Education – PBS NewsHour

President Obama and his former education secretary Arne Duncan exercised more power and influence over education policy than many predecessors. The administration placed a focus on testing, trying it to federal funding. In higher education, he emphasized the importance of college and reducing student debt. Alison Stewart talks to Education Week’s Alyson Klein and Inside Higher Ed’s Scott Jaschik.

In one of the poorest and most violent neighborhoods in Brooklyn, in one of the most segregated school systems in the country, principal Nadia Lopez is trying to help kids defy the odds. Lopez talks to special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault about how she’s adopted teaching methods and curricula with an understanding of where the students come from and what they need to succeed.

In opioid-stricken West Virginia, this school is taking on the role of parent. Lisa Stark of Education Week visits Cottageville Elementary, where students often lack food, clothes and transportation because of drug-addicted parents. In addition to increasing communication with local law enforcement, the school has created a mentor program that pairs neglected kids with role models they can trust.

There is a well-established link between lead exposure and learning disabilities, but early childhood education has been shown to counteract the effects. In Flint, Michigan, where the youngest residents have been the most vulnerable to lead poisoning, the city has opened a free child care center in an attempt to counteract the harmful effects on developing brains. Hari Sreenivasan reports.

Recently, free speech and censorship on college campuses have been hotly debated. Nathan Heller of The New Yorker believes that the solution to this dilemma lies not in the way we speak, but in the way we listen. When people travel, Heller argues, they process their experiences with a fresh, open mind. This is Heller's humble opinion on listening as if you’re on a journey.

International education tests offer one measure for how countries around the world compare academically. But test scores aside, how do academic approaches differ in America compared to the rest of the world? Special correspondent Kavitha Cardoza of Education Week speaks with foreign students now living in the U.S. about how they see the differences.

Growing up in a small town in North Carolina, Lauren Collins never needed to speak a foreign language outside of high school Spanish classes. It wasn’t until she met her French-speaking husband and moved to Switzerland that she felt the need to become bilingual. She offers her humble opinion on the value of learning a new language.

Founded by freed American slaves, Liberia has a past marred in recent years by civil war and Ebola. The country’s public education system is ineffective, and in an effort to rebuild it, the government has reached across the Atlantic for assistance -- hiring a U.S.-based for-profit company whose model is “school in a box.” Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on the controversial plan.

While many parents worry about how much time their children spend glued to computers, tablets and televisions, a new study reveals the adults themselves spend more than nine hours a day in front of screens. Hari Sreenivasan talks to Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, about parental hypocrisy over media use, different cultural perspectives toward technology and ensuring screen-free time.

With the election of Donald Trump, a big proponent of school choice, and his like-minded pick for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, the topic of charter schools is likely to attract more attention. But among African-American parents and the NAACP, the debate over school choice and its impact on public education is already a heated one. From Memphis, Education Week’s Lisa Stark reports.

Emily Feistritzer has come a long way from her first entrepreneurial endeavor: going door to door selling glow-in-the-dark statues of the Virgin Mary. After a long career in education, she founded Teach-Now, a global company that provides online teaching degrees for $6,000 in just nine months -- a cheaper and faster alternative to what most traditional universities offer. William Brangham reports.

President-elect Donald Trump has named Betsy DeVos as his choice for education secretary. DeVos, who has never worked in public education, is a prominent advocate of charter schools and school vouchers. What does this pick say about Donald Trump’s education agenda? John Yang discusses the appointment with Education Week’s Alyson Klein.

At the Muir Woods National Monument just north of San Francisco, students learning by seeing, touching and smelling. The education program is administered by the National Park Service in an attempt to expose the next generation to the nation’s parks. Special correspondent Kavitha Cardoza of Education Week reports.

In the wake of the election, schools across the country are reporting heightened anxiety and disappointment, incidents of bullying, vandalism and harassment and even walkouts protesting the president-elect. Our student reporting labs have gathered a variety of reactions, and Hari Sreenivasan speaks with Education Week’s Kavitha Cardoza and Mariama Richards of Friends’ Central School for more.

What does the next generation of voters have to say to the next American president? Our Student Reporting Labs recorded young people from around the country on the issues that matter most to them, from homelessness to immigration to the division between church and state, in a project called “Letters to the President.”