OPINION COMMENTARY:

One of the biggest barriers to closing the achievement gap is access to tutoring and academic support. Stephanie Sylvestre, a technology executive, explains how generative artificial intelligence (AI), with robust safeguards, user involvement and education, can help bridge gaps in student performance, boost comprehension, and improve emotional well-being.

Mark Medish, co-founder of Keep Our Republic, discusses strategies to protect our democratic electoral operating system — including through "hyper-localized community dialogue."

OPINION COMMENTARY:

Despite today’s polarized views about the role religion should play in U.S. public education, Dr. Irvin Scott, Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, argues that partnerships between faith groups and schools can provide critical support for our most vulnerable children.

FUTURE OF WORK SERIES:

Millions of people languish at the margins of the workforce despite nearly two open positions for every unemployed job seeker. Kate Markin Coleman, 2017 Harvard ALI Fellow, offers principles for a data-based, stakeholder-driven, collaborative approach to modernize the nation’s workforce development system.

OPINION COMMENTARY:

Studies suggest that too many young people believe what they are learning is not interesting and has no connection with life beyond the classroom. Courtney Welsh and Scott Hefter suggest new models and programs that would allow youths to structure their own curricula.

SOCIAL EQUITY SERIES:

How does a leading wire and cable manufacturer become a source of transformation for at-risk students? Burt Fealing from Southwire and Ethan Rouen from the Harvard Business School describe the 12 for Life program and how it has partnered with communities and achieved collective success.

SOCIAL EQUITY SERIES:

OneGoal reimagines secondary educational support by visualizing not just what its students plan to achieve but also who they become on their educational journey. OneGoal’s leadership seeks not merely to change the educational support system, but to change how society views the gifts each student develops along the way.

FUTURE OF WORK SERIES:

Quality jobs that provide local living wages and equitable access to career pathways have become a critical part of the “future of work” conversation. Richard Kane and Barry Puritz of the Harvard Business School Club of New York’s Skills Gap Initiative, and Kenneth Adams, President of the LaGuardia Community College, discuss the creation of a non-degree program that is providing life-changing career pathways for individuals from low-income communities.

College completion drives economic outcomes for Black and Latinx students in the US. Students from vulnerable communities can realize their college goals with “right fit” educational experiences. Lesley Poole, CEO, and Vincena Allen, Chief Growth Officer, of The SEED Foundation discuss their approach to ensuring college success for underrepresented students.

OPINION COMMENTARY:

As the United States falls behind other developed nations in building a workforce that fuels competitive innovation, Ruthe Farmer, founder and CEO of a non-profit fund focused on diversity and inclusion in tech proposes a plan with a high return on investment: low-income students in their last mile of earning a technical degree.

OPINION COMMENTARY:

Emily Weinstein and Carrie James, researchers from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, encourage parents and caregivers to assess when and why kids might be most vulnerable to social media – and how social media may also make teens feel connected and supported. Effective interventions require “tuning into the particular” and challenging assumptions.

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION IN SOCIAL IMPACT SERIES:

The education technology market is booming around the globe, with software tools aimed at organizing and delivering academic content dominating the market beyond hardware. Julia Freeland Fisher, Director of Education Research at the Clayton Christensen Institute, calls for the edtech market to refocus its purpose on providing connection, not just content.

HUMAN RIGHTS CRISES AND MOVEMENTS AROUND THE WORLD SERIES:

Matthew Smith, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fortify Rights, discusses how their team of human rights defenders investigates, engages people with power, and strengthens community-based responses in the fight for human rights, focusing particularly on the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar. Smith underscores the role of Russia in supporting the military junta in Myanmar and the plight of children in the largest refugee settlement in the world -- the Rohingya camps near Cox’s Bazar in southeast Bangladesh.

OPINION COMMENTARY:

One driver of the wealth gap in America is that households of people of color are less likely to own stock. Anthony Mohr, a 2021 ALI Fellow, says we should give students real shares to cultivate their interest in investing and creating wealth.

Polarized politics have infected local school boards, which have historically been nonpartisan. With school boards now on the front lines of the culture wars, Andrea Gabor outlines steps to strengthen school boards to function effectively given the mounting pressures facing them.

TRANSFORMING CITIES SERIES:

Baltimore City Schools (BCS) has adopted an ambitious agenda to transform the city’s schools. Dr. Sonja Santelises, CEO of Baltimore City Schools, discusses the pillars of BCS’s Blueprint for Success, her belief that excellence in urban education is possible at scale, and the importance of leadership for the adults and students in the school system and the community.

Thomas Toch, the director of FutureEd, discusses federal COVID-recovery relief for K-12 education, how states and districts can and should use the funds to address the needs of students effectively and equitably, and bold policy initiatives to address some of education’s most pressing problems.

A conversation with historian, teacher and activist, Professor Timothy Patrick McCarthy, on the importance of embracing an honest reckoning with history, battling the culture wars in schools, and liberation dreaming in order to realize our best aspirations and intentions for public education.

Students spend upwards of thirty-five hours a week in a classroom and yet, they are rarely consulted when it comes to improving our schools. Andrew Brennen and Sanaa Kahloon discuss how this is changing as education stakeholders around the country tap into the power of student voice as a means both to bolster student achievement and to disrupt long-standing inequities.

OPINION COMMENTARY:

Bob Levey provides a personal perspective on how individual institutions and organizations must also wrestle with the complex problem of homelessness within their own communities.