Blog

Three research fellows from Rennie’s Future Education Leaders Network reflect on ways to support young people of color interested in working in the education space. Their blog posts focus on the push and pull young people of color face in their pathways to education, highlighting research on financial, social, and emotional barriers to educators entering and remaining in the field. The fellows also shed light on their own personal experiences and share their reflections from having gone through the education workforce pipeline themselves.

Since the start of the pandemic, challenges like staffing shortages, increased workload, and insufficient resources to address students' needs have resulted in heightened K-12 teacher burnout and major staffing shortages, with more than half of public schools being understaffed at the start of this school year. So what can school leaders do to combat teacher demoralization and burnout? Leal Carter of the CERES Institute at Boston University Wheelock shares actionable steps school leaders can take.

A bill up for consideration in the Massachusetts Senate and House, would have wide reaching effects on early education and care. Our team dug into the bill to find out just how it would impact families, educators, providers, and policy makers. Among other changes, the bill would make subsidies for high-quality early education and care available to more families, establish operational grants for providers, and create scholarship and loan forgiveness programs for early educators.

On November 22, members of our team testified to the Massachusetts Legislature's Joint Committee on Education during an informational hearing on the impact of the pandemic on education. Read the remarks from Rennie Center Executive Director Chad d'Entremont and Director of Policy Alexis Lian. 

The Mental Health ABC Act: Addressing Barriers to Care was signed into law by Governor Baker in August, setting off a number of new actions to increase accessibility to care. While the bill addresses mental health at large, there are a number of sections that specifically impact the education system. Our team combed through the bill to dig into exactly how it will affect schools. Read our section-by-section breakdown of the new law.

Massachusetts has developed a reputation for being a hub of innovation in science, technology, engineering, and math. Fields like health care and technology are booming here. Yet compared with the general population, the people who fill these roles are disproportionately White. There are increasing opportunities to work in this growing, lucrative industry. But for whom? Research shows that even though many students with marginalized identities have an intrinsic interest in and capacity for STEM coursework, there is a systemic shortage of support, representation, and resources to help cultivate that interest. Our latest case study looks at how the BoSTEM Initiative is working to fill this gap by coordinating a system of high-quality out-of-school-time STEM learning opportunities for middle school students.

We are thrilled to announce the addition of two team members, Director of Program Implementation and Strategy Danny Rojas and Director of Policy Alexis Lian. Learn more about the experience and perspectives they bring to the Rennie Center and what they are working on.

This year’s Condition of Education in the Commonwealth report focused on how Massachusetts can support teachers in recovering from the challenges of the pandemic and best recruit and prepare the teaching force of tomorrow. Earlier this month, we joined members of the education and business communities of Western Massachusetts to dig deeper into these ideas on a local level. Incase you missed it, check out our recap of the event which included a panel discussion on how to better support educators and ways local organizations are breaking down barriers to the teaching profession.

In the early days of the pandemic, members of Open Opportunity—Massachusetts started discussing a question: how is it that in a time when all students are learning remotely, their zip codes still determine the quality of education they have access to? Why should learning be confined to the opportunities available in one school building? The group began dreaming up the idea of a Campus Without Walls, where a student in one community could take a class taught by a teacher across the city, or even across the state. In spring 2021, a pilot of Campus Without Walls was launched in Boston Public Schools. To learn more about how CWW has impacted educators, we spoke with two teachers who, despite teaching in different schools in different neighborhoods, teamed up to teacher a Feminist Theory course for 12th graders.

The pandemic has laid bare the challenges with, and our society’s reliance on, early education and care. Attention on this issue is coming from all policy levels, including the recent release of a report by the MA Legislature's special Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission. If we want to address the inequities highlighted and exacerbated by the pandemic, we need to take a close look at our approach to early childhood support. What key investments can be made to support parents in getting back into the workforce? How can we utilize new funds to give all children a strong start? To find the answers to these questions and more, the MA Early Childhood Funder Collaborative has chosen the Rennie Center to create an innovative statewide early childhood landscape map and data overview.