News

Laura Perna spoke about how so-called College Promise Programs that reduce the costs of attending college may encourage more students to enroll — but cautioned a number may still be deterred by fears of hidden costs.

Laura Perna discussed how the challenges of constructing debt-free degree programs may be daunting for colleges, but the ends justify the means: The programs create a more socioeconomically diverse student body, to the benefit of everyone.

Jonathan Zimmerman asked, “Can we be honest about critical race theory (CRT)?” He argues the topic has become highly politicized. To confront biases, one must share different versions of America with students and allow them to use critical thinking skills to confront conflicting truths and weigh opposing arguments.

Mike Nakkula comments on the development of LGBTQ student support programs in the Philadelphia public school system. “Being closeted and hiding are major risk factors,” Nakkula said. “Creating spaces in schools where students feel like they have a chance to voice their concerns, that’s a critical developmental act.”

Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher dicusses her Teaching Beyond September 11th curriculum with the FreshEd Podcast.

Michael Gottfried said COVID-19-related school absences may disrupt all students’ learning. “Part of me is just like let’s just go back to Zoom for everyone,” he said. “I want to be in person more than anyone else. That is, the last thing I want to do is sit on Zoom and teach. So I feel for these kids. But what kind of learning is it going to be without a real fallback plan in place?”

Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher's “Teaching Beyond September 11” curriculum has sparked conversation of the importance of learning about 9/11 in school. Many states, including Colorado, do not have a school curriculum that teaches about the “increasingly distant historic event.” There is hope that students “would understand everything that happened that went into that event taking place and they would work to make sure that event never takes place again.”

Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher says that while Americans talk about the events of Sept. 11, not enough time is spent reflecting on policies like increased surveillance of Muslims and Arabs.

Brooks Bowden cautions that while the effect sizes in the ARC Core research study were large compared to studies of older students, there are few similar studies of kindergarteners to provide a basis for comparison.

Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher spoke about “history from the last 20 years that is completely neglected.” The “Teaching Beyond September 11” curriculum “is really speaking to that gap and helping young people understand just how the world has changed as a consequence of that awful day,” she said.

Laura Perna spoke about efforts to make community college tuition-free. "There's power in the message that tuition is free. Figuring out how much college costs is complicated," she said.

Caroline Watts discusses educators’ experiences during the early days of the pandemic, lessons learned and how the classroom might be different in the coming months.

Amalia Daché criticizes people who have blamed the U.S. embargo and not the Cuban government for the crisis in Cuba. “She was shocked to see how the U.S. media and Twitter were taking Afro-Cubans out of the narrative and blaming the U.S. and the CIA for the demonstrations,” she said.

Richard Ingersoll comments on teachers leaving the profession if the economy continues to improve and they continue to feel stress. “Typically we find that employees across the economy tend to quit less during economic downtimes,” he said. “There’s a lot of indications that in fact, during the pandemic, teacher turnover and teacher retirements may have even gone down.”

In new research published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Professor Michael Gottfried, along with J. Jacob Kirksey (Texas Tech University) and Tina L. Fletcher (Penn GSE), concluded that Latinx students with Latinx teachers attend school more, a relationship that does not exist for white students.

Brooks Bowden comments on the amount of work that needs to be done before and after school reopen for the fall. “We’ve all got a lot of work to do,” she said. Bowden thinks “educator coaches, tutoring services, and supports for families can go a long way.”

Trina and Tina Fletcher are 35 year old twins, originally from a rural town in Arkansas with just 850 people. They are also highly successful African American women who, from an early age, had their eyes set on earning a Ph.D. and changing the world around them. Trina is currently an assistant professor of Engineering and Computing Education at Florida International University, and Tina is a Ph.D. candidate in educational policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Laura Perna spoke about accommodating the needs of adult students. “There is a complexity to adult learners,” she said. “It is really recognizing, ‘What are the circumstances of individual people’s lives?’ If someone is to enroll in college, how do you make it possible for them to attend?”

Amalia Daché spoke with Politico about the uprisings in Cuba with respect to Afro-Cubans who are disproportionately affected by the hardships in Cuba and are taking the lead in the protests. “This is one of the reasons I’ve been so active, related to my research and my own identity as an Afro-Cuban, is that Afro-Cubans have been leading this from the beginning.”

Amalia Daché writes, “The first thing the United States needs to do in crafting policy solutions is listen to the brave people risking their lives and freedom to lead these protests, especially Afro-Cubans who have lived at the bottom of the regime’s racist and classist system.”

The decison 'curves, if not cuts off, possibilities' for affected teenagers, Roberto Gonzales said.

Amalia Daché spoke about the history of racial disparities and injustices in Cuba. “When we're thinking about global solidarity with Black people, especially right now, we need all hands on deck,” she said.

Amalia Daché joins American Voices with Alicia Menendez to discuss the humanitarian crises fueling the movement in Cuba and explains why this moment is different from the past.

Amalia Daché was interviewed about Cuba’s recent uprisings and its long history of Black resistance. In the 1960s, the Communist government said it would eradicate racism. “It’s counterrevolutionary to talk about Black history in Cuba, to engage Black history,” she said.

Howard Stevenson offered tips for how parents can address racist or insensitive comments made by children. “Get a sense of what they understand it to mean from their perspective,” he said. “Where did they hear it from? How is it being used in the social context they’re in? Then you have a better angle to how you can speak to it.”

"There might be a whole lot of pent up frustration and the retiring, quitting can go up dramatically starting this summer." — Richard Ingersoll

Ryan Baker spoke about his new report identifying areas of improvement for ed tech developers. “The number of educators who are fully satisfied with technology solutions is pretty low. They are looking for better ways to save time and effort for auto grading and looking for richer activities,” he said.

Annie McKee recommended people consider their motivations and needs before quitting a job. “So, it’s really not a question of, ‘Can you be happy when you quit your job?’ You definitely can,” she said. “Rather it’s more of a question of: What are you leaving? What do you no longer want in your work life? And more importantly, what do you want?”

Sigal Ben-Porath spoke about the importance of guaranteeing free speech for young people. “You ought to be able to practice this, you ought to be able to make mistakes, correct them, try out ideas—even outrageous ones, even profane ones,” she said. “We have to support young people in developing their voice, and we’re not very good at doing that right now.”

Laura Perna argues that making community college tuition-free should be a national priority.

Richard Ingersoll said that it will take year or two to determine if the pandemic drove teachers to quit the profession. “Everything I have seen on this is anecdotal, or conjecture, or for specific school districts,” he said.

Amalia Daché spoke about the importance of diverse educators. “Although I was successful at navigating higher education, not seeing or identifying with teachers always made me feel like I was an outlier,” she said.

Annie McKee offered tips for adjusting to the return to in-person work, such as reconnecting with coworkers. “We've all changed as a result of the pandemic,” she said. “Get to know people again and give yourself the permission to … care about each other.”

Dean Pam Grossman said technology has yet to significantly disrupt education or replace the need for teachers. “Teaching and learning are fundamentally relational processes, and without the relationship, it’s hard to engage learners, particularly those that aren’t motivated,” she said.

Caroline Watts, Diane Waff, Zachary Herrmann, Marsha Richardson, and Regina Bynum were selected to implement their initiative “Bridging Gaps and Building Capacity: Student and Educator Supports for School Reopening in Learning Network 2.” The initative will provide evidence-based programming and professional development at one to two summer learning sites in West Philadelphia, followed by network-wide professional learning supports throughout the 2021-22 academic year.

College costs are complicated, but that's not an excuse to hide important information, Laura Perna says.

Karen Weaver wrote about how the merging of six of Pennsylvania’s state colleges will affect student athletes.

Richard Ingersoll spoke about the pandemic’s impact on the teaching workforce and suggested that the economy’s recovery could increase teacher turnover and retirements.

Ryan Baker is quoted on how the pandemic has necessitated innovation in remote learning, noting that, “There’s been a move to using high-quality interactive online learning environments.”

"It’s going to be a sort of an identifier for folks who lived through this, and we don’t really know what the mental health impacts are on us,” Ariane Thomas said.

Laura Perna pointed to equity gaps in labor market returns for people who hold the same type of college credential, noting that the risk of taking out a loan to attend college isn’t distributed equally in society.

"For so many Black families who experience this, the hardest part is about getting people to believe it happened and care." — Howard Stevenson

In the Conversation, Laura Perna, Jeremy Wright-Kim, and Elaine Leigh examine the design of free college programs and how the design influences their effectiveness.

Karen Weaver spoke about gender inequity in the NCAA. “There’s a number of inequitable decisions that have been made in addition to the ones we talked about this year that just haven't drawn the same amount of attention,” she said.

Richard Ingersoll spoke about how schools and school boards are working to meet demands from parents and lawmakers. “All these demands by parents are very understandable, such as lower class size,” said Ingersoll. “Who wouldn’t want their child to be in a class of 18? And, yes, let’s teach Mandarin and, yes, let’s bring back Latin. There are so many demands but very little recognition of the costs.”

In University World News, Laura Perna and William Tierney write “Academic life, as we have lived it, and as we envision it for you, is about challenging norms and creating a society that foments democracy.”

Nelson Flores said that instead of debating whether or not an institution should use the word “Latinx,” people should try to understand why the word is used.

Pam Grossman proposes rethinking schooling to give students more time to learn. “Let’s use the pandemic to rethink how we expand and enrich learning time for children, especially those most impacted by COVID-19-related disruption.”

Laura Perna talks about her research, issues of college access, affordability and success for first-generation, under-resourced students and why she has dedicated her life to this specific research.

Jonathan Zimmerman talks about his latest book and the state of education in the U.S. In addition to failing to teach people how to distinguish information from disinformation, the education system hasn’t taught them to engage across differences, Zimmerman says. “The only institution that has even a chance of intervening in that,” he says, “is a school.”