At Supreme Court, Mean Girls Meet 1st Amendment : NPR

At Supreme Court, Mean Girls Meet 1st Amendment : NPR

At Supreme Court, Mean Girls Meet 1st Amendment

Even Supreme Court advocates can look at a case before the court with their own teenage years in mind. And lawyer Gregory Garre sums up Wednesday's case this way: "Mean girls meet the First Amendment."

More than a half-century ago, the court, in a 7-to-2 vote, ruled that students do have free speech rights at school, unless the speech is disruptive. Now, the justices are being asked to clarify whether, in the internet age, schools can punish students for off-campus speech.

The case was brought by a 14-year-old high school cheerleader, Brandi Levy. A freshman on the junior varsity cheerleading team, Brandi failed to win a spot as a varsity cheerleader for the following year, and she failed to get the position she wanted on the softball team too. So that weekend, frustrated and upset — and off campus — Brandi took a photo of herself and a friend flipping the bird to the camera. She then typed the words at the center of this dispute: "F*** school f*** softball f*** cheer f*** everything."

"I posted it on my Snapchat, so I was expecting everyone to see it," she says. Still, she CONTINUE READING: At Supreme Court, Mean Girls Meet 1st Amendment : NPR

Why Non-Native English Speakers Actually Speak The Best English : Goats and Soda : NPR

Why Non-Native English Speakers Actually Speak The Best English : Goats and Soda : NPR

Tower Of Babble: Non-Native Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' English

Picture this: A group of non-native English speakers are in a room. There's someone from Germany, Singapore, South Korea, Nigeria and France. They're having a great time speaking to each other in English, and communication is smooth.

And then ... an American walks in the room. The American speaks quickly, using esoteric jargon ("let's take a holistic approach") and sports idioms ("you hit it out of the park!"). And the conversation trickles to a halt.

Decades of research shows that when a native English speaker enters a conversation among non-native speakers, understanding goes down. Global communication specialist Heather Hansen tells us that's because the native speaker doesn't know how to do what non-native speakers do naturally: Speak in ways that are accessible to everyone, using simple words and phrases.

And yet, as Hansen points out, this more accessible way of speaking is often called "bad English." There are whole industries devoted to "correcting" English that doesn't sound like it came from a native British or American speaker. Try Googling "how to get CONTINUE READING: Why Non-Native English Speakers Actually Speak The Best English : Goats and Soda : NPR

Pandemic Stress Has Pushed Teachers To A Breaking Point : NPR

Pandemic Stress Has Pushed Teachers To A Breaking Point : NPR

'We Need To Be Nurtured, Too': Many Teachers Say They're Reaching A Breaking Point

To say Leah Juelke is an award-winning teacher is a bit of an understatement. She was a top 10 finalist for the Global Teacher Prize in 2020; she was North Dakota's Teacher of the Year in 2018; and she was awarded an NEA Foundation award for teaching excellence in 2019.

But Juelke, who teaches high school English learners in Fargo, N.D., says nothing prepared her for teaching during the pandemic.

"The level of stress is exponentially higher. It's like nothing I've experienced before."

It's a sentiment NPR heard from teachers across the country. After a year of uncertainty, long hours and juggling personal and work responsibilities, many told NPR they had reached a breaking point.

Heidi Crumrine, a high school English teacher in Concord, N.H., says this has been the most challenging year she's ever encountered in her two decades of teaching.

"And I say [that] as someone who started her first day of teaching on 9/11 in the Bronx in New York City."

Teaching is one of the most stressful occupations in the U.S., tied only with nurses, a 2013 Gallup poll found. Jennifer Greif Green, an education professor at Boston University, says the additional stress teachers are reporting during the pandemic is CONTINUE READING: Pandemic Stress Has Pushed Teachers To A Breaking Point : NPR

Tulsa, Okla., Schools Plan To Use Latest Stimulus To Expand Learning Opportunities : NPR

Tulsa, Okla., Schools Plan To Use Latest Stimulus To Expand Learning Opportunities : NPR

Tulsa, Okla., Schools Plan To Use Latest Stimulus To Expand Learning Opportunities

NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Jorge Robles, chief financial officer for Tulsa Public Schools about plans for using the latest stimulus funding for expanded learning opportunities.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Schools around the country are about to get a massive infusion of funds. The coronavirus relief package signed into law late last week will pump nearly $130 billion into K-12 schools across the country. And there's additional money for state governments, which will also help many of these struggling school districts. Twenty percent of the money that school districts receive is targeted at addressing what's called learning loss, and that's where Jorge Robles comes in. He's the CFO of Tulsa Public Schools, where the district has already announced a host of new programs aimed at helping students regain some of the learning that was lost during the pandemic.

Welcome.

JORGE ROBLES: Thank you for having me.

CHANG: Well, as we mentioned, your district has announced a lot of new programs. Can you just give us an idea of what's being offered?

ROBLES: Some of the things that we're offering are - for our high school students, we're having - we're setting up a series of programs that go from one-on-one tutoring to boot camps as well as a - we call it the Twilight Academy. So we're - students have flexible evening learning options so that our students who are in secondary can actually have an opportunity to work with teachers and counselors on catching up on learning and work to make sure that they're graduating on time and they're meeting all the graduation requirements.

And then we're also planning for next school year to make accessible our before and after care for all of our families that we know are very important opportunities for families to access enrichment programs and supports before and after school. And it's a great support for families overall and allows their - our students to continue to engage and learn in safe, joyous environments where they can engage with others and adults.

CHANG: I mean, it sounds like it could be very expensive. And I understand that these one-on-one tutoring plans were announced even before the relief package was signed into law in Washington. I mean, would you have even been able to do this one-on-one tutoring program without this extra funding from the federal government, you think?

ROBLES: It would be extremely hard to do those. So we would have - probably have to change the scale of which we could have been doing them. Having a stimulus package of the size that was authorized, it allows us to essentially put these programs in place for a longer period of time and then have a better degree of success on supporting our CONTINUE READING: Tulsa, Okla., Schools Plan To Use Latest Stimulus To Expand Learning Opportunities : NPR

CDC Releases New Guidelines For Reopening Schools : NPR

CDC Releases New Guidelines For Reopening Schools : NPR

CDC Offers Clearest Guidance Yet For Reopening Schools

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its much-anticipated, updated guidance Friday to help school leaders decide how to safely bring students back into classrooms and/or keep them there. Rather than a political push to reopen schools, the update is a measured, data-driven effort to expand on old recommendations and advise school leaders on how to "layer" the most effective safety precautions: masking, physical distancing, handwashing and respiratory etiquette, ventilation and building cleaning, and contact tracing.

For politicians, parents and school leaders looking for a clear greenlight to reopen schools, this is not it. While the CDC goes to great lengths to explain that proper mitigation can help keep kids and staff safe at school, even in hard-hit communities, it also warns that schools lulled into a false sense of security because of low community transmission rates could still spread the virus if they don't enforce mask-wearing and socially distanced classrooms.

The updated guidance comes as President Biden tries to make good on his promise to help more K-8 schools reopen within his first 100 days in office. School reopening has become a potent political battle between parents and educators. In Washington, Republicans have used it to criticize the Biden administration for bowing to pressure from a powerful interest group, teachers unions, rather than listening to scientists and CONTINUE READING: CDC Releases New Guidelines For Reopening Schools : NPR

2021 Student Podcast Challenge Opens For Grades 5-12 : NPR

2021 Student Podcast Challenge Opens For Grades 5-12 : NPR

NPR's Student Podcast Challenge Opens For Middle And High School Students

It's that time of year! New semester, new assignments, new Student Podcast Challenge. Yep, NPR's Student Podcast Challenge is back for its third year, and it opens today, Jan 1.

We know you have stories to tell and we at NPR are excited to listen. Tell us about your life, or something you're passionate about — like tater tots. You could investigate a hometown mystery, or write a radio drama and direct a dramatic reading with friends. We've heard all these and more in our first two years. The world is your oyster!

Last year, despite a massive disruption to the school year amid the global pandemic, the Student Podcast Challenge brought in thousands of podcasts from high school and middle school students in 46 states and the District of Columbia. (We missed you, Dakotas!)

This year, the basics are pretty much the same: Students will create a podcast about a topic they want to explore — and that can be just about anything.

There are some rules to keep in mind: Only students in grades 5-12 are eligible to enter, and a teacher, or after-school program coordinator, or parent or anyone over the age of 18 has to be the one to submit the podcast.

One big change this year: The maximum length of your podcast will be eight minutes. We've found, after listening to a lot of podcasts, that shorter is better. Plus that's how long we get to tell our stories at NPR!

And, as always, we've got a host of training materials, guides for sound recording and audio production, what you can — and can't — do with music, lists of do's and don'ts, and we even made a podcast about making a good podcast!

The Students' Podcast is in its second season with new episodes every Sunday. This year we're sharing advice from some students who are already pretty good at podcasting — so good, in fact, that they were finalists in last year's challenge. Listen to our new episodes on storytelling, interviewing and how to deal with sensitive topics. Check back Sunday for an episode on investigations!

The NPR Student Podcast Challenge opens today, Jan. 1, and will close on March 15. The SPC: College Edition opened in December and runs until February 15.

Make sure to sign up for our newsletter with more tips and advice, here! And follow us on twitter @NPR_Ed

Ready, set, record!

2021 Student Podcast Challenge Opens For Grades 5-12 : NPR