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USA
27th June 2022
 
THE HOT STORY
Roe v. Wade: How education groups reacted to SCOTUS decision
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday, removing the constitutional right to abortion that had been in place for nearly 50 years and setting off a chain of effects that could have wide-reaching consequences for schools, educators, and the children they serve. The 6-3 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization will effectively ban abortions in 13 states that have passed so-called “trigger laws,” which were written to enact abortion restrictions upon the overruling of Roe. Several other states are expected to reintroduce bills that would do the same, while others move to firm up their own laws protecting abortion. On Friday, many education groups condemned the court’s decision, suggesting the opinion may be a precursor to future decisions related to LGBTQ marriage, gender equality, and birth control. The order is “another example of how, over the last few years, we have seen the same faction of politicians working overtime to reverse decades of progress on racial justice, on women’s rights, on worker’s rights, on LGBTQ+ rights, on voting rights, on our right to privacy, and on our students’ freedom to learn in our public schools,” National Education Association President Becky Pringle said in a statement. “These attacks on our freedoms are designed to do one thing—consolidate unfettered power into the hands of a few,” Pringle said. “We must stand up for all of our rights.” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten linked the Dobbs ruling to other recent Supreme Court decisions this week, including those on states’ firearm laws and public funding for students to attend religious schools. “In the span of 24 hours, this court ruled that states can’t regulate gun owners but can regulate the bodies of anyone who can reproduce,” she said. Other groups celebrated the decision. Students for Life, an anti-abortion advocacy group, said in a statement that the ruling represented a “historic moment that will determine the fate of millions of precious children,” noting plans to push for legislation that would restrict abortion at the state level. Pro-abortion rights student activists also pledged to lobby state lawmakers. In a statement, the anti-gun-violence organization March for Our Lives called the ruling a “racist,” “classist,” attack. “We have organized before and won, and we will organize again to protect our right to be free of gun violence and choose what we do with our bodies,” it said.
FINANCE
School districts 'pricing out parents' record requests'
Fox News Digital claims that parents across the United States are purposefully being charged incredibly high fees for public records requests in their school districts. A parent from Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland claims that she requested emails that spanned one month between various entities and was asked to pay $5,000. The Oregon Department of Education meanwhile is claimed to have placed on $10 levy per email review for some requests. In Rochester, Michigan , the district reportedly charged fees as high as $18 million to complete their requests. In Rhode Island, South Kingstown, a parent activist named Nicole Solas sent in requests that amounted to $74,000 regarding the school's curriculum for her daughter, who was in kindergarten at the time. In December, a Florida dad who believed virtual learning was discriminating against his autistic son, sued the Hillsborough County Public Schools superintendent Addison Davis, after he was charged $8,020 for a request he made on mask mandates. In Minnesota, a law firm called Equality in Education filed a request at the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district that spanned 41 pages, which was estimated to cost $900,000 to fulfill. Notably, according to superintendent Kent Pekel, it would take 13,000 hours to produce all the records.
STUDENTS
Head Start experiences can help boost wages in later life
The federal Head Start program has contributed to multi-generational positive outcomes, according to a study from the University of Notre Dame and Texas A&M University published this month in the Journal of Political Economy, including increases in education attainment and wages and decreases in teen pregnancy and criminal involvement. A 122-page study of the 57-year-old Head Start program, created to improve the school readiness of preschool children from low-income families, shows higher education attainment for children of Head Start participants resulted in an estimated 6% to 11% increase in wages for those second-generation children through age 50. Although this and previous research has highlighted the benefits of Head Start and other quality preschool programs, early childhood programs do however often lack racial and socioeconomic diversity in workforce, curriculum and students, agreed panelists in a webinar hosted by The Hunt Institute this week.
Catholic schools suffering same enrolment challenges as public schools
Mirroring wider trends, Catholic schools are serving fewer students than they were before the pandemic. Catholic schools have lost 2.8% of enrollment overall since the pandemic began, the same share as public schools, suggesting those leaving public schools are going elsewhere. Catholic school enrollment dropped especially sharply in a number of large states — New York, California, Illinois — that also lost significant numbers from their public schools.
TECHNOLOGY
Schools spending billions on defense tech
In 2021, schools and colleges in the United States spent an estimated $3.1bn on security products and services, compared with $2.7m in 2017, according to market research firm Omdia.  Some manufacturers sell gun-detection scanners and wireless panic buttons for school districts. Others offer high-resolution cameras and software that can identify students’ faces, track their locations and monitor their online activities, bringing into classrooms the kind of surveillance tools widely used by law enforcement. Wesley Watts, the superintendent of West Baton Rouge Parish Schools, a district in Louisiana with about 4,200 students, said that creating a supportive school culture was more important for safety than security technology. Even so, certain tools may give schools “an extra layer of security,” he said. His district recently began using video analysis from a start-up called ZeroEyes that scans school camera feeds, looking for guns. The company, founded by U.S. military veterans, said it used so-called machine learning to train its system to recognize about 300 types of assault rifles and other firearms. ZeroEyes also employs former military and law enforcement personnel who check any gun images the system detects before notifying a school. The company says its human review process ensures school officials will not receive false gun alerts. The ZeroEyes service can cost $5,000 per month for a single high school with 200 cameras. Mr. Watts, whose district uses the service across 250 school cameras, said the cost was worth it. Several months ago, the superintendent said, ZeroEyes detected a young man carrying a rifle outside near a high school track meet. Soon after, the company’s reviewers identified the object as an Airsoft gun, a toy plastic replica. That enabled the district staff to intervene directly with the student without calling in law enforcement, Mr. Watts said.
GOVERNANCE
State to recommend Boston Schools be classified as ‘underperforming'
Massachusetts Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley will this week recommend that Boston Public Schools be deemed as “underperforming.” Following weeks of discussion between state education regulators, Mayor Michelle Wu and BPS officials on a plan for the district to improve on serious issues facing the city's schools outlined in a report last month, Riley says the city and the state have been unable to reach agreement on provisions that would provide “independent oversight to ensure that the district is accurately and transparently reporting its data.” The move does not take away the option of receivership — or a state takeover, a move many city leaders have strongly opposed — of BPS down the road, but Riley made clear that he is not recommending receivership at this moment. The board is slated to consider a vote on the recommendation at a meeting Tuesday.

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