News

Spring is typically filled with rites of passage for high school students, from prom, to AP tests, to college acceptances and graduations. But for millions of students this year, all this was put on hold as educators rushed to scale teaching and learning in a remote, online environment amidst a global health crisis. Many schools around the country are grappling with how to locate and engage students who have gone radio silent, while others, like Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Baltimore, have been laying the groundwork for equitable learning for a while, and are better prepared to navigate the student “visibility” crisis.

Earlier this month, the Kingmakers of Oakland released Kings in the Making, a collaborative album that features the voices of Black boys delivering a message of love and community. It’s an extraordinary use of music and digital tools that centers the perspective of Black male students in the midst of nationwide school closures.

As school districts and teachers across the country grapple with the implications of COVID-19, there is a voice noticeably missing from the conversation: the students. In our experience, their perspective is not just “nice to have.” It is absolutely essential to ensuring that we are, in fact, meeting the academic and emotional needs of our students. If we don’t hear directly from them, how can we know? 

Several articles and blogs the past several weeks have been lifting up the incredible work happening in Chicago Public Schools.  Network member, the Network for College Success (NCS) and BELE Network learning partner, the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UCCSR) were both referenced in this news article,  UCCSR was also referenced in this article by the Brookings Institute about school autonomy in Chicago.  Finally, Bill Gates wrote a blog piece about the use of data in Chicago Public…

Check out this opinion piece about mentoring featuring the work of Summit Learning, with a reference to Turnaround for Children’s founder Pam Cantor! 

One of our network members, Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) was featured in two recent publications as “a model to learn from”: Click here to read a new spotlight published by 100Kin10 (see page 62), and click here to check out an EdWeek blog.

Just before the start of the 2018-2019 school year, EL Education staff and BELE Network members Alison Lee and Meg Riordan published three blog posts on EdWeek.  Check out their ideas surrounding equity, continuous improvement, and student agency at the links below: How Can Teachers Create Equitable Spaces for All Students? Equity and Voice: How a Sense of Belonging Promotes Students’ Agency Using Continuous Improvement to Disrupt Inequity and Promote Deeper Learning

One of our partners, Transcend, just released “Designing for Learning Primer & Cards,” which explore questions like “how does learning happen?”, and “how can we create environments that best support it?” Download free here #TranscendEdu @TranscendBuilds

The BARR program was featured in the Hechinger Report.  Read the article here!

Adam Carter, Chief Academic Officer at Summit Public Schools, a BELE Network member, explains the science behind their work to create equitable learning environments. Read his post on Education Week.