If the economic downturn due to COVID-19 is anything like the last one in 2008, that means bad news for Nebraska’s teacher pension plan. Bellwether’s Chad Aldeman recommends a different approach.
The widespread disruptions to our country’s entire education system are a momentary step into the shoes of students who have lived fragile lives for a long time. The difference is that many of us will eventually be able to step out of those shoes and into a world that will plan for and accommodate this big disruption.
An easy-to-use, practical resource that aims to help leaders make decisions and actionable plans amid the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic. The planning framework that is the crux of this toolkit takes leaders through four key steps: Reground, Prioritize, Plan, and Connect.
You can also watch a series of interviews with school leaders who used this toolkit below:
Click below to learn more about this fillable Excel template.
Schools should stay open over the summer this year, for the good of students, teachers & schools themselves. If there ever was a year to hit pause on a full-throated summer, this is it. It might be what we have to do to live up to the promise we made to students what seems like an eternity ago — last fall, when this school year started.
Why do Sanders and some of his primary rivals think it’s good for government to fund community-based, nonprofit organizations to educate 2-year-olds but suddenly an enormous problem when children turn 5 and start kindergarten?
Too often, education leaders think of schools and programs serving students who have gaps in their education, who are early parents, who are incarcerated or recently have been, who need to work while they finish school, or who don’t fit in our mostly cookie-cutter schools as a distraction or a drag on performance. This excludes millions of kids from the education reform conversation. Read more from Hailly Korman and Andy Rotherham here.
Each year thousands of youth in America are uprooted from their schools and communities and sent to a juvenile justice detention center. While in these facilities, young people are entitled to the same educational opportunities that they would have in the outside world. However, there is little research or data about this population. In “Educating Youth in Short-Term Detention,” we found that youth’s educational experiences in these facilities often compound, rather than alleviate, the challenges they face.
Too often, education leaders think of schools and programs serving students who have gaps in their education, who are early parents, who are incarcerated or recently have been, who need to work while they finish school, or who don’t fit in our mostly cookie-cutter schools as a distraction or a drag on performance. This excludes millions of kids from the education reform conversation.
Traditional teacher pension plans really only work well for about one-fifth of teachers. Jay Mathews, columnist at The Washington Post, highlights Bellwether's work on making pensions more equitable in his latest column.
In response to financial pressures, the New York State Assembly has created new, less-generous retirement plans for teachers and other educators. Employees are assigned to a benefit tier depending on their hire date. There are now six tiers, and each one offers workers less-generous benefits than the prior version.
How far have the benefits fallen, and does the current tier structure provide sufficient retirement benefits?
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