Los legisladores republicanos están cuestionando a los sindicatos de docentes sobre las políticas de cierre de escuelas durante la pandemia de COVID-19. El 26 de abril, Randi Weingarten, presidenta de la Federación Estadounidense de Maestros, testificó ante un Subcomité de la Cámara de Representantes de EE. UU. sobre la respuesta del sindicato a la Pandemia del Coronavirus. Weingarten fue interrogada por miembros del subcomité, quienes sintieron que AFT tenía demasiado acceso a la investigación de los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades. Sostuvo que la información ayudó a los educadores a mantener seguros a los estudiantes.
"Si tienes educadores en tu vida, sabes que su prioridad son sus alumnos; crear un entorno seguro para todos los niños y prepararlos para la vida, la carrera, la universidad y la ciudadanía," expresó además la representante de AFT.
Señaló que AFT hizo bien en consultar al CDC en el desarrollo de un plan para ayudar a las escuelas a navegar la pandemia. Esto ocurre cuando la fe en las escuelas públicas está en su punto más bajo. Según una encuesta de Gallup de 2022, solo el 28% tiene mucha confianza en ellos. Eso es menos que el 41% en 2020.
Weingarten y los educadores están abordando la pérdida de aprendizaje relacionada con la pandemia. En Virginia, los puntajes en matemáticas y lectura disminuyeron drásticamente en todo el estado, según la Evaluación Nacional del Progreso Educativo. En su testimonio, Weingarten dijo que los legisladores deben unirse a los sindicatos de docentes para abordar el futuro de la educación.
"Trabajemos juntos ahora, para ayudar a los niños a recuperarse y dar un salto académico. Ampliemos las escuelas comunitarias. Aumentemos el aprendizaje experiencial y el aprendizaje relacionado con la carrera. Abordemos el agotamiento de los educadores," enfatizó también Weingarten ante el Subcomité.
El agotamiento está provocando que los educadores abandonen o se retiren de la profesión antes de lo previsto, y un informe de AFT muestra que la pandemia solo empeoró el problema. Incluso antes del COVID, el informe dice que casi 300.000 maestros dejaban la profesión cada año.
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It's estimated that nearly half of all schools in the country don't have enough teachers. To help change that, the University of Texas in El Paso offers a residency program to help ensure that first-time teachers succeed.
The "Miner Teacher Residency" gives students in the College of Education an opportunity to work in elementary and middle schools alongside working teachers.
Clifton Tanabe, dean of the UTEP College of Education, was part of a recent national roundtable discussion on ways to solve the teacher shortage, and said the program gives future educators the skills they need to be ready for their first day of class.
"A third grader in a first-year teacher's classroom is only going to get to do third grade once, but that teacher will be able to do the third grade again and again," he explained. "So, we want them ready for that first group of third graders that they take on."
Tanabe added nearly half of the students enrolled in the program are first-generation college students and 70% are bilingual. He adds that mirrors the population of students in the public school system in El Paso, where 90% of the students are Hispanic. Most of the new teachers remain in the area, he said.
Many school districts have been forced to leave positions open, or fill them with teachers who are not fully certified. Some rural Texas districts have gone to a four-day school week. And some teachers are leaving the profession, citing increased workloads, low pay and concerns about safety.
According to Tanabe, teacher retention is directly related to being successful in the first two years on the job - and the UT program addresses this.
"So, folks who graduate from our residency model in their first and second years in teaching are set up with an instructional coach who's from the university, from the College of Education, to work with them on individualized instructional improvement," he continued.
The residency program is in its sixth year. It currently has 62 teachers working in five different school districts in the El Paso area.
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Ohio's Black students are more likely to face excessively harsh discipline practices such as expulsion and suspension, according to a recently released report from the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio.
The data show out-of-school suspensions and expulsions rose in every grade level from kindergarten through twelfth grade in the 2022-23 school year, compared with the previous academic year.
John Standford, state director for the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio, said economically disadvantaged students comprised 83% of all out-of-school suspensions.
"School districts really have to pay closer attention to the data and really screen the data, review the data, on a regular basis to really begin to address the issues of inequities," Standford urged.
Last year saw 174,000 cases of total suspension or expulsion among low-income students compared to 35,000 cases among students who do not qualify as economically disadvantaged. According to the report, Black females in Ohio were six times more likely to receive out-of-school suspensions than their white female peers. Black males were also more than four times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white male peers.
Kim Eckhart, research manager for the fund, said she understands the difficulties teachers face. She hopes the report encourages districts across the state to support schools with the resources and time needed to address behavioral problems restoratively.
"We need schools to be supporting teachers with additional time and space," Eckhart contended. "So that there is capacity to address these things, rather than just kicking the student out of the class, kicking them out of the school."
School discipline practices are also linked to Ohio's alarmingly high chronic absenteeism rates. According to the report, missing as little as two days of school per month can lead to chronic absence. More than 26% of Ohio students -- more than 400,000 children -- were chronically absent from school in the 2022-2023 school year, up by nearly half from the 2018-19 school year.
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Idaho lawmakers are considering a measure that would eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses.
Critics say it could keep potential students from attending school in the state. Senate Bill 1357 would prohibit the use of state funds for DEI, and DEI offices from operating at colleges and universities.
Nick Koenig is a PhD student in geography at the University of Idaho.
"These positions that are trying to be taken away from this bill are specifically to foster student success on campus," said Koenig, "not just for students from marginalized groups but also just the totality of the campus community."
Lawmakers supporting the bill say eliminating DEI programs would save the state more than $3 million.
But Koenig said the consequences of eliminating these positions will have ripple effects. He said he spoke with the LGBTQ office at the University of Idaho before deciding to attend.
"The person I originally chatted with before coming to this university," said Koenig, "if her position was just not there, I would not have come to this university at all."
Koenig said the legislation would also make it hard to recruit people to colleges and universities in Idaho.
"People go to school say that they can see themselves as COOs or as teachers or as sociologists or as geographers, like in my case," said Koenig, "and if I saw that they're actively trying to remove me as a queer person from the state then, yeah, why would I want to spend four years in a state that wants to remove me as a person?"
Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.
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