All posts tagged: schools

Australian schools ban Craig Silvey’s books after he pleads guilty to possessing child exploitation material

Australian schools ban Craig Silvey’s books after he pleads guilty to possessing child exploitation material

Published by Daniella Wilson

On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Schools in Western Australia have permanently removed books by Craig Silvey after he pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing child exploitation material. Silvey, 43, entered guilty pleas to a pair of offences related to possessing images of child exploitation on Tuesday, according to the ABC. Prosecutors dropped two other charges, including an allegation that he produced child exploitation material between February and June 2022. Silvey, who has three children, was arrested in January after detectives from the police’s child abuse squad raided his home in Fremantle, near Perth, and seized electronic devices. The court heard the writer had communicated online with child exploitation offenders over several days in January and had refused to provide passwords giving police access to his phone, laptop, and other devices, according to WA Today. He was granted bail on a A$100,000 (£53,348) surety on the condition that he report to police three times a …

States are setting limits on screen time in schools : NPR

States are setting limits on screen time in schools : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

When Lila Byock’s oldest son was 11, she began to worry about how much time he spent on his school-issued iPad. It seemed as if he wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without it. “To the point that he was one day penalized for not having his iPad with him during PE class,” she recalls. She asked his school in central Los Angeles to explain why there was so much digital learning, even years after the COVID-19 pandemic: “There was no justification for why it was better,” she said. “It was just sort of, ‘Well, we got these things during COVID and might as well keep using them.’” Byock started talking to fellow parents and formed Schools Beyond Screens, an advocacy group with thousands of parents, beginning in Los Angeles but eventually expanding around the United States. She says whenever she talks to parents, they all have the same question: “This is an emergency — what can we do about it?” Last week, after months of petitions and demonstrations, the school board of the Los Angeles …

California state schools superintendent election voter guide

California state schools superintendent election voter guide

Published by Sam Flores

p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> Every Democrat on this list could be expected to work in general harmony with a Democratic governor and in opposition to key Trump administration policies. There are differences in their backgrounds, but only minor policy divergences, including on the participation of trans athletes in women’s and girls’ sports. Listed in alphabetical order, with an excerpt from their survey responses: Richard Barrera, 59, is a longtime school board member in San Diego Unified, the state’s second-largest school system, a senior advisor to Thurmond and before that was a local labor union executive. “The three experiences that best qualify me for this office are the ones that required me to govern a public school system, execute policy inside the state agency, and understand workforce realities in practice,” Barrera said. Wendy Castañeda-Leal, 42, has pursued a career in more rural areas, currently serving as superintendent for the Semitropic Elementary School District, which has one TK-8 school with about 140 students off Highway 46 in Kern County. She’s also been director of whole child education for Roseland …

Ancient Greek Philosophy Guide: Key Thinkers, Schools, and Ideas

Ancient Greek Philosophy Guide: Key Thinkers, Schools, and Ideas

Published by Sam Flores

Published: Apr 30, 2026written by Igor Zanetti, BA Philosophy, BA Pedagogy Summary Ancient philosophy began when thinkers replaced myth with rational inquiry to understand the fundamental nature of reality. Plato located truth in a transcendent realm of Forms, while Aristotle focused on immanence within the natural world. Hellenistic schools like Stoicism turned philosophy into a practical guide for achieving inner stability amid social turmoil. Show more   Ancient Philosophy marks the beginning of systematic human reflection on reality, knowledge, ethics, and the meaning of life. Emerging in the ancient Greek and Roman world, it introduced fundamental questions that continue to shape philosophical inquiry today. Thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics sought to understand nature, virtue, reason, and the good life through careful argument rather than myth or tradition. Their ideas formed the foundations of Western philosophy, science, logic, and political thought.   The Pre-Socratics: Birth of Philosophy The Greek Lovers, by Henry Peters Gray, 1846. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York   The Pre-Socratic philosophers represent the earliest stage of Western philosophy and mark the decisive break …

Ofsted ‘more likely to downgrade inclusive schools’ – NAHT

Ofsted ‘more likely to downgrade inclusive schools’ – NAHT

Published by skeptic

Ofsted is more likely to downgrade schools with poorer intakes or more pupils with SEND for their achievement, attendance and behaviour, new union analysis suggests. The use of national averages to grade achievement and attendance in the new Ofsted framework has caused criticism from leaders since it launched in December. They argue it is unfair on more inclusive schools and could penalise those serving disadvantaged communities. New analysis of 650 Ofsted inspections by school leaders’ union NAHT has renewed these concerns. To achieve the middle ‘expected standard’ grade for attendance and behaviour, overall attendance must be “broadly in line with national averages or shows an improving trend over time”, according to Ofsted’s inspection toolkit. Meanwhile the ‘expected standard’ for achievement requires pupils’ attainment and progress in national tests and exams “are broadly in line with national averages”. Schools with higher disadvantage graded down NAHT’s analysis shows one-third of schools with above-average pupil eligibility for free school meals – a proxy measure of deprivation – received a ‘needs attention’ judgment for achievement. Meanwhile, less than one-fifth (18 …

New powers to close illegal schools as Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill set to become law – Humanists UK

New powers to close illegal schools as Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill set to become law – Humanists UK

Published by Sam Flores

The UK Government’s flagship Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill has now passed all the Parliamentary stages and will soon become law. This will bring in long-awaited reforms to help shut down illegal schools and provide better safeguards for children who are being denied a safe, broad, and balanced education. Humanists UK has led the campaign for stronger action against illegal schools for over a decade, and has welcomed new powers in the legislation to strengthen investigations into suspected unregistered schools, and create a register of Children Not In School. Stronger powers to shut down illegal schools Children attending illegal schools are denied a broad, balanced, and objective curriculum, and are often subject to physical and, in some cases, sexual abuse. Settings are often housed in poor or unsafe conditions. They are able to operate because proprietors of these settings claim the children are receiving a part-time religious education, while being home educated. In reality, the young people attending these settings do so for 12 hours a day. Once it receives Royal Assent, the new Act …

Utah Adds Two More Books to Banned List; 34 Now Outlawed in State Public Schools

Utah Adds Two More Books to Banned List; 34 Now Outlawed in State Public Schools

Published by Jenni Sidey

Fifteen books have been banned in the state since the beginning of 2026. This is now the busiest year for banning books in the state, surpassing the first year of the state’s book removal law, 2024, where 14 titles were banned. Utah passed one of the strictest bills related to books in public schools in 2024. House Bill 29 (HB 29) allows parents to challenge books they deem “sensitive material” and it also outright bans books from all public schools in the state if those books have been deemed “objective sensitive material” or “pornographic” per state code in at least three public school districts or two public school districts and five charter schools statewide. The bill went into effect July 1, 2024, and it started with 13 titles on it. Literary Activism News you can use plus tips and tools for the fight against censorship and other bookish activism! Subscribe to Selected No Thanks The bill is retroactive, meaning that titles which met the state’s guidelines prior to the bill’s start date were included on the list. Per …

Why New York City Spends So Much on Its Mediocre Schools

Why New York City Spends So Much on Its Mediocre Schools

Published by Sam Flores

New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, will soon confront an ordeal that might finally knock that trademark smile off his face: balancing the budget. The city is projected to have a $5 billion deficit this year and is required by law to make up for that shortfall by raising revenue, cutting spending, or both. Mamdani has proposed large tax increases paired with modest cuts to city programs. But getting to $5 billion won’t be easy, in part because the biggest portion of the city’s budget is considered untouchable. I refer not to the police department or the transit system, but to the department of education. It costs about $40 billion a year, making up a third of the city’s gargantuan budget. New York City spends more money per pupil—north of $40,000, according to one recent estimate—than any of the other 100 largest public-school districts in the country, and more than twice as much as the median district. Meanwhile, it generates educational outcomes that are average at best. According to federal data, its per-pupil spending …

Some schools consider eliminating homework : NPR

Some schools consider eliminating homework : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Federal data suggests that the amount of math homework assigned to fourth and eighth grade students, in particular, has been steadily declining. Stanislaw Pytel/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Stanislaw Pytel/Getty Images A few days into the new semester this January, the LaSalle Parish school district in rural Louisiana made a pronouncement: No more homework. Since then, none of the 2,500 students in this district — from the youngest learners up through high school seniors — have been required to do schoolwork at home. Parents can request practice problems if they’d like, Superintendent Jonathan Garrett said, but that work won’t be mandatory or graded. Homework assignments, it turned out, were among the biggest sources of complaints Garrett had heard from parents and students over the years. “When there was a negative feeling about school, it usually stemmed from what kids are bringing home, the frustrations they feel completing that, and that parents and guardians feel trying to help them complete it,” he said in an interview. Beyond that, Garrett said the move was driven by …