Students

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.

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.

Discover four essential financial tips for high school seniors to plan for college, avoid debt, maximize scholarships, and make smart education choices.

by Claudio Sanchez”If a kid is in first period when they should still be asleep, how much are they really learning?”Anne Wheaton is an epidemiologist and the lead author of a new study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study surveyed the start times of 8000 middle and high schools across the country. Last year the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. The goal is to accommodate the “natural sleep rhythms” of teenagers.Read and listen to the story at NPREd.

Photo credit: David Hawgoodby Dr. Francis CollinsWhen children enter the first grade, their brains are primed for learning experiences, significantly more so, in fact, than adult brains. For instance, scientists have documented that musical training during grade school produces a signature set of benefits for the brain and for behavior—benefits that can last a lifetime, whether or not people continue to play music.Now, researchers at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, have some good news for teenagers who missed out on learning to play musical instruments as young kids. Even when musical training isn’t started until high school, it produces meaningful changes in how the brain processes sound. And those changes have positive benefits not only for a teen’s musical abilities, but also for skills related to reading and writing.Read the rest of the story on the National Institutes of Health Director’s Blog.

by Jon GrinspanEACH summer, when school ends, education mostly stops short, too. But it hasn’t always been that way. For the striving youths of 19th-century America, learning was often a self-driven, year-round process. Devouring books by candlelight and debating issues by bonfire, the young men and women of the so-called “go-ahead generation” worked to educate themselves into a better life.Read the rest of the story at the New York Times.

by Stephanie GleasonStudents of the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges Inc. who have defaulted on loan payments to the Education Department will get a few months’ reprieve, according to court documents filed Friday.Read the rest of the story at The Wall Street Journal.

Photo Credit: Jeremy MikkolaThe Associated PressBOSTON – It took a 15-year-old high school student from Virginia to catch a math error at Boston’s venerable Museum of Science.Read the rest of the story at CBS News.

Photo Credit: Chris Moncusby Kate N. GrossmanChicago has seen a double-digit increase in the percentage of kids graduating from high school. Skeptics say educators and kids are manipulating the numbers—but does that even matter?Read the rest of the story at The Atlantic.