Time for a quick re-cap of what I’ve been reading this week. You can catch previous “what I’m reading posts” here, here, and here.
Intermarriage is growing in acceptance across the United States, 50 years after the Loving v. Virginia case.
Breast feeding isn’t stigmatized everywhere, and women have more success with it when they are supported and instructed by older, more experienced women.
Universities need to be better about effectively evaluating their courses and teaching. Those pesky course evaluations that we all took after every class simply measure how much the students enjoyed the class, and how much they like the professor, not the amount they learned from the course.
Betsy Devos believes school funding isn’t related to school performance, but decades of research proves otherwise. In fact, wise spending of federal dollars can dramatically improve student outcomes and school quality. Hopefully, our Secretary of Education will take these research findings to heart and put forth policies that support what the research is telling us. Speaking of which…
Civil Rights and the DOE
The Department of Education (DOE) has announced it will be scaling back civil rights investigations in an effort to relieve some of the regulations put in place by the Obama administration. (This is part of a larger effort to scale back Obama-era regulations to increase efficiency and save money.) Civil rights issues have been occurring in schools for decades. Since the 80s, ethnic minorities have been punished (i.e. expulsion and suspension) with greater frequency and severity compared to their white peers. And this isn’t fair. Research has known this, but policymakers refuse to believe it or act on it.
The Civil Rights Commission, will be directing the investigation into the DOE and other agencies because of proposed budget cuts, staff downsizing, and a reduced federal involvement in civil rights issues. All this makes it seem like the current administration doesn’t value civil rights issues. #goals
Tanya Tavassolie 