Penn GSE News Archive
2020 has shone a light on the importance of good teachers, but many are paid less than a living wage in the U.S.
Richard Ingersoll said cultural misunderstandings about what it takes to be a good teacher have contributed to low wages for educators. “There was this idea that you don’t have to be that smart. It’s not as complex,” he said. “Or as difficult as being an accountant, working with numbers. Or being a dentist, working with teeth.”
Early data shows hopeful signs for pandemic learning in Philly, but huge questions remain
Michael Gottfried said it’s difficult to quantify how school is going for students amid the pandemic. “We’re sort of building the plane as we fly it,” he said. “Everything’s up in the air now. Everything’s been disrupted just from the measurement side.”
The Ph.D. Glut and What to Do About It
Jonathan Zimmerman writes about the declining availability of tenure-track positions and a movement toward preparing doctoral students for jobs outside the academy, but suspects the change will come from outside of the academy, not from within it.
Research universities must act as engines of optimism
Peter Eckel and Aida Sagintayeva virtually brought together higher ed leaders from across 15 time zones to talk about a way forward.
What principals have learned from COVID-19’s ‘stress test’
Jonathan Supovitz explains, “The principals are doing all these amazing things, which are serving urgent needs of kids and families. That’s not taken into account in what we think of as a good school. There is an imbalance between our metrics for assessing quality and the actual role of schools in society.” The Consortium for Policy Research in Education, housed at Penn GSE, has published five briefs about how U.S. school districts and principals have dealt with the pandemic.
EETN Insights
In this interview, Jenny Zapf highlights the importance of innovative and long-term, sustainable ideas that have impact.
Amateur Hour in the College Classroom
Jonathan Zimmerman’s The Amateur Hour: A History of College Teaching in America is a richly researched, eye-opening history of college teaching in the United States over a span of more than a century and a half, mining personal papers and institutional records and reports from over 50 archives.
Children are going hungry, and their futures are on the line. Evidence from Ghana
Sharon Wolf and an Imperial College London colleague co-authored an article about the effects of food shortages on early childhood development. “We found that children from households that were food insecure even only once during the three-year study period had lower literacy and numeracy abilities and short-term memory performance later on,” they wrote.
Freedom Center Talks: Sigal Ben-Porath on Speech on Campus
Sigal Ben-Porath discusses how our understanding of open expression and some of the boundaries of free speech that we find ourselves negotiating in this polarized time affects our ability to find common ground as a society, and what are some of the ways that higher education institutions and society more broadly can overcome polarization and mistrust and create a more engaged democratic community.
Calls to ‘defund the police’ intensify after Philadelphia police killing of Walter Wallace Jr.
Krystal Strong said that the reckoning this past summer over police brutality and racial injustice, combined with Walter Wallace Jr.’s death last week, have catapulted the conversation about defunding police from radical to mainstream. Before May, she never imagined “we would be having a national conversation about defunding the police.” She added, “People are being compelled to rethink their ideas, because the things that they thought could work are clearly not.”
One week in the life of Philadelphia: A death, protests, the pandemic and election mayhem
Krystal Strong, an organizer of Black Lives Matter, told a crowd in Malcolm X Park: “We’re watching the way how Walter Wallace Jr. is becoming a symbol,” she said, “and we’re losing sight of how this was a human being.”
Two key questions teachers should ask students after the election
Sigal Ben-Porath wrote a piece about how teachers can approach the many issues that will arise around the general election in 2020, after the polls close and votes are counted, which could take days or weeks.
The Common Room: Managing political difference on the virtual campus
Sigal Ben-Porath spoke with host Jonathan Friedman, along with guest Vicka Bell-Robinson, director of residence life at Miami University, about how campuses can facilitate respectful and productive dialogue across political differences during this tense time
How viral police shooting videos can mess with your mental health
Krystal Strong notes that viewing videos of police violence is more likely to trigger severe responses among Black and Brown Americans and chooses not to view or share such images anymore, but said that she and other activists grapple with the question, noting that it was evident the powerful video imagery after Walter Wallace, Jr. was killed was galvanizing during the protests in West Philadelphia.
UNC Program for Public Discourse: Free Speech on Campus
Sigal Ben-Porath participated as part of a panel discussion, along with Greg Lukianoff and Dr. Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill, about the current state of free expression on college campuses.
A question of identity: Examining use of the term ‘Latinx’
Nelson Flores said shifts in language often start with a small group of marginalized people, rather than with majority rule. “I think the relevant question for me isn’t whether people should be using the term. It’s how people who use the term Latinx are trying to differentiate themselves from people who use the term Hispanic and people who use the term Latino,” he said. “Why do they feel like those terms don’t really reflect the political identities they’re trying to articulate through the term Latinx?”