Inside the ‘TA to BA' Educator Fellowship: How One Rhode Island Initiative Is Elevating Experienced Paraprofessionals — and Creating a More Diverse Teacher Force

The Cherry Creek School district is using apprenticeships to create a more racially diverse pipeline of K-12 educators in Colorado. High school juniors and seniors are paid to participate in the apprenticeship, and are able to earn college credit as well. This is one of the ways the district is working on having its workforce reflect its student bodies more accurately. Currently 85% of teachers are white, and half of its student body is kids of color. Now in its second year, the program has grown from an initial cohort of 12 youth apprentices to 26,

A nonprofit organization, the Internationals Network for Public Schools, delivers a first-class education to the children of illegal immigrants, helping to break the cycle of poverty and provide them a path to advance in life.

Schools in the Richardson Independent School District of Texas are updating the methods and measurements they've used to identify gifted students. One way is by testing all second and sixth graders in the district, which helps diminish implicit bias coming from teachers who may discriminate against certain students. Students' scores are also being judged differently by comparing them against others from similar backgrounds, from within their own school, and nationally.

Part 2 of the "Equity or Bust: Are Ontario's Public Schools a Model for Pennsylvania" Series: Ontario has become widely lauded for its education system, celebrated for both high performance and relatively smaller achievement gaps between wealthy and poor students, particularly compared to the system in Pennsylvania. Keys to Ontario's success include celebrating diversity and catering education modules to the varied backgrounds of their students, as well as increased parent-teacher involvement.

Advocates are on a quest to improve the quality of life in Haiti through legal education.

Medical schools and public health programs have shifted some of their practices in an effort to attract more Black students, such as by removing GRE requirements and recruiting more Black faculty, and these schools have seen an influx of applications during the pandemic. One example is Brown University's Health Equity Scholars program, which offers tuition support, a paid research assistantship, and formalized mentorship to a diverse cohort each year.

After Brooklyn's District 15 replaced selective admissions with a lottery system, economic segregation in sixth grade decreased by 55 percent and racial segregation decreased by 38 percent compared with the previous year. Though challenges remain in creating truly inclusive school cultures, parents and educators say community attitudes are shifting around what makes for a "good" or desirable school.

Graduate student unions, like Oregon State University’s Coalition of Graduate Employees, use collective bargaining to allow student employees to successfully negotiate for fair wages, reasonable hours, and other terms of employment.

A relatively new approach to teaching elementary school students called "The Science of Reading," is upending the way teachers approach curriculum. This pedagogical system places equal emphasis on auditory learning as it does on visual. In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, kindergarten students went from 51% reading at grade level, to the next cohort in 2016 reaching 88% after the implementation of the program.

Students and educators in Nebraska are driving the change to change history curriculum to reflect history that places more emphasis on the narratives on indigenous and marginalized peoples. Students are emphasizing of historically erased narratives by creating social media videos, as well as creating petitions to change curricula in English and history classes.