In this week’s digest, take a tour of deeper learning then and now, check out next generation learning in Colorado, see how competency-based learning will transform an Illinois school, and find out how states can use the Every Student Succeeds Act to enable deeper learning for all students.

The rate at which women enroll in four-year colleges and complete bachelor’s degrees continues to outpace the rate for men. In fact, by 2025 women will represent nearly 60 percent of all university students. Yet despite their growing numbers on college campuses, women remain a small minority among students majoring in physical, engineering, mathematics, and computer (PEMC) sciences. It seems that personal beliefs about their math skills, and not actual math ability, in high school keep young women out of PEMC college classes and careers, according to new research from Florida State University (FSU).

The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Educational Improvement Act (Perkins), is the nation’s largest federal investment in secondary and postsecondary career and technical education (CTE), but the law hasn’t been updated in over ten years. How are students supposed to get access to high-quality educational programs that prepare them for the jobs of today and tomorrow with a law more than a decade old?

Last week, over a thousand educators gathered in California for the annual Deeper Learning Conference. If you missed this gathering, we’ve got you covered with updates and other deeper learning news in this week’s digest.

Students in the United States are graduating from high school and completing college at the highest rates in decades. On the surface, these growing education levels seem to offer reason to celebrate. But a closer look reveals a widening income and employment gap between high school graduates and their peers who pursue and complete postsecondary education.

The passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, reaffirmed the status of arts classes as “core academic subjects” alongside English, math, social studies, science, and other content areas.