AURORA, Colo. — Until early this year, Alberto, 11, had never stepped into a classroom. The closest school was many miles from his village in Venezuela, and Alberto’s father never allowed him or his mom, Yuliver, to stray far, according to mother and son. The school also charged far more than they could afford. “I want to learn to become somebody in life,” Alberto said through an interpreter. “I’m going to be a lawyer or a doctor. I wanted to go school, but dad wouldn’t let me.” Yuliver, who has a third-grade education, stepped in as Alberto’s teacher, sharing what she knew about numbers and ..read more

What makes a first-generation college student? Well, that depends on who’s doing the defining. Yes, there’s the federal definition: a student is first-generation if neither parent has a bachelor’s degree.   Sounds simple enough. But it doesn’t account for those who had a highly educated parent who wasn’t involved in their lives, or those whose parent got a college degree in another country, with an academic system unlike ours, or those who have one degree-holding parent, but are being raised in a single-parent household. Researchers argue that many students like these are still mean ..read more

JERSEY CITY, N.J. — When Keischa Taylor sees fellow student-parents around her campus, she pulls them aside and gives them a hug. “I tell them, ‘Don’t stop. You’ve got this. You didn’t come this far to stop. You’re not going to give up on yourself.’ ” Taylor is exceedingly well qualified to offer this advice. She began her college education in her early 20s, balancing it with raising two sons and working retail jobs. And she just finished her bachelor’s degree last semester — at 53. It’s a rare success story. Student-parents disproportionately give up before they reach the finish line. Fewer ..read more

As they struggle to fill seats, universities on average dole out more than half of the revenue they collect from tuition in the form of discounts and financial aid. If a private company discounted its products by more than half, it would be out of business. It’s an incredibly self-destructive model, but no one seems willing to be the first to stop doing it. This financial arms war among colleges is draining so much revenue that many are losing money even as they increase their tuition. That’s because almost no one pays the advertised price; nearly all students, including those whose families ..read more

IQ tests created by French psychologist Alfred Binet in the early 20th century paved the way for widespread intelligence testing in American schools  — including of the youngest learners. But Binet also had early doubts as to whether intelligence could be measured at all and he was adamant that his tests, adapted into the Stanford-Binet intelligence scales in the U.S., could not be used to determine how much progress an individual student was capable of making in the long term. “I have often observed, to my regret, that a widespread prejudice exists with regard to the educability of inte ..read more

Last April, an email went out to families in the Troy School District outside Detroit. Signed by unnamed “concerned Troy parents,” it said that a district proposal to end “basic” and “honors” math classes for sixth and seventh graders was part of a longer-term district plan to completely abolish honors classes in all of its schools. Superintendent Richard Machesky and his team were stunned. The district was indeed proposing to merge separate sixth- and seventh-grade math tracks into what it said would be a single, rigorous pathway emphasizing pre-algebra skills. In eighth grade, students coul ..read more

Okay, so you’re going to college. But will the college you pick still have its lights on by the time you get to graduation? It’s a question more and more families are asking as universities and colleges face financial and enrollment challenges, close or merge. We’ll tell you what schools are doing to stay alive, what happens to students when they shut down and how to check on the financial health of colleges. Listen to the whole series TRANSCRIPT Scroll to the end of this transcript to find out more about this topic, and for links to more information. Jon: This is College Uncovered. I’m Jon M ..read more

There has been much talk and concern in recent months about making higher-level math more accessible to high schoolers, particularly low-income students from Black and Hispanic communities. Much of this discussion dwells on what is the best curriculum to use to teach Algebra I and other higher-level math courses. The right curriculum is important, of course. A high-quality curriculum creates the foundation for success in math. A curriculum that values culturally responsive education enables teachers both to value the many kinds of experiences that students bring to classrooms and to push them ..read more

Editor’s note: Substituting for Jill Barshay is Sarah Butrymowicz, The Hechinger Report’s investigations editor. Jill will return next week. Every school day, thousands of students are suspended for vague, subjective reasons, such as defiance and disorderly conduct. Our investigative team recently took a deep dive into these punishments, based on 20 states for which we were able to obtain data. Our analysis revealed more than 2.8 million suspensions and expulsions from 2017-18 to 2021-22 under these ambiguous categories.  Here’s a closer look at some of what we found: 1. Suspensions for ..read more

Translated by Lygia Navarro Read in English TULSA, Okla. — Amoni y Zoe esparcieron el contenido de una bolsa de sándwich llena de caramelos de frutas sobre sus escritorios como parte de una lección de matemáticas sobre proporciones. “¿Qué significa tener el 50 por ciento?” preguntó su maestra, Kelly Woodfin, a los alumnos de sexto grado en su clase de matemáticas avanzadas. “¿Qué significa tener la mitad?” Amoni y Zoe, ambas de 11 años, comieron solo un caramelo cada una, mientras convertían la proporción de manzanas verdes o fresas rosadas de su bolsa en fracciones, decimales y porcentajes ..read more