EXPLAINED: The American Rescue Plan Gives a Huge Boost to School Funding

What is the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021? You may have heard it as the “second big COVID stimulus,” but the actual name is…

Meet Newark’s Own Amanda Gorman, Seventh Grade Poet Makayla Brown

A month ago, as Amanda Gorman shared her beautiful prose during President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ inauguration, students at KIPP Rise Academy in Newark had…

As a Mom of a Son With Multiple Disabilities, I Have the Receipts on Remote Instruction

Here at brightbeam, our North Star is “How Are The Children?” As parents look back over the last nine months of COVID-related school disruptions and…

Amanda Gorman Is Climbing That Hill. Now if Only The Rest of Us Would Join Her.

Today at President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s inauguration, Amanda Gorman stole the show. Lady Gaga? J-Lo? Garth Brooks? No contest. This 22-year-old…

Was DeVos Really the ‘Worst Secretary of Education Ever’?

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigned last night, citing Wednesday’s putsch at the Capitol, Trump’s incitement of violence, and her concern that “impressionable children are watching…

Good Luck Finding an Education Secretary Who Can Help Kids and Make Unions Happy, Mr. President-Elect

President-Elect Joe Biden may be setting himself up for a confrontation between two of his top advisors. Perched on one shoulder will be Dr. Anthony…

Civil Rights Groups Insist on Testing: ‘You Cannot Improve What You Do Not Measure.’

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. In this case, the clock is soon-to-be-Ex-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has told states that…

Q&A: Chris Cerf on Fighting COVID Learning Loss With Great Teaching

Last March schools across the country closed and typical live instruction morphed into erratic meetings on Zoom. Many of us assumed this was a short-term…

I Thought Vouchers Were Wrong, But Now I Realize They Helped My Son

Recently I wrote that a residency hearing with two children, Kayla and Tasha, represented to me our deeply-embedded structural inequities in education that decades of initiatives,…

Khaliah Fitchett on Going From Handcuffs to Running for Congress

One afternoon in March 2010, Khaliah Fitchette, a 16-year-old student at Newark’s University High School, was riding home on a NJ Transit bus with her…