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Despite the nation’s dismal ranking for early childhood education, there are signs that it is for American families. Just a decade ago, only 65 percent of four-year-olds were enrolled in preschool; today, that number is 78 percent. It is a subject that has also become politicized, with President Obama championing the cause several times during his presidency, most notably in his 2013 State of the Union Address. After that speech, the White House offered details of the president’s plan to greatly expand the availability and quality of pre-k programs, :

• Expanding , which provides educational and health services to low-income and vulnerable children birth to three years of age;
• Developing a cooperative effort between state and federal agencies to guarantee pre-k enrollment for children at or below 200 percent of the poverty line;
• Build a corps of pre-k teachers that have the same level of credentials as those that teach K-12 students;
• Extending the provides home visits from nurses to low-income families. Nurses help promote health and positive parenting strategies from the child’s birth through their second birthday.

Many state legislatures have successfully enacted sweeping pre-k programs – Georgia and Oklahoma among them. However, the oddity of many state-based pre-K programs is that their success is far higher in states with poorer-performing public schools. Additionally, support for pre-k education seems much more robust in Republican-leaning states, especially those in the Deep South, like Texas,

It is no secret that youth of color, particularly black boys, to success. Black boys are more likely than their white peers to be suspended or expelled from school, more likely to drop out, less likely to graduate from high school, more likely to be unemployed, in prison, and die at an early age. These are problems that school districts, cities, and states have sought to fix for years and years, but with only pockets of success. It is a bleak outlook, but one that the Obama administration seeks to change with the most comprehensive reform and aid effort yet.

About the Initiative

The overarching purpose of My Brother’s Keeper is to address gaps in educational and related services that persist for young men of color. The initiative is a cooperation between local, state, and federal agencies, private business, and non-profits to bring essential services to the nation’s neediest youth. In total, the initiative includes five primary goals:

• Prepare Children to Learn – Provide support programs that foster intellectual, physical, social, and emotional growth so children are prepared to begin school.
• Boost Literacy – Support early learning initiatives that get children reading at grade level by age 8.
• Help Kids Graduate from High School Prepared for College – Promote educational programs that prepare students for success in postsecondary environments and facilitate training for in-demand jobs.
• Facilitate Workforce Readiness – Assist youth

Inmates in America’s prisons are protected from corporal punishment, yet it is a system of discipline that still exists in public schools in nineteen states. Teachers and principals are allowed to strike a child, either with a paddle, an open hand, or, in some cases, a ruler, to punish them. Students may be struck on the bottom of the upper thighs. Generally speaking, students are directed to bend over a desk or chair while a school official administers the punishment. For safety purposes, it is usually witnessed by another school official, but sometimes, the punishment is neither discussed nor approved by the child’s parents.

The vast majority of states that still allow these punishments are in the Deep South, where large populations of students of color – especially African Americans – comprise the student bodies of public schools. Texas leads the way with over 10,000 cases of spanking or paddling each year. However, some states in the West, including Wyoming, Idaho, and Arizona, also allow corporal punishment.

While these states still allow corporal punishment, many of their school districts have taken it upon themselves to ban the practice. However, many school districts persist in using spanking and paddling as punishment. In fact, according to the Department of Education, each year, are subjected to corporal punishment. While some districts in larger, urban schools still employ the practice, it occurs mostly in smaller, rural communities. The Department of Education reports that of these

The ideas behind the development of charter schools began in the 1950s. However, credit for beginning the charter school movement generally goes to former American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker. Shanker called for reform to public schools in the late 1980s that inspired states to pass legislation permitting the establishment of charters. Minnesota took the lead in 1991, creating the , which opened the following year.

The charter school movement was borne out of the nation’s desire to improve education. This has long been a point of emphasis in our country and is often a hallmark of presidential debates and congressional action. However, determining the best way to prepare the country’s youth for post-secondary education and the workforce can sometimes be difficult to do. Parents have many options for their child’s education, including charter schools, traditional public schools, private schools, magnet schools or homeschooling. But when it comes to the debate between charter schools and public schools, collected by Mathematica Policy Research reveals that charter schools seem to be doing a better job of graduating students and preparing them for life after high school.

This video compares charter and magnet schools.

Educational Benefits

According to Mathematica, the graduation rate at charter schools is between 7-11 percent higher than public schools in the same area. Even for at-risk students, who may not have the financial,

Over the last 60 years, American public schools have become more and more diverse, with various ethnic and racial groups comprising a significant percentage of total enrollment. However, according to released by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the diversity of public schools in this nation will change drastically over the next decade and appear much differently than today.

The Numbers

The number of white students enrolled in public schools has been falling for years. , between 2000 and 2010, white enrollment decreased from 61 percent to 52 percent of the total public school population. At the same time, the number of Hispanic students increased from 16 percent to 23 percent of total enrollment. This was a trend seen throughout the country over that timespan, with schools in the South and the West seeing the largest Hispanic enrollment increases of any region.

Graph from

The 2014 data released by the NCES shows that this trend has continued since 2010 and will continue for the foreseeable future. Through the 2022-2023 school year, the number of white students graduating is projected to decline by another 16 percent. A 14 percent decrease in the number of black students and a 29 percent decrease in the number of American Indian and Alaskan Native students that graduate from public high schools is expected as well. Conversely, other minority groups are expected