Day: May 8, 2023

How does a revolution start? Sometimes, it’s a simple question. For Sarah Powell, an associate professor of special education at the University of Texas at Austin, the question was this math problem: Donna and Natasha folded 96 paper cranes. Donna folded 25 paper cranes. How many did Natasha fold?
In a study, Powell posed that question to children at the end of third grade, when they should have been able to answer it easily. Instead, most couldn’t solve it. One underlined 11 words in the question but didn’t attempt any math. Another jotted down the number 96 and gave up. A few wrote down random numbers that had nothing to do with the problem. More than half the students added the numbers 96 and 25 together. Only two children out of 15 she showed me got the correct answer: 96-25=71.
“I could send you hundreds of these,” Powell said. “It’s heartbreaking. How did we let it get to this? These are kids that just get passed from one grade level to the next. You shouldn’t let a kid get to ..

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters. Data analysis for this story by Thomas Wilburn and Kae Petrin.
After New York City’s public libraries last week averted deep cuts that would have significantly reduced hours, some parents and educators are raising alarm about the state of libraries in the city’s public schools.
For years, advocates have warned that many students do not have access to a library or a certified librarian on their campus. The nation’s largest school system, with 1,600 schools, has roughly 260 certified school librarians, education department officials said.
And according to a Chalkbeat analysis of school budget item lines for librarians, a larger share of high-poverty schools had no librarian on budget. (Other schools may employ librarians whose salaries are paid outside of school budgets, like through a school’s PTA, which may not be reflected in the data.)
It’s an issue that’s developed over years,..