Civic Education News & Articles | Close Up Foundation

What Role Should Parents Have in Public Education?

March 19, 2024

In the years following students’ return to in-person classes after the COVID-19 outbreak, questions about parents’ role in education and curriculum development—and the appropriateness of discussing controversial topics such as sex and gender orientation in the classroom—have come to the forefront of political debate. A bill recently introduced in Congress, the Books Save Lives Act, […]

COVID-19 Education

Recovering from Pandemic Learning Loss

February 22, 2024

On January 31, Harvard and Stanford Universities released the Education Recovery Scorecard, an assessment of student achievement following the COVID-19 pandemic learning loss.1 The report detailed the gains third- through eighth-grade students in 8,000 school districts across the country have made in their math and reading scores.2 The Education Recovery Scorecard results show that there […]

Criminal Justice Education Equality

Reversing the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”? Part 3: Examining the Impact of Prison Education

July 01, 2023

In Part 1 of this series, we saw that more severe approaches to school discipline—including “zero-tolerance” policies—have been statistically linked to higher rates of incarceration, especially among Black boys. This is seen as a key contributor to mass incarceration, which Part 2 showed has grown substantially since the final decades of the 20th century. In […]

Criminal Justice Education Equality

Reversing the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”? Part 2: The Debate Over Mass Incarceration

June 22, 2023

Should We Decarcerate? Since the start of the War on Drugs, the United States has adopted and enforced policies that have led to mass incarceration, with nearly half of all incarcerations due to drug crimes.1 According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the rate of incarceration in the United States outpaces every other nation on earth, […]

Criminal Justice Education Equality

Reversing the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”? Part 1: Defining the School-to-Prison Pipeline

June 14, 2023

What Do People Mean When They Talk About the School-to-Prison Pipeline? For decades, many researchers who study the public education system have discussed the impact of the “school-to-prison pipeline”: escalating punishments, primarily in “high-poverty, high-minority schools,” intended to deter unwanted student behaviors leading to missed class time, a lost sense of belonging within the school, […]

Education US History

History and Civics Scores Drop in The Nation’s Report Card

June 02, 2023

At Close Up, building civic proficiency and comprehension is at the heart of everything we do. Learn more about how we support students, teachers, and civic literacy through our programs, professional development, curriculum, and classroom resources. On May 3, the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics released its civics and U.S. history data […]

Will the Supreme Court End Affirmative Action?

November 03, 2022

On October 31, 2022, the Supreme Court heard two cases regarding the use of race in college admissions.1 Rulings on these affirmative action cases could force many universities to reshape their admissions processes. The History of Affirmative Action and the Supreme Court The present-day context of the term “affirmative action” grew from executive orders by […]

Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness: Too Much, Not Enough, Just Right, or Beyond the President’s Authority?

October 25, 2022

In August, President Joe Biden’s administration announced a student loan forgiveness plan which would cancel up to $10,000 in debt for most borrowers and up to $20,000 for some borrowers.1 Current federal student loan borrowers who earn less than $125,000 per year (less than $250,000 per household) can have up to $10,000 forgiven and those […]

Indian Boarding Schools: The Truth and Healing Commission

November 09, 2021

In September 2021, a bipartisan group of senators and representatives reintroduced the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States Act, which would establish a commission to “investigate, document, and acknowledge past injustices of the federal government’s Indian Boarding School Policies.”1 The Truth and Healing Commission would use its findings […]

Reshaping the Economy

May 18, 2021

President Joe Biden is currently promoting his plan to transform the U.S. economy.1 In a previous blog post, we explored one element of that plan: infrastructure. In this post, we will examine some details of the Biden administration’s American Families Plan. What is in the Plan? According to the White House, the American Families Plan […]

Current Issues Blog

What Role Should Parents Have in Public Education?

Recovering from Pandemic Learning Loss

Reversing the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”? Part 3: Examining the Impact of Prison Education

Reversing the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”? Part 2: The Debate Over Mass Incarceration

Reversing the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”? Part 1: Defining the School-to-Prison Pipeline

History and Civics Scores Drop in The Nation’s Report Card

Will the Supreme Court End Affirmative Action?

Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness: Too Much, Not Enough, Just Right, or Beyond the President’s Authority?

Indian Boarding Schools: The Truth and Healing Commission

Reshaping the Economy

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