Community

S eptember 8 is International Literacy Day. Literacy in its various forms (financial literacy, civic literacy, etc.) has always been a personal cause of mine. A few years ago, I served on the board of a local literacy organization, Literacy Action in Atlanta, Georgia. This great organization has as its mission “To build better futures for undereducated adults by teaching literacy, life and work skills that empower them to reach their highest potential.”

As American children prepare to head back to school tomorrow, many of them will return to racially homogenous classrooms. A 2014 report found that 60 years after the landmark desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954), segregation in American primary education — though certainly not at pre-Brown levels — has significantly increased since the 1980s, which generally marked the peak of integration.Read the rest of the story at The Week.

The UN has said that conflicts in the Middle East are depriving more than 13 million children of an education.The UN children’s fund, Unicef, says in a new report that the hopes of a generation across the Middle East and North Africa are being shattered.Read the rest of the story at BBC News.

by Sara GilgoreThe World Privacy Forum, a public-interest research group focused on privacy protection, has launched a campaign urging parents to “opt out” of allowing schools to release “directory” information—student data the organization says schools could otherwise disclose to third-parties who request access.Read the rest of the story at Education Week.

Photo Credit: Francisco Osorioby The Associated PressSANTIAGO, Chile –  Thousands of students are marching in the streets of the Chilean capital to complain about delays in an education overhaul.Read the rest of the story at Fox News.

by Elizabeth A. HarrisAs summer began, Dan Akim, a junior at Manhattan’s ultracompetitive Stuyvesant High School, planned to attend debate camp, to study for the PSATs and to go on some family vacations.Yet he felt that he could pack more into these months, so he also signed up for three online courses, in precalculus, computer science and public health. While on car rides with his family in Italy, he would sometimes use a mobile hot spot to chip away at one of the courses, while his mother asked why he was not soaking up the view instead.Read the rest of the story at The New York Times.

by Corey MitchellA group of Chicago parents and residents fighting to have a say in what happens to their neighborhood high school have entered the second week of a hunger strike.The Chicago Sun-Times reports that members of the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School havelobbied for years on behalf of the school, first to prevent a planned closure, then to put a new neighborhood school in the building.Read the rest of the story at Education Week.

Financial planning is important for students seeking post-secondary education. Poor financial planning is one of the major reasons why students drop out of college. College is an investment. Studies point out that acquiring a degree increases lifetime happiness and earnings.

Photo courtesy: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Every school in England should become an academy, PM David Cameron has said, as he set out his “vision for our schooling system”.Read the rest of the story at BBC.com.