Mary-Liz Shaw

3 weeks ago | edsurge.com | Mary-Liz Shaw

Chronic absence, defined as missing 10 percent or more of school or about 18 school days in a year, is a national crisis. It peaked in the pandemic, when about 31 percent of students nationwide — 14.7 million kids — were chronically absent during the 2021-22 school year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education. The rate dropped only slightly for the 2022-23 school year, the latest for which national figures are available, to about 28 percent.

1 month ago | edsurge.com | Mary-Liz Shaw

With a curriculum that includes slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, two world wars and the Civil Rights Movement, American history teachers are used to venturing into emotionally charged subjects. Walking students through the unsettling complexities of the past has never been an easy job.

Feb 20, 2025 | edsurge.com | Mary-Liz Shaw

The push for universal public education across the United States began in the midst of the Civil War — on the Union-occupied Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina. There, thousands of Black children began going to schools built expressly for them, where they learned to read and write after decades of being denied the right of literacy. The Sea Islands’ experiment, as it was known, marked a positive moment in the fraught history of Black education, notes education law expert Derek W.

Oct 18, 2023 | readersdigest.ca | Mary-Liz Shaw