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When Alphonso Richard Jr. walked into his first teacher education course at Clemson University, he experienced a shock. “Being in a class where you’re the only male, I didn’t know where to sit,” he says. “Girls were looking like, ‘Oh my goodness, is that a guy in here?’” Compounding the confusion: Most women in the … Read more
It sounds at first like a typical assignment for a high school English class. Students at Belmont Hill School are asked to think of someone they encounter in their daily lives who might need a financial boost and record a short video essay about them and why they’re important in their lives. Then comes the … Read more
Who gets to go to the best public high school in the country? That has been a contentious question for a community just outside of Washington, D.C., after school officials made changes to the admissions process for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology last year. The stated goal was to increase the diversity … Read more
The clock is ticking in Washington, D.C. By the end of 2023, workers who teach the littlest learners in the nation’s capital will be required to have advanced credentials in early childhood education. For some teachers, this feels like pressure. For college leaders, it feels like opportunity. And so two of the city’s universities are … Read more
Fresh out of college with a mandate to effect change through the gift of educating the nation’s youth, teachers of every level come into the profession with great intentions. So many of them, however, have come through educator preparation programs that have not properly prepared them for the diversity they will face in today’s classrooms, … Read more
In a fifth-grade classroom at Monroe Elementary School near Minneapolis, a teacher named Thetis White was recently celebrated, while his students and a camera crew looked on. The teacher was being presented one of those giant ceremonial checks, as if he’d won a sweepstakes. The check was big—for $50,000. But this was no raffle prize. … Read more
In 1999, a teenager named Nicole arrived at college ready to study literature and make her mark in creative writing. But she discovered that her campus was not ready for what she brought with her: a baby daughter. Despite child care and financial setbacks—and some unsympathetic professors—Nicole persevered and graduated. Now, she runs a nonprofit … Read more
It’s not surprising that most higher education articles published since March 2020 begin by calling to mind that year’s unprecedented move to remote instruction and online learning—and with good reason. The world changed rapidly, and students and instructors adopted new tools and methods to pivot to online instruction virtually, and sometimes literally, overnight. As teaching … Read more
A new definition of college value has been proposed by a research effort supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and managed by the Institute for Higher Education Policy. According to the final report of the Commission on the Value of Postsecondary Education: “Students experience postsecondary value when provided equitable access and support to … Read more
“Diversity” is a slippery concept. It can be used as part of powerful discourse about access to resources and making organizations more equitable. But it can also be diluted to refer to just about any sort of difference, thrown together for any sort of purpose. This ambiguity around diversity plays out at colleges. When they … Read more