Category Archives: US education

Half a million kids out of class as LA school workers strike for better pay

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Strike joined by teachers over better wages and increased staffing closes nation’s second-largest school system

Tens of thousands of workers in the Los Angeles unified school district, accompanied by teachers, walked off the job on Tuesday over stalled contract talks for higher pay and better working conditions, shutting down the nation’s second-largest school system.

The strike, which is expected to last three days, upended the lives of more than 500,000 students and their families from schools in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas, as bus drivers, cafeteria workers and teachers demanded more support at a time when educators in the city and elsewhere are struggling to afford to live where they work.

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Wellesley College students vote to admit trans men and non-binary people

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Proposal also calls for gender neutral language at women’s college whose alumni include Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright

Students at the famed Wellesley College for women voted this week to extend admission to trans men and non-binary students, though campus administrators have said there is “no plan” to immediately change school policy.

In a non-binding election on Tuesday, students at the liberal arts college in Massachusetts voted to open admission to all non-binary and transgender students, including trans men, reported Wellesley News, the college’s student newspaper.

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Vermont school that boycotted game with trans player banned from tournaments

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  • Mid Vermont Christian School forfeited game on 21 February
  • Many conservatives have opposed trans athletes

A Vermont school that refused to play against an opposing basketball team with a trans player won’t be able to participate in future tournaments, the Vermont Principals’ Association announced on Monday.

Mid Vermont Christian School forfeited a game on 21 February in an out-of-state tournament against Long Trail school.

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Virginia boy who shot his teacher won’t face criminal charges, says prosecutor

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Six-year-old shot Abigail Zwerner on 6 January while she was teaching class, leaving her seriously injured

A six-year-old boy who shot his teacher in January will not face criminal charges, a prosecutor in Newport News, Virginia, said on Wednesday night.

On 6 January, the first-grader shot Abigail Zwerner while she was teaching class at Richneck elementary school, leaving her seriously injured.

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George Washington University accused of ‘colluding’ with rightwing pro-Israel group

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StadWithUs filed charge with US education department accusing Lara Sheehi of hate speech and discrimination against students

An Arab professor and lecturer in diversity has accused George Washington University of “colluding” with a rightwing pro-Israel group over a federal complaint accusing her of antisemitism.

The group, StandWithUs (SWU), filed a complaint with the US education department’s civil rights office claiming that Lara Sheehi, an assistant professor of clinical psychology, discriminated against Jewish students by refusing to accept their definitions of antisemitism.

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High costs and discrimination: US study details obstacles for Black students

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Research finds that Black students have lowest completion rates for post-secondary education than any other group

Black students have lower six-year completion rates for any kind of degree or certificate program than students in any other racial or ethnic group, a new study has found.

According to the study by Gallup and Lumina Foundation, which was released on Thursday, Black students must contend with various challenges to completing post-secondary programs including high costs and racial discrimination.

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Pennsylvania boy, 9, becomes one of the youngest ever high school graduates

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David Balogun, who loves science and computer programming, receives diploma after taking remote classes

A nine-year-old boy from Pennsylvania who loves science and computer programming has become one of the youngest ever high school graduates, and he has already started accumulating some credits toward his college degree.

David Balogun recently received a diploma from Reach cyber charter school – based in his state’s capital of Harrisburg – after taking classes remotely from his family home in the Philadelphia suburb of Bensalem, the local television station WGAL reported Saturday.

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New proposal sets limits on sugar in US school meals for first time

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Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack also seeks to significantly lower sodium in meals as part of fresh nutrition standards plan

US agriculture officials on Friday proposed new nutrition standards for school meals, including the first limits on added sugars, with a focus on limiting sweetened foods such as cereals, yogurt, flavored milk and breakfast pastries.

The plan announced by the agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, also seeks to significantly decrease sodium, making for less salty meals served to the nation’s school kids by 2029, while making the rules for foods made with whole grains more flexible.

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Outrage over alleged Nazi homeschooling group in Ohio

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Telegram channel reportedly distributed lessons plans which included writing exercises based on Hitler quotes

An alleged “Nazi homeschooling group” based in Ohio has been widely condemned, amid reports that it distributed lesson plans which included writing exercises based on quotes by Adolf Hitler.

A couple calling themselves “Mr and Mrs Saxon” established the “Dissident Homeschool” channel on Telegram in 2021, according to reporting by Anonymous Comrades Collective, an anti-fascist research group, verified by Huffpost and Vice.

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Ex-Trump aide Sanders defends critical race theory ban as Arkansas governor

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Sarah Sanders, a former Trump press secretary, says move is preventative and ‘to make sure we’re not indoctrinating our kids’

The new Republican governor of Arkansas, Sarah Sanders, said the move to ban critical race theory in public schools in her state was a preventative measure.

“It’s incredibly important that we do things to protect the students in our state,” she told Fox News Sunday. “We have to make sure that we are not indoctrinating our kids and that these policies and these ideas never see the light of day.”

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Hillary Clinton to join Columbia University as global affairs professor

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Ex-secretary of state will assume position on 1 February, working alongside the School of International and Public Affairs dean

Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will join Columbia University as a global affairs professor at its School of International and Public Affairs (Sipa), it was announced on Thursday.

The university president’s Lee Bollinger announced the new position for Clinton, who was secretary of state for Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013.

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Teacher wins free speech case after wearing Trump-themed hat to school

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Eric Dodge wore Make America Great Again baseball cap twice but judge found no ‘tangible disruption’ to Washington school

A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of a former teacher in Vancouver, Washington, concluding that his wearing a hat supporting Donald Trump to school was protected speech under the first amendment.

Documents from the ninth circuit court of appeals show that Eric Dodge, a science teacher, brought the Make America Great Again baseball cap to an Evergreen Public Schools building twice before the 2019-2020 school year.

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New Orleans lawyer fined for alerting school to priest’s past sexual misconduct

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Richard Trahant was fined $400,000 for violating confidentiality rules around a bankruptcy filing by the local archdiocese

A New Orleans attorney who represents victims of clerical sexual abuse faces a $400,000 fine after alerting a local Catholic high school that a priest who worked there once admitted to fondling and kissing a teen girl he met at another church institution.

The lawyer, Richard Trahant, said he would appeal against the hefty sanction handed to him on Tuesday, which stemmed from a federal judge’s ruling that his alert violated confidentiality rules governing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by the local archdiocese.

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Students protest Ben Sasse’s views on LGBTQ+ rights at University of Florida

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Likely appointment of Republican Nebraska senator as president of the university sparks protests during his campus visit

Less than a week after being revealed as the likely next president of the University of Florida (UF), the Republican senator Ben Sasse was met with protests when he appeared on campus in Gainesville on Monday.

“Hey-hey, ho-ho, Ben Sasse has got to go,” protesters chanted, seeking to draw attention to the Nebraskan’s views on LGBTQ+ rights.

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Oakland police search for two suspects after school shooting that injured six

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Mayor Libby Schaaf calls for gun restrictions after shooting at Rudsdale Newcome high school for recently immigrated students

California authorities are searching for at least two people in connection with a shooting on a school campus in Oakland that left six people injured.

Wednesday’s shooting occurred at Rudsdale Newcomer high school, which serves students who are at risk of not graduating and have recently immigrated to the US after fleeing their home countries “because of violence and instability”. The school is one of four adjacent schools that serve middle and high school students on Fontaine Street just outside East Oakland.

This story was amended on 28 September 2022 to clarify that the shooting happened at a grade school, not a high school

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Virginia seeks to strip transgender school students of protections

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State education department issues guidance reinstating bathroom and locker room restrictions and curbing pronoun changes

Virginia is attempting to roll back major protections for school students who are transgender, according to the latest set of guidelines announced by the state’s education officials.

The state’s department of education announced on Friday that it had rewritten a number of policies around the treatment of transgender students, issuing guidance for school districts to follow that ease up accommodations from the previous administration.

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Suspicion falls on employee after explosion at university in Boston

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Man who said he discovered package at Northeastern University may have staged incident, law enforcement officials say

Federal officials are now examining whether the employee who reported an explosion at Northeastern University may have lied to investigators and staged the incident, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday.

Investigators identified inconsistencies in the employee’s statement and became skeptical because his injuries did not match wounds typically consistent with an explosion, said one official.

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Biden unveils plan to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for millions

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President delivers on campaign promise and outlines debt relief measures for those on lower incomes in White House speech

Millions of Americans received welcome news on Wednesday when Joe Biden delivered on a campaign promise to provide $10,000 in student debt forgiveness.

Borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year will be eligible for loan forgiveness, with those whose low incomes qualified them for federal Pell Grants receiving up to $20,000 in relief. About a third of US undergraduate students receive Pell Grants.

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Texas school district pulls the Bible, The Bluest Eye and other books from library

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School board in Dallas-Fort Worth area requires reviewing books facing challenges from parents

A Texas school district is scrambling to remove books from its library shelves ahead of the fall semester, after they were challenged by parents and community members. Among the books removed are a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and the Bible.

It’s not clear why more than 40 books were challenged.

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Principal of Uvalde elementary school suspended in wake of deadly shooting

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Mandy Gutierrez put on administrative leave, as 77-page report details multiple failures from police and other Texas officials

The principal of the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where an intruder shot dead 19 students and two teachers in May, has been suspended from her job.

Mandy Gutierrez of Robb elementary school was put on paid administrative leave on Monday, her attorney Ricardo Cedillo said in a statement to the Associated Press.

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