In moments of crisis, I look to my ancestors for guidance and strength. Blessed with the wisdom of millennia-old East African traditions, I trust in the power of collective resilience and hope. I grew up with stories of colonization and a 30-year war, as a result of which, by age 14, both of my parents...

For parents, the current school closures are requiring us to step in and support our children in new ways. It’s hard. I know. I’m a mom to two school-aged kids and find myself balancing work while playing school information technology specialist, phys ed teacher, guidance counselor and homework enforcer. But it’s also a rare opportunity...

I can’t help but feel some guilt as I unpack the fresh produce sprawled out on my kitchen counter among my laptop and my son’s iPad with paired wireless headphones. I think about the family who is undocumented, where the parents don’t speak English, where they are struggling every day to survive so technology and...

In times like these, it is easy to feel powerless. Yet now is exactly the time when we must speak explicitly about power— who has it and who is wielding it to respond to the needs of our communities during this uncertain time. Amid the global Coronavirus crisis, we must continue to focus on and...

A Gallup survey done in early April found that 83 percent of parents reported their children were involved in online distance learning. But Gallup conducted the survey online, so it excluded families with no internet connection. That means perhaps a third of students are not participating in remote learning this spring. For them, “summer” will...

After a flurry of proposals early in the presidential primary campaign, as predicted, public education reassumed its usual place near the bottom of the national political hierarchy. The dynamics followed the normal pattern from recent years. While plenty of the presidential debates — and intervening media coverage — featured discussion of higher education affordability and...

“Oscar, are you there? Make sure to unmute yourself please!” Like thousands of teachers across the nation, I muttered this phrase in my new virtual classroom. Curriculum and instruction have taken on a completely different meaning as schools attempt to navigate the new digital learning environment. My colleagues and I are doing our best to...

The transition to distance learning has caused unprecedented disruption to our education system. Many low-income students do not have internet access necessary for taking classes online. While some districts and charter schools are distributing devices and hotspots, in others, students are making do with paper packets. With all this chaos, though, we still live in...

The COVID-19 pandemic means kids are learning at home now. But parents are also getting a new kind of education. Historically, schools have functioned as a kind of black box. Many teachers and administrators wanted parent engagement — but it was available only to a point. Most commonly, parents were invited to see the results...

Just weeks ago, Brandy Caldwell was finishing up her senior year at Boston’s Brandeis University when she got the notice: The coronavirus was forcing a campus shutdown in two days. For most students, that meant a hasty packing up and a quick car trip home to their parents. But for Caldwell, 22, it wasn’t that...