthly bills, and pay for things like my daughter's school books," she said. "My hope for her right now is to be the first one in our family to graduate from high school-my brothers and I all left school early. I want her to have a real high school diploma, not a GED. I want her to go to college, and to just know that whatever she wants to strive for, I'm gonna be right there behind her to support her 100 percent.
"You know, where I'm from, you just don't have that much hope. So seeing my daughter succeed and be motivated really inspires me."
Katie Fleischer is a recent graduate of Smith College and a Ms. editorial assistant working on the Front and Center series.
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By Lane Wendell Fischer for the Shasta Scout via The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration
Hiring and maintaining a qualified educator workforce is often a primary concern for rural schools across the country, requiring local education leaders to create innovative solutions.
The University of Wyoming’s College of Education has recently partnered with local community colleges across the state to repair a pipeline for future Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers at high schools and community colleges.
CTE programs offer students an array of skills-based learning opportunities for many high-demand industries ranging from construction, to nursing, to marketing.
For decades, Wyoming has relied on traditional methods to fill out its CTE teacher workforce. After completing a two-year associate’s degree at their community college, students could either enter the trades or take another two years of teacher training.
“It was very much a fork in the road,” said Rob Hill, a CTE consultant for the University of Wyoming and president of SkillsUSA Wyoming. Hill became a Wyoming CTE teacher through this traditional path.
“You had to take life off and go to school,” Hill said. “That limited a lot of people, especially students with families, jobs, and homes.”
As it turned out, most students never completed the final two years of teacher training and just entered the trades after the first two years at their community college, Hill said in an interview with the Daily Yonder.
This outdated pipeline has contributed to a shortage of both CTE teachers and skilled workers in the state.
According to a 2023 report from the Wyoming Professional Teaching Standards Board, the median age of CTE teachers in Wyoming schools is 52, and national numbers are similar. Compare this to the average age of all teachers in the U.S., which is just over 42.
On average, a state employee in Wyoming retires at 62. This means that in the next 7 to 10 years, Wyoming could lose close to half of its CTE workforce to retirement.
“We’ve seen a number of things that have impacted us and that rural part is very real,” Hill said.
In rural communities, a CTE program might only consist of one or two teachers. When that school loses a teacher, the whole program is at risk until a qualified replacement is found.
During a recent tour of Wyoming’s school districts, Jenna Shim, PhD and interim dean of the College of Education, learned that some high school CTE programs are closing down because they couldn’t find replacements.
“One CTE teacher shared with me that he has a specialty in welding, but he has to teach culinary arts,” Shim told the Daily Yonder. “I could see welding and construction, but welding and culinary arts seem like a far stretch.”
And it can be difficult to attract new talent to small schools and communities.
“We tend to do best with people that are invested in that community previously and become teachers, as opposed to bringing in teachers into small communities,” Hill said.
The CTE Domino Effect in Rural Communities
Adding to the difficulty of attracting new teachers is a domino effect caused by current teacher shortages, Shim and Hill said.
A shortage of educators leads to a shortage of high school CTE programs, which leads to a shortage of students pursuing CTE in the state, followed by a shortage of tradespeople in the state, and a shortage of essential services, which, in turn, leads to less attractive communities.
On top of educational advancement for students, repairing CTE teacher pipelines through state and local partnerships helps assemble the next generation of rural water experts, plumbers, electricians, technicians, mechanics, and more, Hill said.
“It has a trickle-down effect into the stability of the community,” Shim said.
And in rural communities, small fluctuations in population, programs, and services can be especially catastrophic — or especially beneficial.
“It doesn’t seem like a big deal if you don’t have one teacher,” Hill said. “But that one teacher in a town of 2000 people that teaches welding, where you have a huge welding industry, that has an extremely large impact.”
The broken pipeline has also raised economic concerns. “Without a sufficient number of teachers, it’s hard to prepare a sufficient workforce,” Shim said.
Two key industries in Wyoming are energy and tourism. Both rely heavily on skilled workers. And both are susceptible to booms and busts that give local communities economic whiplash.
“Over the last decade especially, there’s been a real desire to diversify our workforce,” Hill said. “And that means a different generation of career and technical education, like manufacturing, cybersecurity, and data analysis.”
Repairing the Pipeline
The biggest problem in the previous CTE teacher pipeline was continuity, Hill said. The pathway to teacher certification in rural communities must be both attractive and achievable.
This spring, the College of Education piloted a new course that aims to do both by exposing community college students to CTE teaching before they complete their associate’s degree and decide between trades work or teaching.
“Creating a more seamless pathway is a real goal here,” Hill explained.
The bridge course will be offered each semester in partnership with all eight community colleges in the state and is inherently low stakes. The course credits can be applied toward an associate’s degree at the community college, toward their teaching degree at the university, or toward any other bachelor’s degree they pursue.
In the course, students get a taste of what a career in CTE teaching is like. Coordinated by Hill, the course is one dose online learning and one dose on-site learning. Hill leads the online classroom, where students learn about different national and statewide topics. “But students will learn about how it’s implemented locally,” Hill said.
Each community college has a community college professional and a school district professional that serve as a mentor and safety net for local students, introducing them to CTE leaders at both levels.
One area of misconception is how much CTE teachers are paid, Shim said.
“I think wages scare them most,” Hill said. “But in Wyoming, our hourly wage is higher than many of the trades folks. We have pensions. We have healthcare. It’s a lot more competitive than folks think it is.”
The organization of the course is a masterclass in rural ingenuity. By using technology, the course eliminates long distance travel to the university campus in Laramie on the southern border of the state. It allows students to remain in their local communities, while still being connected to the state’s CTE teacher network.
“We knew we had a statewide problem and we needed to create a statewide solution, or in this case, a local solution for a statewide problem,” Hill said. “This is about connecting people in Wyoming. Because we have these vast distances between us, we have to have a way to connect people.”
Twenty-two students are currently enrolled in the pilot course. Half of the inaugural cohort are community college students. The other half includes veterans, community college instructors, K-12 instructors, and paraprofessionals who are exploring their future career options.
The course has garnered support from state legislators, the university, the colleges, local high schools, local business, and from the students themselves.
Each of the enrolled students is taking the course tuition-free, thanks to scholarships from local businesses and private donors.
“Word is getting out,” Shim said. “I think that’s a testimony for how important this work is.”
Strong CTE programs lead to strong communities, Shim and Hill said. A lot of high school CTE programs are embedded into community culture. Organizations like FFA provide opportunities for social gathering and community service, for example.
“We’ve come up with a mutually beneficial solution and this takes a partnership and teamwork,” Hill said. “No significant advances take place without a group of us working together in a mutually beneficial system.”
Lane Wendell Fischer wrote this article for the Shasta Scout via The Daily Yonder.
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Texas Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick has released 57 "interim charges," the topics he wants Senate committees to study in preparation for the 89th legislative session next year.
Four charges are for the committee overseeing public education. They include improving reading and math readiness in grade school, and redesigning the state's standardized tests.
Eli Melandrez, government relations associate for the American Federation of Teachers-Texas, said educators are surprised the list does not include pay increases for teachers or controversial school vouchers, which use public money to pay for private schooling.
"It's interesting to see both of those key issues absent from the interim charges," Melandrez observed. "Across the state we've seen school closures; we've seen teachers being let go. We've seen a greater percentage of our teacher workforce as uncertified educators."
Two unsuccessful special sessions were held in the past few months, in an attempt to pass a school voucher proposal. Other charges for public schools include examining how school districts used COVID-19 funding, and monitoring the implementation of bills passed in the last session.
Patrick also directed the Higher Education Committee to analyze faculty senates, monitor bans on DEI policies at colleges and universities and revise policies for faculty tenure.
Melandrez noted their union is now affiliated with the American Association of University Professors and members are concerned the lieutenant governor is inserting his own political views into the education system.
"That's worrisome for us," Melandrez emphasized. "In public education and higher education, we are seeing a concerted effort to minimize educator voices."
Patrick also wants senators to review university antisemitism policies and protecting the First Amendment rights of faculty, staff and students. The next legislative session convenes Jan. 14, 2025.
Disclosure: Texas AFT contributes to our fund for reporting on Education, Livable Wages/Working Families, Mental Health, and Youth Issues. If you would like to help support news in the public interest,
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Minnesota's largest school district is at the center of a budget controversy tied to the recent wave of school board candidates fighting diversity programs and some parents feel it's time to call out the "politicizing" of public education.
Students and parents packed this week's meeting of the Anoka-Hennepin School Board after a member posted on Facebook he and two other colleagues would oppose the new budget if it contained some diversity, equity, and inclusion provisions.
Kendra Redmond, a parent of school children and a grassroots organizer who has fought book ban attempts in the Bloomington district, said it is frustrating to see what is happening in the Anoka district.
"Public schools are meant to serve all students," Redmond contended. "School boards should be elected to do what's best for students, not what's best for particular groups or what aligns for specific stakeholders."
The Anoka-Hennepin board has seen its dynamics shift with the election of some members supported by conservative groups pushing "culture-war" issues within education. The officials and candidates contend DEI initiatives only foster more divisiveness in schools. Some of the programs being targeted in the Anoka district are mandated under state law.
Redmond and fellow parents in Bloomington recently formed a grassroots group to protect programs and materials that promote inclusiveness. She acknowledged she never thought she would become this active but noted it is a different environment now, with some voices deemed "extreme" having an influence.
"In our community, a lot of people leading the effort don't even have kids in the public school system," Redmond pointed out. "The fact that they're tying up the work of the school board, the energy of parents and the energy of kids; that're tying that up for political maneuvering is just a waste of everyone's time."
Nationwide, those tracking school board candidates with extreme views said the movement saw a dip in last fall's elections. Redmond emphasized parents should still keep an eye out for controversial actions and either speak up or run for seats themselves to counter what's happening.
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