At the start of my sophomore year of high school, a friend introduced me to a statewide Pennsylvania Youth and Government (YAG) program. “You get to write laws,” I remember her saying excitedly, while showing me the more than 500 pages of student bills. “You’re like a legislator.” Every student bill that was signed by the program’s youth governor landed on the desk of Pennsylvania’s real governor to consider as legitimate legislation. To me, the concept of having the chance to advise state policy as an adolescent was revolutionary. During the next three years, YAG gave me the confidence to voice the opinions that I previously thought were unworthy of consideration and I became aware of policy issues I did not know existed. The program changed my life, and the skills I gained from it will be long lasting.  

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Sometimes, diving into emotions requires going back to the basics. For one teacher, this means stepping away from the world of online social media and creating a “Twitter board” full of hand written “tweets.”

This week’s digest also explores how a garden in the Bronx changed students’ minds, connecting state assessments to classroom practice, and some great deeper learning action from social media! And if you’re exploring whether to launch a deeper learning initiative or want to strengthen or expand existing deeper learning practices, we have resources for you.

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Most people know that adolescents face dramatic changes in their appearance, but they do not know those changes are accompanied by biological changes in their brains too. These years of adolescence are a time of great opportunity and a time of increased vulnerability for students.

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When our good friend Andreas Schleicher stops by, it’s hard to resist asking him to lend his international perspective to some of the big questions facing education in the United States today. So, after our July 12 webinar on his new book, World Class: How to Build a 21st-Century School System, Andreas and I talked about politics, policy, and some of the challenges—and opportunities—facing the U.S.  education system.

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In this week’s Federal Flash we’ll tell you three important things in the new federal career and technical education (CTE) law that is on its way to President Trump’s desk.

We’ll also review the Education Department’s proposed new rules for the charter school program and a proposal from House Democrats to renew the Higher Education Act.

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“We wanted to increase rigor and our students’ academic abilities, so I thought [deeper learning] would make sense for our school setting.”

That’s Jennie Canning, lead STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) teacher at Pittsburgh Brashear High School, explaining why she and Brashear’s principal, Kimberly Safran, reached out to the Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed) to help rethink their approach to instruction.

In this week’s Deeper Learning Digest learn how All4Ed provided direct technical assistance to teacher leaders at Brashear on implementing strategies that support deeper learning.

Elsewhere in this week’s Digest, what happens when schools are linked together in networks that share models, tools, and professional learning experiences? Expanded access to deeper learning experiences for more students.

This week’s Digest also explores dynamic math instruction and how to make project-based learning stick through professional development. And if you want to learn more about how adolescents’ tick, do we have a resource for you.

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After the Pennsylvania Department of Education identified Pittsburgh Brashear High School as a priority school for improvement, the school’s educators began to rethink their approach to instruction. Teacher leaders wanted to identify promising practices that would improve engagement for the school’s 1,230 students, most of whom are African American or come from low-income families. They also were looking for ways to increase academic rigor and promote cross-curricular instruction to enable all students to achieve academic excellence. So what did they do?

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“I felt like a prisoner.” “I felt like a dog.” “I don’t want to remember.” “They told us to behave or we’d be there forever.”

Through the experiences of six children separated at the border from their families, Washington Post reporter Michael E. Miller provides a disturbingly powerful account of how two months in a Texas shelter traumatized the children kept there. Left unknown is how the experience will impact these children over the rest of their lives, although experts say the effect likely will be profound.

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School should be a place where parents send their children to learn and grow in a safe environment. Yet one in three parents feel that their child is not safe at school.

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This week’s Federal Flash covers Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s record on education, congressional action on border separation, action by President Trump that could jeopardize diversity in schools, and a quick update on ESSA.

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