Education technology companies make millions of dollars from their education products and services. Ed tech companies could reinvest in school customers. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins suggests they could do this by incorporating teachers, especially teachers of color and teachers serving vulnerable subgroups of students, into their corporate board…

While there are plenty of people who decry the parents' right push, viewing it as manufactured and mean-spirited, Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane think it has been a healthy and overdue development. Yet while parents have rights, they also have a responsibility to send students to school ready to learn. Schools are ultimately reliant on…

Dialogue, listening, and compromise are essential elements of living in a democracy. In a highly partisan time, is it possible to reestablish common ground when it comes to how best to educate our children in and for democracy? Authors Brendan Sheran, Ashley Carey, Jack Schneider, Rebecca Woodland, and Kathryn McDermott, who are affiliated with…

Interest in improving civic education is growing, but there's no clear definition of what civic education should be. To understand what kinds of skills civics education should promote in students, Jack Schneider, Eric Soto-Shed, and Karalyn McGovern surveyed 100 experts and 500 ordinary citizens, asking them to name the tasks that skilled citizens…

In these challenging times, it is essential to activate student voice and prepare them for civic engagement and social action. Social-emotional learning strategies integrated into the social studies curriculum help to accomplish just that. Laura Bond, Maurice Elias, and Samuel Nayman describe the STAT program, which enables students to build both…

Educators have long agreed that parents have a role to play in furthering their children's education, but they have not always agreed about what the nature of that role should be or about how schools can develop more productive relationships with parents. In this monthly column, Teresa Preston traces how that debate has played out in Kappan.…

Teachers need new instructional strategies and systemwide support to educate students about the threats that racism, hyper-partisanship, and disinformation pose to democracy. Nicole Mirra, Sarah McGrew, Joseph Kahne, Antero Godina Garcia, and Brendesha Tynes explore the three major elements of digital citizenship education -- safety and civility,…

Student voice initiatives like surveys, student councils, and classes focused on leadership and agency all provide youth a way to share their opinions about school-based issues and take action to rectify them to some degree. But the way each initiative is leveraged, the experiences of the young people and educators involved, and the initiatives'…

Political dissent has played an important role in giving U.S. citizens a voice and promoting justice for all. But too often, Sarah Stitzlein argues, dissent is underappreciated, especially in schools. Stitzlein discusses the obstacles to teaching dissent, particularly political movements seeking to suppress curricula and ideas that are considered…

It's understandable that federal education leaders, like Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, tend to focus on areas of broad agreement within education. But Joshua Starr suggests that they're neglecting important stories that need to be told. In particular, education leaders need to create a new narrative that recognizes society's collective…

Voter turnout for school board elections is historically low, with tiny percentages deciding who governs schools. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins proposes a new federal holiday, School Board Election Day, to increase voter turnout and public involvement and interest in public schools. School board elections would be held on the same day nationally,…

The capacity to navigate conflict and solve problems will persist as an essential skill of the future, even if today's students will be doing jobs that haven't been invented yet. What are we doing in schools right now to ensure students have these skills? For nearly a decade, a program called Speak Truth has taught students to use their voices,…

While many teachers enter the profession with the goal of creating a classroom in which both the students and the teacher are energized by the joy of learning, they often encounter obstacles to realizing this vision. In this article, Can Viva Zhao describes the creation and development of an anatomy class designed and led by students. In the…

While endorsed as critical for promoting learning, students' interest in a topic has had minimal, if any, influence on curriculum development. Teachers thus are challenged to promote students' interest within an established curriculum. After students demonstrated misunderstandings after reading an article about bacteria, Sarah Stallings and Samuel…

Middle school brings rapid developmental changes for adolescents, and parent engagement is as essential as ever. However, what worked for parent-teacher partnerships in elementary school doesn't fit so well in middle school. Adolescents are building their autonomy, and teachers must help empower parents' efforts to bolster students as independent…