We are certainly all happy to see 2021. If you are a regular here at our AEC blog, welcome back! If you are a new reader, we are so happy to have you here! This blog is for all of our readers, to let you know a little bit about what AEC does and how we can help your school or district improve in the new year.
Read MoreCheck back here for twice-monthly updates from AEC! We will provide you with content about current events, tips and resources, and new strategies to try in your districts, schools, and classrooms. To view ongoing and past blog series, click on the links below.
You’ve likely seen the splashy, celebrity-packed Equality Can’t Wait campaign videos that recently circulated on social media. The organization is an offshoot of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on achieving parity for women across sectors: specifically, economic participation and opportunity, political empowerment, health and survival, and educational attainment. At present, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take the United States 208 years to achieve gender equality. However, Melinda Gates just wrote a lengthy piece for the Harvard Business Review in which she details the steps she believes are necessary to achieve gender equality much sooner. She summarizes her vision as “a future in which an increased number of Americans want women to exert greater power and influence in our society.”
Read MoreIf you are a teacher like me, you are coming up on the end of the year, a time for reflection, reassessment of practice, and thoughts about next year’s goals. One of the personal goals that I set for myself this year was to be more conscious about the way that I talked about myself in front of my students, especially my female students, particularly around the topics of weight and food. Being more conscious of this kind of language made me realize the incredible amount of time that the women I know, myself included, spend thinking, talking, planning, and shaming around food and body image. So, let’s chat about it.
Read MoreThis week, the Notre Dame mother has been all over the headlines. And never you worry, we will discuss Maryann White’s letter to the editor of Notre Dame’s The Observer – Amy will talk about that next week. (For what it’s worth, my favorite response so far has been from Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse, who addressed the backlash by saying: “This anger [toward Maryann] is about bad patterns that are so entrenched that you, a woman yourself, are trying to address them in the only broken, feeble way you can imagine — by asking younger women to stop having visible butts.”) There are two other stories about dress codes that surfaced this week, which received significantly less press attention but which typify the ongoing conversation about female bodies in schools.
Read MoreSchool has begun. Where do we focus first? Student achievement? Sure. But how do we get there? This week, Lisa highlights the influence of principals on student achievement and how school systems can refocus their work to create more equitable learning environments for all students. How have you created an equitable learning environment for all students? Leave us a comment below!
Read MoreWhen we think of a leader, do we think of a specific gender? Earlier this month, Amy’s blog, What do Shark Attacks Have to do with Superintendents?, discredited the myth that there is a substantial number of women in superintendent positions nationwide. Despite the teacher corps being overwhelmingly occupied by women, men comprise most of the administrative positions in public schools in the United States.
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