Native Language Schools Are Taking Back Education

Due to recent brain development research, educators are working to add more math education into pre-school and kindergarten classes. Studies show that children of this age are actually extremely receptive to numbers and learning geometry.

Native American student graduation rates are much lower than that of any other demographic. The Red Cloud school teaches students on a reservation in South Dakota about the Lakota history to empower the kids and encourage resilience.

Preschoolers in the U.S. who misbehave are increasingly being expelled. In Connecticut, trained counselors educated teachers about how to deal with emotionally traumatized kids which reduced expulsions.

In Oakland, black males are almost as likely to be killed as they are to graduate high school. One school is giving them special classes with black mentors to better address their emotional needs and keep them in school.

Young black males in Oakland are suspended more frequently and graduate high school at a much lower rate than their peers. A charter school specifically designed for African American boys focuses on providing them with role models to create a supportive environment, combat the effects of trauma, and push them to succeed.

Laws make it mandatory for schools with more than twenty English Language Learners (ELLs) in a single grade to have bilingual teachers to support them. One Texas school takes an initiative to find more bilingual teachers for their students as the non-English speaker becomes a more common student in their classroom.

Preparing the young for elementary education is a priority to nurture reading and social skills. For 16 years, Tulsa Oklahoma has instituted a state funded preschool, staffed with teachers trained in early education. Tulsa’s Pre-K initiative has shown that their children are more prepared for literacy skills and math; however, maintaining the positive results is a long-term challenge.

Boston professors visit countries and homes of foreign students to better understand their culture and gain insights about how to better teach them. The goal is to reach across cultural divides to help a big part of the student population — emigres from faraway lands — that is plagued with low standardized test scores and high dropout rates. Accompanying photojournalism: http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/bigpicture/2015/09/12/seeking-cultural-connections/L3mIQAQM3v9YT9A2K4JliL/story.html

Children who experience neglect, severe stress or sudden separation at a young age can be traumatized - without appropriate adult support, trauma can interfere with healthy brain development, inhibiting children’s ability to make good decisions, use memory or use sequential thought processes to work through problems. Head Start Trauma Smart helps support traumatized and neglected children from acting out.

Universal preschool is a policy that is often hard to pass on voter referendums. But, as evidenced by examples in Detroit and New York, such an investment means that more children would do well in kindergarten, fewer would need special education or other extra help and down the line, fewer would drop out of high school, end up unemployed — or in jail.