Wickenburg district using 4-day week to woo, keep teachers

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.

Future Focused Texas is a new initiatiative aiming to assist college-bound seniors and college students by providing assistance through a suite of resources and making it available to counselors and mentors. The initiative works as a collaboration between schools and partners who establish guidelines, and resources, like a bot called ADVi, to answer students' most common questions. Over 730 "college-access professionals" are taking part in the program.

When immigrant children come to America, they are faced with culture shock, language barriers, and a system of education different from where their original country. Houston’s Las Americas Newcomer School is designed to ease the adjustment of immigrant and refugee children as they enter the American educational system. Las Americas offers competitive wages for teachers, teaching in several different languages, and preparation for the SAT as the school has the highest rate of minority participation.

Bangladesh schools had very low attendance because children were kept home to work and conditions were unsafe for girls, ethnic minorities, and those with disabilities. BRAC, one of the world's largest and most comprehensive NGOs, has built new schools addressing all the reasons, at home and school, that were preventing children from attending.

U-46, Chicago's second-largest school district faced a legal suit in 2005 for discrimination of Hispanic students in its gifted programs and is now setting an example for how programs can be upended for good. By 2018 U-46's gifted program consisted of 48% Hispanic students, a better representation of a 57% Hispanic district. The changes implemented by the district included addressing systemic issues by not relying on teacher recommendations and instead testing all third and sixth graders, expanding the number of seats for gifted students. The district also has teachers undergo antiracism training and more.

Some colleges think students are overwhelmed by the number of options they have to choose from—countless classes and extracurriculars are available on many campuses. Schools across the United States are experimenting with new approaches, ranging from choosing courseloads for freshmen to assigning counselors to meet regularly with students.

The rosters of sports teams at small liberal arts schools are often predominantly white and wealthy. Amherst College in Massachusetts has made a concerted effort to stop recruiting from the same "pay to play" pool and reach more student-athletes of color and student-athletes from different socio-economic backgrounds.

As higher education institutions struggle to attract students wiling to pay the exorbitant cost to attend, one subset of schools has had a particularly challenging past few decades -- alternative schools. But some are surviving, by evolving their focus, merging with other schools, and getting creative financially to reduce costs for students.

For students who are people of color, the first to attend college in their families, and from low-income families, the likelihood of finishing a four-year college degree is 12 percent. Wallin Education Partners pairs scholars, most of whom fall into at least one of these categories, in Minnesota with families who offer funding and mentoring support throughout students' entire college experience. For the 4500 students who earn scholarships through Wallin, the four-year completion rate is 92 percent.

In most "gifted" programs across the U.S., students are predominantly middle income and white, regardless of the variation in demographics between districts. Since the 1990s, Miami public schools have made it their quest to defy this trend and identify overlooked students who may be still learning English as a second language or whose potential may not be identified by traditional tests designed to find "gifted" students. In Miami, low-income and ESOL students take a different test than peers designed to account for certain stressors not present in other students' lives. Can Washington learn from this model?