“It’s redistributing money from municipalities that were receiving it under the formula,” Casey Cobb says. “And that might be the right thing to do, ultimately. It’s just that, I think, politically, it tends not to be too popular to pull money away, because of course, everybody wants to receive it.”

“When I taught middle school students about finding trustworthy sources online a decade ago, internet connections and processors were still so slow that the hunt for multiple sources to confirm a finding took so much effort that analysis and interpretation was a much smaller part of the equation,” says Rachael Gabriel.

“The recent controversy over the elimination of gifted education programs in New York City’s public schools must be viewed in the larger context of the role that schools need to play in changing world conditions, career development opportunities, the job market and the ways in which we can better prepare all of our young people for happy and productive futures,” says Renzulli and Reis.

Greenwich educator Ian Tiedemann has been awarded the Council for Economic Education’s 2019 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Teaching Champion Award, which recognizes excellence in economic education.

“There were times throughout my youth that I think people had lower expectations than they should have. It just made me hungrier,” says Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona.

Dwight Sharpe, after receiving the 2018 Rogers Educational Innovation Fund, a $5,000 award that supports innovative projects carried out by Connecticut teachers at the elementary or middle-school level, has begun implementing his vision. Sharpe’s project, entitled “Accessing and Engaging in Mathematics Through Robotics and Computer Programming,” seeks “to explore and determine how robotics and computer programming can be embedded into middle school instruction to improve student engagement and achievement.” It was selected from among more than 40 submissions.

2019 marks the 50th anniversary of that landmark case, Tinker v. Des Moines School District, where Tinker and the other plaintiffs prevailed.

In the Q&A below, National Education Policy Center Fellow and University of Connecticut professor Preston Green III explains the significance of the case, tracing its implications to modern-day student speech issues (like those related to social media) that the 1965 Court could not have foreseen.

“Given that the Neag School’s mission is to improve educational and social systems to be more effective, equitable and just for all, federal funding for research focused on key issues in special education aligns seamlessly with our efforts to support educators, policymakers, and students nationwide,” says Gladis Kerstaint, dean of the Neag School of Education.

“I believe we can make a positive impact on graduation rates, further close achievement gaps, and ensure that all students have increased access to the opportunities and advantages they need to achieve success in life,” says Miguel Cardona.

“The Tinker case marked the first time that the Supreme Court addressed whether the First Amendment applied to speech by students within public schools,” says Preston Green, a professor from the Neag School of Education at UConn. “The Court ruled that a school district violated the First Amendment by suspending students for wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. In reaching this decision, the Court ruled that public schools could not censor student speech unless it ‘materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasions of the rights of others.’ “