Emily Langhorne

The bipartisan budget deal that Congress agreed to last month failed to solve the plight of the Dreamers and extends tax cuts that will add billions to the deficit. Still, quietly buried in the text of the law is much-needed good news for low-income mothers and their children: a provision reauthorizing federal support for home […]

Three students stabbed in one week. That’s how 2018 began for New Rochelle High School in Westchester, New York. These school stabbings came just months after the highly publicized, fatal stabbing of a student at Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation in the Bronx. As Americans try to understand the increase of violence in their […]

Whenever we had lockdown drills, I’d get angry with my students. The lights were off, the door was locked, and students were seated silently under their desks. For about three minutes. Then, the whispers began. Muted laughter followed; Phone screens flashed as students texted their friends, taking advantage of this “break” from learning. After the […]

This week, Antwan Wilson stepped down as Chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools after the majority of the 13-member D.C. City Council demanded his resignation for skirting the rules of the infamously competitive D.C. school lottery. Wilson ensured his daughter received a preferential transfer into the district’s highest-performing, non-selective traditional public school. To the […]

In November, NPR uncovered a graduation scandal at Ballou High Schoolin Washington, D.C., where half the graduates missed more than 90 days of school. Administrators pressured teachers to pass failing students, including those whom teachers had barely seen. Policy wonks have had a field day with the report, adding graduation scandals to their lists of […]

Fighting for the neediest and pushing back against special interests are often unexpected actions in the realm of political battles. However, Dorsey Hopson, Superintendent of the Shelby County Schools (SCS) in Memphis, Tennessee, might exceed our expectations. Last week, Hopson announced that he is “willing to voluntarily relinquish control over some struggling schools to be […]

A recent New York Times article suggested that Chicago had the nation’s fastest-improving large urban school district. In it, reporters Emily Badger and Kevin Quealy summarized data from a new study by Sean Reardon of the Stanford University Center for Education Policy Analysis. For many, that was surprising news, since the district has received heat […]

The Associated Press recently published an analysis that claims charter schools increase segregation in America’s public schools. Charter schools are public schools operated by independent organizations, usually nonprofits. Freed from many of the rules that constrain district-operated schools, they can craft programs that meet the needs of their students. In exchange for increased autonomy, they […]

The Albert Shanker Institute recently released a report that analyzed the negative effects of private schools on integrated public education in Washington, D.C. While only 15 percent of students in the nation’s capital attend private schools, 57 percent of white students do. Private schools essentially create the segregation equivalent of white flight to the suburbs, […]

When I was a teacher, I didn’t have a “cute” classroom. My colleague upstairs designed a reading space for students, complete with comfortable seats, a special carpet, and twinkle lights. I was lucky if my posters stayed on the wall (which, often they didn’t because of the school’s erratic temperature changes). Regardless, most students loved […]