Category: Education,

SNAP Benefits: 3 Million Could Lose Food Stamp Benefits

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Modern Parenting,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Schools,Leave a comment

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in announcing the proposed rule, published in the Federal Register. His agency estimates the change would likely save $2.5 billion a year.

But proponents of the current system say it helps low-income families who work but have huge child care, housing and other expenses that leave them with insufficient money to buy food. States now have the flexibility to not cut off benefits as soon as a family’s gross income exceeds a certain level, but to more slowly phase out the food aid. The current program also automatically qualifies 265,000 schoolchildren for free lunches. Under the administration’s proposal, those children would have to apply separately to continue to get those meals.

SNAP Benefits: Trump Administration Wants To Change Who Qualifies : NPR

There is no amount of spin about saving money and so-called integrity that can change cold, stark facts. The facts are that Trump wants to pull the rug out from under people struggling to feed their families and put obstacles in the way of feeding hungry school children.

Scranton-area late lunch bills, foster care: Philadelphia CEO denied

On By peanutgallerynhIn Modern Parenting,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Schools,Leave a comment

The president of a Pennsylvania school board whose district had warned parents behind on lunch bills that their children could end up in foster care has rejected a CEO’s offer to cover the cost, the businessman said Tuesday. 

Todd Carmichael, chief executive and co-founder of Philadelphia-based La Colombe Coffee, said he offered to give Wyoming Valley West School District $22,000 to wipe out bills that generated the recent warning letter to parents.

 Scranton-area late lunch bills, foster care: Philadelphia CEO denied

The Scranton School Board made clear that, for them. is not about the money, it’s about harassing parents and flexing power that is not theirs to wield.

 

Indigenous Ethnologist: Gladys Tantaquidgeon

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Schools,, The Americas,Leave a comment

It was during his fieldwork with the Mohegans in Connecticut that Speck met …Gladys Tantaquidgeon CCT’29, who was being groomed as the tribe’s next medicine woman and the keeper of its customs and culture. She was also to become the first Native American student in the Penn anthropology department.

…With her father and brother, she cofounded the Tantaquidgeon Museum to house many of the gifts she received during her fieldwork, including a Penobscot birchbark canoe, donated by Speck. Founded on her belief that “you can’t hate someone you know a lot about,” it is the oldest Native American-owned museum in the United States. It also was a critical piece in proving the Mohegan tribe’s continuity when, in 1978, Congress created a federal recognition process for designating sovereignty.

…Bruchac calls Tantaquidgeon a “groundbreaking ethnologist” and “an Indigenous visionary who blended anthropological research with traditional training and community activism to preserve Mohegan cultural patrimony.”

Indigenous Ethnologist – The Pennsylvania Gazette

very cool

Joe Biden and the Busing Question Back In 1975

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,, Schools,Leave a comment

A 1973 Gallup Poll found that while a majority of Americans favored school integration, just 5% believed busing was the best way to do it. That went across racial lines — just 4% of whites and 9% of African Americans thought busing was the best way to do it.

Americans thought other policies should be focused more on and would do a better job of achieving school integration, like changing school district boundaries to bring together students from different social, racial and economic groups (27%) or that there should be more affordable housing in middle-class neighborhoods (22%).

Even a generation later, 82% of Americans said they favored letting students go to their neighborhood school over busing. A 1999 Gallup Poll found that almost 9 in 10 whites said so, and blacks were split — 48% to 44%, with a plurality preference for keeping students in neighborhood schools.

Even nearly three-quarters of younger respondents in 1999 — ages 18 to 29, who might have gone through busing themselves and who thought integration programs were beneficial — said letting children attend neighborhood schools would be better than busing. (Harris would have been 35 in 1999; Biden was 57.)

A 1971 Gallup Poll found that fewer than half of Americans (43%) thought integration programs had improved the quality of education for black students. By 1999, though, 80% of those younger respondents thought they worked. In other words, the generational divide is real.

Joe Biden Supported A Constitutional Amendment To End Busing In 1975 : NPR

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Toxic Stress Affects How Kids Learn

On By peanutgallerynhIn Education,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,Leave a comment

Children with low family income—children with a family income of $20,000 or less—are more likely to encounter threatening experiences and the “toxic stress” that accompanies it. They also find black children generally have more exposure to these experiences than white children.

…These threatening experiences cause particular physiological reactions: When these reactions happen too often, the body’s responses can become chronic and disrupt normal processes.

…Schools can be a hindrance, the report notes, if they have unsympathetic or threatening adults—or they can help, providing mental-health services that enable children to process trauma and improve their academic performance.

Toxic Stress Affects How Black and Poor Kids Learn – CityLab

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Tackle Poverty’s Effects to Improve School Performance

On By peanutgallerynhIn Education,, Local Interest,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Schools,Leave a comment

Not enough food on the table or erratic housing can cause children to lose focus, increased anxiety and damaged mental health. Other common challenges for these students include more school absences and less parental support.

In sum, external factors, particularly poverty, matter more than other issues in shaping students’ academic success.

…State lawmakers can improve outcomes for impoverished students and the schools where they are concentrated with a coordinated set of strategies that respond to both external and internal factors.

  • Foster socioeconomic integration in schools
  • Invest adequate resources in low-income students and schools
  • Build a statewide principal pipeline
  • Enhance teacher compensation

…A review of schools’ 2016 grades by their poverty concentration highlights the connection between poverty and student outcomes.

…Of the 2,135 schools included in this analysis, 100 are counted as extreme-poverty, 446 are high-poverty, 969 are moderate-poverty and 620 are low-poverty.

None of the extreme poverty schools earned a grade of A or B, and all but one earned a D or F.

…Of Georgia schools where fewer than 25 percent of students live in poverty, about 70 percent received either an A or B. And in schools where fewer than 10 percent of children are poor, nearly 94 percent got an A or B.

Schools where the majority of students are low-income are also the schools with the most black and Hispanic students. Nearly all of the students in extreme poverty schools are black or Hispanic.

…When children are exposed to significant or constant stress, the architecture of their brain adapts to functioning in that state. They struggle to differentiate between normal stress sources and greater threats, often reacting strongly to minor problems or disagreements. Their working memories can be impaired, making it harder to complete multi-step assignments or activities. They often have difficulty controlling impulses and emotions and are at heightened risk of mental health problems. All of these make focusing on learning tasks and working collaboratively with peers harder.

…A child who is hungry is a child focused on finding something to eat, not learning.

…Low-income children often are not ready to learn when they enter the classroom, from kindergarten to twelfth grade. The issues causing them to struggle need to be addressed for children to master the knowledge and skills expected in K-12 schools and move on to postsecondary study and the workforce. At the same time, K-12 schools need to make all children feel safe and welcome and ensure they get the educational support needed to be successful learners.

[GA School] District officials also said a lack of instructional resources is a problem. Some said they are unable to provide teachers with materials and tools, including technology. Others reported an inability to provide intervention services to students who are behind while others said they lack resources to provide the variety of courses they would prefer, including STEM and enrichment.

…Several districts said the scope of material teachers are required to cover is difficult to squeeze into the allotted time. Two expressed concern that students are moved ahead before they are ready as a result.

…Students are expected to know and do far more today than 30 years ago. The state is not offering resources to match these elevated standards.

…Educating high-poverty and historically-marginalized students to high levels of academic achievement costs more. The state must match its expectations of these students with a renewed commitment to provide the additional resources they need to reach them—it is accountable for that.

…Eleven percent of responding districts said a lack of community resources is a problem, including enrichment programs and mental health services. Rural communities also lack transportation, an access barrier even where community organizations are in place.

…Squeezed districts also cut student programs, including elective courses like art and music, and intervention programs for low-performing students. A recent national review showed these cuts led to declines in student achievement, particularly in districts with more low-income students.

…The magnet schools are more racially and economically diverse than traditional schools, and their students do better academically than their peers in traditional schools.

…The district is creating magnet-like schools but without admission standards, with the aim of enrolling students from different socioeconomic groups. The initiative is too new to offer student achievement data but the schools are more economically diverse than traditional schools.

Tackle Poverty’s Effects to Improve School Performance

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Restraint and Seclusion In Schools

On By peanutgallerynhIn Modern Parenting,, Schools,Leave a comment

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights requires that school districts report every time a student is restrained or secluded. And while tens of thousands of cases are reported, many suspect those numbers fall short.

…For years, Fairfax County Public Schools also told the government that it never secluded or restrained students. But the WAMU investigation found hundreds of cases recorded in internal documents and letters that schools sent to parents.

…Teachers are coached to empathize with students and think about what someone would need if they were having a bad day.

“Most people would say [they need] space, someone to be kind to me, maybe to read a book … go for a walk,” Sanders says. “No one is going to say, ‘Well actually, I need someone to hold me against my will or lock me in a room by myself.’

Here’s What You Need to Know About Restraint and Seclusion In Schools : NPR

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In 2018 A Utah student was wearing a Tongan ta’ovala cloth under his graduation gown. A school administrator told him he had to take it off — or he couldn’t walk across the stage.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Local Interest,, Media and Culture,, Race,, Schools,Leave a comment

A Utah student was wearing a Tongan ta’ovala cloth under his graduation gown. A school administrator told him he had to take it off — or he couldn’t walk across the stage. – The Salt Lake Tribune

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