AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarHave the Liberal Arts Gone Conservative?verified_publisherThe New Yorker - Emma GreenThe classical-education movement seeks to fundamentally reorient schooling in America. Its emphasis on morality and civics has also primed it for partisan takeover. The first thing you notice when walking into the middle-school classrooms at Brilla, a charter-school network in the South Bronx, is …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarHas School Become Optional?verified_publisherThe New Yorker - Alec MacGillisIn the past few years, chronic absenteeism has nearly doubled. The fight to get students back in classrooms has only just begun. This article is a collaboration between The New Yorker and ProPublica. On a cold, clear weekday morning in early December, Shepria Johnson pulled up to a small house in …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarThe Christian Liberal-Arts School at the Heart of the Culture Warsverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Emma GreenConservatives like Ron DeSantis see Hillsdale College as a model for education nationwide. Conservative movements to reform education are often defined by what they’re against. At a recent public briefing, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, decried the imposition of critical race theory and …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarThe Right-Wing Mothers Fuelling the School-Board Warsverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Paige WilliamsMoms for Liberty claims that teachers are indoctrinating students with dangerous ideologies. But is the group’s aim protecting kids—or scaring parents? In August, 2020, Williamson County Schools, which serves more than forty thousand students in suburban Nashville, started using an English and …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarWhat Happens When an Élite Public School Becomes Open to All?verified_publisherThe New Yorker - Nathan HellerAfter the legendarily competitive Lowell High School dropped selective admissions, new challenges—and new opportunities—arose. Rebecca Johnson, a teacher for more than twenty years, approached the first day of class at Lowell High School last fall with unusual anxiety. “I am used to having my plans …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarThe Rise of Black Homeschoolingverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Casey ParksOften underserved by traditional schools, Black families are banding together to educate their children, sometimes with an unexpected funding source: the Koch family and other conservative donors. When Victoria Bradley was in fifth grade, she started asking her mother, Bernita, to homeschool her. …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarThe Students Left Behind by Remote Learningverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Alec MacGillisThe desire to protect children may put their long-term well-being at stake. This article is a collaboration between The New Yorker and ProPublica. Shemar, a twelve-year-old from East Baltimore, is good at math, and Karen Ngosso, his fourth-grade math teacher, at Abbottston Elementary School, is one …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarPrep for Prep and the Fault Lines in New York’s Schoolsverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Vinson CunninghamDo programs that help low-income students of color get into selective private schools obscure the system’s deeper inequalities? A little more than half a century ago, New York City attempted an experiment in a handful of its public schools. In the thirteen years since Brown v. Board of Education, …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarThe Rise and Fall of Affirmative Actionverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Hua HsuWith a lawsuit against Harvard, Asian-American activists have formed an alliance with a white conservative to change higher education. In 2012, Michael Wang, a senior at James Logan High School, in the Bay Area, was confident that he had done enough to get into one of his dream schools: Harvard, …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarUnder Trump, a Hard Test for Howard Universityverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Jelani CobbA historically black institution confronts a new era in politics. One morning last February, not long after Donald Trump had been inaugurated as President, but long before many people had reconciled themselves to that fact, students at Howard University awoke to find a bold message written on a …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarSuccess Academy’s Radical Educational Experimentverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Rebecca MeadInside Eva Moskowitz’s quest to combine rigid discipline with a progressive curriculum. One of the most celebrated educational experiments in history was performed by James Mill, the British historian, on his eldest son, John Stuart Mill, who was born outside London in 1806. John began learning …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarAn Underground College for Undocumented Immigrantsverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Jonathan BlitzerRefused admission by public universities and unable to get funding from private ones, aspiring students find another way. Melissa and Ashley, identical twins from Georgia, shared a bedroom while growing up. They had the same best friend, took classes together in high school, and dreamed of becoming …