articles in english on education

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Our Best Education Articles of 2020

In February of 2020, we launched the new website Greater Good in Education , a collection of free, research-based and -informed strategies and practices for the social, emotional, and ethical development of students, for the well-being of the adults who work with them, and for cultivating positive school cultures. Little did we know how much more crucial these resources would become over the course of the year during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, as we head back to school in 2021, things are looking a lot different than in past years. Our most popular education articles of 2020 can help you manage difficult emotions and other challenges at school in the pandemic, all while supporting the social-emotional well-being of your students.

In addition to these articles, you can also find tips, tools, and recommended readings in two resource guides we created in 2020: Supporting Learning and Well-Being During the Coronavirus Crisis and Resources to Support Anti-Racist Learning , which helps educators take action to undo the racism within themselves, encourage their colleagues to do the same, and teach and support their students in forming anti-racist identities.

Here are the 10 best education articles of 2020, based on a composite ranking of pageviews and editors’ picks.

Can the Lockdown Push Schools in a Positive Direction? , by Patrick Cook-Deegan: Here are five ways that COVID-19 could change education for the better.

How Teachers Can Navigate Difficult Emotions During School Closures , by Amy L. Eva: Here are some tools for staying calm and centered amid the coronavirus crisis.

Six Online Activities to Help Students Cope With COVID-19 , by Lea Waters: These well-being practices can help students feel connected and resilient during the pandemic.

Help Students Process COVID-19 Emotions With This Lesson Plan , by Maurice Elias: Music and the arts can help students transition back to school this year.

How to Teach Online So All Students Feel Like They Belong , by Becki Cohn-Vargas and Kathe Gogolewski: Educators can foster belonging and inclusion for all students, even online.

How Teachers Can Help Students With Special Needs Navigate Distance Learning , by Rebecca Branstetter: Kids with disabilities are often shortchanged by pandemic classroom conditions. Here are three tips for educators to boost their engagement and connection.

How to Reduce the Stress of Homeschooling on Everyone , by Rebecca Branstetter: A school psychologist offers advice to parents on how to support their child during school closures.

Three Ways to Help Your Kids Succeed at Distance Learning , by Christine Carter: How can parents support their children at the start of an uncertain school year?

How Schools Are Meeting Social-Emotional Needs During the Pandemic , by Frances Messano, Jason Atwood, and Stacey Childress: A new report looks at how schools have been grappling with the challenges imposed by COVID-19.

Six Ways to Help Your Students Make Sense of a Divisive Election , by Julie Halterman: The election is over, but many young people will need help understanding what just happened.

Train Your Brain to Be Kinder (video), by Jane Park: Boost your kindness by sending kind thoughts to someone you love—and to someone you don’t get along with—with a little guidance from these students.

From Othering to Belonging (podcast): We speak with john a. powell, director of the Othering & Belonging Institute, about racial justice, well-being, and widening our circles of human connection and concern.

About the Author

Greater good editors.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player
• Subscribe to NPR Ed Newsletter

Florida A&M University announced a "transformative" donation earlier this month — but the school said it ceased contact with the donor after questions arose about the funds. Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images hide caption

A mega-gift for an HBCU college fell through. Here's what happened — and what's next

May 24, 2024 • To people who watch high-level philanthropy, Florida A&M's embarrassing incident wasn't only a shocking reversal. It was something they've seen before. The school is now investigating what went wrong.

Due to the success of the State Department's J-1 Visa program, the Kuspuk School District and other rural districts in Alaska are looking at ways to utilize other visa programs to keep foreign teachers in classrooms for longer. Emily Schwing for NPR/Emily Schwing hide caption

Visa program draws foreign teachers to a rural Alaska school district facing a staffing crisis

Kyuk service.

May 24, 2024 • Teacher retention and recruitment is difficult and some schools make use of J-1 Visas to recruit teachers from outside the U.S. In one rural school district in Alaska, foreign teachers make up over half the staff.

Robert Hale gives an envelope with cash to a graduating UMass Dartmouth student at last week's commencement. Each of the 1,200 graduates received $1,000 onstage, half to keep and half to donate. Karl Christoff Dominey/University of Massachusetts Dartmouth hide caption

A billionaire surprised graduates onstage with cash, but it's not all theirs to keep

May 23, 2024 • Billionaire philanthropist Rob Hale gave UMass Dartmouth graduates $1,000 each, and instructed them to donate half. He tells NPR the best cause students can support is one that matters to them.

Starting Your Podcast: A Guide For Students

New to podcasting? Don't panic.

From left: Alexis Jones (Cornell University), Mei Lamison (New York University), Anaka Srinivas (Northwestern University). Alexis Jones; Mei Lamison; Anaka Srinivas hide caption

Consider This from NPR

A concentrated dose of history: the class of 2024 looks back.

May 22, 2024 • Everyone says you live through history, but "I don't think anyone prepared us for this much history," say the students in the Class of 2024.

Student Podcast Challenge

May 22, 2024 • Student Podcast Challenge invites students from around the country to create a podcast and compete for a chance to have your work featured on NPR.

Pedestrians pass through The Ohio State University's student union. John Minchillo/AP hide caption

Ohio reviewing race-based scholarships after Supreme Court affirmative action ruling

May 18, 2024 • Higher education officials in Ohio are reviewing race-based scholarships after last year's Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action.

These teens were missing too much school. Here's what it took to get them back

May 18, 2024 • Since the pandemic, chronic absenteeism in the nation's K-12 schools has skyrocketed. These teens are working to get their attendance back on track.

Perspective

Code switch, in a debate over a school name, it's not just parents who are attached to the past.

May 18, 2024 • At the height of the racial reckoning, a school district in Virginia voted to rename two schools that had been previously named for Confederate generals. This month, that decision was reversed.

Basil Rodriguez was arrested linking arms outside Hamilton Hall, but said the arrest had strengthened their resolve to continue protesting. The trespassing charge Rodriguez faced was dismissed this week. Keren Carrión/NPR hide caption

Campus protests over the Gaza war

Arrested. injured. suspended. six nyc university students say they'll keep protesting.

May 18, 2024 • Students arrested at Columbia University and the City College of New York spoke with NPR about their choice to risk legal and academic consequences.

Des Moines Superintendent Ian Roberts races students on an Iowa track. Phil Roeder/Des Moines Public Schools hide caption

Iowa superintendent and former Olympian bested in footrace by 5th-grader

May 18, 2024 • Ian Roberts has competed in some of the most high-profile races in the world. But his biggest competition to date was a determined fifth-grader in jean shorts and Nike tennis shoes.

Earlier this month, President Biden spoke about protests that have roiled many U.S. college campuses. Among their demands is for the Israeli military to leave Gaza. Biden said students have a right to protest but not to be disruptive. He is set to speak at Morehouse College in Atlanta on Sunday. Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Biden is set for the Morehouse graduation. Students are divided

May 17, 2024 • Ahead of Biden's address at Morehouse, students share their frustrations

Applicants to Georgia State University received a welcome email for the 2024-25 school year. However, the email was sent in error to 1,500 applicants by the school's admissions office. Here, the campus celebrates its fall commencement exercises on Dec. 17, 2014, in Atlanta. Meg Buscema/Georgia State University hide caption

1,500 college applicants thought they were accepted. They soon learned it was an error

May 16, 2024 • Georgia State University says the students were not sent an official acceptance letter but "communication" from a department welcoming those who intend to major in a specific academic area.

Kansas City Chiefs player Harrison Butker, pictured at a press conference in February, is in hot water for his recent commencement speech at Benedictine College in Kansas. Chris Unger/Getty Images hide caption

The NFL responds after a player urges female college graduates to become homemakers

May 16, 2024 • Harrison Butker of the Kansas City Chiefs urged female graduates to embrace the title of "homemaker" in a controversial commencement speech. The NFL says he was speaking "in his personal capacity."

Announcing the 2023 College Podcast Challenge Honorable Mentions

May 15, 2024 • Here are the honorable mentions from the 2023 College Podcast Challenge. Congrats!

Why children with disabilities are missing school and losing skills

May 15, 2024 • A special education staffing crisis is raging through many U.S. school districts. It's taking a toll on students and families.

Illustration of a rally where "peaceful protesters" march alongside "violent looters." LA Johnson/NPR hide caption

Why the trope of the 'outside agitator' persists

May 15, 2024 • As protests continue to rock the campuses of colleges and universities, a familiar set of questions is being raised: Are these protests really being led by students? Or are the real drivers of the civil disobedience outsiders , seizing on an opportunity to wreak chaos and stir up trouble?

Students with disabilities are missing school because of staff shortages

May 14, 2024 • There's a special education staffing crisis in a northern California school district. It means some of the district's most vulnerable students have missed weeks and even months of school.

Public Health student Hanna Stutzman helps establish new native plantings at The College of New Jersey. Nathaniel Johnson/The College of New Jersey hide caption

Environment

Bringing the wild things back to campus.

May 14, 2024 • The College of New Jersey is making room for native plants, and students are digging it.

Dr. Thorsten Siess shows the Impella. Annegret Hilse/Reuters hide caption

Shots - Health News

He invented a successful medical device as a student. here's his advice for new grads.

May 14, 2024 • When Thorsten Siess was in graduate school, he came up with the idea for a heart device that's now been used in hundreds of thousands of patients around the world.

Deadline Extended: NPR Student Podcast Challenge entries are now due May 31

May 13, 2024 • Entries for our sixth annual contest for middle and high school students (and our first-ever fourth grade competition) are now due Friday, May 31 at midnight E.T.

Graduate students and demonstrators at the University of Texas at Austin protest the war in Gaza after walking out of commencement at the DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium on May 11, 2024 in Austin. Brandon Bell/Getty Images hide caption

Student protests caused mostly minor disruptions at several graduation ceremonies

May 12, 2024 • From California to North Carolina, students staged chants and walkouts over the weekend in protest of Israel's ongoing military offensive in Gaza.

Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning

May 11, 2024 • Researchers are learning that handwriting engages the brain in ways typing can't match, raising questions about the costs of ditching this age-old practice, especially for kids.

Students and protesters raise peace signs in the air while listening to speakers at the encampment for Palestine on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, at the University of Washington Quad in Seattle. Large crowds amassed ahead of a speech by Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk at the HUB on UW's campus. Megan Farmer/KUOW hide caption

The Picture Show

Photos: campus protests continue, police make arrests and clear encampments.

May 10, 2024 • Photojournalists at NPR member stations documented protests at college and university campuses nationwide this week.

Student protesters demanding university divestment from Israel have set up encampments over the past month at dozens of campuses across the nation, including at MIT in Cambridge, Mass. Steven Senne/AP hide caption

From pandemic to protests, the Class of 2024 has been through a lot

May 10, 2024 • Pomp and circumstance again fall victim to circumstance for some students in the graduating class of 2024, as protests over the war in Gaza threaten to disrupt commencement ceremonies.

Home > JELE

Published exclusively online twice a year, in the winter and summer, the Journal of English Learner Education is a scholarly refereed journal. It is grounded in the disciplines of second language acquisition, bilingual education, and English as a second language, but its purpose is to integrate research and best practices in a variety of fields as they relate specifically to the success of English learners in grades P-16.

The Journal of English Learner Education invites manuscripts in three areas: Research and Theory, Effective Practices, and Commentaries. Manuscripts can be submitted for review electronically on a rotating basis.

The journal is funded in part by a grant from the Office of English Language Acquisition, US Department of Education.

Current Issue: Volume 15, Issue 2 (2023) Winter 2023 Issue

Introduction.

Asset-based Teaching; Uncover, Cultivate, and Empower Students’ Uniqueness Stephanie K. Knight, Marjaneh Gilpatrick, and Tracy Vasquez

"Our Students Vs. Their Students:" Perceptions of Teachers in English Language Learning Leah Day

Best Practices for English Learners with Disabilities in US Schools – A Systematic Review Samiratu Bashiru and Jennifer E. Smith

Language, Cultural Knowledge, and Privileged Practices: A Case Study of Understandings that Shape Family Engagement for Parents of Spanish-English Emergent Bilinguals Alissa Blair

Application of Multicultural Literature in the Early Childhood Classroom Deborah Wheeler and Jennifer Hill

• Journal Home
• About This Journal
• Aims & Scope
• Editorial Board
• Submit Article
• Most Popular Papers
• Receive Email Notices or RSS

Advanced Search

ISSN: 1949-8268

Home | About | FAQ | My Account | Accessibility Statement

Privacy Copyright

How do we reinvent education? These TED Talks explore the latest thinking — from teachers, parents, kids — on how to build a better school.

Video playlists about Education

The Butterfly Effect: Talks from the TEDinArabic Summit

A love letter to science

The pursuit of curiosity and understanding

The most popular TED Talks in Hindi

Talks about education.

With AI, anyone can be a coder now

Why don't "tough" and "dough" rhyme?

Could AI predict the future?

Unlocking Indigenous knowledge: A new path for education

What happened when these 6 dictators took over

Scientists are obsessed with this lake

Why the world needs more builders — and less "us vs. them"

How could so many people support Hitler?

If you're an adult mayfly you'll probably die before the end of this video

The US has a teacher shortage — here's how to fix it

How to increase your happiness

How do gas masks actually work?

The rise and fall of the Maya Empire’s most powerful city

Does math have a major flaw?

Picture a perfect society. What does it look like?

The Nazis recruited to win the Cold War

Exclusive articles about education, even gritty people get discouraged, here’s one way to make solar energy more affordable and accessible: share it with your neighbors, how to raise emotionally intelligent kids.

Main navigation

Articles about teaching, five ways a celta qualification will further your career.

Choosing the right English language teaching course for you can be a challenge. Here are five reasons why we recommend taking an official Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (CELTA) qualification from Cambridge.

Mediation skills in the English language classroom

Taking information, summarising it, and passing it on is an example of what linguists call mediation, and it is a key skill for language learners at all levels. It’s the subject of the latest Cambridge Paper in ELT which looks at some of the best strategies teachers can use to teach and assess mediation skills.

How can I start preparing learners for a Cambridge English Qualification?

Explore our article to find out how you can start preparing your learners to take a Cambridge English Qualification.

We will show you how to assess your students’ level, provide some tips for teaching mixed ability classes, and share some extra resources to help you get started with exam preparation.

Graduate employability in a changing world

As Covid-19 restrictions ease in many parts of the world, we are seeing clear evidence that students are picking up their plans for international travel and Higher Education. Prospective students need to know that their education will give them the skills they need for success.

What's the best way to learn receptive skills?

Explore our blog to discover how you can develop your learners' listening skills as they prepare for their exams, using a set of teacher guides that we have created.

What makes a good reader?

In this blog discover how our qualifications have been designed to help learners develop different reading skills; from reading short simple texts to understanding complex texts and abstract ideas.

Developing employability skills in Higher Education and at work

Employability, the qualities and skills that make us suitable for paid work, often brings to mind a specific body of knowledge, technical skills or qualifications that are appropriate for a particular position. However, there is an increasing demand from global businesses for their employees to demonstrate effective core skills .

Four ways a CELTA qualification will further your career

Choosing the right English language teaching course for you can be a challenge. Here are four reasons why we recommend taking an official Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (CELTA) qualification from Cambridge.

Is English language teaching for you? A guide to a new career

In this blog post, we’ll outline why teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) is such an exciting job and offer advice on how you can get started. 

Help your students prepare for their exam

In this blog we share four questions from learners that are often asked about their exam, with some helpful teaching ideas on how to answer them.

‘A Unique Challenge’: What English Learners With Disabilities Need

• Share article

Students with disabilities face a gamut of challenges when it comes to accessing high-quality K-12 education, including a shortage of specialized teachers. The nation’s growing English-learner population faces outsized needs as their English-language proficiency scores remain lower than pre-COVID-19-pandemic averages , and immigrant English learners in particular require more trauma-informed instruction.

English learners who also have disabilities face their own intersectional issues, researchers and advocates say. They range from schools locking students out of dual-language programs in favor of English-only special education programs, language barriers between schools and families, and teachers ill-equipped to serve their students’ needs.

“It’s a complex issue. If it was easy, we would have probably figured out a better way forward by now,” said Sarah Salinas, an assistant professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato’s department of special education. “[This group] includes students that are at the intersection potentially of cultural differences, linguistic differences, and disability differences.”

According to federal data from the school year 2020-21 , nearly 14 percent of all students ages 5 through 21 enrolled in public schools were served under IDEA Part B. Of those students, 11.7 percent were English learners.

As this dual-identified population continues to grow, researchers and advocates offer some potential systemic solutions to many of the prevailing challenges these students and their families face.

A lack of access to bilingual education

One of the top concerns researchers and parents alike shared in interviews with Education Week when it comes to English learners with disabilities is a lack of access to bilingual education or dual-language programs.

Parents are encouraged to speak only English with dual-identified students, in part because of a flawed assumption that bilingualism will confuse them or hinder their academic progress or language progress, said Nikkia Borowski, a Ph.D. candidate in inclusive education at Syracuse University who studies access to bilingualism among such students.

She added that there is also the idea that dual-language programs are enrichment programs designed for academically gifted students, locking dual-identified students out in the process.

This preference for English-only instruction for English learners with disabilities plays out in smaller contexts as well, such as speech-generating devices students use that are programmed only in English.

“As a result, the students are missing access to a bilingual identity and missing access to really important cultural aspects as well,” Borowski said.

There is also the matter of how federal policy works for these dual-identified students.

Both the Equal Education Act of 1968 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act apply to this student population.

The IDEA, in its 2004 reauthorization, defines a least restrictive environment as the premise of providing services to a student with the greatest access to the general education curriculum, without any explicit mention of what these services look like for multilingual students, Salinas said. The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 focuses on language access for students whose first language is not English without explicit mention of education access for students with disabilities.

So while dual-identified students stand at the intersection of distinct federal policies and laws, the policies and laws are not intersectional themselves.

And even though an English-learner tool kit from the U.S. Department of Education’s office of English-language acquisition reminds educators that a student’s English learner and disability-related educational needs must be met, what ultimately ends up happening is special education and IDEA are consistently prioritized over bilingual education services, Salinas said.

Policymakers have talked about reauthorizing IDEA with more explicit mentions of the needs of dual-identified students, though such a move remains hypothetical, Salinas added.

But even before policies and practices can better align to the linguistic, cultural, and disability-related needs of students, another challenge is at play that presents a quicker potential solution.

The need to reassess communication between schools and families

Navigating IDEA and individual education programs, or IEPs, can already be a daunting task for families. Doing so while English is not the family’s home language is all the more complicated.

Under IDEA, districts must ensure that a student’s parents understand the proceedings of the IEP team meeting, including taking steps such as providing a translator.

In an April survey by the EdWeek Research Center, 65 percent of participating district and school leaders said they offered translation services for special education programming for students whose first language is not English. 37 percent said they did so for all relevant languages spoken by students and families.

Meanwhile, 6 percent of leaders said they do not offer such a service although they have special education students with that need.

Even when considering that 37 percent said their school or districts covered all relevant languages in translation needs, there’s a question of whether the translators involved were trained professionals who understand things like IEPs, or if Spanish-language teachers and bilingual receptionists were called in instead, said Christy Moreno, the chief community advocacy and impact officer of the Missouri-based family-advocacy group Revolucion Educativa.

Moreno, a trained interpreter and translator herself, said offering translation services is the minimum schools and districts must offer families. High-quality translation is key to ensuring families are fully informed of their rights, she added.

“I’ve seen IEPs that are done by Google Translate,” Moreno said.

In addition to investing in proper translation and interpretation, Moreno said educators need to proactively ensure that parents understand how to ask questions about their children’s education. That includes taking into account cultural barriers at play such as stigma within the Latino community over the experiences of students in special education.

Lizdelia Piñón, an emergent bilingual education associate for the Texas-based advocacy nonprofit Intercultural Development Research Association, or IDRA, knows all too well how important it is for families to advocate for their children. Her Spanish-speaking 11-year-old triplets require several accommodations for their autism, cerebral palsy, ADHD, and more.

On several occasions, Piñón said she had to file formal complaints against her local school district to ensure her children’s linguistic and special education needs were met—including pushing back against an attempt to reduce the time her triplets spent with their special education teacher.

However, one systemic issue she sees is a lack of proper training among educators on how to best work with dual-identified students.

The need for better teacher preparation

Piñón worked as a bilingual teacher for about 10 years. She knows that existing bilingual teachers can get their certification in special education as well. But there is a gap of information in both programs, she said, leaving teachers without full context on how to best work with dual-identified students.

“I think that educating English learners with disabilities is a unique challenge for our teachers,” Piñón said.

Overall, there aren’t many teacher-preparation programs that train teachers on what to do in bilingual special education classrooms, said Salinas of Minnesota State University.

Recognizing that knowledge gap, Piñón worked on legislation signed into law in 2021 in Texas to create a bilingual special education certification. However, approval of the new certificate program remains stalled within the state board of education.

Yet, a temporary solution to such knowledge gaps in teacher preparation lies in strategic collaboration among educators, Salinas said.

Such work isn’t always possible between special education and bilingual education teachers on account of tight school schedules and other barriers, she added.

Still, it’s a strategy researchers focusing on English learners say can mitigate not only a lack of bilingual and special education teachers but also address how little training general education teachers have when it comes to working with English learners and special education students overall.

Coverage of students with learning differences and issues of race, opportunity, and equity is supported in part by a grant from the Oak Foundation, at www.oakfnd.org . Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage. A version of this article appeared in the May 22, 2024 edition of Education Week as ‘A Unique Challenge’: What English Learners With Disabilities Need

Sign Up for EdWeek Update

Edweek top school jobs.

Sign Up & Sign In

Higher Education Needs More Socrates and Plato

By Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Harun Küçük

Dr. Emanuel and Dr. Küçük are on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where Dr. Emanuel is a professor and the vice provost for global initiatives and Dr. Küçük is an associate professor of the history and sociology of science.

The right attacks colleges and universities as leftist and woke. Progressives castigate them as perpetuating patriarchy and white privilege. The burdens of these culture war assaults are compounded by parents worried that the exorbitant costs of higher education aren’t worth it.

No wonder Americans’ faith in universities is at a low. Only 36 percent of Americans have confidence in higher education, according to a survey by Gallup last year, a significant drop from eight years ago. And this was before colleges and universities across the country were swept up in a wave of protests and counter-protests over the war in Gaza.

But the problems facing American higher education are not just the protests and culture war attacks on diversity, course content, speech and speakers. The problem is that higher education is fundamentally misunderstood. In response, colleges and universities must reassert the liberal arts ideals that have made them great but that have been slipping away.

By liberal arts, we mean a broad-based education that aspires to send out into society an educated citizenry prepared to make its way responsibly in an ever-more complex and divided world. We worry that at many schools, students can fulfill all or most of their general education requirements and take any number of electives without having had a single meaningful discussion that is relevant to one’s political life as a citizen.

Over the past century, what made American higher education the best in the world is not its superiority in career training, but educating students for democratic citizenship, cultivating critical thinking and contributing to the personal growth of its students through self-creation. To revive American higher education, we need to reinvigorate these roots.

In Europe and many countries elsewhere, colleges and universities have undergraduates specialize from Day 1, focusing on developing area-specific skills and knowledge. College students are trained to become doctors, lawyers or experts in international relations, English literature or computer science.

In the United States, European-style specialization for medical, legal, business or public policy careers is the purpose of post-collegiate professional schools. Traditionally, the American college has been about imparting a liberal arts education, emphasizing reasoning and problem solving. Those enduring skills are the critical ingredients for flourishing companies and countries.

Historically, students arriving on American college campuses spent a majority of their first two years taking classes outside their projected majors. This exposed them to a common curriculum that had them engage with thoughtful writings of the past to develop the skills and capacity to form sound, independent judgments.

Over the past half century, American colleges and universities have moved away from this ideal , becoming less confident in their ability to educate students for democratic citizenship. This has led to a decline in their commitment to the liberal arts, a trend underscored in the results last year of a survey of chief academic officers at American colleges and universities by Inside Higher Ed. Nearly two-thirds agreed that liberal arts education was in decline, and well over half felt that politicians, college presidents and university boards were increasingly unsympathetic to the liberal arts.

Today, there is almost no emphasis on shared courses among majors that explore and debate big questions about the meaning of equality, justice, patriotism, personal obligations, civic responsibility and the purpose of a human life. Majors that once required only eight or 10 courses now require 14 or more, and students are increasingly double majoring — all of which crowds out a liberal arts education. Ambitious students eager to land a prestigious consulting, finance or tech job will find it too easy to brush aside courses in the arts, humanities and social and natural sciences — the core of a liberal education.

The devaluing of the first two years of a shared liberal arts education has shortchanged our students and our nation. Educating young adults to be citizens is why the first two years of college still matter.

To that end, the so-called Great Books have long been the preferred way to foster citizenship. This approach is not, contrary to critics on the left and right, about sanctifying specific texts for veneration or a mechanism for heritage transmission.

Books by Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman as well as Wollstonecraft, Austen, Woolf, Baldwin, Hurston and Orwell are worthy of introductory collegiate courses for students of all majors. These writers address the fundamental questions of human life. They explore the ideas of self-determination, friendship, virtue, equality, democracy and religious toleration and race that we have all been shaped by.

As students address those big questions, the Great Books authors provide a road map as they challenge and criticize one another and the conventional wisdom of the past. The Socrates of Plato’s dialogues is the exemplar — asking about beliefs and then subjecting them to respectful but critical analysis and skepticism.

These books are best studied in small seminar discussions, which model and inculcate in students democratic behavior. This discourse is an antidote to the grandstanding in today’s media and social media.

The teacher is less an expert in specific writers and more a role model for intellectual curiosity, asking probing questions, offering critical analyses and seeking deeper understanding. In an idealized Socratic fashion, these discussions require listening at length and speaking briefly and, most important, being willing to go where the argument leads.

Parents who are paying for college might question the value of spending $80,000 a year so that their son or daughter can read Plato, Hobbes and Thoreau instead of studying molecular biology or machine learning. But discussing life’s big value questions in seminars gives students personal engagement with professors that can never be reproduced in large lecture halls. Discussions among students on their deepest thoughts cultivates curiosity and empathy, and forges bonds of friendship important for citizenship and fulfilling lives.

Although we like to set ourselves apart from the past by appeals to modernity, the fundamental questions that we find ourselves asking are not always modern, and the latest answer is not always right. But how would you know how to think beyond the readily presented check boxes if you haven’t done the work of laying things out and putting them back together for yourself?

War was no less a concern for Thucydides, Tacitus and Thoreau than it is today. Discussing Great Books allows students to gain distance from the daily noise and allows their reason to roam free among principles and foundations rather than becoming absorbed in contemporary events. Our biggest problems are often best addressed not by leaning in but by stepping away to reflect on enduring perspectives.

Liberal arts education is not value neutral. That is why it is indispensable today. Freedom of thought, critical reasoning, empathy for others and respectful disagreement are paramount for a flourishing democratic society. Without them, we get the unreasoned condemnations so pervasive in today’s malignant public discourse. With them, we have a hope of furthering the shared governance that is vital to America’s pluralistic society.

Ezekiel Emanuel and Harun Küçük are on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where Dr. Emanuel is a professor and the vice provost for global initiatives and Dr. Küçük is an associate professor of the history and sociology of science.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

70 years later, 1 in 3 Black people say integration didn’t help Black students

Landmark Brown. v. Board Supreme Court decision is revered, but Post-Ipsos poll shows mixed feelings about how to address today’s school segregation

Key takeaways

Summary is AI-generated, newsroom-reviewed.

• Brown v. Board revered, but Americans support more school integration.
• Skepticism exists on integration’s success, mixed views on implementation methods.
• Legal strategies shift toward state courts for education equality battles.

Did our AI help? Share your thoughts.

Seventy years after the Supreme Court delivered its landmark decision outlawing school segregation, Brown v. Board of Education ranks as perhaps the court’s most venerated decision. A Washington Post-Ipsos survey shows it is overwhelmingly popular.

That’s the simple part. Most everything else related to the decision — and to school segregation itself — is complex.

Nearly 7 in 10 Americans say more should be done to integrate schools across the nation — a figure that has steadily climbed from 30 percent in 1973 and is now at its apex. But a deeper look into the views of both Black and White people shows skepticism about the success of Brown and mixed messages about how to move forward.

In its unanimous decision in Brown , the Supreme Court ruled segregated schools were unconstitutional and “inherently unequal,” combining five cases in which Black students and their schools had far fewer resources than their White peers — longer commutes, lower-quality classes, overcrowding, fewer opportunities and less money. Yet 1 in 3 Black Americans now say integration has failed to improve the education of Black students, a companion Post-Ipsos survey of Black Americans finds.

Today, about half of Black adults favor letting children attend neighborhood schools, even if it means most students would be of the same race — which, given housing patterns, is often the case.

White Americans also sometimes hold conflicting views. Nine in 10 Whites say they support the Brown decision, and nearly 2 in 3 say more needs to be done to integrate schools throughout the nation. Nonetheless, large segments of the White population oppose strategies that would help make that a reality. Nearly 8 in 10 White adults say it is better for children to go to neighborhood schools over diverse ones.

“The Brown decision speaks to our highest ideals as a nation. It’s who we say we want to be as a country,” said Stefan Lallinger, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes school integration, whose grandfather was part of the team of civil rights attorneys who appeared before the Supreme Court in the Brown case. “Where the rubber meets the road is where people’s personal decisions about where to send their kids to school clash with those ideals.”

The decision, which was issued 70 years ago Friday, continues to hold a special place in American history. On Thursday, President Biden marked the anniversary by meeting with some of the surviving plaintiffs and their families from the five lawsuits that were consolidated into the Brown decision. On Friday, he addressed an NAACP event at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington marking the milestone.

“The Brown decision proves a simple idea. We learn better when we learn together,” Biden said.

The Brown decision focused on the value of mixing children of different races. But for many integration activists — then and now — the case is about a path to fair and equitable educational resources. Those legal battles continue.

Today’s complex views about schools and integration come amid persistent segregation that has risen in recent decades, changes in the legal landscape and the complicated dynamics of education and race in America today.

Because of Brown , school officials may no longer deliberately separate students by race — but under more recent Supreme Court orders, they aren’t allowed to deliberately mix them by race either. Integration advocates today have stopped looking to the federal courts for help and are pursuing state lawsuits instead. And some Black leaders have concluded that the answer is not integration at all but more money and more opportunity for high-poverty schools serving students of color.

“It never worked the way it was supposed to,” said Candace Northern, 43, of Sacramento, who is Black. She had a mixed experience with integration as a child growing up in the area. Now, as mother to four children who went to or will attend public schools, she sees how the system keeps most poor students of color concentrated in certain schools and wealthy, mostly White students in others.

“The intention behind [ Brown ] was good, but it really didn’t make sense to integrate the schools if you were still going to have separate neighborhoods and then only give the resources to the rich people,” she said. “It was more of an appeasement — ‘Let’s give these Black people something so they’ll shut up.’”

The evolution of a landmark ruling

The Brown decision was deeply polarizing, with massive resistance in the segregated South, where federal troops were at times required to escort Black students into what had been all-White schools, and violence in the North, too, as some White parents angrily protested busing orders that federal courts began issuing in the 1970s. Shortly after the 1954 ruling, a Gallup poll found 55 percent of Americans approved of Brown , while 40 percent disapproved.

But it succeeded in diversifying schools, with segregation rates falling through the 1970s and ’80s . Integration peaked around 1988; then courts began lifting their orders, and segregation began to rise again. A majority of Americans wrongly believe that schools are less racially segregated today than 30 years ago, The Post-Ipsos poll finds; in fact, by multiple measures, they are more segregated.

Jackie Beckley was raised in a small town in Kentucky and saw it all up close. Her father had to walk for miles and then travel by train to reach the nearest Black high school because the closer, White schools would not let Black children attend. Born in 1961, Beckley was among the first Black children to be admitted to White schools.

It wasn’t easy for her.

“You’re very much aware of the fact that you’re not like everybody else. You’re different,” she said. She remembered not being chosen as a cheerleader in elementary school despite her excellent gymnastic skills. She knew the reason and if there was any doubt, a White classmate said it out loud: “They didn’t pick her because she’s colored,” he told the class. Students were usually nice to her, she recalled, but if there was an argument, someone might hurl the n-word.

Over time, the Brown decision took on a revered status, one both liberals and conservatives cite as among the Supreme Court’s finest moments. By 1994, 87 percent of Americans approved of the ruling, and the new Post-Ipsos poll finds it just as popular today. But support is lower among Black people — about 8 in 10 say they approve of the decision. Asked if integration had improved the lives of Black students, 75 percent of White people say yes, but a smaller share — 63 percent — of Black people say the same — down from 70 percent in 1994.

Beckley understands why. Her own son attended an integrated school in suburban Columbus, Ohio, where she now lives, but she thinks more funding for schools serving students of color — “so they are educating the kids to the same standard” — is more important than creating diverse schools.

Isaac Heard, 74, is also skeptical after seeing the entire history of school integration unfold before him in Charlotte.

When Heard was growing up in Charlotte, his segregated neighborhood elementary school was so overcrowded that students attended in shifts — either morning or afternoon. “They had decided basically they weren’t going to build any more schools in the Black neighborhoods,” he recalled. His parents sent him to a private Catholic school instead.

Heard returned to public school in ninth grade and the experience was better, though still segregated. His school was economically if not racially diverse, and he recalls the teaching as excellent; in his senior year, four of his teachers had PhDs. He credited the talented Black women who had few career options other than teaching.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., school district did not fully desegregate until 1970, three years after Heard graduated and went off to Dartmouth College. But once it did, the district gained a reputation for running a successful busing program. In the 1990s, Heard’s own children attended the same district, and he said they received an excellent education.

“The biggest thing is they had role models, and resources were available,” he said. “If they were curious about something, they had access to it.”

Later, working in city planning in Charlotte, Heard saw things change again after the federal court order mandating desegregation was lifted in 1999 and the schools began to resegregate. While some wealthier Black families (including his own) now lived in diverse neighborhoods and attended racially diverse schools, lower-income Black and Hispanic families were concentrated in urban areas and their schools became segregated again .

Heard believes one answer is to spread affordable housing to wealthier neighborhoods, so the neediest students are spread out, but he said these proposals “raised the hackles in this community like you wouldn’t believe.”

Heard’s experience — segregation, integration, and partial segregation again — leaves him with mixed feelings about the impact of Brown . “There’s a generation of kids who really benefited from it, but it’s slowly receding in terms of its positive impact, particularly among lower-income populations,” he said.

A tangle of contradictions

The views of White Americans are also wrapped in contradictions. A wide majority says they support the Brown decision, but many oppose leading ideas for integration today.

Those include adding low-income housing in the suburbs and other high-income areas (43 percent opposed), redrawing boundaries to create more racially diverse districts (45 percent opposed) and requiring schools to bus some students to neighboring districts (70 percent opposed). Only one strategy enjoys support from a large majority (71 percent) — more regional magnet schools with specialized courses (24 percent of Whites are opposed).

Among Black Americans, there is majority support for all four strategies — with at least 7 in 10 backing the proposals for mixed-income housing, redrawing boundaries and magnet schools.

At the same time, nearly 8 in 10 White people say they support “letting students go to the local school in their community, even if it means that most of the students would be of the same race,” while 17 percent favor “transferring students to other schools to create more integration, even if it means that some students would have to travel out of their communities to go to school.”

Elaine Burkholder, 44, who is raising five children in a rural community in central Pennsylvania, did not hesitate when asked her views on Brown . “It was a good decision,” she said. “It’s definitely good to have integration, open the children up to different viewpoints and that sort of thing.”

She said she is not concerned about any segregation that persists today because the law is no longer barring children from going to school together.

“As long as you have the ability to move and stuff you can probably get your children into a decent school district,” she said. “It’s pretty well a personal choice at this point, where your children go to school.”

Burkholder, whose children attend a private Christian school, was not particularly concerned that some families cannot afford to move to another school district. “I’m a little more of a pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” Burkholder said. “I like to see people working to get where they want to go.”

The way forward

The contradictions inherent in public opinion have given rise to conflicting strategies about what should come next.

David Banks, the chancellor of the New York City schools, the nation’s largest school system, who is Black, attended integrated schools in Queens as a child but does not see integration as the answer for children in New York City today. Today, 24 percent of the students in the city schools are Black, and 41 percent are Hispanic. Just 15 percent of students are White. He said the path to a better education for a student of color cannot be sitting next to a White student; there aren’t enough White students to go around.

“I do not believe Black kids need to go to school with White kids to get a good education. I fundamentally reject that,” he said in an interview.

Instead of integration, Banks favors directing more money and adding programs to high-poverty schools serving students of color and providing more opportunities for advanced coursework in low-income areas.

But others say students of color will never get what they need if so many are isolated in high-poverty school districts. A new generation of legal advocates is now targeting the boundary lines that separate school districts, which drive most of the racial and economic segregation today.

They’ve also shifted legal strategy. Supreme Court rulings issued in the years since Brown make success in federal courts unlikely, they say, so unlike their counterparts from past decades, they are focused on state courts.

A lawsuit in New Jersey is challenging district boundary lines based on a provision in the state constitution. The parties have been negotiating for months in hopes of reaching a settlement. Another case challenging segregation in the Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., schools has been working its way through the Minnesota courts for nearly a decade. A lawsuit in New York City relies on the state constitution to challenge admissions policies that place students into gifted and advanced programs, creating a two-tiered education system that hurts Black and Hispanic students.

A new organization called Brown’s Promise is looking for other potential lawsuits, possibly based on state constitutions that guarantee a “thorough and efficient” public education.

“Any meaningful definition of a ‘ thorough education’ has to mean learning to live, work and thrive in a multiracial community,” said Ary Amerikaner, co-founder of Brown’s Promise.

She pointed to research that shows the post- Brown integration years succeeded in raising achievement levels of Black students.

“We cannot keep concentrating poverty in a small number of districts and expecting the adults to work miracles,” she said. She said it’s worth fighting for more money for these schools — adding that a little more money probably won’t help, but a lot more would.

“But even that cannot create the sort of social capital that we know comes from access to communities that are historically more privileged.”

The Washington Post-Ipsos poll of 1,029 U.S. adults was conducted April 9-16 and included a partially overlapping sample of 1,331 non-Hispanic Black adults. The margin of sampling error among Americans overall and Black Americans is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points; among the 703 White Americans the margin of error is 3.9 points.

• Career Center
• Language Arts

Language Arts is the premier journal for the teaching of language arts, focusing primarily on issues concerning children of preschool through middle school age.

• Current Issue
• Write for Us
• Language Arts Distinguished Article Award
• Advertise with Us
• Purchase Back Issues (Print)
• Language Arts Facebook

Language Arts  provides a forum for discussions on all aspects of language arts learning and teaching, primarily as they relate to children in pre-kindergarten through the eighth grade. Issues discuss both theory and classroom practice, highlight current research, and review children’s and young adolescent literature, as well as classroom and professional materials of interest to language arts educators. (Published September, November, January, March, May, and July)

Subscribe Read It!

Editorial Staff

Sandra L. Osorio Erikson Institute

Rebecca Woodard University of Illinois Chicago

Rick Coppola Chicago Public Schools; University of Illinois Chicago

Editorial Assistant William Peek University of Illinois Chicago; Catherine Cook School

Production Editor Kim Morse NCTE [email protected]

Permissions [email protected]

Language Arts Dept. Editors, Vol. 101

Research & Policy Brian Kissel Vanderbilt University

Perspectives on Practice Valente’ Gibson Jackson Creek Elementary, Columbia, SC

Civic Literacies Chris Hass James Madison University

Writing Matters Tracey Flores University of Texas, Austin

Emily Machado University of Wisconsin, Madison

Children’s Literature Reviews Aeriale N. Johnson Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Columbia University

Connections from ReadWriteThink Lisa Storm Fink NCTE

Email [email protected]

Language Arts Editorial Office

Attn: Rebecca Woodard 1040 W. Harrison St. (MC 147) Chicago, IL 60607

Featured Journals

• Classroom Notes Plus
• College Composition and Communication
• College English
• English Education
• English Journal
• English Leadership Quarterly
• Research in the Teaching of English
• School Talk
• Talking Points
• Teaching English in the Two-Year College
• Voices from the Middle